Hey there!! Did you know summer came back? It was 85 degrees here yesterday according to my car!! That’s at least 20 degrees warmer than last weekend. Insane!! I washed my shorts Saturday thinking I was washing them for the last time and putting them away, but no, I had to get them out again for Sunday as it was too hot trying to wear jeans.

                Friday night started with a yoga class after work. This will pretty much be regular routine unless I have other plans or Friday happens to fall on month end and I have to stay late at work. When I arrived home, I was home alone and enjoyed a peaceful night with a snack, shower and then curling up in bed. Around 9 one of my friends called me and then we surprisingly talked for nearly an hour. Both of us are early to bed people and being that it was 10:15 when we got off the phone, it was late for both of us.

                Saturday morning I headed off to the gym early (around 8am because that’s early in weekend talk). I worked on my squats, continuing to get back to what I was doing. My hip is not bothering me as much but I am thinking of seeing a physical therapist to help out. I just learned there is a push/pull (bench/deadlift) meet nearby Thanksgiving week and I am thinking of competing. I know with only around 8 weeks or so to train, I won’t be doing anything super heavy, but it’s a good first meet and local. No matter what other people are lifting, it’d be awesome to PR for myself there.

                After the gym, I headed to Wegmans all sweaty. I had quite the list as I was picking up some pumpkin and baking ingredients for a recipe and also out of a few staples. I arrived home and reorganized the fridge to fit all my food. I take over the fridge (not too good at sharing).

                I then had a few phone calls to make and then before I knew it, it was afternoon. I don’t usually talk on the phone much, but if you ever call me, you should set aside around an hour lol.

                I heated up some soup for lunch and then finally showered. At 3, I headed to a wedding with Brian’s aunt and brother. Brian was at work. The wedding was at Oneida Lake, about an hour and a half drive away. I was glad I brought my headphones and I just listened to a podcast both ways to pass the time.

                The wedding was a family member on Brian’s side so I didn’t really know them, but since I went with his aunt and his cousins met up with us there, I at least had a whole table of people I did know. They seriously lucked out on the weather. If the wedding was last weekend, we would have been so cold, but this weekend, the weather could not have been more perfect. Oh and they had a smores bar, so I was set!! Actually there were some issues getting the firepit going, but luckily Brian’s brother helped. I first had a smore without a melted marshmallow and then I had a nice roasted marshmellow one after that. It was delicious. Since we left before they cut the cake, it was a nice dessert. The cake they had was so cute and then they had cupcakes. I like the idea of a small cake and cupcakes, but now I’m thinking for my wedding just to skip the cake and have a smores bar if possible. That or a cookie cake. No need to be traditional.

                There was a beautiful sunset up on the lake as well. I didn’t bring my big camera so the phone picture doesn’t really do it justice, but it had the perfect pink hue.

                We got home around 10pm and I headed to bed right away.

                Saturday night the bedroom was a bit warm so I had trouble sleeping. I got up at 7, had some breakfast and then went to an early yoga class. With it being warmer outside, I was sweating so much. We also did quite a few arm balances and I really enjoyed getting back into that.

                When I came home from yoga, I went right to the kitchen. I made some turkey burgers, broccoli and roasted zucchini for the week. Then I made these chickpea pumpkin bars to bring over to my co worker’s house for a Pink Zebra party. Despite thinking the bars were under cooked, people loved them. Plus my co workers are big weight watchers fans and these were pretty healthy with the protein powder and chickpeas.

                I also changed up the recipe and made a vegan version, just swapping the egg whites for flax eggs and then swapping the protein powder for a vegan vanilla protein powder. I had a few issues blending it up because my vegan protein powder has chia seeds in it and I think those sucked up the wet ingredients a bit more. I added more pumpkin and some water to blend it. Then when I baked it, it just wasn’t firming up. I baked it like 10 minutes extra and then let it sit for a while and stuck it in the fridge until dinner.

