MIMM: Staying In.

Good morning and happy Monday! Hope yours has started out marvelously

Thanks to the Diva herself for her fabulous weekly linkup!

So, I had a quiet weekend. Lots of relaxing and hanging around with Eric – exactly what I was hoping for! Last weekend was busy and we’re back in London next weekend, so I was all too happy to keep this one quiet and (mostly) confined to our apartment.

Friday night started off with a tasty dinner of homemade “fried” chicken (skinless chicken drumsticks breaded in cornflake crumbs), sweet potato fries, and salad.

I found myself with a froyo craving and it was pretty nice out, so we took a walk down to Yogurty’s (A few days ago, Amanda was talking about those sorts of cravings where you’d run someone over that got between you and the desired food. Yea, it was one of THOSE cravings).

In the mix:

• a combo of cookies and cream, snickers, and birthday cake froyo
• frosted animal crackers
• yogurt covered pretzels
• s’mores topping (!!!!) – definitely a new one, and of course I went a tad nuts with it.
• caramel truffles

And then we managed to stumble across a random fair. Kind of surprising – I thought fairs were a fall thing?

It made for a nice walk, anyways.
Side note: how awkward is it to be a couple walking past all the carnival games when there isn’t a lot of people around? I’m pretty sure every single one of them tried to play off the “win the lady a prize!” thing. I’m pretty sure I could never do that job. That’s some intense sales pitches right there.

Saturday was shopping…so much shopping. April-June is pretty crazy around here, birthday/holiday wise. In a time period of about 7 weeks, I have 4 birthdays to buy for, plus Mothers Day and Fathers Day. Insane.

I usually don’t cook Saturday nights, so when Eric requested Harvey’s for dinner, I went with it.

That would be a veggie burger with everything, onion rings and a diet Coke. Yup, I eat fast food sometimes. It’s obviously not something I would eat all the time (or even more than once every couple of months) but once in a while, it’s fine. And Harvey’s actually does a pretty decent veggie burger, whole wheat bun and all. It used to be something I was absolutely terrified of and would not touch, but now I’m fine with it.

It’s interesting how healthy living bloggers are fine with decadent desserts and sweet potato fries once in a while, but fast food seems to be completely demonized. Just something I’ve noticed!

Sunday

Sunday involved so tasty snacking:

So I was powering through those all afternoon. They are awesome – definitely reminded me of Nacho Cheese Doritos. Right down to the orange powder that gets everywhere afterwards.

And some homemade applesauce. I swear, I will never buy commercial applesauce again. Just does.not.compare.

And I spent some time doing a bit of blog work behind the scenes. I’ve got some exciting changes and announcements for Better With Sprinkles coming up soon – so keep an eye out

And I put that applesauce to good use for dinner – pork chops with applesauce, quinoa, and green beans.

Yes, that pork chop is massive. And yes, I dominated it.

So the weekend for me was basically: relaxing, reading, eating, shopping, and couple time. Absolutely what I needed – an easy weekend smushed in between two busy ones. Now I’m feeling charged and ready to go for the week ahead. Sometimes, you just really need a simple weekend at home!

Hope your day is fabulous!

<— Do you have a certain couple of months that are just full of celebrations? Everyone in my family is born between April-June, and I’m over in October. Awkward.

<— Fast food: once a week, once in a while, only in emergencies? 

<— What did you do this weekend? Best thing you ate? I’d say the froyo, of course.

WIAW: Cures for Overimbibing.

Good morning! Once again, we’re at the midpoint of the week.

Which of course, means that it’s WIAW!

So, Saturday morning (the morning after my night out at the banquet) my stomach was not happy with me. I wasn’t hungover, per say…but my stomach was making it clear that going back and forth between wine and gin all night was not the best way to go about it. Ugh.

Usually when you talk to people about hangovers, they will tell you their sworn cures for the nausea and the headaches.

I’ve heard of the greasy diner breakfast – grease and carbs as the way to make you feel better.

In Turkey, apparently the cure for a hangover is Kokorec: a streetcar dish made with lamb intestines.

