weekend – Page 3

Ice Cream, Lasagna and a Workout

March 18, 2019 by Alicia 1 Comment

This weekend began with a 60 degree day on Friday. I was able to take a short walk at lunch and it was hard to return to work. Friday was also the day the local ice cream place opened and I was looking forward to my almond milk soft serve again. Since the weather was beautiful, the lines were long. Luckily they had all 3 windows open, but it still took me a good 20-30 minutes to get my ice cream. The wait was worth it though and the sun was shining.

Ice cream for dinner. I had some sort of snack afterwards, but mainly ice cream was my dinner.

Saturday morning I made some breakfast and enjoyed the morning for a bit before heading out to get groceries. I had a long list as I wanted to make lasagna and needed ingredients for that. Plus we had a very bare fridge.

Once I returned from the store, I had plans to take my stats quiz so I refreshed my memory on the lessons from the past month only to discover that the quiz wouldn’t be unlocked until Monday…bummer. I prefer to take the quizzes on the weekend to get them out of the way, but stats is annoying in that assignments and quizzes are locked so you almost can’t work ahead. Anyway, with that aside, the day became a day to focus on marketing instead.

At noon, I got my haircut and nice and straight. I also made a quick run over to Target for laundry detergent. I am getting low and noticed Cartwheel had 5% off Tide. In addition, they had a deal if you buy 2 you got a $5 gift card, so I felt like I was winning at the deals. You know you are an adult when you get excited about sales on laundry detergent…

When I got home, I had some lunch and then sat on the couch for a while reading the next two marketing chapters. They take me a while to read and take notes. The notes help me for the quizzes later for quick reference. Online classes definitely spoil me with open notes, but when you think about it, in a job, you usually can reference notes.

The mail arrived shortly after 4 and distracted me from my reading. I ordered a Go Pro on Amazon, basically a late Christmas present/early birthday present. I also got a couple new tank tops and a sweater from Kohls that arrived too. I literally purchased the softest, comfiest tank top from Kohl’s last summer. I thought these were similar, but the fabric is a little different. They still fit great and I love them, but you know when you purchase something and fall in love with it over the next few months and then can’t find it again? Ugh clothes shopping is so difficult. These tanks will definitely get used though between the gym, Aruba honeymoon and summertime. Also I love the black sweater for work. I think I was also to score the same one I have from a couple years ago and I usually wear it everyday to work to the point that the elbows wear through.

Somehow dinner time came up fast. Brian made fajitas and I made some guacamole to top it with. We watched Simpsons for a while as we don’t have a current show we are interested in together. Then Brian started a movie, but I was quickly falling asleep.

Sunday morning we took it slow. I was amazed I slept past 7am, but I think with the time change it’s easier to sleep past 6am now that the sun doesn’t rise until after 7. I made some eggs for breakfast. Brian had his coffee and we eased into the morning. We headed to the gym around 9:30 (which used to be the time I was leaving from the gym on Sunday). Usually the gym starts to get more crowded around 10am which is why I prefer to go earlier, but due to the St Patrick’s day holiday, the gym was quite quiet and I didn’t mind taking my time there. I got in some awesome squats and pause deadlifts. Then I had fun playing on the pull up bars. I managed 4 chin ups in a row, which is a new PR for me. I also think my pull up PR is 4 in a row. I guess it’s time to aim for 5 or 6 for each. I have been working on pull ups off and on the last couple years, but I forgot about flipping my grip for chin ups. I couldn’t even get one a couple months ago unassisted, so to hop up on the bar and do 4 Sunday was amazing. I can definitely tell my arm muscles are growing.

By the time we got home, it was lunch time. Leftover fajitas worked perfectly. Then it was time to buckle down and work on my next Marketing paper. The nice thing is the papers are group projects, so by the time we split everything up, I only write a few paragraphs, which is way easier than finding all the research for an entire paper. My team is also awesome, which helps.

After a couple good hours of work and checking off my to dos, I had a bit of time before dinner where I finally made my lasagna and was able to snack on it. I made a vegan ricotta cheese so basically it’s tofu with nutritional yeast, tahini and a couple seasonings. I did use real mozzarella cheese in my lasagna, but went light on it. Next time I may try to get the vegan mozzarella. My stomach does better with dairy free. I cooked sausage in the lasagna and there was tons of tomato sauce. The recipe called for a 12 inch skillet and we only have 10 inch and 6 or 8 inch, so I used one of each and the little one is so cute. I definitely will be experimenting with this recipe again.

I think my favorite part of the weekend was seeing so much sunshine. It was deceiving though with the 30 degree temps, but it was nice to enjoy the sun in my office and living room. Hopefully soon it will warm up again. I am looking forward to summer weekends already.

Have you made skillet lasagna before?

Cornbread and Chili Weekend

March 11, 2019 by Alicia Leave a Comment

This was a great weekend. I was more relaxed than I have been in the last few weeks. Maybe the fact that I was on “spring break” with school helped a lot. I was worrying throughout the week about all the upcoming assignments, but at the same time I also had 2 weeks to get to most of them. I relaxed a lot in the evenings and spent more time with Brian just talking on the couch. Brian is constantly telling me I need to slow down as I can be go go go all the time, but he is right and I know it. I was glad to slow down this week and head into the weekend with a good mood.

