MIMM – Page 19

Shopping, Food and Sun: MIMM#36

August 17, 2015 by Alicia Leave a Comment

Hello again friends!! Wow I feel like I have been gone for a while. After getting back from Glow Retreat last Monday, somehow the evenings flew by and I didn’t get any recaps up. I finally finished writing up a recap for myself on Saturday morning so blog posts about Glow Retreat will be coming soon, because it was AMAZING! I seriously can’t say that enough!!

But first a recap on this weekend. This was the weekend my dad and sister were going to visit but obviously things changed which you can read about here.

Update on my sister: her ankle was a minor break and she will be in a boot for about 2-3 months. She is now mobile (on crutches for now) as her right leg is walkable now, but she still can’t step on her left leg with the broken ankle for another couple weeks. At least by the time she gets back to school she has a good chance she will be able to ditch the crutches and walk around with the boot for another month or two depending on how quickly it heals.

Since my dad and sister were unavailable this weekend, Brian was still off work and came down Thursday evening. Get ready for lots of food pictures because apparently all Brian and I do is eat and lots of shopping for this weekend.

Friday he met me for lunch in the city. I was attending a seminar for the day right near Reading Terminal Market so we headed there and Brian decided on Mexican food, which was so good! I also got some chocolates for later.

2015-08-14 19.30.58 — dark mint truffles and dark chocolate peanut butter cup

Friday night we enjoyed the pool for a bit after work. I was still afraid to put my head under with my ear still feeling off, but still enjoyed it. Then we made some chicken sausages for dinner to pair with an eggplant, zucchini, tomato bake I made Thursday night.

Saturday morning started off lazy, but we eventually got moving by 10am and turned into a pretty busy day. I had to drop my car off after the tire light came on last Monday on the last leg of my road trip. I have the worst luck with tires and freak out when the light comes on, because it is ALWAYS right (as in something is wrong).

Brian and I then headed on a shopping spree. Literally we were out for about 6 hours shopping at stores…

We started with the snorkel store nearby to get some snorkel gear for our upcoming trip to Bermuda. Then we headed to King of Prussia for the day. We got lunch at the mall, Brian had a shopping spree at JC Penny (YAY 60% off sales and new clothes for Brian), we then headed to Target, Michael’s, Bed, Bath and Beyond and Wegmans for groceries to end it all. I think we covered enough stores and spent enough money.

It was about 5pm when we finally picked up my car. Where did the day go?!? Luckily the only thing wrong with my tire was the valve started to leak somehow due to corrosion. A whole $8 to fix. That is probably the least I have spent on fixing a tire, so I am OK with that, especially after the shopping spree day.

We got home and had steak for dinner with more of the eggplant, zucchini bake and some homemade cilantro hummus, because I got a new blender accessory to make smaller portions 🙂

Also, funny story, I was so set on making hummus and thought I had chickpeas but then I look in the cabinet and I don’t. I almost didn’t make any, but then I was really craving it as I kept thinking about it, so while Brian was cooking the steak, I headed to the store to buy chickpeas, which of course resulted in buying a few other things, like chips, because I didn’t want to run out and those were on sale. It worked out though since by the time I got home from the store the steak was done and the hummus was quick to throw together and delicious!!

Sunday morning I got up around 7:30 and made some pancakes because Sunday = pancakes!!

Then for a random reason we had headed to Michael’s yesterday to get stuff to make candles after I mentioned to Brian about this one candle I loved from Glow Retreat that we got. He said, you know you could make candles. I mean I knew it was possible but never got all the supplies for it. This was also why we had to head to Bed, Bath and Beyond (next door to Michael’s) and get a small pot to melt the wax since I have few pots and none that I want to mess up. We found the perfect size pot and bought all the supplies. It was a simple process but I think I made it difficult not getting very friendly wicks, but I poured the wax in layers and eventually straightened the wicks and hopefully they work well. I am not sure if I added enough lavender either, but trial and error and they turned out pretty at least. I had just enough wax for the 3 jars I got. I also spilled a lot of wax on paper and salvaged some. Like I said, not the smoothest process but definitely would like to try again sometime.