                The afternoon was spent at my co worker’s Pink Zebra party. I hadn’t heard of Pink Zebra before, but basically it is a company that makes different fragrances and they sell the wax pieces as “sprinkles” so you can use them to build your own candle, for simmer pots and more. They are versatile which is cool. I am not a big fragrance person but I do like the seasonal scents. I ended up just making a candle with a pine scent. It smells just like Christmas and since we won’t have a tree this year, I wanted something pine to smell.

                It was fun to smell a bunch of scents. I was actually surprised at home many I liked, but I don’t have a space for a simmer pot and I am sharing a house so I didn’t want to get those this time. The candle is nice because with the sprinkles of pine, it smells without even burning it. Just having it in the cup holder of my car, my car smelled so good driving home.

                Oh and the drive to the party was about a half hour. An easy drive, but the upstate NY scenary was beautiful, especially as the leaves are starting to change. If you ever want to destress, just take a drive along the country side. The beautiful sunny weather also helped a ton.

                When I got back home, I had to take advantage of the nice weather and finally wash/scrub my car windshield a bit. There were way too many bug guts that took some scrubbing. Now it looks so much nicer!!

                After dinner I brought out my experiment vegan bars. Per suggestion of Brian’s aunt, I added a bit of flour to them and turned them into decent sized cookies and stuck them in the oven for 10 minutes. By then, they were more edible and firmed up more. I will have to play with the recipe.

                I was stuffed after dinner and had a calm night prepping for work by making my lunch and making my smoothie for morning.

 

What is one fun thing you did this weekend?

Did it feel like summer by you?

The first quiet weekend since the beginning of August, so I soaked it all in. I’m off work today so I plan to go to the gym, do some yoga at home and probably bake something.

Friday at work was month end close so I was fairly busy. Luckily, we were able to leave shortly after 3 still which I was surprised and happy about.

 I kicked off the weekend with some chocolate almond milk soft serve on the way home. This was part 1 of my weird dinner combo.

I then had a few slices of cheese and some chips and salsa for dinner haha!

                Since I was home early, I had a bit of down time to work on my computer for a bit and then I headed to 6pm yoga. I was feeling pretty good since I had my second chiropractor appointment during lunch and the chiropractor said my spine seemed 1000% better compared to Tuesday’s visit. My back has also felt better so hoping I am on the road to recovery but don’t want to jump into weights too fast. I did light squats on Thursday morning and I was DEFINITELY feeling it on Friday in my quads. It had been almost 3 weeks since I last did squats.

                Yoga Friday night though was absolutely what I needed! The vinyasa class went by so quickly. Like I didn’t look at my watch until an hour had gone by and then I knew we only had 15 minutes and I didn’t want it to end. Normally I find myself stare at my watch and only 20 minutes has gone by and I wonder how I will survive the class, but this class was good.

                When I got home from yoga class, I finished working on a project on my computer and then watched New Girl on Netflix until finally getting sleepy.

                Saturday morning was wonderful since I got to sleep in. I didn’t have somewhere to be until 10am so I enjoyed sleeping in until 7 with no dogs around. I got up and made some breakfast and did some meal planning thanks to the help of Pinterest.

                A quiet weekend to myself means cooking and baking. Also with the morning temps of 45 degrees, I no longer can feel bad for warming up the house with the oven to roast veggies or bake something.

                I decided to go shopping for a bit before my hair cut appointment. I was really looking for more work pants and even though I tried on the same brand at Kohls, I seem to be in between sizes now and that is just super frustrating. Well I walked out with a sweater and a shirt at least. I then headed to Dick’s sporting goods. I am getting a bit bored with some of my workout tops lately since I pretty much live in workout clothes when not at work. It was actually strange that I wore a normal shirt and jeans on Saturday to run these errands. I didn’t find any shirts, but I did find a sports bra half off and some of my sports bras are a few years old so quite worn. I am trying to not accumulate too many clothes as I don’t really have the space so I am going to try to get rid of some as I get new things.

