Monday, May 31, 2010

Happy Memorial Day!

Soooo I may have taken a little hiatus from blogging for a couple days - but fear not! I'm back to brighten your day (:

fit happenings.
Let's rewind to Saturday! I had my first 5 mile race! First of all, I think I'm really getting the hang of a pre-race routine. For breakfast, I had a piece of whole wheat toast with almond and flax butter with an orange on the side (this is becoming a tradition for me) which I ate on the way there. I was a bit nervous at the starting line, but I don't think that will ever go away no matter how many runs I do! There were wayyyy more people at this race than any of the ones I've done before on top of that.


Plus there was a Spin-a-thon going on that I had no idea about!!


I actually knew most of the spin instructors from work and they told me they also run a program in July where they simulate the Tour-de-France! They were trying to convince me to join it, but I'm not too sure how I feel about that - however, it's totally a real possibility.

Anyways, back to the race! It started in downtown Youngstown and ran through Mill Creek Park around Lake Glacier and then back to the YMCA. I pushed myself the whole time, chanting little things in my head like "Don't stop!" and "You can do it!" (Cheesy, I know - don't laugh!) There was a monstrous hill right at the start of mile 4 which I wanted to maim someone for, but I pushed through and finished in 47:07! That's a personal record for me!! I was ecstatic to say the very least, I actually think I'm still high on it now lol!


On a side note, I've learned that no one takes a good picture after running any amount of time in the blistering sun. I didn't place in the top three for my age group - third place ran it in 44:36 - but I was okay with that. The overall winner was a boy from Kenya who ran it in 25 minutes!!! I was floored. This kid was straight BOOKING.

For my next race, I really want to try to do better than a 9 minute mile. I'm not sure if it's in the cards for me, but I'm going to be doing more HIIT runs as well as possibly a couple little lower body workout sessions. We'll see what kind of information I can dig up!

fresh eats.
After the race, I was famished so I quickly created this little feast.


I cut up my remaining veggie burger and threw it in a wrap with some roasted asparagus and potatoes on the side. Mmmmmmm I was in lunch heaven! I love asparagus, it's so easy to make and it tastes awesome!! Crunchy and a little sweet. Just yum.

Another advancement on the fresh eats front - I had my first OIAJ! Sadly, I only had a little bit of White Chocolate Wonderful left...


...so I took the opportunity to throw together some Chocolate Chocolate Chip Oats in a Jar at work!


Wow. I can't believe I've waited so long to try this out! Eating out of a jar is just something the feels so sinful - I loved every second of it!


Seriously delicious. Well blog loves, I'm off once more! It's grill time baby - fire it up!! I've got to abercize and run before my family cookout, I hope you guys all have a great Memorial Day!

If you're going to be outside, don't forget the sunscreen!

Friday, May 28, 2010

Food and Flea Markets

Yesterday was just a whole day filled with good eats! After the s'mores oatmeal (killer) I was in a cooking mood and since I knew I had to work most of the day, I decided to have a bigger home-cooked lunch rather than a large dinner. I've been dying to try my hand at making veggie burgers and Beth's Easy Homemade Veggie Burgers seemed just too delicious to pass up! So I ran out and bought the few necessary ingredients, which included kale! A veggie I have never tried! No worries guys, we became fast friends. I'm making us BFF bracelets as you read this.

I threw all the ingredients in the food processor (minus the basil because I totally forgot to grab it at the store - rookie mistake!), chopped it all up for a bit and then formed the mixture into two patties.


Threw them on the stove for a couple minutes per side and voila! Veggie burgers!!


The perfect compliment to any burger in my opinion? French fries and watermelon. The veggie burger was really quite good, but I think it would have had more zip to it if I hadn't forgetten the basil. It was just slightly bland, but that was easily disguised with the ten gallons of ketchup I ate it with. Mmmm ketchupy goodness.

I saved the other one for a rainy day, I'm thinking about smashing it up and stuffing it in a wrap for lunch sometime this week. Yay or nay? All in all, I would definitely make these again. They were so easy and quick to make and I am very impressed with Miss Beth! Thanks for the awesome recipe!