Candles kept my morning busy and before we knew it, it was lunch time. We snacked and then got dressed for the pool. We were instructed to try out our snorkel masks before our trip just to make sure they work. This meant I had to put my head under the water, but my ear was finally feeling better after a not so fun sinus rinse a couple times. The masks worked well. I am not used to only breathing through my mouth when swimming, so I still have to navigate the snorkeling a bit, but it is nice to have a mask that fits for some proper snorkeling.

It was a beautiful afternoon for the pool and we enjoyed it for a few hours before heading home to shower and make dinner.

More hummus for an appetizer and then a tofu noodle, chicken sausage and veggie combo for dinner, that turned out to be very delicious.

The rest of the evening was spent parked on the couch, watching some Food Network (Hello season finale of Food Network Star!) and teaching yet losing at playing Chess with Brian. He never played the game until I taught him and yet he always wins. I fail at Chess.

Woo that was a bit of a long recap and a lot of food. I love cooking for two and brainstorming meals together when Brian is around. Hope you all had a fabulous weekend and I hope to get some Glow Retreat recaps up in the next day or two. It might have to be 2-3 parts.

Have you ever made candles?

Do you like DIY projects?

Have you ever played Chess?

Summer Lovin’ MIMM#35

August 3, 2015 by Alicia Leave a Comment

It was another beautiful weekend!! In the 90s and yes I am loving it!! Still soaking up all the sun I can (with lots of sunscreen of course).

Friday night was the beautiful blue moon! I went for a walk right before sunset and then after the sun set I found the moon rising over the horizon, a beautiful view over the river. My pictures don’t do it justice. I watched the moon rising for a good 30 minutes and got bit by some bugs (first bug bites of the season so not too much to complain about and found the anti itch cream). It was definitely worth it for this amazing view of the moon lighting up the sky. I used the vivid color feature on my camera to bring out the colors more. Obviously the moon wasn’t blue, but it was the second full moon in the month and that won’t happen again until January 2018 and I am not standing outside in winter to watch the moon rise.

Saturday morning, even without an alarm set, I couldn’t sleep much past 6:30am. I guess that is sleeping in though when I am waking up at 5am on the weekdays now. I ran errands in the morning and then had an 11am meeting with a personal trainer at LA Fitness since I recently joined. After talking for 15 minutes and being completely honest with him that I was not looking for personal training, we didn’t even do the fitness assessment and I decided to do some stretching and run on the treadmill a bit while I was at the gym.

In the afternoon, I headed down to the city. I was meeting up with some of my fellow yogis for a class in the evening but hung out at Starbucks for a bit syncing up my kindle and tablets with the Wifi since I have not bought a new router yet. I also treated myself to a peach lemonade iced green tea and some pumpkin bread.

Unfortunately the pumpkin bread treat may have been a poor choice before yoga as my stomach was not the happiest during yoga, but the yoga still felt great on my body besides that. The class was amazing and taught by one of the teacher trainer graduates.

After class, we headed to a nearby restaurant where we were able to catch up with what is going on in our lives. I enjoyed some fries and a tomato salad for dinner which were both delicious. A few of us (me included) were heading out quickly shortly after 8 to catch our trains and we forgot to take a picture of our meet up. We are hoping to get together again at the end of the month for paddleboarding again and hopefully a meet up in September. Our plan is to try to get together once a month and always nice to catch up.

Sunday I didn’t really have any plans. I enjoyed the yoga class a lot on Saturday night and I knew I had time I could go to the city for Yoga on the Banks, this time participating instead of assisting. It was a very sunny day so a few sun salutations in and I was already sweating. It felt really good to practice outside even if the ground is somewhat uneven, just more of a challenge!

Luckily after class, Core Water stopped by and handed out waters. Much needed on the hot day!!

By the time I got home, I was ready for lunch and a popsicle to cool off. Then I changed into my swimsuit and headed to the pool for a few hours in the afternoon. At least I could jump in the pool to cool off there.

I made a pretty good dent into my new book. Already making progress on my monthly goals!

I came home and made a delicious dinner. I got some tofu noodles and made a light sauce with olive oil, garlic, tomatoes, basil and oregano and added in some snow peas.

This was very delicious but didn’t fill me up. I then turned to a bowl of cereal and a bit of chocolate to end my meal.

