Category Archives: snow

Silent snow

When I woke up this morning, it was ultra quiet.  You know that quiet when there is very little traffic and the muffling effect of snow?

You can’t see it in this picture, but the snow was still falling.  While the snow had cleared the coast by morning, it was still moving our way and would be here for the majority of the day today.

Obviously no gym and no bagel today!  Since I wasn’t falling over starving since I hadn’t worked out, I experimented for breakfast today.  I wanted my protein waffles, but on a whim I decided to sub the oats with cooked brown rice (I know! I am such a daredevil!)

In the magic bullet:

Uh-oh – we have waffle runoff!

Here they are unadorned:

They had such an interesting texture.  Almost like a baked rice pudding.  Soft and fluffy.  I folded them over and topped with blueberry sauce

After breakfast, it was time to go out to shovel for the first pass.  That was some good exercise!  Buddha is almost covered up:

I think Buddha might be totally covered by now, but it is dark out.  Here is a PSA for those in snowy areas.  Even if you hire a serve to shoveling/plowing for you – take a few minutes and shovel clear a path to  any fire hydrant by your house:

You don’t want the fire department to have to take time to find and clear it when they need it! That stick is on there so that the hydrants can be found in deep snow after they get buried by the plows, fyi.

I was craving an omelet today for lunch.  So that is what I had!  I had sauteed broccoli and feta cheese in this egg/egg white omelet.

Would you like a closer look?

Yum.

The other job was extremely slow today.  This is exactly what I was worried about.  Part of it is that this is local to me (unlike my other place that was across the country) and the clinic was slow to open if it opened at all due to snow.  I won’t judge it based on today, though.

I am exploring other career/job options.  I will say that I am not really that interested in being a personal trainer.  I just don’t want to have to find clients and keep them!  That wouldn’t be steady income around here, as there are not a lot of gyms that have trainers on staff and get clients for you.  Maybe in a bigger city.  Plus I might be a little too ‘tough love.’  right Mom? The thought of more schooling is really just annoying, too.  I already have a bunch of letters after my name (B.Mus, MM, AAS) and am still paying off the loans from that – in my 40s, no less.  :mrgreen:

I made lattes today for a change.

Pictured with a banana, but I didn’t eat the banana for another hour.

Pixies says “Mom – you better get out there and shovel again”

We won’t tell her that John went out to do it with the snow blower.  I never use the snow blower, but he seems to like it.  Me, I find it blows back too much snow on me.

Seafood for dinner tonight.  Baked clam strips. And those dried up carrots from yesterday? They came back to live after I boiled them. Waste not want not.

Now I am finishing up what last bit of work there is tonight.  Fingers crossed that tomorrow is busier.  It’s also bagel day 😀

Now… off to find a snack!

Snuh-oh!

Keep your questions coming by email or in the comment section for the FAQ time!

We got hammered with snow!  I shoveled late last night for a while and I am glad I did because it is heavy, wet, and sloppy.  That actually kept the roads from getting too bad, so I wandered out to the gym this morning.  There were only 2 crazy people of us there because of the weather, I think.

Stationary bike warmup, then:

  • Chin ups:  2 sets of 2, 1 set of 1  (these are not getting any easier!)
  • Barbell Romanian dead lifts:  3 sets of 8 at 95#
  • Seated lat row:  3 sets of 8 at 55#
  • 1-legged dumbbell deadlift:  3 sets of 10 (each leg) with 15# DBs
  • Horizontal cable woodchop:  3 sets of 8 (each side) at 50#
  • Dumbbell pliet squat:  3 sets of 10 with 35# DB
  • Bent over reverse fly:  3 sets of 8 with15# DBs

Worked the hammies today!  Then I tried out the elliptical for the heck of it.  I have to say that I do not get the excitement over this piece of equipment.  It felt awkward to me, and my legs felt too far apart.  I just stayed on for 5 minutes and then went treadmill walking.

Came home to pick John up and we braved the weather to get bagels.

