Good morning friends!  Happy Saturday!

Did you all have an exciting Friday night? Mine was SO exciting that I fell asleep on the couch at 8:30!  Haha… I’m so lame!  :)   MSP and I did go out for a fun dinner and then wandered around Bed Bath and Beyond for a bit.

Dinner was at the Grand Lux Cafe, which is owned by The Cheesecake Factory.  Grand Lux used to be one of my favorites and we hadn’t been there in a really long time (over a year, at least).  They have such a huge selection of things to order you feel like you could eat there every week for a year and never have the same thing twice.  That was the case when I was a meat-eater and didn’t pay any attention to the vegetarian selections.

I thought for SURE I’d have tons of amazing veggie dishes from which to choose seeing how they have such a diverse menu.  I was really shocked to see ONE dish under there vegetarian section, which was stir fried veggies with tofu, WHITE rice and orange sauce.  Or your other meal option would be to choose up to 4 of their butter-laden side veggies and have them served on a plate (again with white rice).  This menu option had a very original name “Vegetables as a Meal”.

I can get great veggies and tofu at Tokyo Joe’s any day of the week (for a lot less money) so I ended up choosing from their tapas menu instead.  I went with the Vegetable Tempura (carrots, asparagus, mushrooms, zucchini) with a mustard dipping sauce and a Roasted Beet with Goat Cheese side salad.  Not the healthiest from a ‘waistline’ perspective, but both were very tasty.  Or they were made better by the Pineapple Basil Mojito I was drinking.  ;)   That could be the case!   (BTW, I did snap some pics on my iPhone but it was SO dark in there that you can’t even tell what you’re looking at, so I’m not even going to bother including them here.)

I don’t want to slam Grand Lux too badly because I still like the restaurant and the food is good.  But Grand Lux, you do need to get with the times a bit.  The rest of your menu is so creative, so why the unoriginal tofu/veggie stir-fry?

Regardless of the food, MSP and I had a wonderful time chatting away and relaxing, ran a few errands, then came home to relax some more with our long-lost pals from Grey’s Anatomy.  Grey’s has been gone so long I couldn’t even remember what happened on the last episode (which was in November, I think?)  So glad to have it back now!

***

To rewind a bit to Friday’s FEATS, I started out on the treadmill for 20 minutes of intervals before moving on to some Tabata-style leg work.

  • Penquin Squats heels in toes out (4 min)
  • Wide Plié Squats low half of movement only (4 min)
  • Seated Thigh Raises (I was on FIRE after 2 min so I’ll have to work UP to 4 on this one)
  • Right Glute Work in external rotation (2 min)
  • Left Glute Work in external rotation (2 min)

Ouchie. Mama. But in an “oh so good” way.

***

I think it will soon be time to give in to spending a little extra money and getting some massage done.  I’ve definitely got some tight spots and can feel some of the trigger points in my neck and upper back acting up a bit again.  I used to get a massage every couple of weeks because I truly believe it is a necessary part of keeping our muscles fit and healthy.  It’s just one of those things that quickly gets cut out when I have to “tight the budget belt”.   I have a tendency when I’m at a desk too long to lift my shoulders up toward my ears and hold them there, without realizing I’m doing it.  I catch myself doing it all the time.

I do this:

When I should be looking more like this:

Do you tend to wear your shoulders as “earrings” like I do when you are working at a desk? When I do catch myself, I’ll take a few minutes to do some shoulder rolls (forward and back) to get some blood flow to the traps/shoulders and then perform this trapezius stretch to bring my shoulders back down.  Or I’ll stay seated, grasp one side of my chair and pull away, dropping my head down and to the side until I feel a good stretch.  Hold for up to 30 seconds, then repeat on the other side.  Like this:

I did those pics on the fly with my webcam and I still have all my running gear on, POST RUN.  That’s just PURTY right there, eh?  ;)   Guess I better add SHOWER to my Saturday TO-DO list!  ;)

Have a super Saturday friends!  See you again soon!

– Shari B. =)

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