FitFeat

Posts Tagged dogs

Bringing Back the No Slacker Tracker

Dec 31

Posted by Shari B. in Keeping Fit | 5 Comments

Happy New Year’s Eve friends!

I just finished an AWESOME lower body workout and am sipping on a green post-workout smoothie.  We attempted a hike this morning so we got really bundled up and strapped on our Yak Trax. We knew it was windy when we drove to the trailhead, but we literally got out of the car, took three steps, looked at each other and said, “Indoor workout instead??”  Holy hurricane winds, Batman!  You could hardly stand up straight.  So we came home, took the dogs out for Riley’s vet-ordered mini-walk (which really looks more like a drunken sailor wobble for Riley) while we were still bundled up tight and then I did 50 minutes of walking lunges, squats, wall squats, deadlifts, wide/straight leg deadlifts, calf raises, step ups, pulsing lunges, etc.  You get the idea.  I will be feeling it tomorrow!

No sense waiting until tomorrow to work on those 2012 intentions!  I feel a productive day coming on!

I have printed out my January No Slacker Tracker – if you are new to FitFeat, here is a post I wrote on it before.  And here is a link to a free January 2012 printable for you if you want your own.

This will give me a quick visual of when I’m moving my bod (I’ll mark that with one color and plan to also use another color to mark the days I feel I’m being nutritionally supportive of it as well).  All these little head colds are definitely my body’s way of telling me I haven’t been feeding it properly lately.

Really minimizing sugars (outside of fruit) will be on my list.  Good thing these arrived for Christmas ;) and have already been gobbled up:

Huge thanks to my super friend Allison of The Sunday Flog for sending these delicious (and GORGEOUS) cookies.  What a fun treat!  Cory knows that when something is going to arrive in the mail from her, it’ll be delightful so he made trip after trip to the mailbox in anticipation.  (Last year her caramels were amazing and so were the FitFeat cookies!).   My photos don’t do her cookies justice, so go check out her post where she shows all the hard work and love that went into making these.  Allison, we devoured them that night and saved a couple to have with our coffee the next morning – thank you so much for the wonderful gift!

On that note friends, have an amazing celebration to ring in 2012 tonight!  I’m gonna go hit the list of things to get done and then I need to get ready to head out for our evening!

See you *next year*!  :D

– Shari B. =)

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Wacky Week

Dec 6

Posted by Shari B. in Uncategorized | 12 Comments

Hi blog buds!

Well, that nasty head cold that Cory had over Thanksgiving weekend ended up hopping over to me last week.  I started off strong the Monday after T-Day with a great high intensity interval workout and by that afternoon, I had a terrible sore throat.  Doesn’t it drive you batty when you have GREAT INTENTIONS only to be sidelined by something silly?  I loaded up on oscillococcinum and immunity tea, to no avail.  This cold took solid hold, settling in my sinuses and chest and even gave me waves of nausea.  It was so bizarre!  It’s been a full week and today is the first day that I actually feel quite a bit better.

Even my jumbo green smoothies weren’t fighting off this one!

Yesterday, regardless of how stuffy my head was, I HAD to have a productive day because it was killing me to not get things done.  So I finally decided to pop a Sudafed (and you know how much I hate to take any kind of medication) and get busy.  I was wrapping up a home project we’d been working on, so I had a fair amount of tedious taping and painting to do.  I had piles of laundry, client programs to create, a naked Christmas tree begging for some decorations, the list went on.  Holy busy-bee tornado!  I got my whole list done and then some!

Unfortunately the Sudafed didn’t wear off nearly as soon as I’d thought it would so I was up most of the night – I felt like my brain was buzzing!

In this case, I have to say it was worth it.  The house is clean and all the holiday decorations are up.  We even snapped our holiday picture during lunch yesterday.  We’d planned to have the dogs in it as well, but using the self-timer on a point-and-shoot camera while trying to get both of us in the picture AND get two dogs to look toward the camera at the same time just wasn’t happening.  Plus it was less than 10 degrees outside and the pups were freezing after about 45 seconds.

On our very first attempt, Rascal provided the comedy by lifting his leg and yellowing the snow right in the picture (see red arrow) so this was the action shot that was captured as he was heading away.  At least Riley was looking in the right direction!

This wasn’t the one either:

I imagine Riley was thinking “Forget this, I’m COLD!”

