MIMM – Page 8

Acro Yoga, Swim and Sun Time: MIMM#76

June 20, 2016 by Alicia 4 Comments

Wow what a great weekend this was!! It was a quiet day in the office Friday. Maybe summer Fridays are like that. I left at 4:30 for a date night with myself. Do you ever date yourself? It’s really important to have that time to yourself and treat yourself.

I had an acro yoga workshop at 6pm not too far from my office and even though I brought some leftovers for a light dinner, I decided to check out Le Pain Quotidien. It was definitely a bit pricey, but I finally tried avocado toast. I lack a toaster/toaster oven at home so can’t really make toast. I also treated myself to a mint lemonade. I LOVE fresh mint so I couldn’t turn it down when I saw it on the menu.

I loved the decoration of the place and I thought it was more of a Panera type place where you order and then they bring your food, but really you are supposed to sit down and they bring your the menu. Then you pay when you are finished. Great service, delicious food and lemonade. I will definitely go back when I want to treat myself again.

After that I walked around for a bit, enjoyed the warm weather and then headed to Acro Yoga. I have been wanting to do an acro yoga workshop for a while, but could never find one that worked for my schedule. I was so excited when I happened across this one a week ago and got a discount, even better!! The two hours flew by and some poses were definitely a bit scary. I found myself preferring flyer vs base. The base person has to be on the bottom holding the flying in some way or another. Mostly it’s your bones holding the person but you do have to be quite engaged and every little movement you have to move together to keep steady. By the end of the 2 hours, we all gathered in a circle saying what we learned about Acro Yoga since most of us were new to it. There is a lot of trust between you and your partner(s) and you can not always talk to them about what will happen next, so you kind of have to feel it out. I don’t think any of us were ready to leave at the end, we wanted to keep going. Luckily I wasn’t in a rush since my train was in an hour so I stayed a bit and did some acro with the instructor.

It was a late night and time to get to bed after I got home.

Saturday was quite a day. I was up early since the sun rises so early and had me up before 7am. I headed to the grocery store and then it was time to take my car to get looked at. My luck and tires…I have been filling up a tire once a week and knew I needed to get it checked out. The place was busy so he said he needed about 4 hours with my car. Luckily my gym is next door so I headed over for a swim. Since I wasn’t in any hurry and the swim felt good, I pushed myself to 2.4 miles (170 laps of 25 yards, 160 swim and 10 kick, done in sets). It wasn’t continuous but little breaks. I did 50 swim, 4 kick, 40 swim, 4 kick, 30 swim, 2 kick, 20 swim, 20 swim. It took me a total of 1.5 hours. By the time I was done swimming, I checked on my car and they were just pulling it into the garage, so off to the mall I went in search of a snack. I had eaten before the swim but didn’t expect my car to take so long so I didn’t have a snack with me. I purchased 2 protein bars and while I only planned to eat 1, I ended up eating them both as it was another hour before my car was ready. At this point I feel like I have had every possible part replaced on a tire, from getting nails and screws in tires to the tire pressure gadge going bad after 5 years in the tire and Saturday it was the valve on one of the tires. Luckily it was only a $20 fix and I hope it is good to drive next weekend.

Saturday afternoon included some meal prep, pool time (meaning I sat and read by the pool mostly) and watching Good Witch on Netflix.

Sunday morning was all about meal prep as I had the oven on with temperatures outside reaching 90 degrees…I know not the smartest. I turned off my AC until I was done with all my cooking and bonus I don’t need to cook during the week because everything is done. After cooking I clearly wasn’t hot enough and decided to do a bit of yoga outside. 10 minutes into it and I was sweating.

I headed to teach my class at noon and then afterwards, relaxed while I ate lunch and got ready for the pool. My car said it was 97 degrees at 1pm but our high was 90 degrees. In summary, it was hot, but no complaints as I got into the cold pool water to cool off and enjoyed the sun and reading. I have now finished all my leftover sunscreen from the summer and our February Florida trip so onto the new bottles. It takes a lot to sunscreen your whole body and by yourself.

In the evening after dinner I finished up season 1 of the Good Witch. I hope season 2 will be on Netflix soon because I am totally hooked on this show. Every episode leaves you with a cliffhanger. I literally watched 2 episodes last weekend and the other 8 this weekend. Now back to my no watching tv in the mornings on work days as it worked well last week. Actually I made it 5 days without Netflix or TV, which was impressive and will see if I can continue that for Monday-Fridays to be more productive with my time.

What did you do this weekend?

Do you ever have date nights with yourself?

Yoga on the Banks and Pool Time: MIMM#75

June 13, 2016 by Alicia Leave a Comment

Wow, what a weekend. I focused on gratitude a lot this weekend and getting some ideas down on paper. Firstly, I want to say send prayers for Florida and Orlando. From Friday night losing Christina Grimmie to Sunday early morning mass shooting, it was not a good weekend down there. Sending love to everyone.

