Weekend Recap – Page 7

FriendsGiving and Thanksgiving 2017

November 27, 2017 by Alicia Leave a Comment

This was my 4^th Thanksgiving not at home and it was also a tough Thanksgiving for both my family and Brian’s due to recent losses of loved ones. A week before Thanksgiving, it was predicted there would be a massive snow storm over the Thanksgiving days. I was glad that the weather changed and all we got was some rain and snow flurries on Wednesday morning.

On Wednesday afternoon, we got out of work early. I drove up to Syracuse for a Friendsgiving. My friend made a 20lb turkey and many delicious veggie side dishes as well as banana and pumpkin bread I filled up on. The meal was delicious and I was definitely stuffed.

I decided to stay the night up there because I don’t particularly like driving at night and it’s deer season so that just makes driving at night even worse. It was nice to have a quiet night. We watched an episode of This is Us and then headed to bed.

My friend had work early Thanksgiving morning at the hospital so it was just me, her dog and her bf in the morning. I was up shortly before 7am because I fail at sleeping in these days. I enjoyed the peaceful morning and just watched some videos while enjoying my protein bar I brought for breakfast.

I left around 8am to get on the road. There was very little traffic and I had Christmas music playing most of the way. I kind of skipped over Thanksgiving this year.

I decided to stop at the gym on my way home to get a workout in. Honestly when it comes to holidays and days off work, one of my first thoughts is, awesome I can spend longer at the gym!! I don’t think these are bad thoughts, I just really enjoy my gym time and like when I don’t have to be rushed. It also feels good to be a little active because Thanksgiving tends to involve a lot of sitting around.

I arrived back at the house around 11am. Brian was sleeping. He wasn’t going to be home for Thanksgiving as he has been working nights, but he came home to sleep and then take a plate of food to go. Since Brian was sleeping, I didn’t do much. I chatted with my family over facetime and chatted with Brian’s mom for a bit. I did some reading and cleaning up, but I was kind of antsy despite already getting in a workout.

Around 2 I started to wake up Brian and at 2:30, people started to arrive. We decided to eat at 3 and Brian left at 3:15 to head back to work. Since I had a lunch and snack, I wasn’t that hungry at 3, so I ate less than Wednesday night. I also don’t like a lot of Thanksgiving foods so I guess that is why the holiday is not too exciting to me. I had Turkey and corn and tried a couple of the other side dishes and then had my cookies for dessert. I’m not big on pie either.

It was great to chat a bit with all the family but with eating so early, we were wrapped up by 5 or so. Honestly the night dragged once everyone left. I decided to work on some bullet journaling to pass the time. At 8, I watched Big Bang Theory and finally saw an episode of Young Sheldon which was good. I’m so behind on Big Bang Theory and need to find a way to watch old seasons online.

At 9, I got into bed but wasn’t tired. Now that Brian was awake, we texted for a while before I finally called it a night at 11.

Friday was a peaceful day. I went out to breakfast with Brian’s mom and then shortly after I went to a yin/restorative yoga class. The class was like the perfect mid day nap. I was definitely deep in some of the restorative poses.

After yoga I decided to go for a walk. When 50 degrees now feels warm after some 20 degree days, you take advantage. Also the sun was out and I needed some natural vitamin D. I listened to 2.5 podcasts and walked 5 miles. It was great to have that time to myself.

When I came home I had an early dinner/late lunch of turkey leftovers as I tried to make room in the fridge to meal prep for the coming week. I spent the evening catching up on This is Us and watching a movie on Netflix. It was a good night.

Then we were onto the actual weekend. It’s always nice to have an extended weekend to rest and relax.

How was your Thanskgiving?

Do you have any traditions around the table?

Sparking my Creativity

November 20, 2017 by Alicia Leave a Comment

If you know anything about me, you know I’m a morning person. Check out my morning routine post here. On the weekends, I like to sleep in (which lately if I can actually sleep until 7am is sleeping in), but I also love my mornings. Even if I’m really tired, I’m usually out of bed by 8am on the weekend. If I see that the clock says 8am, I know it’s time for me to hop out of bed (quite literally I jump out if it’s that hour).