Probably should have stayed home, but we didn’t.  The coffee shop was pretty busy, so we weren’t the only ones who needed a fix 😀

I was reading this paper with breakfast to see what new events are coming up and I see this!

Results from the duathlon last October – 5th in my age group.  Maybe there were more than 5 in my group, but I don’t know.  Yay me!  I am doing this event again and my goal is to shave 10 minutes off my time.

There was also some new artwork at the cafe featuring 2 of my favorite men:

:mrgreen:  Now they need some of my framed breakfast pictures to go next to them!

Did some work and then got to shoveling our driveway for the UPS truck to come in.  About 45 minutes of shoveling. What a work out!  In hindsight, I should have not worked out with weights today, since shoveling heavy, wet snow is a strength training workout in itself…..

Lunch time and I celebrated National Tortilla Day with a tuna wrap!

I was still really hungry after this, so I had a protein bar.  It was still snowing at this point, so John went out and cleared out some more while I was working:

It has stopped snowing for the moment, but we are going to get hit again tomorrow.  Possibly another 5 inches? 😯 It might turn into rain, we are sort of on that borderline.

I was all excited about dinner tonight because I actually was able to use the fading light to take a picture of it.  Days are noticeably lighter now.

I used the GT express and added a cubed up laughing cow wedge to the egg mixture.  Outstanding!

I did okay with eating today.  I got snacky and had some peanuts and some crackers with my latte.  I was stomach growling hungry.  Think it was the shoveling.

Going to settle in with some pumpkin custard tonight and working.  It’s a late work night for me!

Don’t forget those questions 😀

Red Beans and Rice

Thanks for the comments on me and my sis!  She is the older one, btw :mrgreen: , but only by 14 months.  Regarding yesterday’s run.  I had planned on 6 miles, so that is why I went to the gym to finish up the run.  I tend to be quite disciplined with my exercise (unlike my food), so I knew that if I wasn’t going to finish outside, I needed to go the gym.  I would have been disappointed if I had stopped at 2 miles.  That’s just me, though.  The gym is only a couple miles from my house, and it was just opening up when I came back home, so it’s pretty easy to pop over there.

Sunday bagel day!  We were up a little early (like that is new…) and headed out to Panera.  The gingerbread bagel is gone, but one of my favorites is back!  The trail mix bagel!

WooHoo.  Full of nuts and bits of dried fruit.  So tasty.

Since we were early, we could sit and chat for a while over 3 cups of coffee.  Then we did a quick grocery trip for things we couldn’t get at BJs yesterday.  Fastest shopping ever!   And strawberries were in stock – although $3.99 a pound (still got some 😀 )

Lots of work to do today.  I think some MTs are on vacation or sick, because there has been a backup of work, which is unusual for this time of year, so my workday started fast and furious.  Lunch was some fresh cut pineapple and an open-face egg sammie!

That was the last of the corporate waffles, which we will never buy again (unless the wafflemaker breaks!).

Afternoon break of a latte!

No snack with it.  I went waaaay overboard on chocolate last night while watching football, so today is definitely a lower calorie day.  It wasn’t even the chocolate from the giant bag of chips, either.  I go along so well, and then have a backslide from time to time.  Sigh……..  Good thing I did 6 miles.

Our house smells so fabulous.  We watched Good Eats last week and AB made some red beans and rice. They looked so, so good!  So, we decided to make them today.  Actually, John made because of me working.  He followed the recipe except for using a smoked pork hock (from the smokehouse) instead of pickled pork and left out the celery, as it was bad.  He also used less garlic 😀

It was very good!  I didn’t want kidney beans, so we found a bag of small red beans.  I was pretty okay with their texture.  Served with brown rice and hot sauce, of course!  We have enough of this to feed an army!  Anyone want to stop by?  🙂 Hope it freezes well.

Dessert was strawberries drizzled with a bit of chocolate sauce (that John also made today.

Perfectly simple and fresh.

We’ve got snow a comin’ tonight!  I like snow for the most part, but I have to say with the snow on the way and the red beans and rice for dinner, I am so looking forward to New Orleans in 2 weeks!  Eeeeeeeeeeeee!!! :mrgreen:

Question:  Do you like snow?