Dinner was also stellar as well.


A California roll with a house salad and ginger dressing. I have a serious love connection with sushi. I could probably eat it daily and never get tired of it. However, I sometimes cheat on sushi with ginger dressing. It's a crazy little Japanese love triangle, I know.

Unfortunately I suffered a small injury while trying to rip into the aluminum packaging like some kind of starved rabid animal.


My pride was only consolable by what laid inside.


Crying Crisis: Averted.

fit happenings.
Today I had planned on laying low since race day (!) is tomorrow, but I'm always down for a little spontaneity. My friend Kelly and her parents invited me to go to Roger's Flea Market, which is apparently a big deal. This place was enormous. They had all sorts of crazy things! No lie, a lady was selling baby foxes. Baby foxes!!


They. Were. ADORABLE. The seller said you treat them just like a dog! I was intrigued, but also a little hesitant. I'm pretty sure you'd need some kind of license or permit in order to have a pet fox so the operation seemed a little shady to me. Still - ADORABLE!

I also learned a fun new fact while haggling for fresh produce. There are male and female eggplants! I know, I was shocked too. The difference, Mr. Produce Seller explained, was in the seeds. Female eggplants have small seeds and male eggplants have large seeds. How can you tell one from the other, you ask? Why you look at their bottoms! Male eggplants have a circular indentation on the bottom while female eggplants have oval, slit-like indentations. Huh. Go figure. I can't believe I have lived my life so ignorant to the delicate anatomy of eggplants! I feel ashamed...

Flea market eats weren't exactly the healthiest, but I can't be held accountable for my actions. At a random ice cream vendor (one of about 50), I saw THIS:


Look towards the bottom. See it? Buckeye Bites. Yeah there was no way that wasn't going down.


Peanut butter ice cream with chocolate ripples and whole buckeyes!! I'm still speechless. It was the best ice cream I've ever had. I split it with Kelly though because I'm such a good friend.

We walked everywhereeee trying to find something semi-healthy to eat, but it just wasn't happening. So I settled on the healthiest food I could find:


Doused in vinegar. Magnifique. What kind of food do you guys eat when you're dealing with vendors that mainly sell things like deep fried oreos?

It was a really fun trip and when I got to work, I unloaded all my produce booty.

  • one (female) eggplant
  • one bundle of asparagus
  • 1/2 pound of cherries
  • one bundle of green seedless grapes
  • bushel of local (huge!) strawberries
  • three peaches
All of this for the low low price of ten dollars! I was straight giddy with happiness! Those strawberries are just begging to be covered in chocolate. Or maybe not covered in chocolate ala HowSweetEats!

I know this was a crazy long post, but I promise I'm done now! Rest your eyes little bloggies and I'll see you tomorrow with a race recap - I'm off to whittle my middle (:

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Deliciousosity

Morning all you beautiful bloggies! Let's start this day off right, shall we? And what better way to do that than with oatmeal!


Oh I'm sorry - Are you drooling? I should have warned you I meant S'mores Oatmeal. Slipped my silly little mind! I needed a little oatmeal inspiration and where do you go to find it? Why Kath Eats of course! Her oatmeal page is ridiculous and when I saw the words "S'mores Oatmeal", I knew I didn't even have a choice in the matter. I ran upstairs and grabbed my hidden Chocolove stash (I have to hid it from myself, is that sad? Just lie to me and tell me it's not) and this was born!


Some serious awesomeness. It was wayyyy filling, I was practically shoving the last few bites in my mouth. And you know me, I had to top it off with a little White Chocolate Wonderful of which I'm running dangerously low on... this could become a problem... Who's down for a Whole Foods run with me? I'll drive!

fit happenings.
Is it possible that my abs have already gotten flatter or am I just thinking that because of the massive amount of sore I'm in? I'm gonna just say they're flatter anyway to make myself feel better! Today is my first day off and I'm feeling weird about it, like I should be doing something still - ever get that feeling? I'm sure a little break is just what my abbys need though! Seriously, I'm not even a week into it and I'd recommend OhSheGlow's Challenge to anyone.