Definitely had a lot of sun time on Sunday and really enjoyed it! I am excited for things coming up in August but definitely not ready for summer to end. Taking in all the warmth that I can right now and actually getting a tan this year with all my pool time 🙂

What’s your favorite season?

Do you enjoy laying out in the sun?

Weekend at the Pool: MIMM#34

July 20, 2015 by Alicia 1 Comment

And just like that another weekend is gone. This weekend was very laid back. For once I didn’t have any plans and the best part was, Brian was able to come down for the whole weekend and not be rushing off back to work. So for those reasons, it was marvelous.

But first, before we get to the weekend, Thursday night I got my haircut (it’s only been about 10 months since my last one). I love when I get my haircut and enjoy my hair being straightened for a bit. I love my natural curls, but my hair doesn’t tangle so much when it is straightened, so it’s fun to wear down and play with. I got many compliments at work as people don’t see me with my hair down.

Friday night, I got back from work and Brian arrived shortly after. We both were not too hungry, so I made some avocado mint smoothies for our dinner. Then we enjoyed a walk and finished watching Harry Potter #5 that we had started last time. I finally got a DVD player (for free from a friend during my trip to Buffalo a few weeks ago) which makes it easier than setting up Brian’s laptop hooked up to an external DVD drive (because laptops don’t have CD drives anymore…) and then hooked up to the tv. However I don’t have a remote control, but there’s an app for that! Unfortunately the app only works on Brian’s phone so I need to go get some sort of universal remote or something. Friday night Brian and I barely lasted until 9:30pm…guess we’re getting old…

Saturday morning with no alarm set, we slept in. I got out of bed around 8am I believe. I had some cereal and bacon for breakfast and worked on some of my own things before Brian got up eventually. The weather was a bit unpredictable and I had a big shopping list for Wegmans, so we headed over to Cherry Hill, NJ and first stopped to check out the mall. The mall wasn’t as big as I thought and I had not planned to buy anything really, but then we passes Victoria Secret and they were having 7 for $27 panties. I have been waiting for that sale again and was probably too excited to pick out new underwear haha.

Then in Macy’s I finally found the affordable, comfy sheets that we like. I only bought one set last year when we got our bed, so it was nice to finally get a second set.

Brian and I then decided to have a bit of an early lunch at Bob’s Burger Place at the mall before heading over to the movie theater. This burger place was good. We each got burger topless salads, which is a burger without the bun and salad greens underneath. I think more places should offer this. It was so good and sweet potato fries on the side.

Then it was time to see Minions!!

And finally we hit up Wegmans for lots of groceries. Since the rain managed to hold off and it was nice and sunny when we returned, we headed to the pool for a bit. Brian’s first time getting to the pool this summer and we enjoyed it!!

In the evening, I enjoyed cooking up some zucchini noodles for us for dinner as we watched Harry Potter #6. We both were falling asleep towards the end though and managed to barely stay awake until 10pm…

Sunday was a more laid back day. The only time we went out was to go to Walgreens for more sunscreen LOL. Besides that we spent the morning just laying around and watching Harry Potter #7 part 1. Yep it was a Harry Potter marathon weekend for us.

I enjoyed some yoga outside for a bit before noon (when our heat advisory which goes through today started).

I was sweating after like 15 minutes as it was already almost 90 outside.

After some lunch, we got our swimsuits back on and headed to the pool shortly after 2. The pool was pretty packed, which is no surprise when it is 95 outside with a heat index of 100 degrees. We found some chairs and it wasn’t long before we jumped in the pool and it felt amazing to cool off.

2015-07-19 15.09.08 — Brian doesn’t like photos…

We headed back to the apartment shortly after 4 so we could shower and then make dinner. Brian made steak and I spiralized some sweet potatoes and mixed them with peas and made some homemade guacamole.

Delicious dinner followed by single serving cookie dessert.

We ended the evening with a walk and then watching my usual Sunday night Food Network shows. Again I barely stayed awake. I blame our super comfy couch that just makes you want to sleep.

Definitely the most laid back weekend in a while. Sometimes it’s ok to be lazy for a couple days and there was still quite a bit of walking and swimming.

Now time to head out for work.

Do you like to have laid back weekends with no plans?