Thank you Katie for always reminding us to spread love and hosting this wonderful link up.

Fortunately, I had a pretty good weekend. I started Friday night with a swim. I was so antsy at work and it seemed like half my office took the day off for a graduation or vacation. Later in the evening I spent a lot of time reflecting and having a good talk (via text) with my fiance. Though it didn’t seem like it at the time, it really set me up for a great weekend.

Saturday morning I headed to Yoga on the Banks in the city. It was a nice vinyasa class, more to my pace than recent yoga classes I have attended. It was also beautiful weather and I had some time to read outside before it started.

In the afternoon, I ran errands and spent some time in the kitchen, my happy place. I did some baking including making Ms. Spoons recipe, because when you buy 2lbs of strawberries, why not make strawberry chia jam?!

I enjoyed the evening by working on some blog stuff and watching The Prince and Me.

Sunday morning I was all sorts of productive cleaning up the apartment and working on meal prep in the morning. From chicken in the crock pot to roasting sweet potatoes (yes I use the oven when it’s 90 degrees outside…grateful I have good AC).

I taught yoga at noon and then stopped at Target (why is Target next to my gym…way too convenient). I should not have walked down that chocolate aisle, but these were delicious with my snack style lunch.

In the afternoon, I enjoyed 3 hours at the pool. It may have been 90 degrees but it was so windy that I actually didn’t feel hot most of the time I was there and in the end, I was busy chatting with 4 new friends. As I type this, I still can’t tell if my face burned. I tried to reapply sunscreen but definitely didn’t do every spot and like I said, I didn’t feel too hot but drinking tons of water just to refuel from the sun time anyway.

Once I got home, I threw together a quick stir fry, basically this recipe plus some baby corn and water chestnuts and minus the quinoa because I didn’t want to wait around for that to cook.

Sometimes I think I’m cooking for a family, but in actuality this is my dinner 3 nights this week.

That pretty much wraps up the weekend. I am feeling ready for a new week and hope I can keep up with my productive attitude. No Netflix in the morning really helps.

What did you do this weekend?

Yoga, Sweet Treats and More: MIMM #74

June 6, 2016 by Alicia 4 Comments

Happy Monday!! This weekend was a good one. For some reason, Sunday felt super long. I think it was due to all the clouds rolling in and the storm coming through but I felt pretty productive which was good. As I sit here writing this, I am waiting on the rain and thunder to start.

Friday after work, I headed to the yoga studio in the city that I checked out last month for a class. Since I always have a bit of time before and was craving a cupcake, I found a new to me cupcake place that happens to be 2 blocks from the yoga studio (convenient right?), Sweet Box. I recently discovered my other favorite cupcake location in Philly closed AND the cupcake truck that used to come on Fridays is just doing private events now, so it’s getting harder to fill my summer cupcake cravings. I guess I will just have to start making my own cupcakes or something. For now though, that Sweet Box cupcake hit the spot. I actually waited until after yoga and after I got home to eat it. Talk about the torture of waiting 3.5 hours, but it was worth it for pictures and to eat it more neatly on a plate with a fork.

sweet box cookies and creme — cookies and creme cupcake

Saturday morning, I decided to check out a free yoga class in the city at Franklin Square. Franklin Square is also currently set up for a Chinese Lantern Festival all summer. The festival takes place in the evening so that you can see all the lanterns lit, but it was cool to see them during the daylight as well and read a bit about symbolism of panda bears and flowers in China.

As I headed back to the train station, I decided to stop in Reading Terminal Market for some fruit and pick up a donut. It’s hard to resist the delicious donuts there and I needed something to tie me over until I could get lunch. As I paid for my donut, the cashier noticed my yoga mat and said “yoga and donuts?” I quickly responded “yep.” It’s all about balance isn’t it? Friday was actually National Donut Day, so I was a day late but the donut was delicious.

apple cider donut and watching them make the donuts

Thank goodness I decided to get that donut too because it was about 4 hours until I ate again. I took the train home and headed to Wegmans to shop. I ended up picking up some veggie sushi for a quick lunch but didn’t eat until I got home.

After snacking for a while, I put on my swim suit and headed to the pool. By then it was almost 5pm and most people were packing up. I jumped in once but mostly just enjoyed the end of day sunlight and read for an hour at the pool. Enjoy this picture for the next few months.

I walked back home and decided to make Lindsay’s recent cauliflower fried rice recipe. I do not usually put fruit in recipes, but I did love the sweet and savory flavor the pineapple gave. A great quick and easy meal.

I followed that up with some blueberry breakfast cookies. I’m participating in the 2016 Summer Sweat Series with Lee and Monique. I am not 100% following the meal plan. I am also aiming to do the workouts 3-4 days a week as I also fit in yoga and swimming for workouts. It will be good to change up my weight routine a bit and adding some of their workouts in. Plus I love the motivation in the Facebook group with like-minded people.