Speaking of OhSheGlows, I totally won an auction at the SHOP 4 A CAUSE yesterday!! I'm pretty stoked about it because I've been debating getting a fitness watch for a while now and when I saw one up for auction yesterday, I just had to jump on it. And no worries, I'll show it off to you guys just as soon as I get it. (:

Did anyone else participate in the auction yesterday? Or even just stop by? It was so well organized, I'm really impressed with Angela and her whole setup, for that matter.

Okay well this little girl has lots of running around to do today! Plus I need to fit in time to run a couple miles (I'm tapering off for Saturday), make these awesome looking veggie burgers I saw the other day and clean my room since I totally have been ignoring it for the past few days.

Catch ya later my blog loves!

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Peanut Butter Pancakes

Finally. I feel like Dr. Frankenstein. It's aliveeeee!! *thunder crackles mercilessly in the background*



After working hard for a whole week (that's some serious dedication for me people!), I've finally nailed my peanut butter pancake recipe! Unfortunately, now I'm so sick of pancakes, I don't think I'll be making them again for at least a month! Ahh such is life. However, you, my lucky friend, can make them today! I'm just so good to you guys.


(*Side note - Do you guys like the recipes posted like this in border or just normally through the text? Thought I'd try something new and I'd love some feedback!)

Seriously, these pancakes were phenom. The peanut butter made them so moist and fluffy! I actually used my new favorite White Chocolate Wonderful Peanut butter and I think these were taste tongue-numbingly good with white chocolate chips instead of dark chocolate, but sadly we were all out... cruel fate!! Still they were delicious!! And the best part? They're actually really filling! I messed around with adding a little protein powder to them, but honestly they are completely fine without it. This is my very first from scratch recipe!! Aren't you proud of me!? It's cool if you're not, I'm proud enough for the both of us.

fit happenings.
So this is only Day 3 of the Whittle My Middle Challenge and already my abs are feeling it! I'm surprised by how sore I am, but it's a good feeling. I haven't been sore like this in a while, I feel like it's making me want to do MORE strength training than normal (normal being none at all so really anything is an improvement lol).

I'm also not sure if I've mentioned that I have another race this weekend! It's the Memorial Day 5 Mile out in Youngstown and I'm pretty freakin stoked for it. I'm hoping to run it in at least 48 minutes, but as long as I finish I'll be happy. My aunt is once again coming with me too! My grandparents find it hysterical that she would never run a day in high school and now that she's in her 40s, I'm getting her to do a half-marathon!! We laugh about it quite often lol but hey, fitness can start at any age right?

Personally, I don't think my "fitness" really started until about 2 years ago. I mean, I've always been active I'd say. I did sports in high school and I'd workout sporadically in the beginning of college - I was never overweight, but I never had any set fitness goals and I think that's when I went from active to athlete. When I decided to do a 5k, when I decided to do a strength training program, when I decided to sign up for a half-marathon.

All these things are quantifiable, they're attainable. Before, I was doing the same 30-60 minute routines on the elliptical or the treadmill over and over again, zoning out while reading a magazine or studying notes. I never really noticed a difference nor did I get any stronger/faster, but I did it because it was what I was used to. I love the way I feel now, more recently especially and I actually credit it a lot to reading blogs. Seeing what goals other people are reaching and striving for makes me feel like I could do those things too if I just try. It's simply inspirational.

Where do you guys draw inspiration from? When did you start being fit instead of just active? And how did you stumble into the awesome world of health blogs?


Day 3 is calling my name! I'm gonna see if my poor little abs have it in them to do the plank for 1:30 today! And speaking of planks, my friend Angela at Eat, Spin, Run, Repeat is attempting to do a plank for 21 minutes!! This crazy girl's got abs of steel, no lie. I'll think of you when my abs are screaming out for mercy through my belly button lol have a good day guys! Go enjoy the sunshine, take a walk outside or pack a picnic - just don't forget the sunscreen (;

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Lemon Groovy

I feel like yesterday was one big blur! It started out with another visit to Mill Creek Park which is quickly becoming my favorite place to go. There are just so many trails and beautiful attractions! I took my friend Kelly with me this time because she had never been there before. In Fellows Riverside Garden, we saw the coolest tree!


