Tag Archives: blueberries

Pre-race eve

No formal workout today since my last 5K of the season is tomorrow.  Forecast is 30 degrees, which is 15 degrees warmer than last year!  Plus I am not sick.

Stacked up some protein pancakes with blueberries for breakfast.  Yay for superfoods!

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Made myself productive today with some cleaning and organizing before I get to relax for my weekend.  It’s gloriously beautiful outside!  Birdfeeders filled up and waiting.

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Driveway resurfacing is on the agenda for next year……

Had a quick lunch before going out:

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The juiciest pear ever.  Are they in season now?  I never know half the time what is in season and what isn’t if it is available year round.

Off to the consignment shop, where I got a couple turtlenecks, a sweater and a pair of pants.  I wasn’t going to buy pants, but I can never pass up petite lengths because they are so hard to find.  Being a shorty, most of my pants have to be rolled up unless I buy petites.  Size 8P!  And $5.80.  After doing some more browsing downtown, I stopped at the cafe for some of this:

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I had my laptop, so I put on some headphones with Christmas tunes and did some online shopping.  Now that is the life!  I am just about done shopping.  I also hit K-mart and scored more pumpkin!  I think I am set now for the season :mrgreen:

Ornament of the day:

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This is one of the ones I started working on this year.  I can see why these are expensive to purchase – time consuming, and I think I am blind now.   😯  I love the sparkle and how pretty it is, though!  I’ve done several in other colors, too.  Once I got the technique down, it’s much easier.

Dinner was a chicken, cheddar and cranberry wrap.  Jeez, I am in a rut with that flavor combo!

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Now we are settled in to watch a movie – Miller’s Crossing by the Cohen Brothers.  I enjoy their movies a lot.  My favorites:  Fargo, The Man Who Wasn’t There,  and O Brother Where art Thou

Have a great night blog friends!  I’ll post a race recap tomorrow.

Question:  Do you have a favorite Cohen Brothers movie?

Biking and chinese food

Phew – I am feeling a little overwhelmed and busy lately!

A couple people commented about not seeing my triathlon videos – so here is the link to the post of the recap!

I did really well last night and didn’t eat any carrot cake that was for Mom and niece Devon:

cakeI just had tea and snacked on cantaloupe and grapes.  Thanks for providing those, Mom!!  😀

I was going to do a brick today, but decided I just need a long nonstop bike ride to the tune of 15 miles.  My duathalon is a 16 mile ride, so I need to keep doing the full 15 instead of breaking it into biking to breakfast/coffee, eating, and biking back home 😀

This was along the same road we did Saturday, although not the really hilly part.  It was a long and lonely road today since I was by myself.

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Pretty durn cold, too!  It was 40 degrees and cloudy – plus a stiff wind. Check out this flag:

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At least the wind was blowing at my back on the way home.  Took me 1:21 to do the ride.

I had a Zone bar preride, which was good.  They just seem to last me a good while, so even though I want to cut them out of my life, it doesn’t seem too bad to have them in there.  I just have to not snack on them, but use them for a purpose.

I couldn’t decide what to have for breakfast and finally decided on warm and filling protein pancakes!  My Winney Farm blueberries are gone already, so it’s back to Wyman’s (which I also love).

breakfast

These were so warm and good in my tummy after a cold ride.  Plus coffee.  And speaking of coffee –  Hooray for caffeine!  Here is an article on some benefits of caffeine from one of my favorite blogs: Workout911

Spent a good portion of today training on a new account.  It’s nice to know they think highly enough of me to keep adding accounts, and it means that I should always have a steady flow of work.  Productivity does go down when learning, though.

Have you tried Attune bars?

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These are so good!  90 calories and full of probiotics and antioxidants.  Found in the refrigerated section. A little spendy, but I had a coupon 😛

Check out the chunks of raspberries in this:

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So, John won the football picks this week, so that meant I had to take him out to dinner.  He wanted Chinese, so we hit up a place that has steamed brown rice available!  Isn’t that great?  Hope more places follow suit.  I broke one of my rules of not eating corporate meat because I needed protein.  I chose the beef and broccoli bowl with brown rice.

chinese I tried to eyeball about 1/2 cup of brown rice.  There was easily 1.5 cups in the bottom of this bowl.  It was pretty good!