Saturday certainly went by in a blink, but Sunday felt much slower. After breakfast, I found a quick stability ball workout on Pinterest to do at home and then got to work doing some meal prepping.

I taught yoga at noon and then shopped at Target, where I stocked up on sunscreen and actually purchased some new beach towels which will mostly be used at the pool. I just felt the need for some nicer and larger pool towels.

I spent a couple hours in the kitchen as I continued to meal prep and clean up as I went along. The kitchen really is my happy place. I don’t even know how many hours I spend in the kitchen in a weekend, but when I am in the kitchen making food and prepping everything, I am definitely in my happy place. Sometimes I wish I could continue cooking all day long, but then I would have WAY too much food for myself.

Since it still wasn’t raining, I decided to head out for a quick walk and check out the river. The wind was picking up and the river was at high tide. It was nice to get out and get some fresh air.

When I came back, I worked on this post and then it was time for dinner. I’m thinking of making this chickpea avocado salad.

Since I’m doing more meal planning these days and prepping a lot ahead of time, I am thinking of doing a post each week on my tentative meal plan. It has definitely been a learning experience planning for just 1 person and trying to not overbuy and waste food, etc. I am still learning since I try to make at least 1 new recipe a week, but I feel like I am getting better with it and planning some more flexible days for leftovers, etc. Let me know if you would be interested.

Memorial Day Weekend 2016 MIMM#73

May 30, 2016 by Alicia 1 Comment

Happy Memorial Day everyone!! Hopefully you are enjoying a day off or enjoying some good grilled eats. Unfortunately my apartment complex doesn’t allow grilling (though there were a couple people breaking the rules) so no cook outs for me, but I did have a great weekend.

I actually stayed late at work on Friday while most people left around 3 or 4pm. I had some things I was behind on and knew I could not stay late Tuesday so had to get them done. After work, I still headed out to the gym for a swim. It had been about 2 weeks since my last swim and I was a bundle of energy from sitting all day. Some people get tired from sitting all day, I get antsy. I got in a good mile swim, straight through minus clearing my fogging goggles a few times. After that 70^th lap (1 mile), I started to feel some foot cramps starting so I took it slow and got to 80 laps before calling it a night.

I arrived home shortly after Brian arrived which was perfect. We watched some 30 Rock while I snacked and called it a night pretty early. I was beat by 9:30 lol.

Saturday morning, the sun had me up early and eventually my growling stomach got me out of bed to make breakfast. In the morning we headed to Penn’s landing in the city as Brian had not been there before. Wow it was so different at 10am with not many people around. It was a hot day getting up to 90 degrees but we walked and walked. I realized nothing was really open at Penn’s Landing until noon and so we walked a mile past it to check out Federal Donuts. I had read great reviews on them. I got a strawberry lavender donut. It was hot off the fryer which maybe isn’t so smart on a hot day, but it was delicious!

Since it was nearly lunch time and we were no where near the train station, I remembered a friend had recommended a Mexican restaurant, Cantina Los Caballitos, not too far from us so we decided to go there. I filled up on chips and a mojito pretty quickly, but I also got an arugula salad with chicken. The salad was good, but the chicken was overdone, so I could have done without that. Besides the chicken, our meals and drinks were delicious.

After that, we walked to Reading Terminal Market, about another 2 miles. It was definitely a good thing that we had just eaten. Not a good idea to go in there really hungry. I decided to pick up some fruit since it is cheaper there. The best part of taking the subway downtown is that you can pick it up from a different spot to go home. It worked out well since there was a station next to Reading Terminal.

We got home around 3 and relaxed for a bit deciding what to do.

After a bit of a nap (that sun tires you out), we stopped at Chick-fil-A for dinner and then headed to the movies to see Alice Through the Looking Glass. Despite the reviews online, we both enjoyed the movie, so if you were asking me whether to see the movie or not, I would say see it.

Even though we had definitely eaten enough for the day, we stopped at Rita’s Ice on the way home. I have been in Philly for 2 years, but this was my first Rita’s ice. I went with lemon flavor and Brian got custard. We enjoyed sitting outside for a bit by the water while we ate them.

Sunday morning started with some protein pancakes followed by grocery shopping and meal prep before I headed out to teach yoga. Once I got home, I had some lunch and then we got sunscreened up for the pool. We decided to enjoy the weather in the late afternoon at the pool since there are storms for today.

A couple hours at the pool in the sun was perfect. We came back and I had a salad for dinner prepared and cooked up some sausages. I also made a nice grapefruit drink.

While eating dinner we watching Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl and relaxed on the couch for the evening.

It is great to have an extra day to my weekend. I finished all my meal prep yesterday and today is expected to be quite rainy so we plan to head to the mall and walk around, check out sales and possibly enjoy some Mexican food at our favorite place.

Do you have any Memorial Day traditions?

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