weekend – Page 22

Massage, Fuller House and Walks: MIMM#60

February 29, 2016 by Alicia 1 Comment

Happy Leap Day!! Since I can only say that once every 4 years I thought it was perfect for an introduction. It’s strange to think that 4 years ago I was in my last semester of college. While post college life has not been easy, sometimes it seems like it is flying by a little too quickly, like wasn’t I just in college?!

Anyway here we are starting another week and heading into a new month tomorrow. The last two weeks I honestly forgot at times that it was February, because we have had some teasers with the weather. Yesterday was over 60 degrees and I can’t wait for everyday to be more than 60 degrees. Only 20 days until Spring, YAY!!

Well I would say the weekend started out pretty well. Actually lets back up to Friday morning when I was super lucky and didn’t have a tree land on my car. Totally serious. I headed to the gym at 5am and one road I went down, I noticed a tree hanging over the road pretty low, my car basically just cleared it, I heard branches on the roof a bit, but it was fine. I get to the gym, workout, really enjoying stretching it out afterwards that I even stay about 5 minutes later than normal. I start heading back to my apartment at 6, get back on that road and as I round the corner, I see the car ahead of me stop, put on his flashers and hop out of the car. The car in front of him ended up with part of the tree landing on their hood. So I stop, put on my flashers and hop out in case they need more hands, but the guy ahead of me got it, lifting the tree a bit so the car could back up and be in the clear. The road is only 2 lanes (1 each way) and the tree had fallen across the whole road. So that car was finally in the clear, in need of a new hood though, and we all turned around and took a different way. I arrived home 20 minutes later than planned, but happy my car and I were safe. I really do thank God that I was so lucky that morning.

I was running around and planning for a later train even if that meant being 10 minutes late to work. I am not a person who likes to be late, but I needed a bit more time to eat and get ready.

I head out for the train around 7:20. I was aiming for the 7:40 and when I arrived at the station, I noticed familiar faces that usually ride my usual 7:21 train. I am not sure if the train was completely packed or didn’t show, but I got to the station when the 7:28 arrived a few minutes late and there were actually tons of seats available too. It is always a plus when a seat is available. So I didn’t have to wait and I got a seat. I really was having a great morning. I was happy that I was so happy as earlier in the week I was kind of meh. Was wonderful to be out of that funk.

Then it was time to work. After work I stopped at Athleta and found some new pants (they sent me $10 off to my email and they won (since I made a purchase)…but the pants were on the sale rack too which helped). I also learned that you can sign up for a discount if you are a yoga teacher but it doesn’t include sale items of course. Still, I signed up.

elephant trunk yoga — attempting elephant trunk pose in my new pants

I then had my monthly massage, though it was with a new person whom is great but does not do the same kind of variety that the other person I liked did. I was quite relaxed afterwards though and then Brian picked me up from the train station. I watched an episode of Fuller House, another great thing about my Friday, and we headed to bed at 9:30, because we are getting old.

Saturday, we grocery shopped, ate lunch at a Chinese Buffet, washed my car (so needed), napped for an hour and explored Neshaminy State Park. I forgot that park was literally 6 miles down the road from us. I didn’t even realize they had a swimming pool in the summer. I definitely need to check that out. It was a bit breezy so one lap around the park was good.

For dinner, I made cauliflower pizza crust. It turned out a bit soggy, maybe we have to drain more of the liquid, but otherwise it was very good. I don’t normally like cauliflower either, but in pizza crust form, it was a win.

A few more episodes of Fuller House and then the internet went out. Brian called tech support and we learned that someone in the office deleted all the modems for my apartment community…big oops. Being that the internet was out, Brian found Life of Pi on his laptop and we hooked it up to the tv and enjoyed the movie.

Sunday morning Brian dealt with the internet company again as it was still out. I think it came back about an hour after his call. Mid morning I headed to Target and then taught at the gym. I think I am slowly getting more confident with teaching. I thought the class went well.

I arrived back home and it was super sunny and 60 degrees so eventually I dragged Brian outside to go for a walk and we enjoyed the fresh air and talking.

Inside for the rest of the afternoon, blogging and reading. I am reading Spirit Junkie and loving it!

Did you have nice weather this weekend?

