Five Things Friday: 03/29/13.

Hi there! If you have the day off today, I hope it’s gotten off to a fabulous start. The university is closed today, and my Monday class got cancelled. So…four day weekend? That’s pretty fabulous.

Friday lists!

Five Tasty Things That Escaped the Blog:

1. Whole wheat penne with meat sauce. I used a bottled sauce and added onion, mushrooms, bell pepper, celery and seasonings, with parm sprinkled on top. I threw mine on some arugula for some green.

2. Chipotle tuna mixed with hummus on top of toasted English muffin halves spread with cream cheese. Steamed broccoli on the side.

3. Veggie and shrimp stirfry with udon noodles.

Side note: I really, really love udon noodles. They’re fat, squishy and delicious.

4. Chicken with BBQ sauce, baked oven fries and broccoli.

5. Mini eggs It is not Easter until I get some mini eggs.

5 Thoughts of the Day:

1. I’m not impressed with myself that I let these sit in a cupboard for about a month before I opened them.

Popcorners in Kettle Corn. They’re pretty fantastic.

2. I woke up Wednesday morning with horrid neck pain. It started out feeling like I just slept on it wrong, but it kept getting worse throughout the day to the point where I spent most of the evening with a bag of frozen peas on it. It’s feeling somewhat better, but it’s still sore. I have absolutely no idea what I did to it!

3. Another weird body thing: Sunday and Wednesday mornings after breakfast, I developed a rash on my chest, shoulders and elbows. It was never itchy, but it was bright red and hot to the touch. Both times it faded within the hour. I don’t know if it’s stress, or if I’m developing an intolerance to something, or what. Body, stop doing things I don’t understand!

4. I haven’t had to wear my winter boots or my coat all week. That is fantastic – I want to say it’s Spring, but I don’t want to jinx it.

source

5. The season finale of The Walking Dead is on Sunday. And so is the season Premiere of Game of Thrones. Cannot even handle the TV excitement right now.

(source)

 

5 Things I’m Doing in Preparation for Easter Weekend:

1. Painting my nails an Easter-appropriate colour:

Essie Turquoise and Caicos. Looks like Spring to me!

2. Baking.

of which I will show you more later

3. Getting excited because Devon will be in my hometown this weekend! She’s in visiting a friend, and I’m freakin’ ecstatic that I get to meet her in person.

4. Getting my laundry together. Trip home = doing laundry

5. Preparing for two fabulous Easter dinners – my family on Friday night, Eric’s family on Saturday. I’m all about the good meals!

Hope you have a fabulous holiday weekend!

<— What are your Easter plans?

<— What’s the best Easter candy? Reese’s eggs get my love too

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Lacking in Appetite + Goal Talk–March.

Hello there! Hope Tuesday is treating you well.

You know what’s kind of terrible? Going to a Chinese buffet with no appetite. My stomach was feeling a little off yesterday (I think it’s the probiotics starting to kick in and my system adjusting) and in the morning/afternoon, my appetite was absolutely dead.

I didn’t feel like eating much, but I made sure I went for the good stuff.

• sushi (tilapia, futomaki, and mango salmon) and mussels with cocktail sauce
• wonton soup
• steamed pork bun, sticky rice, garlic roasted green beans (I skipped the other steamed bun when I realized it was plain)
• banana chunks with a strawberry sauce

Such a buffet fail – I’d much rather go with a big appetite and get my money’s worth. Next time King’s, next time.

I also have to mention – those beans. Amazing. I’m definitely roasting green beans the next time I buy them.

Goal Talk

So, we’re five days into the month, but I can still talk about my goals, right?

February Goals

1. Work on my hip mobility.

I actually did really well with this one. I started each workout with some of Paige’s hip mobility exercises, and worked hip mobility exercises into my stretches at the end of the workout. You want to know what’s awkward? Doing a frog pose in a crowded gym.

Do not look anyone in the eye…

 

I’m definitely seeing some improvements though. Slowly but surely, my front leg in pigeon pose is inching it’s way parallel. Something that I’m going to continue, for sure.

 

2. Try to keep an eye on my grocery budget.

Success! I managed to stick to my budget pretty well and avoid the “YES ON SALE!” thing that happens to me quite regularly. I stand by my weekly lists and meal plans – it makes budgeting a million times easier.

 

3. Figure out a solution to my digestive problems.

I’ve upped my carb intake and cut back on my protein, which has made a big difference. It’s still not quite there yet, so I’ve introduced  probiotics as the next step – hopefully, it’ll be enough to make my stomach behave the way it should.