Darn dogs!  Needless to say, our holiday picture ended up just being the two of us.  :)

Do you like to decorate for the holidays (whichever holiday you might celebrate)?  While I don’t “enjoy” the process of putting up and taking down the decorations, I do LOVE the few weeks in December that I have the tree up.  I love waking up in the morning when the house is quiet, and sip my coffee with only the lights of the Christmas tree on.   It feels festive in a peaceful way.  I also ADORE holiday music and this year I think I was listening to the holiday station on Pandora as early as Halloween! Check out this link to hear the song I’m enjoying most this season.  It’s been out for three years yet somehow this is the first year I’ve heard it.  It makes me smile every time I hear it!  Enjoy!

– Shari B. =)

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Who Needs a Garden Anyway

Sep 10

Posted by Shari B. in Keeping Fit | 4 Comments

…when you can find this kind of loot at the farmer’s market?  (Shhh… don’t tell my garden that I was cheating on it today!)  Check out this size of this zucchini:

It’s been a fun day so far!   We got up this morning and did a Tabata workout.  Cory did his regular Tabata leg workout (smith squats, leg extensions, deadlifts, machine curls, lunges and abs).  I of course had to tweak my workout (just like I do with recipes, because I get bored so easily I guess!) so I did my Tabata routine with these:

  • standing kickbacks with banding
  • smith squats with a narrow stance
  • kettlebell windmills (alternating sides each set)
  • single straight leg deadlifts – balanced on a yoga mat**
  • hamstring curls on fitball
  • plank mashup (some straight, some with hip twist, side planks)

** I don’t have a cool balancing disk or a Bosu so when I want to ramp up the intensity of an exercise a bit, I add a bit of balance to it by folding up a yoga mat.  Looks simple, but it really does throw your body just a bit off kilter when you are doing single leg exercises.  Like this:

After our workout, I had a big green juice with kale, a green apple, a little lemon, some ginger, celery, cucumber, and broccoli stalks.

Then we took the crazy beasts out for a walk.  They got their greens with breakfast too (my dogs go nuts for kale stalks) – look closely and you’ll see him licking his lips!  His little tongue is poking out:

When it was time for some real breakfast food, I made buckwheat pancakes (with some extra protein powder and greek yogurt mixed into the batter) topped with some blueberry goat cheese and a little organic maple syrup:

I can’t tell you the last time I made pancakes – it’s been a long time!  Granted when you are using buckwheat they aren’t the same “cake-y” delightful ones you might get at IHOP, but these sure are better for you!

For lunch I made a spinach and pesto quesadilla.  Don’t mind the bite out of the tortilla.  ;) I was trying a new sprouted grain tortilla and wanted to make sure I liked it first before I actually made my lunch.

A good trick when you are using cheese is to grate it with a super fine microplane.  You get the “visual effect” of a good amount of cheese, but by weight you hardly have any because it’s so light.  Here I’m using my favorite Mt. Sterling raw goat cheese.

Pile on a bunch of baby spinach, fold in half and cook on your Foreman grill for a few minutes until the cheese is melted and sizzling.

I was planning to have these baby carrots on the side:

But unfortunately they were frozen solid.  On to plan B:

Who doesn’t love the Pampered Chef crinkle cutter?  :)

My afternoon snack was a SUPERGREEN smoothie (and this one even tasted a little greener than usual).  Frozen mango, kale, spinach, greens powder and egg protein.

I’ve definitely had my fair share of greens today!

How about you?  Did you get a lot of greens in?  Or do you need to include a leafy green salad with your dinner?  :)

Before I go I have two more pics to share.  One I took on the way to meet my client for our run yesterday.  Look at how dark it is now in the morning!  This was at 6:15 AM.

I don’t mind cooler days, but I already miss the extra daylight!

And this other pic I took when Rascal saw a squirrel from our window – this was too cute NOT to get a snapshot…

My two *men*  :)

Hope you are having a GREAT weekend so far!

– Shari B. =)

 

 

 

 

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The Dogs Have Landed In Eagle

Jul 26

Posted by Shari B. in Uncategorized | 4 Comments

Hi blog buds!

Hope your week is off to an amazing start!  Did you have a great weekend?  We did, spending it in Eagle CO with one of my best friends, her husband and her adorable dogs.

It’s really only a 3 hour drive but I was excited and in ROAD TRIP mode!

We arrived before they were home from work, so we found a great walking path to take our pups on (in hopes that it would wear them out somewhat before we arrived and that they might be calmer – it didn’t work!)