Italy? Coffee and fruit juice.

Russia? Pickle juice.

just take a swig.

 

So today, I’m going to talk about my own hangover/alcohol-related queasiness cures. Fortunately, I don’t deal with this problem as much as I did 3-4 years ago, but it’s best to have a plan of attack

 

Morning Mix

Right when I woke up, the usual ACV mix.

Of course, your body is going to be dehydrated after you toss back a few too many. This means: lots of liquids and water. I made sure to tote my water bottle around with me all day!

Breakfast

Oats with blueberries, blueberry jam, peanut butter, and a fried egg.

All I want the morning after is carbs, so oatmeal or toast is my immediate go-to. I know a lot of people favour the greasy diner breakfast after a night out, which might not be a bad idea. Apparently, going for eggs is a smart move. When you drink too much, your body produces acetaldehyde – eggs contain a chemical found in your body’s natural defense to acetaldehyde, therefore cleaning up leftover toxins. So the morning after, eggs may be your best bet.

I had to run errands that afternoon. And by errands, I mean I needed a new purse. I’m picky, but I’m cheap, so it resulted in about 1 1/2 hours of walking around the mall.

I am happy with what I picked out though! I find that walking definitely helps when I’ve got alcohol-related queasiness. I cannot handle anything too extreme though – no running or intense workouts.

Lunch

I was starving when I got home from grocery shopping, so I went for carrots and hummus while I put lunch together.

• carrots: for detoxifying vitamins and minerals.
• chickpeas and other beans: fibre, folic acid and protein. All aids in recovery.

A sweet potato with cinnamon, Greek yogurt and almond butter, plus a crumbled turkey sausage and spinach in olive oil.

mmm…more carbs. Apparently, dairy is a good choice before drinking, because it lines the stomach and slows the absorption of alcohol. The proteins in nuts make them a good choice to nibble one during the night – apparently, there’s a reason for the barrels of peanuts you see at some bars.

spinach – for help detoxifying the liver and reducing symptoms.

I also sipped at a ginger kombucha throughout the afternoon. Too much drinking tends to make my digestive system pretty unhappy with me, so I picked up a kombucha to try to get it sorted out as quickly as possible. And ginger flavoured, because we all know that ginger helps with nausea.

Dinner

So, my personal hangover cure is sushi.

I discovered it one evening last year, after a particularly harrowing night (it involved a certain ‘bomb’ that was on sale that night…not recommended). I basically laid on the couch and nibbled at crackers all day, feeling like crap. Then, my boyfriend’s mother offered to take Eric and myself out for sushi. I can never turn down sushi, so I picked myself up and went.

Afterwards, I felt 100% better. It sounds counterintuitive (raw fish when you’re feeling nauseous? Sodium when you’re dehydrated?) , but it makes sense, promise

So, Eric and I went to our usual place (Sushi 8) for dinner.

Seaweed salad and green tea to start, of course.

Salmon and mackerel sashimi for me, and salmon sushi for Eric. Something about foods with high fat content (like salmon) just make my stomach feel a lot more settled.

Mmm, sushi.

The far two rolls are Eric’s – a black dragon and a tempura salmon. The other two are mine: Eel special roll (spicy crab roll topped with eel, avocado and tobiko) and yoyogi roll (black peppered tuna and avocado with spicy tuna on top).

I know a lot of fried foods will make me feel awful, but getting a little bit of crunch (in the eel roll) definitely helps. And apparently, wasabi is a fantastic hangover food. It stimulates blood circulation, which in turns helps remove headache-inducing toxins from the body.

Just to fill in the cracks:

A chicken teriyaki roll that we split. Chicken in sushi is a little weird, but I still like it.

Sugar usually has no appeal when my stomach is feeling off, but I can always go for a fortune cookie.

Good way to end the night

And of course, I felt fine by the end of the night. Gotta stick with what you know!

Have a good day!

<— Do you have an ‘I-imbibed-too-much’ cure?

<— Could you drink pickle juice? I like pickles…but no. Could not do it.