It looked like something out of a Tim Burton movie. Upon closer inspection, the tree was dead and there was a sign in front of that read:



So sad! I couldn't believe people actually killed this tree by carving initials into it. Like anyone really cares that "Matt hearts Sarah forever?" I'd like to hunt Matt down and show him how much I heart him! Just let me catch someone doing this to a tree and it'll be ON!!

We should move on before my anger combusts the screen.

fresh eats.
After our walk through the trails, we decided to grab some lunch at a new restaurant that opened recently in the plaza - The Lemon Grove. I've wanted to stop here for a while, I heard they had pretty good food, all fair trade and organic teas and coffees and a pretty artsy atmosphere.


I decided on the Louie Free for lunch. Sidenote: I have successfully avoided meat for the past three weeks! Go me! (:


I got a salad instead of chips on the side with balsamic vinaigrette. I took some pictures, but it was so dark in there that they didn't turn out very well sooo I'm not gonna post them. All in all, the food was good, but WAY overpriced. I spent ten bucks on a small sandwich and a tiny side salad! I mean, it was good, but not that good. Plus I'm pretty sure I could easily recreate this at home for next to nothing. It was a fun experience, but I don't think I'll be back. Thanks anyway though Lemon Grove!

fit happenings.
Kelly and I also decided to take OhSheGlow's Whittle My Middle Challenge! Kelly's sister is getting married in October so it's time for a little Bride Bootcamp action! We started yesterday and I'm going to keep track of it on the new page. I'm pretty excited to see some results from this - I've never stuck with a strength routine before (I blush), but I'm hoping that doing it with a friend will keep me dedicated!

If anyone would like to join in, I'd love some groupies! Okay well I'm off! I've got a lot to do before work including:

  • Clean my room
  • Whittle my middle!
  • Target run
  • Visit the boyfriend
Have a bright happy day (:

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Awesomeness

Just when you think we can advance no further, the Japanese have to one up us with this crafty invention: 


The Rice-Growing Bra

I couldn't help it, I just had to share this ridiculous story. You can read more about it here. Thank you internet! I'm off to enjoy the fruits of netflix and figure out how I can acquire one of these. Have a good night lovies!

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Unexpected Journey

Don't you just hate it when things don't go according to plan? Yesterday, I was supposed to work all day and then today a few friends and I were going to travel up to Chagrin Falls and spend the day walking around and exploring. Chagrin Falls is a cute little mill town with a ton of small shops and a farmers market on Saturdays. I was totally stoked to go - I cleaned my car and everything! - and when I got to work yesterday, I'm informed that my schedule had been changed. Now I had Friday off and work on Saturday. Bummer.

I was heartbroken to say the least. However, I decided to make the best of my day anyway and what better way to do that than a Trader Joe's/Whole Foods Market trip! So I busted out my trusty Magellan and routed out my journey.


First stop - Whole Foods Market. Yay for Whole Foods! I love how The Fitnessista calls it Whole Paycheck by the way. So true. (:


But so worth it. I've had a list handy for quite some time now full of things I wanted to pick up from here. I tried to stay true to it, though I mayyyy have strayed ever so slightly when I got to the aisle that had all the teas and drinks. My boyfriend guzzles brisk like he'll never find another - it makes me cringe every time. I, like almost every other health food junkie, am digusted by anything with an ingredient list including high fructose corn syrup.

Being the amazing girlfriend that I am (*sigh*), I raided Whole Foods for acceptable substitutes to solve this problem. I picked up a couple Honest Teas, the sweetened green and blackforest berry, Joe's Half and Half Raspberry Tea, and a Steaz Teaz Peach Tea and presented them all to my less-than-ecstatic boyfriend. I had the last laugh in the end though when he admitted he really liked the Joe's Tea. Take that Pepsi Co!

I just love when the power of pure overcomes the chemicals of commercialized foods.

Next stop - Trader Joe's House.


