Tag Archives: bagels

Cold, cold day.

Thanks for the comments on my loose skin pic.  It’s always a little nerve-wracking posting pics like that as I am still a little self conscious about it.  But, that feeling is much less than it used to be.  I will say that over the past year the skin has tightened up a bit, but I doubt that it is going to do any more than that.  I would never trade any of it for having all that weight back, though!  Glad you like the new headers.  There are 3 rotating ones.

I actually got a good night’s sleep last night.  I tend to have trouble sleeping for a bunch of days, then crash and burn, which was last night.  I fell asleep with the lights on, and never woke up when John turned off the lights, set up the humidifer, and turned off the electric blanket.  Good thing he wasn’t an intruder 😯   So I got 8 blissful hours.

So cold today.  It was minus 8 degrees F when we woke up.  It doesn’t look that cold, does it?

Brrrrr…….. Braved the cold and went on the usual bagel Sunday!  Panera still has gingerbread bagels, so I had that along with some craptacular coffee.

There was a sludge of grounds at the bottom of my cup, and unfortunately, that is not unusual for Panera.  But, it’s caffeine and hot at any rate :mrgreen:

Shopping at the grocery store after breakfast revealed no strawberries.  Nooooooo!!!!! The Florida freeze and no more berries for a while… sniff.  Frozen berries just aren’t the same.  Good thing there are clementines in season now, so I had some for lunch along with pizza that John made:

Back to work today.  Only a couple weeks left until vacation!! I cannot wait.  Workdays have felt long lately and somewhat stressful when accounts fall behind, like they were today.  Kinda makes me snacky along with my latte:

Then a granola bar….  I was so wrapped up in work that I didn’t fix the chicken biryani that I had planned for dinner, so it meant staring at the fridge for a while.  I was feeling blah about the food today, ever get like that?  Feeling a little unsettled or something that I can’t quite put my finger on?  Couldn’t make up my mind, so decided on the standard go-to egg sammie.

The pear was incredibly juicy.  I should have gotten more than 2 at the store this week.  I’m loving the pears lately.

Gratuitous Pixie picture: This is what happens when it is too cold to go out and do stuff.  Pets can be the source of endless entertainment.  Pixie sleeps like a log, so we decided to decorate her with a fork, the remote and writing utensils:

Nary a whisker moved.  She is such a good sport 😛

Stay tuned for a giveaway this week!  Open to all, too 😀

Question:  Do you have a go-to quick meal?

Snack bender

Midweek (my Thursday 🙂  )  Snack last night did not seem to help me get or stay asleep.  I actually was tired when I went to bed a little early and thought I would fall asleep easily, but then my eyes popped open and I was pretty restless.  Got up early to hit the gym.  Happy lady in the locker room  ready to lift!

Today was workout B for January:

  • Chin ups: 2 sets of 2
  • Barbell split squats:  3 sets of 8 at 65 pounds
  • Underhand grip lat pull down:  3 sets of 8 at 60 pounds
  • Step ups:  3 sets of 8 with 30 pound dumbbells (each)
  • Bent over reverse fly:  3 sets of 8 with 10 pound DB
  • Incline dumbbell chest fly:  3 sets of 8 with 25# DBs

Then 40 minutes of walking.  I think I need to try a barbell for the step ups, because I just can’t hold the 30# dumbbells.  My grip gets tired and so do my forearms.

John and I then went for the requisite bagel!  I was different today and got cinnamon raisin with plain cream cheese.

I could tell today was going to be a tough food day after I got back.  It’s the tired/not enough sleep thing.  I decided to protein up for lunch to try to head it off – so I had protein waffles with added protein powder:

Amazing how this same recipe makes 3 smallish pancakes, yet poofs up in the waffle iron to this giant monster!  The extra protein didn’t help.

Then I proceeded to snack in the afternoon on:

  • Balance bar
  • latte
  • 1 christmas cookie (nutmeg log)
  • 2 ramekins of chocolate chip/peanut mixture
  • 1 serving of FSTG chips

Don’t you love it?  😳  I’ll be honest, it’s stress and tiredness.  The house thing is moving along.  I talked with my tenant last night to let him know of the plans.  My rental house will be on the market at the end of the week (YAY!!).    However, with only 1/2 the money coming in for it due to one tenant leaving, it’s going to be tough money-wise until it sells, so that makes me eat.  Okay, that doesn’t *make* me eat, I just do….  I just wish I knew how long it would take.  That’s the control freak in me.  I can’t control how many buyers there are out there or make someone buy it.  I can only send out as many positive vibes as I can 😀  How long can one cross fingers and toes before they get stuck that way?