The view from the trail was gorgeous:

We had a wonderful time – it totally flew by.  We remember now why we DON’T travel with our dogs though.  Our visit would have been much nicer if we’d just taken the dogs to either Camp BowWow or PetsHotel.  Riley, our Weimaraner, had some weird allergic reaction (we still don’t know to what) and the skin along her skull swelled up like someone pumped fluid under her skin, then she got hives all over her body.  Rascal, our MinPin, had a little ‘accident’ on their couch.  Our dogs wouldn’t relax or sleep and kept us up all night long.  Lesson learned!  You’d think that dogs at ages 12 and 10 would be TIRED all the time and just be lazy bones.  Not these two crazies.  Oddly enough, the minute we pulled back in to our own home, they both were out like lights for about 2 days straight.

Good thing they’re so cute!  ;)

On the drive home, we stopped at a rest area on Vail Pass  and this was the view as the the sun was setting.

Anyone else out there regret a time when traveling with your pets?  (Or maybe even the kids?? )  ;)

Well friends, off to that meeting / presentation I’ve been prepping for the last few weeks.  I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it goes well!

– Shari B. =)

 

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Christmas, Christmastime is Here…

Dec 24

Posted by Shari B. in Do Something Daily | 6 Comments

Hi friends!

Yesterday I mentioned that I would explain why MSP and I celebrated our Christmas last night (the 23rd).  Here’s the quick version:  we used to always have our Christmas on the night of Christmas Eve and then over time we moved it to the first night of our long holiday weekend, no matter what that day falls on.  We don’t have kids in the household and we (I) love love love Christmas.  Might be an odd tradition to some, but it totally works for us.  We love celebrating Christmas when it’s dark out instead of first thing in the morning.  The ambiance just seems more festive, with the lights on the tree and sitting next to the fireplace.  We happened to learn last night that in the Netherlands (and a few other locations), Christmas presents are actually opened on December 5 (Sinterklaas) so actually we’re a few weeks LATE!  ;)

First we start with some happy hour snacks!

Hot Tamari Almonds (heat raw almonds on low stovetop, toss with tamari and a squeeze or two of sriracha… stir occasionally until tamari cooks down)
Kalamata Olives
Herbed Chevre (goat cheese)
Apple Slices
Manchego (sheep’s milk cheese)
Grapes
White Cheddar
Green Pea Pesto
Spelt Crackers
Rolled Turkey slices

My eyes were way bigger than my stomach when I set out our snacks.  We were stuffed in a hurry and most of it went back into the fridge.

Then we let the pups open their wrapped “Fruitables” – Riley absolutely knows how to unwrap gifts.  Rascal just waits until Riley does all the work, then he steals the treats.

Then we search out some of the best holiday light displays in the area, while sipping hot chocolate and listening to Christmas music in the car.  There were some REALLY good ones last night.

And finally we make our way home to open our gifts from friends and family.  It was a perfectly festive evening!

On the topic of gifts, I wanted to show you what sweet Allison sent to me for Christmas.  She is a fellow blogger, over at One Day at a Time and she is an AMAZING baker. You might remember the cookies she sent me in June.  Well this week I received a wonderful gift package in the mail from her – it was a complete surprise!  I was truly touched by her thoughtful (and very generous) gift.  In addition to her delicious Fleur de sel caramels (homemade!) she also included an adorable “S” ornament AND a Starbucks ornament to add to my collection!!  Allison, thank you so much!

Allison takes orders for custom baking:

If you want to see some of her work, click on these links to check out these cookies she did for a BABY SHOWER, HALLOWEEN COOKIES/CUPCAKES, and CAKE POPS!  She does beautiful work and I can attest to the TASTINESS of her creations.  So if you think you might be hosting a special occasion where you’d like to WOW some people, give her a call or an email!  I think it’s great to see people start a business based on their passion!

***

On the DDSD front, it was a lazy day around here so a dog walk in the sunshine was the extent of our movement.  We saw a “cheapseat” 9:25 AM showing of “The Fighter” though, so I FELT like I was doing a boxing workout!  (Excellent movie if you are looking for one to see this weekend!)

I may be offline a bit over the holiday weekend – we’ll see how the days play out.  Feel free to log any DDSD exercise in the comments sections of any December post as they all come to my email.  Or you can hold them till the next post.  Totally up to you!