                Finally it was time for my hair cut appointment across the street. I last got my hair cut in March while staying in a hostel in Australia, so my hair was due. I got a couple inches off but it’s always hard to tell until I wash it and it curls. I enjoyed the straight hair for the day though as it doesn’t tangle when it is straightened.

                After that I went to Wegmans with a long list! I had some time to meal plan some recipes this week and knowing I would be home alone and responsible for my food got me excited. Cooking and baking are great therapy!

                When I got home, I put together some lunch. I had to eat up some spinach and cheese in the fridge and bought some veggie sushi. Somehow I went vegetarian for both breakfast and lunch. After I finished eating my sister facetimed me just to say hello and we had some catching up to do. It was nice to talk to her for a bit and see her new bedroom and house for the year while she is in her last year of college in Iowa.

                In the afternoon I was motivated to do some organizing. I decided to move the bookshelf into our new bedroom and organize my pantry items into baskets. I quickly drove to Target, which was a madhouse of college students, and picked up two brown baskets that work nicely to keep my snacks in place.

                I then roasted some veggies for dinner and put together a delicious meal. This time with some meat, a turkey burger I had in the freezer.

                After dinner, I spent most of the night watching Netflix. I just didn’t feel like doing anything more productive in the evening.

                Sunday morning I slept until 6:45. That seems to be the time my body is ready to wake up no matter when I go to bed on the weekend. I made some protein pancakes for breakfast and then headed off to the gym.

I need to make some new workouts, but as I slowly get back to what I was working on, I decided to do squats again today and increase the weights. Still not at the weight I was doing before, but getting there. The workout felt much better today. My back is feeling much better, just having some issues with my right hip still. Trying to focus on my hips being even as I think I was leaning into one side more without noticing before. A band around my thighs is helping me so I have been doing that and then some more glute bridges just to strengthen the area.

                I left the gym with some free tomatoes. Back when I first joined the gym in May, the same guy gave me raspberry plants which have really taken off being outside in all the rain. No raspberries that I know of yet, but the plants are much bigger than before. I’m thankful for the rain at times because that means I haven’t needed to remember to water the plant.

                When I got home, I decided to take a bath. Home alone for the weekend has its benefits. I put on Yoga Girl’s podcast and enjoyed listening along and soaking in the salt bath.

                After my bath, I decided to get my file drawer from the basement. I actually forgot I still had that. I had to empty some junk from the drawers (that happens when you leave empty things in the basement) and then it was a challenge getting it up the stairs alone, but I managed. I grabbed my box of files and did some organizing.

                Once I was finished with that, it was nearly lunch time. I decided to look up a vegan cauliflower pizza crust and make that with some tomatoes and veggies on top. I ended up making a totally vegan pizza, which you are probably thinking that’s not pizza because no cheese, but yes it was just veggies and some grapeseed oil drizzled on.

                Honestly the pizza turned out so pretty but eating it was another story and not very pizza like. The crust crumbled, as cauliflower crust tends to do and I ate my veggie mix with a fork. I do have to say I think that was the best cauliflower pizza crust I have made. However it was only my second or third time making cauliflower crust, first time that it was vegan. The crust baked really well and had I topped with pizza sauce and cheese, might have held up better.

                In other cooking news, Brian’s mom didn’t want her food processor so FINALLY after years of saying I should buy one, I got one without having to actually buy one. I brought that up from the basement (we don’t have much kitchen storage) and made some vegan cookie dough bars.

                I’m not a huge fan of dates, but I liked this recipe as the dates were not overpowering. I cut up the bars after letting them set in the freezer and wrapped them individually and put them back in the freezer for an easy grab and go snack. 

                The afternoon was mostly spent doing some reading. I also snacked a lot so I wasn’t super hungry for dinner but had some chicken and beans to keep me full.

                I wrapped up the evening by doing some writing and reflecting before getting back to New Girl on Netflix. Overall a much needed to myself weekend. I thought about traveling somewhere for my 3 day weekend, but I’m glad I stayed home. With Sunday being rainy most of the day too, it was a good day to spend inside cooking.

 

What’s your favorite thing to do when you are home alone?