MIMM – Page 4

NYC and Packing: MIMM#99

December 12, 2016 by Alicia Leave a Comment

Today is my first Monday not working. I will be spending the day packing though. Ugg why is packing so hard?! I don’t even have that much stuff. How do people pack a house? Last time we moved I hardly packed. Well I also had hardly unpacked most of my things in the 11 months I lived at that apartment. This time I reduced more of my things and I have to actually pack things into boxes since they will be sitting in storage for months. Last time we just threw stuff in the car and took multiple car trips.

The good news is I sold my microwave and table over the weekend. I think I have a person to buy my desk too. That reduces the big furniture we have to store. I just have a bunch of boxes, but really I don’t have a lot of stuff. I have quite a few boxes of books. I never bought a bookcase in the last 2.5 years so they have stayed in boxes. Also since I always felt like reading books as they came out and Amazon was easier than the library, my book collection grew a bit…next place, I should probably get a bookcase.

Anyway back to the weekend. Saturday I avoided packing by meeting up with some of Brian’s family in NYC. Brian decided to work so he can pay me the other half of rent 😉 (kidding, but he did decide to work). I am more into the NYC adventuring. OMG it was crazy crowded though. Even the train people were standing when we had another hour to go on the ride. I bought a book and read on my kindle for the ride.

I got to NYC and grabbed a snack and checked out the Macy’s windows a bit.

Then Brian’s cousin amazingly recognized me as I was walking through Times Square. I was pretty impressed they somehow ended up behind me. We first went to get tickets for a show. The line was HUGE! It took about an hour in line and while Brian’s aunt waited, we stopped in the M&M store and Hershey store. Even those stores had lines to get in!!

We then had lunch at Burger Heaven which was especially delicious being that it was already 1pm so we were all hungry. Then we headed to see the Rockettes!! It was my first time seeing them and it was fun. You were also allowed to take pictures and I brought my actual camera and got some nice photos. We had close seats.

After the Rockettes, the street was mobbed. I mean we all were like bumper cars shoving and knocking into each other. It was the only way to get around and I couldn’t help but laugh when we were stuck in a crowd and you have to flow with the crowd. Also have to love how the street crossing is two ways and you will see people trying to get by the other way. It was nice to eventually get some breathing room once we crossed a couple streets.

We walked by the Christmas tree. My first time seeing the tree as well!! I think this year’s is one of the biggest too!! It was beautiful and yes very crowded at Rockefeller.

We walked around to see some of the lights. Saks on Fifth Ave had an awesome show that we caught part of. So many lights, so many people. It was chilly but honestly I am thankful it wasn’t snowing or raining.

We parted ways shortly after 5:30 as they had to catch their bus and I had to head to the train. I got turned around at one street but found the station and made it to the station with 4 minutes until my train was departing. I went to my track and HOLY PEOPLE!! I started to head down the stairs and all I saw were tons of people. I still wanted to see if I could make the train and managed to shove my way towards the escalator. The fun part was when the escalator came to the bottom and the door opening was more narrow so we all would just run into people. Then finally I got on the platform, there were tons of train cars and I got a seat. Not a window seat, but a seat. Halfway through the train ride I was able to get a window seat. It was pretty loud, lots of talking on the train so reading wasn’t as successful on the way back, but the ride went by pretty fast and I made it home shortly after 8 in time to take a hot bath and use up some bath salt.

Sunday was all about packing, except it started with making pancakes and blogging. I wrote up some posts and then started to sort. I mean where do you begin… I started with my file drawer and sorting stuff to shred. Later in the day I borrowed a shredder from my friend.

For lunch, I ordered chicken wings. I was craving some Saturday night and skipped dinner Saturday so told myself I would order wings Sunday. I had sweet potatos to use up as well and cooked those up. I invited my friend over and we watched 2 more episodes of Fuller House and ate wings, salad and sweet potato fries. Here I thought I basically had no food and would starve but I didn’t even have to leave the apartment and ordered wings. Gotta love ordering online!!

chicken wings and more — I guess I won’t starve

I spent time sorting my closet and packing away the things I know I won’t need for my trip. I also put together a give away pile that my friend enjoyed looking through. Then I stocked my friend up with protein powders, spices and more from my pantry. I think that is pretty good payment for helping or watching lol. Her husband was like, I’m not sure we need more stuff.

In the evening I heated up my chicken wings in the oven since I no longer have a microwave, but they heat up better in there anyway. I watched a Christmas movie, working on this post and then went to shredding paper before packing up some more things.