Hope you have a WONDERFUL holiday weekend!  See you next time!

– Shari B. =)

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School Shopping & Quick Eats

Sep 16

Posted by Shari B. in Cooking | 4 Comments

Hi blog buds!

Can you tell I’m between ‘jobs’ this week?  I’ve been posting a lot!  ;)   Gosh I miss when I could do this every day!

I went to Office Max today to pick up some “school supplies”.  Wow, I used to LOVE this time of year when I was a kid.  I was always a fan of school.  (I still believe that ALL jobs should have summer vacation, just like school did.  We’d be much happier peeps, don’t you think?)  I think it’s probably a good thing that I don’t have kids, otherwise I’d likely go WAY overboard getting them ready to go back to school in the fall.

There’s not much I like more than a brand new notepad:

Except for maybe brand new school books:

Much like Carrie Bradshaw did in the original “SATC” movie, I love to open books and sniff the binding.  LOVE IT.  I have done that with the whole stack of my new school books!

My required school shoes, however, are not very “Carrie” worthy:

No Manolo’s allowed – just the standard non-slip, non-marking, closed toe shoes.  Dansko Professional it is, then.  (Thank you to Ryan at Dardano’s for giving me what he called the “Chef’s Discount”.  I haven’t figured out if that’s for real, or if he was just poking fun.  Either way, I’ll take it because the only other shoes I’d drop this kind of cash on in the past have been Nike SHOX.)

BTW, how did I not know how awesome these shoes are before?  I would have purchased a pair for all those jobs where I was wearing heels and running my legs off.  Ugly? YES.  Super supportive and comfy? YOU BET!

I still have items on the list of materials I need to have, but the rest can be purchased after the first day of school.  Getting excited now!

***

I thought it might be time for another photo journey of some of my recent meals.

An Asian-inspired Pita Pizza (when MSP’s mom was here we were thinking of other variations for the pita pizza).  This one uses sesame oil, a little almond butter and minced ginger as the ‘sauce’ and I topped it with sauteed red cabbage, onion, broccoli, celery, and baby bok choy, and on the top sprinkled with some Chinese Five Spice.  It was a fun twist:

I’d made MSP a dish that included this Sesame Soy Dressing so I used some of it on sliced raw red cabbage and let it marinate overnight into a slaw. Then I topped it with a Salmon Cake that I had coated with ground-up Wasabi Soy Beans (in lieu of breadcrumbs) and lightly pan-fried in  a little almond oil:

A serving of Amy’s Organic Southwest Chili with Beans, that I added some Herdes Salsa to (to boost the veggie content) and topped with sliced avocado.  Truly the speediest meal you can imagine:

A snack of (ugly) baby carrots, hummus with a large flax cracker from my dehydrator and three slim slices of “naked goat” cheese (raw & unpasteurized):

And of course plenty of green smoothies ;) :

On the subject of GREENS:  if you have pets, check out this article on the power of veggies for them.  I often feed both of my dogs green smoothies in addition to their regular dog food (as long as there aren’t things in my smoothies they can’t have, like grapes) because I feel that they can benefit from the nutrients in the veggies.   The article talks about Kale specifically, which is a gold standard of nutrient rich food for humans, so it’s no surprise that it’s helpful for dogs too.  I thought it was interesting and wanted to share it with you!

Have a TERRIFIC day!  Thanks so much for reading and I’ll see you next time!

– Shari B. =)

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Happy Day to all the MOMS!

May 9

Posted by Shari B. in Uncategorized | 6 Comments

Hi FitFeat Friends!

Happy Sunday!  I wanted to be sure to post today to say a big THANK YOU to all the moms out there!  Thanks for raising the future generation, since I haven’t contributed in that department.  ;)   I hope you are all enjoying your special day!

I don’t have “real” kids, but I do have two furry beasts that I love like they were my kids (and they went to the dog park this morning so now they are LAZY furry beasts)…

Riley

Rascal

And this morning there was a card hidden amongst my coffee mugs when I went down to the kitchen to make my cuppa joe:

Awww…. isn’t that sweet?  (Thank you MSP, you’re the best!)

This weekend has been a catch-up kind of weekend:  errand day yesterday and major house cleaning today.  We’ve had a lot going on during the weekdays these past few weeks (hence the sporadic blogging) so there will be no watching of movies or reading of books today!