Friday night we had leftovers for dinner and then I found the movie Christopher Robin on Netflix so we watched that. It started slow, but then we both got into the movie and it was nice to watch Winnie the Pooh again. We winded down the night with a drink since we had some fresh mint to use. I rarely drink, but sometimes it’s nice for a Friday night. I was quite relaxed and falling asleep before it was even 9pm.

Saturday morning I woke up with the sun shining into the bedroom. Brian had his last scuba class in the morning and I headed to Target and Wegmans for shopping. Easter is late this year, but I managed to wait until it was March at least to get my favorite Easter peanut butter egg m&m’s. I still haven’t opened them and plan to wait a while, so I hid them in the cupboard.

When I got home, I started to make skillet cornbread. I looked up a vegan recipe, though the only part I kept vegan was using almond milk. I used real butter and eggs as those don’t typically bother me. The cornbread turned out amazing and it was consumed in one day between me and Brian…yep not sorry.

I was also snacking all morning basically, so cornbread and pita chips became my lunch. I did have some cheese and ham later to snack on too.

Late morning Brian and I headed to Lowe’s to look at blinds. We tried curtains in my office and I just hated them. I like curtains in living rooms and on big windows, but I just didn’t like them in my office. It could have also been the color because it blended with the wall too much. Anyway, I just wanted some new blinds so we found some at Lowe’s and they fit perfectly. I also have never had blinds that don’t have the string to pull them up and down and I’m like a little kid having fun lowering and raising the blinds. My office at this point is complete minus a closet door and new door for the room. I love the trim painted white though and the white blinds.

In the afternoon, I accomplished some Marketing reading and taking the next quiz. I am kinda loving spring break because right now I am doing assignments a week ahead. Then it was time to make dinner. I have had chili on my mind so I looked up an instant pot chili recipe that was super simple. Chili plus the rest of the cornbread for dinner.

While we ate, we watched Incredibles 2 since Brian hadn’t seen it yet. It was fun re watching that movie. I still can’t believe it was 14 years between the two movies, but they did an excellent job with the second.

After that Brian and I couldn’t really agree on what to watch together so I decided to read for a bit. I need to do more reading for fun anyway.

Sunday we lost an hour with the time change which meant I actually “slept in” right?! I was up around 7am (the new 7 as I usually am awake at 6). After laying in bed for a while, I think I got out of bed closer to 8am and was quite hungry. I made some oatmeal and bacon and prepared Brian’s coffee. It was nice to ease into the morning.

I then made some muffins and started chicken in my instapot (slow cooker setting) before we headed to the gym.

I finally feel like I have gotten adequate rest lately as my squats felt better on Sunday. I was able to do a couple sets of 135 lbs before my form was being lost and I dropped back to 130lbs at the end. Then I worked on pause deadlifts and then some “play” with pull ups and chin ups. I was able to get 4 pull ups unassisted in a row which I was quite pleased with. I can tell my arm muscles are growing as certain moves feel easier.

As I waited for Brian to finish up, I did some stretching and headstand play and practice. I am trying to work on being confident to headstand in the middle of a row again. I can get up without touching the wall, but of course having the wall behind you just makes you feel better.

After the gym, Brian and I picked up spedie salads for lunch. The hour time change wasn’t too bad to adjust to. After lunch, I worked on my taxes, no fun. I always end up owing but oh well.

In the afternoon, I went on a cleaning spree with the fridge. Something had spilled and made a mess on a couple shelves and it was really bothering me. Then I started to work on some writing and reading for class. I’m already quite ahead in both of my classes for this coming week, so it shouldn’t be too bad. Also the person on maternity leave comes back today so work should be a bit more relaxed and I can work on my own things again which will be very nice. Brian also starts his new job today too. We will be working at the same place, but in different spots so we probably won’t see each other often, in addition to the fact that we will be working different hours. It will be interesting having him adjust to a 40 hour work week instead of being away and working like 100 hours a week, but it’s also nice to know I can make weekend plans with him months ahead of time.

For dinner we had more cornbread and chili. Since we finished the cornbread in a day on Saturday we had to make more, so we tried another recipe and used a slightly bigger skillet, because apparently I don’t know how to measure skillets…oops. It was a perfect way to end the weekend, eating our cornbread and chili though and relaxing.

Overall this weekend was quite relaxed. I did some homework here and there, but I also got a lot of cleaning done and things off my to do list.

What did you do this weekend?

Weekend Productivity

February 18, 2019 by Alicia 1 Comment

And now we are back to Monday again with another winter weather advisory….writing this up on Sunday night so still undecided if I will end up at the gym this morning. See if any freezing rain comes. Anyway the weekend was quite productive and much better than last weekend when I was just feeling so off all weekend.