John’s football dinner was tonight.  Last regular season dinner.  So much for my crazy picks in the hopes I could win! 😀

He chose Arthurs:

It was so warm and cozy in here.  Much warmer than we keep our house set at (66).  I had a salad:

and split a calzone with John.

I love the small pizza joints around here.  So good.  That’s feta cheese in there, btw.

Needless to say I am full right now.  I’ll probably wake up with a food hangover tomorrow.  Is there a cure for that??

Question:  Do you have any insomnia tips?

Lifting and chowda!

Another chilly day today.  Okay, it’s way past chilly LOL.  This is the time of year where a 100-year-old house loses some of its charm.  It’s almost like we can see dollar bills getting sucked through the heating vents….

Braved the cold to hit the gym, of course.  Still more people than usual.   Wonder if that will carry over into next week?

  • Chinups:  2 sets of 2
  • Romanian barbell deadlift:  3 sets of 8 at 75 pounds

Alternating sets:

  • Barbell bench press:  3 sets of 8 at 55 pounds
  • Seated lat row:  3 sets of 8 at 55 pounds

Alternating sets:

  • Reverse lunges with 1 dumbell on shoulder: 3 sets of 8 at 20 pounds
  • Arnold press: 3 sets of 10 with 10 pound dumbbells
  • Horizontal cable woodchops:  3 sets of 8 at 40#

30 second rest between sets again.  Then it was 40 minutes of walking on the treadmill.  I was lame and read a magazine while doing that today.  Unlike Jody, who really challenges herself!

Home to pick up John and off to bagel Wednesday!  There was a bowl of puppy chow at the cafe, so I had some with coffee while waiting for my bagel.  I was starving.

Then the arrival of the breakfast star.

I really have to keep myself from wolfing these down on Wednesdays because of the time it takes from finishing my workout to actually eating is much longer than my normal days.  Hangry!

I noticed my arm is still a little sore from the blood draw on Monday.  I have myself a little bruise!  This tech put the needle up too high, right at the crease in my arm, and then the supervisor had to fiddle with it, so that made the hematoma.

It’s purty, isn’t it?  It didn’t really hurt during, though.

Using up those corporate waffles for lunch!  I made an egg sandwich with laughing cow.

I cooked the egg in the microwave.  I know some of you do this, but those that don’t should try it.  It takes about a minute and the eggs come out nice and puffy.  This is 1 egg and 2 whites.  Don’t overcook or it’s like chewing on rubber bands.

Had a fun snack today:

Honey roasted peanuts and dehydrated mini marshmallows.  Sounds weird, but it fits that sweet/salty thing I so adore.  Of course, multiply this x2.  Guess the sugar monster is still hanging around.

Work has been somewhat slow today.   There are times when I wished that I worked a job where I was paid the same no matter how much work came in, because when there is no work – I don’t get paid! But, there are other perks that make up for it most times.

So it seems about half of you have cruised before.  I really liked the cruise we did 10 years ago because we could do whatever we wanted.  We ate very casually instead of the formal dining, because that just isn’t us.  I am sure it is going to be better with 10 years of technology that has passed, too.  When John and I were having breakfast this morning I was talking about how I was looking forward to running on the ship (there is a track on deck).  I so wished that I took a picture of his face 😀

Speaking of John  – here he is slaving over some clam chowda for dinner!

While I was waiting for soup, I roasted up the last of the brussels:

And then soup was on!

John is a good cook.

Hopefully I will have a longer run tomorrow morning.  I can’t believe it is New Year’s Eve on Thursday!  I need to start thinking about my goals for next year.  Might have something to do with working on my snacking 😉

Family day!

Whew – what a busy, busy day!  Hence the reason for the late post.  I also was going to do a post on the naming of this blog, but I think I will wait on that and post next week, as it deserves its own post 😉

I woke up early for the gym today.   Da muscle:

  • Chin up:  2
  • Barbell squats:  3 sets of 8 at 85 pounds
  • Widegrip lat pull down:  3 sets of 8 at 60 pounds
  • Pushups:  3 sets of 10
  • Static lunge:  3 sets of 10 with 25 pound plate
  • Prone Cuban snatch:  3 sets of 10 with 10 pound dumbbells.
  • Incline reverse crunch: 3 sets of 10.

I challenged myself today by doing 30 second rests between exercises instead of 60.  Then hopped on the treadmill and walked for 40 minutes.