New Recipes and Relaxed Weekend: MIMM#59

February 22, 2016 by Alicia 3 Comments

Hello everyone and happy Monday! I can’t believe there is only 1 more week of February left. Though, at the same time, I am ready for March and spring to arrive. The temperatures this weekend were in the high 50s so it was pretty nice. I actually ended up spending most of the weekend indoors relaxing on the couch though as I came down with a terrible cold Wednesday afternoon. My throat was so sore, like hurt to swallow by Thursday, but luckily by Friday the soreness seemed to go away. One downside to working in a city is that you are likely in a tall building. I work on the 32nd floor and when you are sick and your ears pop in the elevator and you can’t unpop them very well. That is not fun! I had to like pretend to yawn to try to actually yawn to unpop them.

This weekend, Friday night after work I headed to Narberth to meet up with a yoga friend. I tried to plan a get together with my teacher training group but it kind of failed as it was just me and 1 other person. She is moving to Charleston at the end of this week so it was nice to see her even if it was just us. We grabbed some dinner and caught up with each other.

Saturday all I had to do was grocery shop and stop at the post office and then I was inside. I did get a lot done considering being on the couch half the day, like laundry and cooking. I decided to make Erin’s vitamin C smoothie to help kick my cold. It was delicious and worth spending $2 on 2 kiwis. I know there are some people that don’t like to drink green things, but isn’t that such a pretty green color?! I feel I should make it for St Patricks Day just because.

I followed that up with more time in the kitchen throughout the day, making 2 Healthy Maven recipes, superseed crackers and sweet potato noodle pad thai. I think besides my blendtec blender, my spiralizer is my second favorite kitchen gadget. Since I love pad thai and sweet potato noodles, it was a match made in heaven. So yummy!!

healthy maven pad thai and superseed crackers — (ignore my terrible egg cooking skills)

This was also my first time making a cracker recipe. I think I could have spread them out a little bit more and gotten them to be a bit more crispy but they are good, even though I kind of feel like I am a bird because I am eating so many seeds. That’s alright though, because when I eat my daily salads I feel like a rabbit. I love my healthy eats. This week I actually joined a 7 day sugar detox challenge. It’s definitely going to be challenging, but since I amazingly avoided the 3 plates of cookies at work on Friday, I think I can do it. I have been trying to work on cutting down on the processed foods and sweets since returning from vacation and so far have felt very successful and my body also thanks me for it.

The rest of the day was pretty low key. I did some stretching. I actually just got a new exercise band after watching Alessandra, Fit Girl Moves on Youtube. She recently started a Mobility Monday’s series. I love to lift, but need to work on mobility especially in my hips for squats.

working on ankle mobility and lunge form

Yoga helps some but I think her exercises will help me with my lifting more if I incorporate them. She also did an ankle video and mobility in my ankles really lacks, as last summer I tried to work on running, my ankles would kill me. I am no runner yet. I think I worked up to running 4 minutes without stopping. I am sure mobility exercises will help me. I definitely recommend her videos if you are a fitness lover.

Sunday morning I was excited to make pancakes. I had run out of almond milk so couldn’t make them Saturday morning. I also discovered sprinkles in the bulk bin section on Saturday so sprinkles on my pancakes was a must on Sunday with some peanut butter and banana.

I got a much needed almost 10 hours of sleep on Saturday night and was finally feeling closer to myself on Sunday. I enjoyed some yoga stretching and then decided to play with arm balances. Glad to know that after 3 full rest days, I haven’t lost too much strength.

I then headed to the gym to teach yoga. I totally overdressed, not realizing it was nearly 60 outside. I made it through the class and then headed home. Since it was so nice outside, I changed jackets and then enjoyed a nice walk around the apartment complex.

Around 2:30 I finally put some lunch together, left over pad thai and broccoli.

The rest of Sunday was pretty uneventful. I made some chicken in my crockpot for the week and enjoyed reading on the couch and relaxing before the work week.

I’m hoping to get to the gym this morning and get back into my routine this week after a few days off.

Do you enjoy trying new recipes?

How did you spend your weekend?

Cold Weekend Relaxing Indoors: MIMM#58

February 15, 2016 by Alicia 2 Comments

Good morning everyone. Happy President’s Day!! Do you have off of work today? I do and I am happy to spend another day sleeping in (which pretty much means I am up at 7:30am). I had a pretty good balance of productive and relaxing weekend.