I’ve come to the conclusion that my most productive hours of the day are between 6am and 10am, even on the weekend. Since I get up at 4:40am to go to the gym most mornings of the week, sleeping in has become 6/6:30am. This is also because I can hardly stay awake past 9pm HA. Friday night was no different. Though I also think I have been quite dehydrated so I had a dull headache and I knew with having to take my stats exam on Saturday morning, the best option was to get some sleep. I refreshed my memory on some stats topics, had dinner and crawled into bed at 9. I’m pretty sure I fell asleep fairly quickly since I didn’t even notice when Brian came into bed.

Brian had to get up early Saturday morning for a day of scuba training and when his loud alarm went off, I was pretty much up for the day as well. Basically I wanted to take my stats test and get it done with. I made some quick oatmeal for breakfast as Brian headed out and at 7am I was sitting at my computer and taking the test. The teacher basically gave us the questions beforehand and it pretty much followed suit with a few extra questions that were related. Since part of the test was written responses that have to be graded manually, I don’t know my grade yet, but hopefully I did well. I finished around 8am so then it was off to Wegmans for grocery shopping at my usual hour.

Once I got home, I was in the mood to bake. I have really been wanting to make some almond flour cookies and I found a simple recipe to follow. I also wanted to make some more muffins so I got to work. I put on a podcast, started some laundry, made muffins, switched laundry and started the next load, made cookies and by then it was 10:30am, but I had felt pretty accomplished.

I love the perfect circles I get using my cookie dough scoop

Next it was time to read a chapter for marketing. I like having two classes so that I can switch between the subjects or I dedicate Saturday to one subject and Sunday to another. Marketing requires more reading and stats requires more math and program play with the software we had to buy. Both have been very interesting though and relate to one another which has been great to connect the ideas of each class.

It usually takes me an hour or so to read a chapter for marketing so by the time I finished, it was lunch time, but I wasn’t too hungry after snacking on muffins and cookies. I decided to watch a couple episodes of One Day at a Time and then grabbed a salad for a late lunch at 1pm.

I then decided to turn on the movie It Takes Two (I love the old Mary Kate and Ashley movies) while I ate and continued to enjoy relaxing while the sun shined into the living room in the afternoon. After being pretty lazy on the couch for a while, I took a short walk outside. Shortly after Brian got home and we enjoyed a night on the couch.

Sunday morning I headed to the gym. Normally Brian and I go together on Sunday, but he enjoyed some sleeping in after a long scuba day Saturday. For most of the time I was at the gym, it was just me and one other person, which was super nice. I worked on squats, bench and deadlifts. Still working on my squat depth and it’s so hard. I probably need to do some warming up besides just walking for a bit and a few stretches. The good news was that bench and pause deadlifts went very well. When 145 lbs for deadlifting feels light, it’s a good day in my book. I went up to 150lbs for pause deadlifts. My current 1 rep max for deadlifts is 185lbs from a few weeks ago. Maybe I can challenge myself to do 190/195lbs soon.

The rest of the day I switched off with homework between my two classes and enjoyed some down time watching a few episodes of A Million Little Things. I know I’m almost caught up to the new episodes airing on TV which I am a little sad about because the show sucks you in, kind of like This is Us.

Also I have to mention that dinner was perfect Sunday night. Brian had cooked sausage for lunch and I made us dinner. I roasted brussel sprouts and sweet potatos and cooked up some chicken with steak seasoning. I also cut up an avocado and made a quick guacamole to top off our chicken. It was amazing and filling.

Before I went to bed I saw a few snow flurries falling, but they salted our road so well it was white before the snow even started. Hopefully other roads are being salted well too, because I still have work this President’s Day. We are now entering the second half of February and it’s crazy. I feel like the next few months are going to fly by before the wedding.

Did you do anything fun this weekend?

Meal Prep and Weekend Highlights

November 12, 2018 by Alicia Leave a Comment

Hey let’s talk about some highlights of the weekend. I caught up on all my homework and actually had a ton of down time this weekend which was probably a first in many weeks. I have used my oven a ton this weekend. This weekend I roasted sweet potatoes, squash and baked cookies. I also made chicken in the crockpot and have turkey burgers to prepare for tonight. Lots of food.

I made cookies because I had to pick up a bag of Hot Cocoa kisses and if you haven’t tried them, you should. The marshmellow filling is great.

I also found Christmas Morning tea at Wegmans this weekend. I didn’t know there was a tea flavor of Christmas morning and honestly Christmas morning to me is more pancakes, the smell of a Christmas tree and peppermint. This tea is a mixture of different black teas with some jasmine. It’s delicious but I wouldn’t specifically call it Christmas Morning.

On Sunday morning, I hit a squat PR of 135lbs!! I have finally reached my goal of body weight squats. Though my depth could use improvement, I was excited to get 2 reps at this weight. It has definitely encouraged me.

Saturday I finished watching The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and had time for some movies. Honestly I was bored. TV bores me lately. It was nice to relax a bit though and finally not worry about my paper and project. Also I still don’t really like the new Sabrina. It’s too dark lord for me. Why can’t she just be a good witch like the original?

Well I thought I had more exciting things to share, but I guess that is all. I can’t believe there is only 1 more weekend until Thanksgiving.

What are your Thanksgiving plans?

« Previous Page