Winter wonderland!

It snowed wet and sloppy snow for most of the day and night yesterday.  Not much accumulation, but it was so pretty!  Off to Panera Bread with Christmas music on the radio and in the spirit for a gingerbread bagel!

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After breakfast and grocery shopping, it was time to start my work week 🙁

However, I just had to go out an snaps some pics!

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Looks a lot different than August!

walkway

Ornament of the day:

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In honor of the snow, here is this ornament! Back when we had our retail shop,  I used to have a tree up at holiday time with ornaments that people could purchase off the tree.  I loved these snowflakes, and funny things is, no one else did – so I had about 6 left over.  They made their way onto my tree!  The light is behind it, they don’t actually light up.  (Note to self, take ornament pictures during daylight hours.)

Note on the beaded ornament – I used a book called “Beaded Ornaments for the holidays” for the pattern.

Cookie dough, how I love thee.

We got back from all our trips except the smokehouse. Too snowy, and it is too out of the way to want to try the roads. We probably already have another 5-6 inches on top of the foot from yesterday. The ham will just have to wait until tomorrow.

So, library, bagel and grocery shopping done. Today is now football and baking day.
I love cookie dough, probably more than the baked cookies themselves. We are doing 4 kinds of cookies: gingerbread, chocolate topped coconut macaroons, florentines, and nutmeg logs. Darn if that gingerbread dough isn’t the best stuff ever!

I foresee the little snail turning around this week. I am totally craving sweet stuff, so today is going to be a problem. It’s not the end of the world, and a few hundred extra calories won’t make the world stop spinning. This is why I don’t bake in quantity much – I try to do just single servings of things.

I might have to post some pictures when we get the cookies all done.

Lots of snow

Sitting here all hunkered down. Not really sure how much snow we are supposed to get, but there is probably about 3-4 inches on the ground now. Hopefully the snow blower will work tomorrow! Made a mad dash to the grocery store to get a few things since we were low.

After I got back, I looked at the things I had bought and it made me realize how my tastes had changed. In the old days, a snowy night in would have meant junk food, or baked goods, and likely a carton of eggnog.

Today I had:
Milk
strawberries
bananas
greek yogurt
tuna
coffee

and nary a donut in sight! I kind of wanted one, though.

Candy Corn has entered the house!


So we went shopping and got Halloween stuff. Decided on Snyders pretzel snack packs and Jax snack packs. These don’t tempt me, and they aren’t all sugary, so it’s a good thing. However, John wanted candy corn. Now, he does not have the problem with candy corn that I do. It’s like crack to me. I was standing there smelling the bag when we got it home. I’m surprised I didn’t drool.
So I made him promise to hide them, which he did. And not in his usual hiding places either, since I know where those are 😀

I have permission to have 5 pieces (kernels??) in a day. So, John has to make sure I am not looking to get my 5 pieces. That’s kind of sad, but it is what I have to do to not inhale 500 calories in one sitting… at least!

I cannot believe that we are supposed to get 3-5 inches of snow overnight. It’s freaking October, and we don’t live in Colorado anymore, so it seems a bit early!! Cold and rainy today, so no jogging, and I certainly won’t be jogging in the snow. Time to crack out the DVDs.

The snow, the snow

You know, I do like snow – I really do. However…. this has just been too much. Thank you global warming.
We got another 8 inches Friday night. The snow blower conked out halfway through doing the driveway, so we had to finish that by hand. Then do the driveway at my flip house. There isn’t anywhere to put the snow!
Here is a picture of the driveway, the side piles are 3 – 4 feet high.

Well, it’s good exercise anyway. Even more so when you have to lift the snow higher to get it on top of those piles!

Pretty good day eating yesterday. It was my own food day, had a treat at Starbucks with my skim latte. They have mini vanilla bean scones. Just perfect for a 3 bite dessert. 130 calories, though – so you could easily eat several if you aren’t careful. Calories for the day came in under 1500.