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info sources: 1, 2, 3

MIMM: Date Night & An Honourary Fur Baby.

Yup, it’s Monday.

Might as well make it a marvelous one, shall we?

Thanks to the lovely Diva herself for hosting such a positive linkup each and every week!

So, I’ve got some marvelous highlights from my weekend. It was definitely quiet (especially compared to the business of last weekend) but I find that I definitely appreciate that once in a while.

Friday Highlights

Friday morning soon after I got out of bed, this handsome devil got dropped off.

This is Leon, who is staying with Eric and I this week. So, I get my very own toy poodle to play with for a little while!  We’re definitely planning on getting a dog in the (hopefully near) future, so I’m always happy to get some practice in with Leon.

He’s such a cutie. Although he is in desperate need of a trim. Boy’s looking pretty shaggy.

The other highlight from Friday was the dinner I put together.

That would be Skinnytaste’s Cheeseburger Casserole. While I’m pretty sure it was the addition of pickles that sold me, that was a damn tasty dinner.

It’s a cheeseburger. But it’s a casserole. This is like what Hamburger Helper wishes it could be (because it is delicious and Hamburger Helper is not). So yea. you should make this.

Saturday Highlights

Shoes!!!

My old pair of Nike crosstrainers were about a year old and starting to hurt my feet, so I hit up Sport Chek on Saturday. I feel like many people are disappointed that I didn’t get Mizunos But I love Nike for my cross-training needs.

Those would be Nike In-Season TR 2 cross-trainers. They have no actual tongue, which is a little weird. But they have memory foam on the inside, which kind of makes me feel like I’m walking on clouds.

Plus the back and purple combo pretty much gets me every time

Date Night

And of course, a weekend date night is marvelous!

(Eric’s more excited than he looks, promise).

I had a gift card to The Piston Broke, which is an Irish pub down the street that I’ve frequented often. We’re both fans of the place, so we decided to use it up Saturday night.

To drink, I ordered a Singapore Sling. This is not a Singapore Sling (they have grenadine, so they’re bright red). I realized later that this was actually a Tom Collins – which was actually my second choice, so I didn’t care. Tastes like lemonade!

The point of the story: apparently, I really like gin-based mixed drinks. Which is interesting, because for years I thought I hated gin.

For dinner, I ordered the special of the night:

Salmon with veggies and udon noodles. This was just ok – the salmon was overcooked and the dish itself didn’t have a ton of flavour.

But…Eric ordered poutine.

That would be the reason why Eric loves that restaurant: waffle fries with pulled pork, maple gravy, cheese, sour cream and green onions. I definitely stole bites Delicious, although the poutine purist in me is disappointed by shredded cheese. Real poutine requires cheese curds!

So, my meal wasn’t the most impressive I’ve ever had, but at least the company was good!

Sunday

So Sunday, the weather hit 15 degrees. Umm, that is amazing, considering that is snowed early in the week. Warm weather = yogurt bowl sort of breakfast.

Plain Oikos with cinnamon, banana, blueberries, Leapin’ Lemurs, and almond butter. How very Running With Spoons of me

And marvelous weather = I actually got the running itch. So I headed out for my first outdoor run since last September.

While I enjoyed it, it definitely served as an important reminder: you can’t not run long distances for almost 7 months and expect to be able to pick up right where you were again. I did 3 miles in 29:35 and that left me feeling like death. Right, running is difficult. And running 15 minutes of intervals on the treadmill is not the same as 30 minutes outside. Not.at.all.

And PS: for whatever reason I cannot get my computer import data from my Garmin. I’ve had it for almost two years so I imagine it’s past warranty, but it would be really awesome if that would fix itself.

And today shall also be marvelous: undergrad classes are finished for the semester, so that means I have today off But, I also have two oral presentations to do this week that I haven’t even remotely starting prepping for so…it’ll be busy.

Have a good one!

<— What did you get up to this weekend?

<— Favourite dog breed (assuming you’re a dog person) I have my heart set on getting a pug. One day.

<— Ever taken a lot of time off from a particular exercise? Did it take a while to get back into it?