Moving really makes you think twice about the stuff you buy. It also feels good to get rid of so much.

Thanks Katie for the link up and congrats on your beautiful baby girl!

What’s one thing you did this weekend?

Have you been to NYC during Christmas season?

Swim, Potluck and Gingerbread: MIMM#98

December 5, 2016 by Alicia 2 Comments

Hey there. How was your first December weekend? Mine was pretty good and busy.

Friday morning I was really in a good mood. Brian told me I had a case of the Fridays lol. After Thursday was done and month close was done, I went to yoga that night and it really did make me feel better. I have been missing attending classes since I don’t live near any yoga studios, but I found a nice one around the corner from my office. I like it but it means that I get home around 9pm and then don’t have much time to wind down.

Anyway I only have one more week of work and then work on moving, so this weekend I did a lot of cooking, baking and crafts.

Linking up with Katie for MIMM.

Saturday morning I headed to the pool after breakfast.

I didn’t feel as great as Sunday when swimming. My shoulders started to ache and then once they finally warmed up, my left foot started to feel like it was going to cramp. I took it slow. Slow and steady wins the race. I made it to 1.5 miles and then decided to stop. I just couldn’t push farther and I needed energy for the evening.

2016-12-03-08-26-00 — before last swim at LA Fitness

After my swim, my plans changed as originally I was going to meet up with someone for dinner Sunday, but since she cancelled, I decided to go to Wegmans after my swim and get my few grocery items. Somehow I still managed to spend $50 but oh well. I think I am in pretty good shape for using up most of my items.

The afternoon consisted of making gifts for my co workers (which will be in a separate post this week) while cooking. I also made vegan mac and cheese for the first time. I made this recipe with the cashew base. I also loved how you didn’t have to soak the cashews, but I was not waiting around and already eating a late lunch. I mixed it with some roasted brussels. I always see people mixing mac and cheese and broccoli which honestly doesn’t appeal to me, but I needed to finish my brussels and that mixture was pretty good (even if the picture doesn’t look that appealing).

I also made some gluten free snickerdoodles. A few of my friends are gluten free so I wanted to bring some cookies to the potluck. Also these are egg free, so I enjoyed eating the dough a bit too.

The afternoon flew by and then I changed and headed over to my friend’s apartment for a potluck. I made WAY too much food, but there were 8 adults and 1 kid and we split it, so I came home with just a serving size of each of my dishes left. I made my quinoa salad and brought the mac and cheese and cookies. We had quite the spread of food. From chips, guac and salsa appetizers to bean chili, pizza, quinoa and regular salads and my mac and cheese. Then dessert was cookies, apple crumble, brownies and ice cream (which I can’t have).

We got a lovely group photo and somehow I put on my coat at 10pm and stayed talking until midnight…

On Sunday I slept until about 8 and then got right to laundry, roasting veggies and making gingerbread cookie dough. I then taught my last yoga class before I move. My Tuesday class was suddenly cancelled as I learned last week, so was annoyed by that, but oh well. It was nice to say goodbye to one class.

I came home and made gingerbread cookies. I think I have been making gingerbread cookies for the holidays for at least 4 years and I love the tradition.

I always forget how much they spread and so Brian suggested turning those ones into minions.

That took a couple hours, only fitting 6 cookies on a cookie sheet and then having fun frosting them. After snacking on gingerbread cookies, I decided to eat something healthier, a bowl of broccoli and then cooked up some pork chops for dinner.

As I ate, I watched Holiday in Handcuffs. December is my crazy tv time where I want and do watch sooo many Christmas movies. I have a lot that I recorded on DVDs years ago and love watching them over and over.

At the same time I am counting down to Fuller House Season 2 on Friday. I may or may not be preoccupied by that instead of packing next weekend…

I’ll also be finishing this book this week. I love the book cover!!

Thanksgiving 2016: MIMM#97

November 28, 2016 by Alicia Leave a Comment

Hello everyone. Did you have a great Thanksgiving? It was really nice to have a 4 day weekend. I headed up to Binghamton after a workout on Thanksgiving day and then stayed until Saturday. That left me with a full day at home to recover and clean up, etc.

I actually didn’t take like any pictures except of the dogs…meet Lucy and Greta

Anyway Thursday morning as I said I worked out. My gym opened at normal time and was closing early. I decided to go at 6:30am and did this workout. That was HARD. I think I am going to start trying it once a week so I can improve.

I got home and made a smoothie for breakfast as that is going to be the new norm while I eat up the frozen fruit and protein powder.