Friday night I caught up with my parents and a couple friends on the phone which was nice. Saturday was my super productive run-all-the-errands day. I decided to go to the gym shortly after 8am and then came home to change and head to Cherry Hill. I wanted to see the movie “How to be Single.” Being that I am cheap and a morning person, I went to the first showing of the day at 10:10am. I was only the third person in the whole theater! By the way for this weekend it was just me, myself and I for Valentine’s, but that was OK as I had a growing to do list. Brian wasn’t around but we will celebrate next time he comes down.

I enjoyed the movie and then went to get my groceries at Wegmans. Oh and besides the cold, which I knew about in the forecast, it decided to snow while I was in the movie so I came out of the movie and had to brush off my car. There was definitely no snow in the forecast. In fact when I checked in the morning it said 0% precipitation…lies. At least I have snow tires and it only stuck a little but the wind kept blowing it away.

So I drive over to Wegmans and it is crowded so finding a parking spot was tough, but then I finally see one open and then I notice 3 shopping carts half in the space. Like really?! I mean I realize it was towards the back of the lot and it is cold, but really?! It annoys me that people can’t run over and put their cart where it belongs. Luckily I could still fit my car in the spot and left room for the carts but then, the nice person I am, I dragged those 3 carts (which is hard to steer and my hands were freezing) to the cart spot where a Wegmans worker was rounding up the carts anyway and happily took them from me. My good deed for the day. I mean with the wind we had, I didn’t want these carts running into my car or the other people’s cars they were all next to.

Anyway I got my shopping done and headed home. By then it was well past lunch time so time to eat. I worked on my yoga sequence and practiced some yoga for 30 minutes.

Then I headed back into the cold to go to Staples and Kohls. Luckily they are in the same plaza and while I would usually walk between them, it was too cold for that Saturday and I drove between them.

I finally organized my yoga sequences I have been writing into a binder, which was my reason for going to Staples. It helped to clean up all the papers on my desk. Felt good to see a bit more of my desk and be more organized.

I cooked up a hamburger for dinner and then made some muffins for a little valentine’s treat.

I then spent the evening watching a movie on Netflix and then Skyping with Brian for a bit before bed.

Sunday was less eventful. I was productive in the morning with cleaning and working on some blog posts, but then I just decided to read for a bit. I mean that isn’t totally lazy at least. I am almost done with the book Bossypants by Tina Fey and if you haven’t read it, go pick it up now, or buy the paperback for like $5 on Amazon. Seriously so good. I can’t put it down and that is rare for me and books.

I didn’t want to leave and enter the cold 8 degrees feels like -8 temps, but I had to teach yoga. I decided to go a bit early and walk a mile on the treadmill to warm up a bit and so I didn’t feel so lazy looking at my lack of steps on my fitbit for the day. I really like walking on the treadmill for a bit before yoga as it does warm my body up especially with the cold weather. There were 16 brave soles that came to yoga and I had a wonderful heart opening sequence for them for Valentine’s Day.

After yoga, I came back home, ate a snack like lunch and then continued reading Bossypants. One thing I was happy about with the weather was that at least it was sunny. In the morning, the sun shines into my bedroom and warms it up (where I hung out with my book in the morning) and then the early afternoon it comes more into the living room. So I probably looked weird, but I was just sitting on the floor or my foam roller and reading in the sunlight by my patio door. Yep, that’s what I do, chase the sun around my apartment. I can’t wait for summer and soaking it up outside by the pool.

Feeling like I needed to do something, I got into the kitchen and marinated some turkey cutlets and then baked them in the oven. I have to experiment with the bake time a bit as I think they got a bit over done, but still tasty. I put together a great dinner plate (in my opinion) as I celebrated self love for Valentine’s day and fueling my body with clean eats.

Do you like my heart tomatoes?

I still felt like I needed something more since it was Valentine’s and all, so I decided to whip up Jenn’s cupcakes. I actually first made these last year as a late valentine’s celebration dinner with Brian and they were amazing. I saved the other two for today probably after dinner. I used the peanut butter frosting recipe but lightened it up only using 1/2 cup of powdered sugar so my frosting was a bit more liquidy than I would have liked, should have decreased the milk too, but it was still perfectly peanut butter like.