In the spirit of the Hot 100 challenge to myself of spending time with family – I invited my parents out to bagel day today!  Even my dad came, which was nice – although he doesn’t eat breakfast and just had coffee.  Bad blogger that I am, I did not get their picture…. I had a nice bagel,though:

Still with lots of work to do this week.  I am thankful for that.  Some doctors are trying to play catch up with all of their old files before the holiday and we are getting dumped on with work!

Lunch break was a quesadilla – Smart carb wrap spread with laughing cow cheese, BBQ sauce and cooked chicken pressed between 2 fry pans:

It was yum!  Plus a side of carrot sticks.

Snack of champions:

I ate too many snacks today.  I just could not get satisfied for some reason.

More family time tonight included meeting my sister and niece at the dog obedience training tonight.  Here is my sister with Storm:

And then my niece Logan with Annie.  Annie is the old lady at 10?  She’s also deaf, so training can be difficult, although she is still quite good at it 😀

Logan is going to a junior handlers show next month.  None of us had had dinner (I was working right up until I left), so we stopped at Subway afterwards.  I broke my corporate meat rule and had a turkey sandwich:

It was kind of m’eh.  It’s been so long since I have eaten Subway.  We used to eat their quite a bit.  I still am surprised sometimes at how my tastes have changed over the last couple of years.

I somehow agreed to do weekly training classes with one of my sister’s dogs starting in February.  How did that happen?  😯

Ornament of the day:

This was the 2nd ornament I did this year.  It’s a little loose, but I like the colors.

Sorry for the disjointed post tonight.  Still have things to do and I have not opened up my google reader yet today!

What is advertising telling us?

It’s a cloudy day here today.  It’s funny knowing that these clouds are part of the system dumping snow all over NYC just 6 hours south.  Usually it’s the opposite where we get snow here and rain or nothing down there.  Hope all of you in the snow zone are safely tucked inside!

Went to a different bagel spot today.  We got irritated by the service there a few months ago and hadn’t been back, but decided to give them another try.  I had an energy bagel (which is multigrain with dates and nuts).

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Too much cream cheese!  We scrapped off a good 4 ounces of cream cheese between the 2 of us and just brought that home.  They also raised the prices on the bagels.  Service was fine, but I think we will stick with our other 2 places.

I found this link on youtube about advertising and thinness and it is a little scary:

I worry about young girls (and even grown women) who feel the need to hold themselves to ideals that are only available to 2% of the population (and that 2% also “needs” airbrushing). How do we stop the advertisers from telling us what to do and how to look? Is it as simple as not buying a product? Do we need to speak out with a unified voice directly to the companies? I don’t know the answer, but it concerns me.

What are your thoughts on this video?

Break from work was tuna salad with chips and another tart kiwi!
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I know some people eat the skin on kiwis, but the hairiness grosses me out.  I don’t like fuzzy peach skin either, so there is no way I could stomach the kiwi skin. I do like the innards, though!

Afternoon latte snack time!  With a homemade granola bar:

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I love that John cooks a lot.  It’s nice to be working and smell good things coming from the kitchen 😀  He made up some venison chili for dinner with some of the ground venison my tenant brought me.

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Almost like chili soup, but tasty.  At least sunsets will start being later soon and I can get rid of the yellow hue on my dinner pics LOL!

Ornament of the day:

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A little tuba player for John!  Do you know how hard it is to find tuba ornaments?  I think we have a ratio of 10:1 with horn and tuba on the tree :mrgreen:

One day of work down already!  Woo Hoo!  Going to do an exercise video and possibly make some cookies, but I  might hold off on that for sanity’s sake.  I can eat cookie dough like there is no tomorrow!

Breakfast all day.

Looks like a lot of you use rewards points!  Thanks so much for all of your comments everyone!  I love logging in each morning and reading them.  🙂

Headed out to the gym today.  It turns out that one of the owners did pass away this weekend.  He was only 35.  Very sad.  The gym will be closed tomorrow and Friday.  Not sure what will happen with the gym.

I did a little treadmill walking (wearing my new athletic socks!!), then hit the weights:

  • Chin up:  2
  • Barbell squats:  3 sets of 8 at 85 pounds
  • Widegrip lat pull down:  3 sets of 8 at 60 pounds
  • Pushups:  3 sets of 10
  • Static lunge:  3 sets of 10 with 25 pound plate
  • Prone Cuban snatch:  3 sets of 10 with 10 pound dumbbells.
  • Incline reverse crunch: 3 sets of 10.