We were going to bike there, but it started to sprinkle.  John still wanted to get a run in this evening, so I decided to join him for a bit.  We went to the track and he ran 3 miles while I did a run/walk combo.  If only my duathlon could be spread out like that with the bike in the morning and run at night!  It was weird running in the dark, though.

Question: When do you like to do your exercise?

NROLW and funny search terms

Short post today.  It’s the start of my weekend.  Need to keep up the good work.  Challengers – stay strong, halfway through the month now!

Little kitten made it through the night.  He is getting bottle fed now:

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Good news, though – I was able to find someone who fosters kittens to take him!  She works through a shelter and will be able to get him neutered and shots and all that before adoption.  I spent a good portion of my day off trying to home the sweet thing.  I feel so much better now.  He will be going away tomorrow morning.  I have gotten a little attached to him, though.  I think I have the word ‘sucker’ tattooed on my forehead.

So, back at the gym this morning.  I actually did workout A, but when I did wordless Wednesday, I didn’t post the workout that day, so here it is:

  • Barbell deadlift/row:  4 x 4  at 75 pounds
  • Partial single leg squat:  4 x 4
  • Wide grip lat pulldown:  4 x 4  at 70 pounds
  • Back extension:  4 x 4  at 90 pounds
  • YTWL:  4 x 4  at 10 pounds (Yeah!)
  • Swiss ball crunch, reverse crunch, lateral flexion:  3 x 10
  • Prone cobra:  3 x 2 minute holds

Just so you don’t get bored 😀

Came back to protein pancakes.

pancakes

I have maybe a pound or so of my Winney’s blueberries left.  Ahhhhh!!!  I was trying to figure out how many pounds of fresh blueberries I ate this season.  John cracked that it was half of the GDP.  He’s hilarious, isn’t he??  I think it probably has to be around 20 pounds!  Better than 20 pounds of cookies, though.

I got *the* biggest kick out of this.  I was looking through where people come from to get to my blog.  This has to be the funniest search string:  “Chinese Girls Kickboxing movies big smooth legs”  Can someone please tell me why my site comes up #1 for this????   😀  Hope they found what they were looking for ROFL!

Not much exciting on the eats front, so I’ll just sign off for the night.  Talk to you all tomorrow!

5 miler and football!

I am surprised at how many of you actually eat (and like) brussel sprouts!  Yay!  Makes me wish I had bought more.

Run day today and since school has started, I don’t run on the track in the mornings.  I don’t think they would appreciate a sweaty woman skulking around the school yard.  I thought about waiting until evening, but then I remember tonight is opening night for FOOTBALL!!!!  Yes!!!

Anyway…..  preworkout munch:

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Pumpkin bread.  Delicious.

I decided to do a hill route, as I have not done that in months.  Whew!  2 miles of flat, then a 5K hill run.  There are a couple levels of hills, one tiny one to get started, then down a big hill, which is really hard on the legs to not go bum over teakettle.  Then back up a hill, smooth for a tiny bit, then a long gradual hill.  My legs were a little rubbery by the time I finished the 3rd one.  Finished in 57:00, which is slower than I would have liked – but I ran up all the hills, so that was good!  Listened to the entire soundtrack to Planet of the Apes (Elfman).  Fun to run to.

Came back and bumbled around the kitchen making breakfast.  Do you have those days?  It seemed to take me forever, but part of that was J and I both making breakfast at the same time.

In celebration of kickoff tonight, we had cafe au lait in these cups!

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Plus protein pancakes.

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My precious blueberry stash is getting lower.  Just a couple pounds left.  Did I seriously think these would last into the winter? Duh….

Had a craving for something salty for lunch – think it was the run and sweating, so I made another flatout pizza.

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I’ll be working late tonight.  With the holiday week, it’s slow so files haven’t come in until later.

So, it was time for a snack!

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And some freeze dried apples.  Crunchy yum!

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It’s feeling like fall out!  More truffula trees.  This clematis just won’t quit  – it has overgrown onto the porch.  I’ll have to take a picture of that.