Then I headed on the road. I only made one stop and it rained on and off, but most of the drive was smooth. I hung out for a couple hours and then it was time to eat at 2:30. One of Brian’s cousin’s is vegan so I finally got to try vegan mac and cheese that she brought. It had a bit of a weird after taste that I couldn’t figure out but otherwise was good. We had an oven cooked turkey and deep fried turkey and then some veggies and normal thanksgiving stuff like mashed potatoes and cranberries that I don’t eat lol.

Then it was time for dessert. I enjoyed some of the vegan pumpkin pie I made. I used almond milk and the rest of the ingredients were vegan from this recipe. I can say the best part about Thanksgiving was that I didn’t overeat and I didn’t eat much dairy so my stomach didn’t bother me at all. That is a successful holiday!!

Shortly after eating, we headed over to our family friend’s house. We ate so early that we arrived at this house before the guests. They have family come over for dessert and pies. I had some chocolate pie here and had fun chatting. There are so many people that come over and always fun to chat.

We got home around 9pm and watched some tv for a bit before heading to bed.

Friday I didn’t do any shopping. Though on Saturday morning I did finally buy a backpack on sale for my trip. We had lunch with one of Brian’s friends that I wanted to meet and enjoyed chatting. I had a delicious quinoa with chicken and veggies salad. I finished Scrappy Little Nobody and then helped Brian and his brother move some firewood. After that I worked on some blog writing for a while and then we had dinner at 5, turkey soup, which I do have to say was pretty good considering I am not a big soup person. After dinner we were going to head to the movies to see Fantastic Beasts but the shows were pretty much sold out so instead I purchased tickets for Saturday morning and we headed out bowling.

I was happy with bowling and won the first game! I got second place in the second game.

When we got back home, we watched part of the movie The Hangover, but couldn’t last the whole movie and eventually headed to bed.

Saturday morning I headed out to breakfast with Brian’s parents and family. Then Brian and I headed to the movies. Fantastic Beasts was really good and we both enjoyed it. Then it was time to part ways as I drove back to Philly. A quick stop for gas and Tim Horton’s and a mint cookie which I wish I had a picture of but ate while I was driving. Iced tea and a cookie were my “lunch”.

I stopped at Wegmans and then got home immediately unpacking, getting laundry in and cooking up some dinner along with after dinner snacking to enjoy the first two episodes of the new Gilmore Girls!! I actually had to pay attention and have this bad habit of clearing my plate and letting the show continue since I usually have Gilmore Girls on in the background, but I actually had to pause it when I got up so I didn’t miss anything.

Sunday I didn’t have to teach yoga because the gym cancelled it due to the holiday. Instead I went to the gym and swam 2.4 miles!! I don’t know how I had that in me, but after 2 rest days, I had energy. I haven’t swam in about a month because of my busy weekends so it was nice to be back in the pool. I swam for an hour 35 minutes with few breaks. Someday I’d like to do an open water mile swim. Open water scares me, but I think if I can swim 2.4 miles, I can do a mile. Also I finally got to try Blue Raspberry Spark. Perfect pre swim fuel.

When I got back home, I roasted some veggies and then had those and some ham for an early lunch. For the afternoon, I worked on some holiday gifts and crafts. I was feeling a bit like a scrooge as the Christmas season started. I obviously won’t have a tree this year as I am moving and I am just not into shopping since I need my money to travel. I have found some little gifts for people that I think they will like and taking the time to put something together made me happy and feel more in the giving mood. Gifts don’t have to be expensive and I think mine will be meaningful.

In the evening I made a spaghetti squash with some diced tomatoes and a turkey burger. I am eating my way through the pantry and freezer for sure. I will probably be sick of burgers in a week, but they should all be gone by then.

2016-11-27-17-32-49 — not the most attractive dinner, but delicious

Then it was time for the last 2 Gilmore Girl episodes. I was going to try to spread them out more, but I know the next two weeks as I prepare to move and train new people at work will be busy. Plus in two weeks I have Fuller House Season 2!!

Thanks Katie for the link up.

What’s your favorite part of Thanksgiving Dinner?

Did you watch Gilmore Girls?

Sickly, NY plates, Friendsgiving: MIMM#96

November 21, 2016 by Alicia 4 Comments

What a weekend. I took off Friday and my body decided to get sick. It has good timing like that coming on weekends…I had woken up around 4am Thursday morning with a sore throat. Now sometimes I just wake up with a really dry throat. This soreness wasn’t going away though and throughout the work day, I felt worse and worse. I had decided there was no way I could swim at the gym which I had wanted to do in the evening. Instead I just took a bath with some detox salt and laid on the couch with a smoothie and a book.