SUP Yoga and more Yoga: MIMM #33

July 13, 2015 by Alicia Leave a Comment

Happy Monday!! Last weekend I was out of town and it was very enjoyable, but I was happy to be back in my own bed this weekend and even got to catch up on some sleep. Even though I was so tired on Friday, I had so much to do and got distracted staying up until 11pm (which is late for me).

Saturday morning I had my alarm set for 7am. It was really hard to get moving and out of bed, but I had to get ready for some SUP yoga with my some of my fellow yogis. I love that we have been getting together once a month. Some were not able to make it, but it was great to see the ones who were and the place was not too far from my apartment. I had no idea there was a beautiful park just a 20 minute drive away and a place to rent SUP or kayaks for an hour. I definitely plan to be heading back there before the summer is over, even just for a walk would be wonderful.

It was my first time doing SUP. We got a quick lesson on how to hold the paddle and then paddled around for a bit before hooking up to a buoy in the water for some yoga on the paddleboards. We really lucked out with the weather. It was such a beautiful day, we all wanted to just stay out there all day and the water felt great! I didn’t fall in, but purposely slid off my board at the end just because the water felt so warm.

Doing yoga on the paddleboards was fine except for anything balancing, like cat-cow crunches…wow those were tough. It was super tough though with all the sunscreen I put on making my board slippery. We did a few sun salutations and then we tried tree pose. Tree pose is one of my favorite poses on the ground, but I only got as far as lifting one foot off the board. Bringing it out to tree? Forget it. HAHA. We then tried crow, which is my favorite arm balance. I think if it weren’t for my slippery sunscreened body, I could have done it. I honestly can’t do crow on solid ground with sunscreen on my legs and arms, so wasn’t too surprised about that one. I did manage to do wheel on the board, but couldn’t lift one leg. I am hoping the guy took a picture of that, but I haven’t received them yet from one of my friends who he was going to send the photos to.

After the morning fun, I ran errands to the post office to drop off my first stitch fix (more on that tomorrow) and headed to Trader Joes and Whole Foods for some groceries. Once I got home and made a smoothie for lunch, still in my swim suit, I got sunscreened up again and headed to the pool.

Then it was time for dinner. Boy did I miss cooking and putting together simple meals. I got some beef from Whole Foods and found some Brussel sprouts in a freezer and had an avocado ready to eat. YUM!! Such a treat, for a homemade, simple meal. I have been eating out for almost a week and really tired of it.

Saturday night I was so tired, it was hard for me to stay awake past 8pm…I know ridiculous. I think my lack of eating and living on protein bars for certain meals while I was traveling probably has something to do with my lack of energy and just not getting enough sleep. I made it till 9 and crashed into bed, no alarm set for Sunday.

Sunday morning I woke up at 7:30, yup, 10 hours of sleep. Much needed! I made pancakes for breakfast and then got ready to catch the 9:20 train to the city. I wanted some time before Yoga on the Banks to do my own flow and warm up. There are these cool giant rocks along the bike path and I have always wanted to play and do some yoga on them. Finally brought my camera for some photos.

Then it was time to assist with Yoga on the Banks. I almost thought I was going to have to teach because the teacher wasn’t there on time, but she got stuck waiting for the train that goes along the bike path. It was a pretty large group and I helped in the back with the people that couldn’t hear what pose we were moving to next.

2015-07-12 11.57.52 — savasana is always so beautiful

I finally got home around 2 since my train was a bit late and made another smoothie with some lunch. Then I ran over to Target for a few items and joined LA Fitness next door. There are a few LA Fitness places around me but I happened to be next to one at Target and got a tour of that one which is a little bigger and has super nice locker rooms.

I had canceled my YMCA membership because the location by me was not to my liking and while I am loving Retro Fitness for my 5am workouts, I need a place with a pool as well, so LA Fitness was the next choice. After convincing the guy at LA Fitness to give me half off the joining fee, I am now all signed up with two gyms with tons more space, I am paying $5 less a month than I was just for the YMCA. I can’t wait to get back to weekly swims again now that I have a pool that isn’t crowded and pretty much my own.

I had wanted to go to the pool again Sunday afternoon, but by the time I got back, it was already 4 and I wanted to do some blogging, cleaning and food prep, plus the pool was packed! After being on the go all weekend and traveling for the last week it was nice to have an evening to catch up on things. Now it’s back to work for the week.

Thank you Katie!!

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