I ended the night watching Gilmore Girls and reading some more before bed.

Saturday flew by being in and out of the car, but Sunday was slower paced and it was perfect to have that balance. Today’s to do list includes making a couple more yoga sequences as I teach tonight and tomorrow night and planning to go to the gym mid morning for a zumba class that I can never go to because of work. I love working out on holidays! Probably will do some weights too.

Do you have today off? If so, what are your plans?

Did you celebrate Valentine’s Day?

The Snow is Melting!! MIMM #56

February 1, 2016 by Alicia 4 Comments

Happy Monday!! Today is a particularly marvelous Monday because I am heading to Disney world tonight. YAY!! I swear I have been trying to get there for like 3 years now and really want to see Harry Potter World at Universal too. Finally it is happening. I am working part of the day before taking the train to the airport today. So besides this post, I plan to be MIA the rest of the week but you can always find me on Instagram (@ilabk or my blog Instagram @bridgesthroughlife).

It’s so weird to think that a week ago (when I am writing this on Sunday) I was digging my car out of 22 inches of snow and now, the snow is melting away so quickly.

We had temperatures above freezing everyday this week and many sunny days, which I am loving. Temperatures overnight are still below freezing so the morning isn’t fun when all the melted snow turns to icy sidewalks. Luckily my apartment has a shuttle bus to the train so I have been taking that as there aren’t really sidewalks to the train. In the city walking to my office building there are some places becoming icy but hopefully most of the snow will be melted in the next week other than the massive piles.

Anyway onto the weekend. Friday was pretty low key. I heated up some soup for dinner, watched Along Came Polly and nearly fell asleep on the couch before 9pm…yeah I’m boring.

Saturday morning, I headed to Wegmans, wished them a Happy Birthday

and managed to spend over my weekly budget of groceries even though I was just restocking staples because I am headed on vacation. I guess that’s what happens when you are snowed in and haven’t gone grocery shopping in a week and a half though…

I came back home, did some laundry, had a snack and then went to the gym to sub a yoga class. After class one guy came up to me and said “wow, you’re the real deal, that was challenging.” Sometimes (OK all the time) I stress so much about making the yoga sequence and having it be long enough and wondering if I am explaining the poses well enough. I set a pretty high standard for myself but I know it will all come with practice and slowly I am getting more comfortable teaching. Having great comments like this helps me feel better about my yoga teaching because I definitely don’t consider myself a power yoga teacher and I like to keep my voice at a calm tone. I think it is great that I can still get the class breaking a sweat mid way through and have a great cool down session with twists and savasana at the end. It is all about balance and I am going to keep on learning about what works and what doesn’t.

After yoga, I stayed at the gym for zumba which was fun. Then I did little shopping at Target (the bad part about Target being next to the gym is it is just so convenient to stop there more when I teach).

I came home and Brian had arrived shortly before me. I made some sausage for a late lunch and we enjoyed a laid back afternoon on the couch, watching Netflix.

Before I knew it, it was dinner time, I got some good looking zucchini at the store and had to spiralize that up. Cooked up the rest of the sausage and roasted a sweet potato. I also had some avocados to use, so I used one and made an avocado sauce for the zoodles. OMG avocado + zoodles = AMAZING!!

After dinner, to get ourselves up and moving, we headed to the mall to walk around a bit. After that I was so tired, but we drove around for a bit and then as we were almost home, there was an accident or something closing the road, there were multiple police cars, firetrucks, an ambulance, it had to be bad. I tried to search for something on the news online because it was only a few months ago that someone was killed on that same curve with a hit and run, but I couldn’t find anything. Anyway, we had to turn around and come down the opposite end of the street and finally made it home.

Sunday morning it was nice to sleep in a bit longer. I made pancakes for breakfast and then started to pack before heading out to teach yoga at noon. When I got home, we went out to lunch at Muscle Maker Grill. I got a delicious quinoa, kale and chicken wrap.

We came home and it was so nice outside we decided to open the windows and air out the apartment and clean a bit. Always nice to clean before vacation because then you don’t get overwhelmed when you return. In the evening, I made the same dinner as Saturday night because Brian enjoyed it so much and then we parked it on the couch for the night.

I hope everyone has a great week and I will be back next week with vacation recaps.

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