It always amazes me how small Trader Joe's is, yet how much stuff they can pack inside. I swear, if you blink, you miss half the store! I found my beloved mochi there though so I really can't complain. I was beyond happy, practically singing even as I headed to the register. Expect to see daily pictures of me making kissy faces to my ice cream from now till the box is sadly empty.

All in all, a pretty good day I'd say.

fresh eats.
Today I awoke with a craving for peanut butter and pancakes - so why not combine the two? That's right friends, I'm currently hard at work on a peanut butter pancake recipe!! The ones I made today were pretty good considering they were a first attempt, but the batter was a little too thick and there just wasn't enough peanut butter taste. Tomorrow I shall do better!

And you know I had to break open one of my Whole Foods buys for this:


I would like to thank Girl Meets Health for starting an UNhealthy obsession with this peanut butter for me. Hands down the BEST peanut butter I've ever had. Ever. I originally wanted the Dark Chocolate Dreams, but apparently everyone else did as well since it was completely sold out. Never fear though, White Chocolate Wonderful turned out to be pretty wonderful indeed.

After breakfast, I decided to bake the cookies that have been going around the blog world like wildfire - Dreena's Super Charge Me Cookies. I made just a few substitutions, whole wheat flour instead of spelt flour, wheat bran instead of flax meal and dried cranberries instead of raisins. I made a little rookie mistake by accidentally reading over the "in a separate bowl" part when adding the wet ingredients and combined them all together in one (oopsies), but even though they were a little crumbly, they were still delicious! I gobbled up two as soon as they came out!


For lunch, I sauteed some mixed veggies in balsamic vinaigrette at home and threw them in a wrap at work with a little goat cheese and an apple on the side to round it all out. I'm just so super creative like that.



So quick. So easy. So delicious. My three favorite things for a meal! Dinner was also these things, a blueberry walnut salad with another Whole Foods find - Spiced Pomegranate Dressing. Mmmmm!



Andddd okay, maybe another cookie or two - for dessert, naturally.


It's not me, it's my sweet tooth. I swear it.

By the way, check out my interview with Erin on her blog, The Healthy Apron! A stellar post if I do say so myself. (:

Friday, May 21, 2010

Bloglovin

A lot of people in the blog-o-sphere seem to be relying on Google Reader to keep track of all their blog fixes. I tried this for a short while, but it just didn't really work out for me. I hated the way it was set up and the site wasn't exactly appealing to the eye. Enter: Bloglovin.

I originally found this site through the fashion blogworld, but I use it to manage all my blogs now. So here's a little preview of Bloglovin - maybe you'll find it easier too!


This is the main site. You can sign up or login in through here. They also let you save your login information so if you want, you never really have to see the main page. Once logged in, you will be directed here:


Your blog management! All your blogs will be listed in order from newest posted to last seen and each one will have a little preview picture from the post as well as the first few sentences so you can get a feel for each post. You can easily mark a blog as read or unread by scrolling over the picture for the post like so:


If you really like the post you're reading - Like it! Bloglovin keeps track of all your liked posts and you can go back to them by viewing your Liked posts on the side. You can also organize your blogs by category and that's shown along the side too.


Yeahhh, it's pretty sweet. Now, when you want to view the post in it's entirety, just click on the preview and it will bring you straight to the blog it belongs to.


The only difference will be the small toolbar on the bottom like so.


Once you've finished reading/commenting on the post, just click next to go to the next unread post in your blog reel! You can also like a post from the toolbar. Convenient? I think so. And if you decide you don't want the toolbar there anymore, just click the X and bye byeee bloglovin.

I absolutely LOVE this site! I think it's so much more user friendly than Google Reader and it makes my addiction to blogs way more controllable. Hopefully it will help you guys out as well - check it out! (:

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Thai me up

Good afternoon ladies! I hope you all had a good night/morning. After work last night, I took a really nice, relaxing bath and painted my toenails the cutest shade of summer pink. I felt totally spoiled - by myself lol. Now let's get to it!

fresh eats.
My sweetheart of a boyfriend lost a bet loves me sooo much that he took me to a new Thai restaurant for lunch today! Oh Thai food, why must you be so far away? Unfortunately, the closest Thai place is half an hour from here, but no distance is too far for this girl to travel in order to get her hands on some yummy pad thai!