After that, I did the recumbent bike.  I haven’t been on any bike at all in about a month!  Mine is now officially hung up for the season 🙁

I picked John up and we headed for the Wednesday usual!

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I know coffee is an addiction for me, but possibly bagels are as well.   Gone are the days were we would have them 4 to 5 days a week and mine would be a cinnamon sugar bagel with cappucino cream cheese (at Einsteins).  Plus sweetened coffee or a vanilla latte.  Who knows how Lori got to 250 pounds? – raise your hand!  It’s all about changes.

I hope to have the gingerbread cookie recipe posted on Thursday.  John got it for me and I just have to put it in post form. 😀

I had a deep-seated chill for most of the morning which tea and a fleece jacket couldn’t get rid of, so I wanted something that would warm me up from the inside out for lunch.  That meant oats!

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I put protein powder, pumpkin, cinnamon in it and topped with jam and almonds.  It worked and kept me nice and warm for the afternoon.  Is there nothing oats can’t do?  Of course, this lap warmer helped as well.

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She looks so irritated that I was taking her picture LOL!

So yesterday I did well on the snacking front.  I did not get in 30 minutes of cleaning, though.  However, spending time with John at the cafe was totally worth ditching the cleaning!  Today’s mini goal is going to be to get in that cleaning after I sign off from this post and to RELAX!  I can’t believe I need to schedule that in, but there you have it.  I am also super behind on my google reader.  I haven’t even opened it today 😯

Ever have one of those days where you just can’t even think of what to have for dinner?  I did one of those staring into the fridge things tonight.  John made himself eggs and sausage, which got me thinking breakfast again LOL.  I decided on a fallback standby of the waffle egg sandwich!

dinnr1216Breakfast foods for all 3 meals.  Does life get any better? :mrgreen:

Ornament of the day:

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A nutcracker (holding a french horn).  There is always a little humor with the nutcrackers for me because I went through period of playing in the pit orchestra for the annual Nutcracker performances every year and it got so I couldn’t stand the music for it anymore!  It was like a nightmare every time I heard it (and it is ubiquitous at this time of year).  As a joke, John has nutcracker music for the ringtone for me in his phone when I call call him.  I do like the music again now, though.

Don’t forget the cookbook giveaway if you haven’t entered yet!  Ends this Friday.

Off to clean and then relax!

Sunday snow and bagels!

Glad you all liked the granola recipe!  It’s so good and spicy.

I slept in again until 7:30!  Yippee!  Out for the usual Sunday bagel, only my mother met us there after she got out of church!

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It’s always fun to have company at bagels.  We all had a gingerbread bagel, too – triplets!

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It was looking so nice and sunny and not cold, I thought I would be able to sneak in a run outside after lunch.  Speaking of, I decided I need a dose of vitamin S to make up for the pralines yesterday:

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  • 3 big handfuls of vitamin spinach
  • 1 tablespoon Barlean’s Omega Swirl
  • 1 scoop vanilla protein powder
  • 1/2 cup fresh pumpkin
  • pumpkin pie spice and 1 cup of water

Blended up to make this:

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I deliberately did not put ice in this because I was already a little chilled and didn’t want to make it worse.

No go on the run, as it looked like this an hour later 😯

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It’s actually snowing, but you can’t see that in this picture.  This is my view while working.  Work went by quickly today.  Sundays are like that, not sure why.  I’ll take it, though!  Break of a latte with a granola bar:

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Doing really, really well on snacking today.  Yesterday, not so good.  I have to really focus now and not let the scale creep up the next few weeks.  That is just not acceptable to me.  I am going to set some mini weekly goals to do this week to keep that under control.  Something to sit and ponder on tonight.

Keeping in an extra veggie theme, I made a Flatout wrap with chicken, laughing cow, a touch of blackberry jam and salad mix.

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With a side of broccoli and a forelle pear.  I liked the blackberry jam on this wrap.  Sweet and savory, although I think it would have been excellent with maybe a sharp cheddar instead of the laughing cow.

Since I didn’t run yesterday and not today (not even walking in this weather), I decided to dust off the old DVDs and get in a good workout!

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Love the Firm.  I have not done these since probably last February?  Right before I joined the Y last year.  It was a little scary with the tree up, ornaments were a shakin’ !

Ornament of the day:

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Does this not say it all?  My name on a coffee cup.  Too bad this is thimble-sized or I would drink out of it :mrgreen:

Don’t forget to check in for the giveaway tomorrow, although I hate to say it is open only to US residents (if I were shipping it, all would be entered).