To be truthful though, I had so much sinus pressure that I couldn’t even concentrate on reading so I watched Gilmore Girls until about 8pm and called it a night and slept on the couch Thursday night.

Friday morning I was up at about 5am. I could hardly sleep really. I made some breakfast, which I didn’t really want to eat, but knew I needed something before getting on the road. Around 6:30am, I left and stopped at Dunkin for an iced tea. I seem to associate iced tea with road trips and not feeling well as those are the main times I get them. I made the drive and arrived at the insurance place at about 10:30 or so. I got my new car insurance and then headed around the corner to the DMV. I got to the DMV right before the lunch crowd. I only had 1 of the 3 forms I needed apparently so I was filling out the confusing forms and suddenly like 10 people walked in. There was no line when I had arrived. Luckily it didn’t take too long and I had eventually filled out the forms correctly. First, drivers license and new photo. I smiled and hope that it is a decent picture despite feeling like death. It took about an hour at the DMV which isn’t long really. It was perfect timing as Brian had just arrived from driving back from his parent’s. I met up with him at the house and he could tell I was really not feeling well. I didn’t feel like doing anything so I went to bed and he took my car to get inspected, the final step. I think I was in bed for 3-4 hours. Though I couldn’t really sleep, but laying in bed was like the only thing I felt I could do. Good thing I took the day off…

Eventually I got myself together and hopped into the shower, hoping the steam would help. Then we went for a ride to his cousin’s. I needed food, but the only thing I felt I could eat was a bowl of rice. Luckily his cousin had a quick microwave quinoa and brown rice mix. I finally ate and drank a ton of water and was slowly feeling better.

We headed out for dinner with his Aunt, friend, brother and girlfriend. We went to an Italian place. Pizza and cheese things don’t sit well with me when I am NOT sick, so those were out of the question. I decided on bruschetta, a side of meatballs and green beans. After all the carbs, I needed to balance it out with meat and veggies now that I was feeling a bit better. I ate most of what I ordered and then we had the dessert display, the perfect little shot glass desserts. I had to go with chocolate mousse, there was no questioning. The smoothness of the mousse slid down my throat, making it feel better. It tasted delicious and was consumed so fast there is no picture.

After dinner, we dropped off his brother and girlfriend and headed to see our family friends to talk about our travels (in case you missed the announcement here). I got to play with the kitten, who is double the size from the first time I met him on September 30^th. I had a blast and was glad to be feeling a bit better even if I was still stuffed up.

It was nearly midnight by the time we made it to bed. Considering I went to bed at 8pm the previous night, that was late.

The next morning we slept in until 8 and then I read for a bit before Brian finally got moving. I decided to just get a bagel for breakfast down the road and then we parted ways as I drove back to PA with my new NY plates.

tim hortons iced tea — Tim Horton’s iced tea for the ride home

I stopped at the grocery store and may have picked up a few things not on my list as I was hungry. I arrived home and it was 71 degrees outside!! 71 in mid November!! My windshield and windows needed a good cleaning so I took care of that before finally eating.

avocado sushi with ham and cheese crackers

I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning, making food for my potluck Sunday and relaxing. I read for a couple hours before going to bed at 9 because I was exhausted again.

Sunday morning I was up at 6 since I went to bed so early. I took advantage of it and got laundry done and tons of cooking. I also caught the sunrise.

I was done with my meal prepping for the week by 9am!

meal prep bean quinoa salad — bean salad and quinoa salad for potlucks and sweet potatos for me

The important thing I finally did Sunday though, was adding a box where you can subscribe to my blog posts. I should have done this a long time ago, but finally I am doing it. I want people to be able to subscribe so they don’t miss a post while I travel. Sign up now in the sidebar. I am thinking of working on a newsletter as well.

Though my voice still sounds awful, I made it through teaching yoga and then got ready to head into the city for a Friendsgiving potluck with my fellow yogi graduates. I took the train since it was Philadelphia marathon day. I was not attempting to drive in that.

It was so nice to see everyone and chat. We also shared so many delicious dishes. Hours went by so quickly and before we knew it, it was approaching 8pm. My train back was at 8:40 so I had a bit of time at the station, then back home to head to bed. The weekend started out chill as I was sick, but the down time was probably needed. I was glad to end the weekend with friends sharing delicious food.

Thanks Katie for the Link up.

Have you had a Friendsgiving? This was my first but I would definitely be up for doing it again, so fun.

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