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Grilled up a bunch of chicken for easy  meal prep.  I made another stirfry, but this time with carrots and broccoli to bulk up the meal.  That’s 3 veggies on the day (cucumbers at lunch)!

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Now it’s fasting time as I have blood work to do tomorrow.  Doesn’t that make me want to eat LOL!  I decided to make a morning of it – early for blood work, then John is meeting me for breakfast, then library and a little consignment shopping, then the mammo (the draw and the mammo are both at the same place).  Probably I will sprint to the nearest coffee shop for a caffeine hit once that’s over, too!

Have a great night!

Question:  Football?? Which team?

Bagel day!

It’s Sunday, so you know what breakfast was!  I finally got about 8 hours of sleep, which I really needed.  I have been getting daily headaches now for the past week, and today was the first day I haven’t woken up with one.  I am just feeling fatigued, though.  John asked me if I wanted to bike to bagels and after I thought for a while I agreed, although I probably should have just scootered it and let him bike.  I did not enjoy the ride.  Sunday is usually my rest day.

Anyhoo – 8.5 miles later and I was noshing on this:

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and drinking this:

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After some nice chit-chat, it was time to head home so I could get started with work.  We saw a friend while biking home!

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Usually I can’t get my camera out fast enough to take a picture, but she was not in any hurry to cross the canal.  She was out pretty late in the morning, kind of surprised to see her.

Busy at work today, which is good!  Have our new downstairs AC going (thanks Mom and Dad!), so it was quite comfortable.  I still wanted something cool for lunch and made a blueberry monster!

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  • 1 cup of blueberries
  • 1 packet of super greens
  • ice cubes
  • 1/4 cup yogurt
  • water
  • 1 scoop vanilla protein powder.

It was quite good and cool!  For crunch, I paired it with this:

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Have any of you tried these?  Excellent!  I am in love, just when I was breaking my bar addiction. 😛

Here was dinner and my new veggie – 8-ball squash!  I’ll post the whole deal in a bit.  I also made an egg salad with extra egg whites.  That’s a first for me, as I am a real yolk lover and wasn’t sure if I would like it as much – but 1 yolk seemed to be enough.  I wanted the extra protein since I am so tired.

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I was so productive that I finished up work in 6.5 hours!  Yay!  I am done for the night, bummer there is no football on.

Don’t forget to check back tomorrow for a giveaway!

Jury duty starts for me tomorrow and I am on call all week.  I have never done this before, so it should be interesting.  I can walk to the court building, which is good.

Check back later for my Great Veggie Experiment post!

Grocery day!

My day off – yay!  Thank you for all your thoughts on the 1/2 marathon.  Still not sure what I will do, but there is no rush.  What I find hard is to not think of it as a failure if I don’t do it.  I know this is really a nonsense thought, but there it is 🙂

I was surprised that my legs weren’t sore at all when I got up after yesterday’s run.  Funny how running doesn’t bother my legs that much, but strength training can really give me soreness.  They were kind of tired, though.

Had a nice relaxing breakfast and decided to prep for blueberry picking with the last of my frozen ones!

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No strength workout today, since I needed a day off and I am getting together with my sister to show her NROLW tomorrow morning!

I decided to really stock up on the berries, as they said maybe a week to 10 days left of picking.  Not sure what I will do after that….  Anyway – I got a huge bucket full:

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That’s about 8 pounds! Yum!  I have frozen half so far.

It’s hot here today!  I decided to bike to the library and had a backpack on to return my books.  I was totally soaked by the time I got there.  This is where I noticed how tired my legs were from the run yesterday.  I was going pretty slow.  After browsing, I met John at Ridge street for an iced coffee and a cookie (we each had one)

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Nice and cool!  It was a hot ride home, but at least I only had a couple books and they could fit into the bag on the bag of my bike.  Phew.  It has not been a hot summer so far. My parents brought over a window air conditioning unit that they aren’t using, so we will have one downstairs.  Happy days!

Eating dregs for dinner – Baked tostitos with cooked chicken breast and cheese under the broiler – topped with salsa.  It was quite good, actually.

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Plus a side of blueberries!