I’m hoping to have some time during this week to try out some new foods or recipes to report back on!  I haven’t been posting a lot of my food lately because it’s all been pretty “standard Shari food”.  :D I’ll be sure to try and “spice” it up a bit this week.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend blog buds!

– Shari B. =)

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Cuts Like Buttah

Dec 28

Posted by Shari B. in Handy Kitchen Tools | 5 Comments

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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Green Smoothie Grinch

Dec 23

Posted by Shari B. in Keeping Fit | 5 Comments

Good morning!  It’s my FRIDAY!  Wahooo!  Love it when you get to have Friday on a Wednesday!

Let’s cover the FEATS today before the EATS, since I glossed over them in a hurry yesterday.

To further expand on my Tabata workout from Monday:

Weight Training – Tabata Upper Body:

  • TM Warm-up – 5 minutes, followed by arm circles and muscle-specific warm-ups
  • Incline DB Chest Press – 4 minutes
  • Bent 2-Arm DB Row – 4 minutes
  • Rear Delt & Back Extension Static Holds – 4 minutes
  • Overhead Shoulder Press (seated on FitBall) – 3 minutes (by this time my arms were already toast and holding them above my head became problematic!!)
  • Bicep Curls with ExerBand – 4 minutes
  • Tricep Overhead Extensionwith KB – 4 minutes

With warm up, this workout was only 30 minutes total.  And I felt it!  I am hopelessly crazy about Tabata for my weight training it seems – I really LOVE getting in an effective workout in a short amount of time.  However, I ordered something online that I’ll be discussing in a future post – after it arrives and I’ve had a chance to try it out long enough to give a review.  We’ll see if it changes the way I work out or not!  :)

Then for my Tuesday exercise, I did another round of “See Shari Dance“.  I warmed up to Run This Town by Jay-Z.  Then got busy with the wildly jumping around dancing to get my heart rate good and high.

The playlist also included:

  • Bad Romance – Lady Gaga
  • Make Me – Janet Jackson’s latest (GREAT song for cardio BTW – click here to check it out)
  • Damaged - Danity Kane
  • 3 - Britney Spears
  • Single Ladies – Beyoncé
  • Calabria 2008 – Enur
  • Get Back – Britney Spears
  • Ring the Alarm – Beyoncé

With cool-down, it was a little over 40 minutes – truly an incredible way to start the day.  It’s not possible to be in a bad mood when you start your day with a little boogie-ing!  Between dancing for cardio and Tabata for weights, I may be in a bit of a workout RUT but I’m having a blast!  I suppose if one gets stuck in a rut, a WORKOUT rut would be a good one to get stuck in!

Afterward, I went upstairs to make a post-workout smoothie.  And there was a little cutie waiting in the kitchen with his question-mark ears.  Apparently I’ve created a monster (of the green smoothie variety).

“Puppy mommy, I’m ready for my greens please..!”

Unfortunately I had to tell him that I was using my new protein powder so there’d be no greens for him this time.

So then he threw me his “Whatchu talkin’ bout, Willis?” face, complete with sideways eyes:

I’m the Grinch of Green Smoothies in Rascal’s eyes. :(

I had a BEIGE Smoothie instead, using aforementioned protein powder (almost ready to provide a review)…

Then I packed up my lunch for later:

A green smoothie was consumed at my desk (leftover from the previous day):

A veggie sandwich for dinner (toasted Ezekial with fat free Nasoya Soy Mayo, sea salt, pepper, pepitas, roma tomatoes, sprouts):

***

Today is essentially our Christmas.  MSP and I are like little 5-yr olds when it comes to Christmas.  Or maybe it’s just me and he plays along.  It used to be that our tradition was we open our presents on Christmas Eve, after driving around to view holiday lights.  We’d come home, put on a fire and turn on our tree, then start opening.  We liked the ambiance of an evening Christmas as opposed to the first-thing-out-bed in the morning.   Then we tried  opening ONE gift on the evening of the start of our long weekend and last year we lost control after opening one and ended up opening everything! :)   So tonight when we both get off of work it will be the start of our 4 day weekend and we anticipate that we will likely open our gifts tonight.  This way we have all weekend to play with our new toys!

MAYBE we’ll be able to hold off until tomorrow night, but I doubt it!

I’m really hoping that Santa brought me a veggie spiralizer!  It was at the top of my list!

Then on the actual Christmas day we always go eat at a Chinese restaurant and see a movie.  This year the movie will be “Sherlock Holmes”.