Saturday morning I was awake quite early and just couldn’t get back to sleep. I finally got out of bed around 6:30am. Starting off my Saturday to do list, in the first hour of being awake, I already had a load of towels in the washer, breakfast made and salsa chicken ready to cook in the crockpot. This is how I love to start my weekend mornings. I know a lot of people think of all these things as chores, but for me to have time on Saturday morning to cook and clean is my favorite.

After breakfast I headed off to Target, the post office and Wegmans for all my shopping. I came home and got my second load of laundry going, relaxed a bit and then had lunch before doing some other work in the afternoon.

I also had put on my new comfy and cozy outfit while trying a Kombucha. Trying to get in some good probiotics in my system and last time I tried Kombucha a year or so ago it really upset my stomach. I drank it slow this time and only half the bottle and it seemed to be better.

I think the fact that it was a gloomy day and I basically never see the sun during the weekdays now had me less motivated once afternoon and evening hit. I decided to start the Christmas movies on Netflix. I also have tons of Christmas DVDs but discovered my disc drive on my computer is stuck, so I’m pretty sure in the next week I will be heading to the store to buy a USB external DVD drive for my computer just for the Christmas season. Without cable or really a TV, I don’t have many other options and I love my Christmas movies.

I did have a wonderful dinner of spaghetti squash and salsa chicken. OMG it was delicious and I forgot to take a photo before eating it all up. I can’t wait to enjoy this again and also make salsa chicken in the crockpot more often. I love the Wegmans brand of salsa because there is no added sugar or anything, so it’s great for macro counting too.

My evening was mostly spent watching Netflix. I was just done with the day, it was dark and I was totally unmotivated.

Sunday morning I got up around 7am, a bit of sleeping in for me. I made breakfast and decided to head to a yoga class instead of the gym. I’m waiting on my new workout plan and I just felt I needed yoga. It was a rainy/snowy morning and gloomly. Yoga was a lot of fun as we working on some fun arm balancing towards the end. I did feel like I needed to be more warmed up though and do more wrist stretching.

After yoga, I came home, showered and put on my comfy clothes again. I decided I needed to warm up the house and make it smell better, so I made some almond butter oatmeal bars which I had planned to make for Thanksgiving so I will probably make another batch for Thursday.

One of my favorite things about vegan recipes is eating the delicious dough and knowing there is no egg in them. Another thing is if you seem to undercook it a bit, no need to worry, still delicious. I let the bars cool for a bit, but my first piece was still ooeey and gooey. It wouldn’t make a pretty picture, but it was delicious.

As the day went on, the snow and rain seemed to pass and it was at least a little brighter than Saturday, but I was just still feeling unmotivated or bored. I decided to get out my bullet journal and fill in my workout details from the last 4 weeks in addition to creating some December pages. I’m seriously already in December mode and I do realize as I write this, there are still 11 days left in November…

Sometimes it helps to just play a podcast for a bit, something inspirational and tap into your childhood and do some coloring. My bullet journal is nothing fancy because I don’t have a clue how to do all those different and creative fonts, but it’s nice to draw a few doodles for a cover page and write out a little calendar of dates and to dos for next month. I really need to get better at actually using my bullet journal though because I don’t look at it daily like I should. I even wrote down some daily habits I want to do in November, like daily stretching, and I was going to check off each day I did it. Yeah..that lasted for 2 days, but I will tell you I was really good at doing it daily for the last few weeks. I think I only missed a few days.

Anyway I think we all have those somewhat sluggish days and I know the weather has a huge impact on me. I take double the dosage of my vitamin D, but still the best cure is some sunshine when I can get it. After spending some time listening to podcasts, writing, bullet journaling, I was feeling much more inspired to tackle the rest of the day. On another note though, it’s totally ok to sit back and watch some cheesy Christmas movies. At least the weather prediction over Thanksgiving has changed and hopefully there won’t be some crazy snow storm and maybe a little sunshine will peak through the clouds on Thursday and Friday when I am off work. I can’t wait to check out some black Friday deals for some of my needs, especially a winter coat, and order the last couple presents for people.