I couldn’t take it anymore and went grocery shopping.  We haven’t been in about 2 weeks!

Here is my haul:

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Got a few new things this week:  Pineapple (on sale!), plus whole wheat mini bagels and some black plums.  I also got a box of TLC pumpkin spice bars – I am kind of excited to try those! There is a veggie in this picture that will make a Great Veggie Experiment debut this week!

Guess I will cut this short and get to bed soon.  It’s pretty late and I have an early wake up call for lifting tomorrow!  Colleen promised me breakfast afterwards – yay!

NROLW and fruit day!

I wasn’t sure if I was going to take a whole week off of lifting, but since this is my last week at the Y, decided to get right back to it!

Had a preworkout snack of Ezekiel toast with cashew butter and some of my strawberry jam.  Sooooo good!

toast

This was stage 5 of NROLW:

  • Barbell squat/push press: 3 x 8 –  45 pounds
  • 1-point dumbbell rows: 3 x 8 –  25 pounds
  • Step-ups: 3 x 8 – 30 pounds
  • Pushups: 3 x 8
  • Stationary lunges: 3 x 8 – 25# plate
  • Plank: 3 x 2 minute holds (hard!!!!)
  • Cable woodchop: 1 x 8 – 50#, 1 x 8 – 55#, 1 x 8  – 60#

Holding the plank for 2 minutes was killer.  It was made doubly hard because I was so sweaty from jogging a mile prior to starting and the humidity that I was sliding on the mat.  I had to touch my knees down a couple times on the last set.  I love how the plank looks so innocuous, but is a killer total body workout.

Came back and made protein pancakes with the banana maple topping.  I think we are finally getting through all those bananas.  I did cut a bunch in half and froze them, though.

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Lunch was a tuna and hummus sandwich with another of those incredible raspberry pluots.  I need to get some more of those!

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I got this in the mail – eek!

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Yay…. not……  Starts on Monday.  Maybe I won’t get picked to sit.

It’s really hot and humid today.  I  didn’t feel like cooking anything for dinner, so I had some yogurt, berries and cereal.

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Go to quick and easy meal.  I think I have had this for, what – 3 days in a row now for a meal?  It’s also light, so I don’t feel all bogged down with food.  Heat and humidity really keep me from being hungry, which I guess is a good thing!

I also snacked on some blueberries.  I may have to go again this weekend to pick, as they are winding down for the season.  Then I will have to cry!

It was quite the fruit-filled day!  (Oh yes, and a tablespoon of chocolate chips!)

Question:  Jury duty anyone?  Or did you get excused?

Morning eats

Not much to do today, so I am doing an early post!

Slept in again until after 8am!  Of course, I didn’t go to bed until well after midnight 😀

Lazed around a bit and had breakfast at home.  I know Sunday is usually bagel day, but J is out of town and we did go yesterday.  I was debating on running again today, but thought I would just walk after breakfast:

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Oat bran cooked with half a banana and topped with cashew butter.  Yum!

Took a walk for 2 or 2.5 miles, not really sure.  I just shot this picture for the heck of it and realized that I kind of like my thighs now!  Yes, they are bigger, but they are very strong and do so much for me – so I wanted to give them some bloggy love for all they do!  (Not to mention I think this picture makes my legs seem long – which at 5’2″ isn’t really true!)

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Lunch today was wonderful blueberries, yogurt and Optimum Blueberry cereal from Nature’s Path.  Yum!  Ate on the porch today, which was nice.

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Work is very slow today, lots of doctors on vacation!  So,  just puttering around the house.  Will be going out for some frozen yogurt later with my folks.

Da weekend and what’s blooming!

Yay!  It’s the weekend for me!  Still got up way too early.  I just cannot sleep in, no matter what time I go to bed.  Decided against the Y, since it was really nice out this morning.  Upper 50s, a little breezy and dry.  Perfect running weather.  I decided to go on a jog this morning and do 4 miles.  Finished in 42:35  – not too bad.  I must have been going a lot faster after the first mile.  First mile clocked in at 11:15, so somewhere in there I really picked up the pace.

