Noooooo…. I’m not ready for the long holiday weekend to be over!!!  This is always my favorite weekend of the year!  Do we HAVE to go back to work?  :)

If I was the type of person who called in sick (but I’m not), today would be the day for it because somehow I managed to hobble myself yesterday.  During a workout, of all things.  I’m not even sure what movement did it, but it has something to do with my hip flexors.  I stretched off and on all day yesterday, did some yoga, all to no avail.  I have yet to pop an ibuprofen though.  That is the absolute last resort.  I know, I’m weird.  But once you get all that garbage out of your system, it’s a tough choice to put it back in.  Since April 1, I’ve had two Advil and that’s IT.

It’s a little better this morning so I’ll take the morning off of working out, and soak in the tub instead to see if that loosens anything up.  I exercised all 4 days of my long holiday weekend.  Tomorrow is my planned ‘rest day’ so I’ll just flip-flop my days.  This is my cue that I NEED more core strengthening work if a few days of core DVDs cripples me!  Ha!

Yesterday was a nice, normal veggie-filled food day.  A 30 oz. green smoothie in the morning:

A Banana Bread Larabar during the 10:00 a.m. showing of “Sherlock Holmes”:

A super-sized Shari salad in the 11″ bowl (I’ve missed my big bowl…) with spinach, dulse, roma tomatoes, spiralized zucchini, nutritional yeast, chia seeds and topped with 1 tbsp of Annie’s Goddess dressing.

With a side of baked kale (that looks burnt, but it’s not).  It’s red kale so it has a deep purple/red color:

An easy, early “dinner” of Ezekial toast with almond butter and raw honey drizzle, with a side of decaf  (the Broncos game was still on and I didn’t want to miss anything making a meal):

And an evening snack of two Wasa light rye crackers smeared with Tofutti (the ‘un-cream cheese’) and sprinkled with cumin and Mrs. Dash:

It was a fiber-licious day to be sure! :)

Riley got a dose of fiber too (of the synthetic variety) thanks to ripping her Christmas gift to shreds.  Poor stuffed squirrel.  Riley was too tired to even flee from the crime scene:

I, on the other hand, take much better care of MY Christmas gifts.  :)

As mentioned I have a bunch of them to tell you about (because I am incredibly blessed to have received so many great gifts from my family).  One of which is a new set of AWESOME knives from my mom. When I was visiting her back in September, I was crazy for her RADA knives and utensils.  I had two small RADA knives that I’d received as gifts back in 1991 and they LOOK like they’ve been used a TON.  My mom had the cool extras like a tomato knife, a peeler, and all sorts of other neat knives.  So I was thrilled when I opened a wrapped gift containing a whole SET of these cool tools.  It’s hard to see through the curtain of hair here but there’s a silly grin on my face (and apparently Riley and Rascal are just as excited about my gift):

They are SHARP!!!  I guess all of my other knives must need sharpening, because I forgot how nice it is to slice through food like it’s “BUTTAH”  :)

The potato peeler worked like a charm peeling this mango:

If you have a foodie in your life, I highly recommend gifting them with something from RADA.  I’m so impressed.  And I can tell you that these will be used every single day in this house!  I even rearranged my knife drawer so that I can keep them in their gift box and have easy access to them as I’m prepping veggies every day.  And I just noticed that they are available through Amazon.com so you can bet I’ll be adding these to the FitFeat “Favorite Things” Store!

Thanks for the GREAT gift, Mom!  PERFECT!

Today’s question:  Do you have a favorite brand of knife or prep utensil that you use daily? Drop a comment to share with us!

Have yourself a MARVELOUS Monday, friends!  I’m off to hit the tub and then to work!  See you next time!

– Shari B. =)

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