What do you do when you feel unmotivated?

What’s your favorite creative activity?

Thoughts From the Weekend 11/13/17

November 13, 2017 by Alicia 3 Comments

You guys, November is going by so quickly already. I thought I would do a little something different for this weekend recap and just put down some thoughts from the weekend.

I don’t have much time to watch tv during the week so I finally watched this past week’s episode of This is Us on Friday night. I definitely had tears in my eyes.
Monthly massages are heaven and my masseuse told me my shoulders actually started relaxing mid way through. Apparently my shoulders like to hunch up and tense even during a massage. I felt much more relaxed this time around too, so maybe that made a difference.
I love my kitchen time when no one is home. I play a podcast and just get cooking. I have been making a new recipe weekly for my dinners during the week. This week’s recipe was Thai Green Chicken Curry. No joke, I saw at least 3 bloggers post a green curry recipe in the last couple weeks and I was like, ok I have to try it. Since I can control the heat, aka none for me, and make it at home, it turned out delicious. I even made my own green curry paste with Nikole’s recipe. So good as I love cilantro, garlic and ginger flavors.
I had to pull myself back from grabbing all the peppermint items in the store for the Christmas season. I did good sticking to my list amazingly.
Mini bagels are back in my life…I don’t think I’ve had them since I was a kid! I am trying to meet my recommended macros from my weightlifting coach and that means more carbs which means bagels are back for now. I like the mini size for a little snack with peanut butter.
I loved the sunshine coming into the office/guest room on Saturday, but when it got dark at 5, it felt much later than that. I was productive in the morning, but in the evening, didn’t feel like doing much so I am watching Gilmore Girls again. Soon I have to dig out my Christmas movies to watch.
I can survive on an average of 7 hours of sleep a night during the week, but I rely on the weekend to catch up and get 9-10 hours a night. I finally got those 9 hours both Friday night and Saturday night and it was great.
I took my time in bed Sunday morning as I was so cozy. It is definitely so much harder to get up in the morning in the winter.
I made pancakes with flour this weekend! I know that shouldn’t be a big deal but usually I make pancakes with egg, banana and protein powder and this time I just made single serve regular pancakes.
Lunch on Sunday was also inspired by Nikole, roasted some delicata squash for the first time and it was delicious and only took 25 minutes in the oven.

One thing I love about the weather getting cooler is that it’s perfectly acceptable to run the oven for a few hours. It heats up the house a bit and I get delicious roasted veggies.

Alright, onto the week. One full week of work and then just 3 days next week and it’s Thanksgiving!!

What’s your favorite vegetable to roast?

I love roasted brussel sprouts and sweet potatos.

A Social Saturday and Relaxed Sunday

November 6, 2017 by Alicia 2 Comments

This weekend went by way too fast even with the hour time change and gaining an hour. Oh and I look at daylight savings as gaining an hour to sleep in and gaining light in the morning, not in the depressing, it gets dark at 4pm. With all the rainy/cloudy days recently and the shorter daylight, I don’t see much of the sun anyway. I miss having a window near my cubicle to at least look outside during the work day. For now though, I’ve just doubled my vitamin D pill dosage as I do every winter. Hopefully that will help.

Friday was a crazy busy day at work which is very unusual for me but I was helping with work after one person called in. I did like that it made the day go by so quickly and before I knew it, I was off to yoga. Most of yoga was a slow paced class. I think I kept my eyes closed almost half the time, but the stretches were so good. I actually had gone to the chiropractor during my lunch Friday so it was perfect that yoga was a bit more gentle. After the chiropractor, my back and neck are loosened up and it’s best to take it easy and rest more to get the best results.