Came home to some oat bran with the maple banana sauce and walnuts.  So good. We got a bunch of overripe nanners at the store earlier in the week, so we have been eating them up like crazy.

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Finally got to pick blueberries with my mom!  It was such a gorgeous day.  We kept commenting on how nice it was today.  Big bucket of blueberries:

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About 3 pounds worth.  Yummy.  Plus the pint I probably ate while picking 😀

Then we hit the smokehouse to stock up on meat.  We were hungry by this time, so we visited the MilkHouse Cafe in Argyle.  Tiny little place, very dinerish:

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Typical greasy spoon menu, although breakfast looked pretty good (too bad they weren’t serving it at that time.

cafeI decided on a grilled cheese sandwich and some clam chowder.  The chowder was excellent!

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More garden blooms.

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This is really funny  – we carve pumpkins and then sort of compost them over the side of the porch into the garden bed.  Well – lo and behold, we now have some pumpkin vines coming up on the side of the house!  Not sure if the squirrels will eat these or if we will have pumpkins in a month or so.

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Allysum:

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This is what happens after the clematis blooms die.  Don’t these remind you of truffula trees (Lorax anyone?)

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Walkway – all of those black-eye Susans are self-sown. I didn’t plant a single one of them near the path!  I just left them because they looked pretty.  That is the great thing about gardening, there is always a surprise every year.

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John is going away tomorrow morning (after we bike to breakfast!), so I might actually get some stuff done tomorrow around the house that really needs it.

Hope you all have a great weekend planned!

Prescription toothpaste, who knew?

Woke up this morning and my legs were so sore!  That leg matrix is just killer.  So, I decided to take it easy and just go for a walk.  It was nice and cool this morning, about 60 degrees and sunny, so  beautiful walk.

Came home to some protein pancakes:

Blueberry protein pancakes

Blueberry protein pancakes

Yum, yum.  I really have to consciously slow down when I eat breakfast.  It’s my favorite meal and I love my eats so I want to just chow down!

Worked hard today to finish up for the weekend!  We are still getting through stuff from the party last weekend.   We have a lot of cheese, apples and crackers/chips leftover!    Lunch was a tuna and hummus wrap, plus some of the cut up apples and pears with cashew butter.

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Too bad that I remembered that I had hummus for lunch right before my dental appointment…. ooops!

Then it was off to get my tooth worked on.  Last week, I had mentioned my tooth sensitivity to the dentist, so they took an x-ray, even though I had just had x-rays the previous visit.  Well, they saw some decay underneath one of my fillings.  This tooth had 2 fillings in it, so the plan was to take out both fillings and make one large one and get rid of any decay and hopefully prevent an abscess from forming.  The dentist said there was more decay under the filling than he expected.  He called it micro leakage of bacteria underneath the filling. Good thing the x-ray had been done, or it wouldn’t have been seen on visual exam!    The tooth was then packed with medicine, some kind of varnish (that’s what he called it) and the new filling.  Hopefully this will do the trick.  I will go back in 6 weeks to make sure no abscess is forming and the sensitivity is gone.

I am now the proud owner of prescription toothpaste.   I did not even know they made this stuff!

toothpaste

That’s an $11 bottle of toothpaste, people!  I had better have the best brushing experience ever tonight!  This is supposed to help with the sensitivity and give extra cavity protection for the next few weeks.  I tell you, I am not likely to get any refills on this stuff.  Geez.   The moral here is to make sure you tell your doctor (or dentist) about any concern you have.  You never know if something that seems innocuous could become a problem down the road!  Hopefully this was all caught in time and I won’t need a root canal.

John made me a latte after I got back.  Should have taken some video of me trying to drink with my mouth all numbed up. 😀

Used up the last of the meat in the house for dinner.  Ground turkey burgers with swiss cheese and a boatload of broccoli and strawberries.  This box of berries is soooo good.

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All those sides make the burger look teeny weeny LOL!  A1 sauce on the side.

Done with work for the week, unless I pick up a couple hours this weekend.  Treated ourselves to Dunkin Donuts after picking up my premium toothpaste.  I just had decaf with milk and a bite of John’s donut.  Yay me!

Blueberry picking tomorrow!

Question:  Do you get regular dental checkups?