 

4. Not letting myself stress out too much.

Kinda worked, kinda didn’t. February was particularly stressful for me school-wise, and I know it’s going to continue into March. While I felt overwhelmed at times, I did do my best to make sure that I was relaxing when I needed to and taking care of myself. Of course, it didn’t always happened, but it would have been worse if I didn’t make a point to think about de-stressing.

This month will involve retail therapy and time with friends and family – definite stressbusters in my mind.

Plan B.

 

 

March Goals

And what I want to focus on this month:

1. Foam rolling after workouts.

After experiencing a bit of knee pain last week, spending the weekend resting and foam rolling had it feeling 100% again by Monday. My legs tighten up easily, and I know foam rolling will help with that.

I bought my roller a few months ago with the intention of using it often, and I only break it out like once a month. Time to change that.

My ‘ow-this-hurts’ face.

 

2. Show up on time.

I am that person who is late or almost-late to everything. For 95% of my classes this semester, I’ve walked in exactly as class is starting. I know I get annoyed when people are late, so I should probably stop doing it so often myself. The goal is to get to class/anywhere else I need to be a few minutes early. 

 

3. Computer gets shut off at 10:15 on weekdays.

I’m usually in bed at 11:00 during the week, and all too often I end up sitting on my computer right up until then. Of course, my sleep is affected and I toss and turn all night. So, goal is to turn off the computer at 10, although I’m giving myself 15 minutes of leeway. When I spend the last 30-45 minutes of the day curled up in bed with a book, I sleep so much better.

I’d been hearing great things about this book, so I picked up a copy. So far, I’m absolutely loving it. It remains to be seen whether I like it more than Game of Thrones, but it’s definitely a good contender. Eric actually got the audiobook, so we’ll actually both be reading it.

4. Destroy my chest press plateau.

In the gym, I’ve been stuck at the same weight for chest presses for the longest time. Chest is easily my lagging muscle group in the gym, so I’m determined to beat it this month. It will be done!

And that’s what I got for you today. Talk to you soon!

<— What are your goals for March?

<— What are you reading right now?

Image Source 1, 2

Pinterest Fail and Blog Updates.

Good morning!

So how was your weekend? Mine was quiet – but I know next weekend will be busy, so I didn’t mind. Saturday night for me was about eating leftover spaghetti and watching Pitch Perfect again. That is going to be a movie I’ll be watching multiple times.

Sunday

Of course, Sunday started with errands…

hello, Laundromat…

 

Followed by a trip to the gym. I made sure to get a lot of stretching in over the weekend, so my knee seemed fine by the time I got to the gym. I swear – rest and stretching/foam rolling. Works like a charm. Although I’m starting to wonder if it’s an IT band issue – I noticed how ridiculously tight it was on the left side when I was rolling yesterday.

Pinterest Fail

I decided I wanted to play around in the kitchen for a little while yesterday. I had some extra-ripe bananas that I wanted to do something with.

Anybody seen that pin for homemade banana chips? Basically, you slice bananas really thin, dip them in lemon juice, put them in oven for 2 hours at 200, flip and cook for another 1.5-2 hours. I decided to give it a shot – whenever I get/make trail mix, I always make sure it includes banana chips…and then I eat them first. Always my favourite part.

All that from two medium bananas.

After 2 hours in the oven, this is what I got:

Umm…yea.

Clearly they were done at this point – even though 2 hours is supposed to be halfway. They were definitely crispy (most of them) but they were pretty hideous and just tasted like lemon juice. Yea. Fail. So those went right into the garbage (Kinda think I need to submit that to Pinterest Fail).

Dinner

Fortunately, dinner was a success.

Chicken coated in mole sauce, baked sweet potatoes and steamed broccoli. I had some mole paste buried in the back of my cupboard, so I pulled that out and mixed a couple of spoonfuls with chicken broth until I got it at a good consistency.  I love mole – but it’s something that I’m terrified to try making myself (it has like a million ingredients). This turned out well though! I was pleasantly surprised that Eric liked it – he’s never had it before, and it’s a bit of an acquired taste so I wasn’t sure what he would think. But he was a fan and it’ll definitely be reappearing soon.

Dessert bite x 2 – dark chocolate with a smear of Cookie Butter. Cannot go wrong.

And something else that I did over the weekend – some much needed updating! The About Me, Blog Roll, Recovery page, Recipe page and Workout Log have all been updated. Definitely was a long time coming.

Today, I’ve got a lunch social at King’s Buffet again. Clearly, this means more sushi and Dim Sum.

Have a great one!

<— Ever had a Pinterest fail?

<— What’s your favourite trail mix component? I’m also a big fan of chocolate chips (of course) and yogurt-covered raisins.