Saturday began early when Brian’s brother left for hunting at 5am and the dogs were up and back and forth in my room. I tried to sleep off and on until about 7 before getting up and grabbing a bite to eat. For some reason, I wasn’t too hungry in the morning so I ate something lite. I got laundry going and then headed to Target nice and early. I try to limit Target to once a month so I don’t spend too much and I had some things I had to get. Of course there was some extra chocolate that landed in my cart and my favorite La Croix Passionfruit drink. I also swung by the optical part of Target and asked about their frames. I’ve had my current glasses for about 4 years and I really want a new pair with my most recent prescription. The only thing is that I use my insurance to get contacts each year so I will have to pay out of pocket for the glasses. I did find a pair I liked and got a price. It’s steep, but if the pair can last at least 4 years like my current ones, it is worth it so I will likely be back with my prescription to order those soon.

After Target, I headed to Wegmans and tried to grab only the items on my list and not too much extra. Since it was early, I was in and out quickly but there was one gingerbread item that made it into my cart. I came home and put everything away and started some chicken in the crockpot so I could make this recipe on the stove Sunday.

gingerbread bark thins — seasonal gingerbread loving

Shortly after I got home, Brian’s mom called me and she picked me up to head to a local craft fair. I ran into one of my co worker’s there and we were chatting for a bit. I only bought some raffle tickets. After traveling and having such limited space, I just don’t need a lot of the craft type items, but it was nice to look around.

Then we headed to Panera for lunch where I got the Asian sesame chicken salad and we chatted for a while. I made it home just in time to hop in my car and meet my friend, Alicia, at the movies to see A Bad Moms Christmas. The movie was sooo good. I was laughing so hard at parts, I was crying. I would totally watch the movie again or even better watch the first one and then the second.

After the movies, I met up with some of Brian’s family for dinner at Applebees. Honestly I was still full from lunch so I just had appetizers for dinner, a small salad and some spinach and artichoke dip and chips.

When I got home, I finished up the last 2 episodes of This is Us that I needed to watch and now I’m fully caught up. It only took a month with my limited amount of tv time. Now my co workers will be happy because they can talk about the show over lunch again.

I was really tired Saturday night so I headed to bed shortly after 9. Of course then Lucy decided to join me and get a belly rub. Eventually I turned off the light and rolled over ignoring her. She just pushed closer to me to try to get attention and then slept for a bit before jumping off the bed. Without Brian home, the dogs really seem to like taking turns on the bed.

I know moms don’t really get daylight savings time and extra sleep, but you don’t with dogs either. The dogs were walking around between 4 and 5 in the morning and it was hard for me to get back to sleep. Again they took turns jumping on the bed and I got some wet kisses early in the morning. Finally Lucy curled up towards the bottom of the bed and I fell back asleep for a bit until it was semi light outside.

I was up around 7 and made my protein pancakes and then headed off to the gym. I was surprised that at nearly 8am the gym only had a few people in it. I thought with daylight savings there would have been more people, but I like it quiet so no complaints from me. I increased my squat weights and I think I will be ready to increase deadlifts soon.

When I got home, Brian’s mom packed up her and the dogs and headed out. I then enjoyed the day at home to myself until dinner. I made Monique’s pumpkin chicken chili on the stove (I premade the chicken and quinoa so I could quickly throw it together and simmer for 20 minutes) and it was so good!! I had it ready in time for an early lunch.

I think the time change threw me off and I was ready for lunch at 11:30. After lunch, tiredness hit me. You know when you are go-go-go for so long and then you stop and are like, woah I’m tired. I don’t usually nap, but I was so exhausted so I put on a podcast and closed my eyes for about 40 minutes. I was listening to the podcast the whole time, but just relaxing and closing my eyes for a bit helped tremendously.

Finally I was able to tackle some things on my to do list and then I decided I wanted cookies, only to discover mid cookie making that we only had a quarter cup of white flour left. At least I had just enough wheat pastry flour leftover from scone making so I used a combo of that. I think the cookies turned out a little different due to the whole wheat flour, but overall they tasted delicious.

It was kind of a dark and rainy day so it was a good inside day. I worked on some reading through the afternoon and then it was time for the usual Sunday dinner.

What’s your favorite fall food?

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