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!

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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.

Football and Cranapple Spice Granola

Sunday morning at Panera!  I decided not to have the Gingerbread bagel, but go back to classic blueberry.  Nom, nom!

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It was nice to chit chat with John and just have some down time.  We stopped off for groceries afterward.

Still have this sign up!

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Of course, they have no more of those mixes, either! They need to change their sign…

We’ll have to keep checking the little stores around to stock up.  😀

Fridge/freezer cleanout for lunch!  I had 1 waffle topped with the last Boca Burger and some laughing cow cheese.

lunch1129Plus 2 clementines!  These are so good.  You’ll be seeing lots of these this week!  I have decided I don’t care for the Boca Burgers anymore.  I used to eat them all the time, and as I moved away from processed foods and soy, those left, too.  I got a box for old time’s sake and didn’t care for them.

Work was really slow today.  I did not get a single file until 5 hours into my workday.That means having to take some PTO if I want to get paid for today!

However, that did mean some play time in the kitchen.  I made up a new batch of granola that I named Cranapple Spice:

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Ingredients:

  • 1/8 cup of maple syrup
  • 1/8 cup of of apple juice concentrate
  • 2 tsp sunflower (or other light) oil
  • pinch of salt
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla
  • 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
  • 2 cups rolled oats
  • 1/4 cup slivered almonds
  • 1/4 cup of dried cranberries, chopped

Preheat oven to 275 F.  In a bowl, mix together the apple juice concentrate, maple syrup, oil, salt, vanilla, and spice until thoroughly mixed.  Add in the oats and almonds and stir/mash really well until the oats are thoroughly coated.  It may not look like enough liquid, but it is.  Pour onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a silicone mat.  Bake at 275 for 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes, stirring the batch every 15 minutes.  Remove from oven and add the chopped dried cranberries.  Very lightly sweet and crunchy. Delicious!

Enjoy!

Lots of football watching today!

Question:  Do you have a food that no longer tastes good to you that you used to love?

Thanksgiving Eve

Well, tomorrow is the big day!  It seems as though people are either excited about Thanksgiving or panicked about it.  Too many people letting the thought of too much food get in the way of the real spirit of sharing with friends and family.  My personal philosophy is to have a plan, but if I don’t stick to it entirely, it’s not a big deal.  One day of eating too much won’t put on 100 pounds.  If you do eat  – please enjoy it and don’t feel guilty about it!  Be kind to yourself. It’s just food.

More thanks to be had:

  • I love the US.  Yes, there are problems here, but freedom is something to be very, very thankful for.
  • I am thankful that my body has forgiven me for the way I treated it all those years!
  • I am thankful for nature and all of its beauty that I take in through my bike rides and my garden.
  • I am thankful for all of the friendships that I have made through the internet that wouldn’t have been possible before!

No workout today, just a 2 mile walk.  We were going to run the Turkey Trot 5K tomorrow, but they aren’t taking race day registration!  Plus I was thinking about how it would be $50 for us to do the run (for both of us).   So, instead I am going to hit the gym and treadmill it for 5 miles.

Now on to the eats!  It’s Wednesday, so you know what that means:

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The cafe was in the holiday spirit.  Not sure what this is, but it’s kind of cute.

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Work is soooo busy now.  I definitely will have work to do tomorrow.   I took a break for a quick lunch:

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Egg sammie.  It was supposed to be turkey, but the lunch meat smelled bad so I had to quick substitute since I had already toasted the waffles!  (Some pretty lame carrot sticks, there, too).

Last night, John went out to play poker and stopped at a mom and pop grocery store and look what he scored for me!!!

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😀 I loves my hubby.

Snack attack:

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Nestle has made a mint and dark chocolate mix 😯   You know these are up high out of reach…..  With Wheat Thins for that salty/sweet crunch!

Just to show I do eat them, I had a salad for dinner!  Cooked chicken breast with barbeque sauce, slivered almonds, and a sprinkle of feta cheese.  It was really good!

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BTW – the granola bar recipe from yesterday is here:  I added chocolate baking cocoa and instant coffee to it.

Going to hit Starbucks tonight for a little R&R after John bakes his sweet potato cheesecake.  I am really looking forward to tomorrow, even though I will be working at my sister’s house.  I can flex my hours, so I will spend a good deal with family.  My Broncos also play as well.  Hope they don’t lay a turkey 😆

Raise your hand if you think there will be food photos galore tomorrow!

Have a spectacular Thanksgiving (or regular Thursday LOL)!