How about you?  Do you have any fun, NON-traditional traditions?  Got any fitness- or health-related items on your list for Santa?

Speaking of fitness items, it’s time to go get my workout in!  Have a WONDERFUL Wednesday!  See you next time!

– Shari B. =)

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Exclamatory Addiction

Dec 17

Posted by Shari B. in Cooking, Keeping Fit | 8 Comments

So I happened to be re-reading yesterday’s post right before I composed this one and realized that the first TEN sentences were punctuated with an exclamation point.    I must have had some seriously HAPPY coffee while writing that one.  (I actually punctuated that last sentence with an exclamation point and backspaced to add a period instead.  Not using exclamation points while writing [or smiley faces for that matter] is like holding down a person’s hands who needs to gesture while speaking.)  Apparently I am super-enthusiastic while writing my blog.  I’ll try (…try…) to tone it down somewhat!  (Aw crumb, I already used one!  This is hard!)  :)

But I digress. 

Yesterday’s ‘organized exercise’ was 30 minutes of speed intervals on the treadmill.  I woke up on the PMS cranky side of the bed and stood around in my gym trying to decide what I wanted to do for exercise while MSP was getting down to business with back & biceps.  I needed to do legs, but the smith machine and the ball were in use.  And I wasn’t in the mood for step-ups or lunges.  So cardio is what I went with.  Maybe by FRIDAY I’ll get some official ‘weight training’ in.   By ‘official’ I mean work actually done in my gym with dumbbells and other fun toys made of iron.  And not heavy boxes of marketing materials.  Since my cardio session was pretty short in the morning, I figured I’d come home after work and maybe squeeze in a Tabata session for weights.  But I moved around enough of those heavy boxes again while at the office and got so much movement that I was truly exhausted by the time I left.  

No complaints here though – I’d prefer some physical activity to go along with the desk job.   You’ve heard of the “secretary spread” (if you haven’t, hit up Google today) and it’s definitely something I’ve experienced in the past with desk jockey jobs! 

NOTE:  I just googled it and there are TWO definitions (who knew? and Oh MY!!).  For the record, I meant this one relating to hips getting wider and NOT the other one which I won’t even link to from my blog.  This is a PG show, folks.  :)

Tuesday’s FitFeat EATS went down like this…

Totally yummy breakfast of a toasted Ezekial flourless sprouted grain english muffin with raw almond butter, raw honey drizzle and cinnamon sprinkles.

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I made my “Green Smoothie To Go“  for later.  It was meant to be a mid-morning snack, but actually ended up as lunch.  Check out the little green smoothie junkie EYEING my drink.  He’s  hoping I’ll drop it while taking a one-handed photo.  That’s quite an intent stare!

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This particular green goodness had 10 oz water, BIG fist o’spinach, 1/2 banana, a mango, 1/2 peeled cucumber, small fist o’sprouts and 2 stalks of celery.  I feel so CLEAN after drinking these!  :)   The green smoothie was then sipped on from about 1:00 to 3:00.  I’d packed a Curry Lentil soup, but didn’t get a chance to eat it.  :(

I did have an unpictured Chocolate Coconut Lärabar as my mid-morning snack. 

After-work snack was two Wasa Light Rye crackers, smeared with Tofutti non-dairy ‘cream cheese’ and sprinkled with cumin and Mrs. Dash Tomato Garlic Basil.  That was followed by airpopped popcorn kernels (1/4 measured before popping).

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I’ve been craving pita pizzas all week so we had them for dinner.  I even turned down an offer by MSP to pick up something for take-out!  (GASP!!)  That’s how AWESOME these things are!  Can you guess which are mine?  :)

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You’d be correct if you picked this one!  img 1012

An Ezekial sprouted grain pita topped with olive oil, minced garlic, nutritional yeast, zucchini ribbons, roma tomatoes, kalamata olives, chopped artichoke hearts, marinated mushrooms and a sprinkle of red pepper flakes.  Whew - that’s a lot to fit on a tiny little pita! 

And an obligatory side salad of spinach and turnip greens.  (I’ll have you know that MSP actually ate some of the turnip greens in his salad!)

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Is it Friday yet?  I feel in dire need of a weekend to catch up on things! :)   I’m really looking forward to the long holiday weekend next week!  Wahoo…..

And there I go with the exclamation points again…. :)

Have a TERRIFIC Thursday, friends!

– Shari B. =)

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