This place used wayyy less vegetables than most of the other pad thai's I've had in the past and the original meal came with chicken and shrimp which is also unusual, but I subbed them out for tofu instead. With all these differences, it still tasted divine! The tofu I think is always the hardest to cook right and it was delicious, totally soaked up the peanut sauce. My poor culture-shocked boyfriend just ordered the sesame chicken which I didn't take a picture of because I was starving and I'm pretty sure I was ten seconds away from taking a bite out of my camera. If the food had taken a few minutes longer, you may have had no pictures at all!

At the end, the waiter brought us both a fortune cookie? It was more a mesh of chinese/japanese/thai food than I had originally thought, but hey I never turn down a fortune cookie. And my fortune was, well it was plain awesome.


Oh yeah. The chinese fortune cookie writers are so wise. New inspirational quote of the month? I think so.

fit happenings.
So it's official! I am going to be running the Cure Thirst Half-Marathon in Youngstown September 4!


This will be my first half-marathon. I'm nervous, but I'm also really excited! I can't wait to just run it, even though it's like 4 months away. Speaking of races, I'm off to run! I'm gonna try out my nike+ tonight - stay tuned!

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Pumpkin Oatmeal Pancakes

Admittedly, I consume enough pumpkin to support a small farm. If you were to look through what few recipes I have posted, I'm pretty sure somewhere between 40-60% involve it in some way. I have no real defense for this, just the fact that I really like pumpkin.

So when I decided to make The Healthy Apron's Banana Bread Oatmeal Pancakes this morning, umm of course I had to tweak it for a little pumpkin action, right?!


Seriously, these are ahhhmazing! As if I needed another pumpkin recipe to add to my repertoire. My poor future children will probably resemble small pumpkins by the time they're toddlers. At least they'll be cute!

Pumpkin Oatmeal Pancakes
1/2 cup of old fashioned oats, ground
1/2 cup 100% whole wheat flour
1 TBSP brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 TBSP butter, melted
1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup + 2 TBSP almond milk
1/2 TBSP honey
1 large egg
1/2 cup cooked oats (mine were made with 1/2 cup pumpkin,
cinnamon, vanilla and stevia to taste)

Cook your oatmeal as you usually would and set aside. Grind up oats in food processor/blender till fine and combine with whole wheat flour, brown sugar, salt, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice and baking powder. Melt butter and set aside to cool. In a separate bowl, whisk together milk, vanilla, honey, egg and cooked oats, adding butter once it has sufficiently cooled so that it doesn't cook the egg. Fold in flour mixture until just combined - don't over mix! Heat skillet on low/medium and spray with cooking spray before adding batter in
1/4 cup increments. Cook and enjoy! Add whatever toppings you'd like. I chose a few dark chocolate chips, walnuts and a drizzle of maple syrup - perfection!


I halved the original recipe and I kinda guesstimated on the amount of baking powder because I couldn't find it anywhere in the original post? I probably missed it somewhere along the way cause that's how things always seem to happen for me - still even with that, these turned out face melting. And I still have a ton of batter left! Does anyone know, can you freeze batter? Or how long it lasts in the fridge? I'll probably break out the rest of these bad boys tomorrow morning, but I'm just curious. As usual.

fit happenings.
So last night, I had to put the new kicks to the test and I decided to try for a personal record. I ran 5 miles straight. That's the furthest I've ever gone without stopping! That may or may not seem like a lot to you, but to me - it totally is.

It's not like I made great time or anything, I finished in 53:08 which averages out to about 10:36 or so a mile. I wasn't exactly trying to book it since it was my first time at this distance, but I think I could definitely go faster next time. I signed up for a 5 MILE RACE next weekend so knowing that I can do it now is really relieving. I'm totally stoked for it.

Oh! And is anyone planning on going to The Healthy Living Summit in August!? Tickets are going on sale tomorrow at 9 pm so don't miss out! I definitely plan on attending and if anyone is going from the Northern Ohio/Pennsylvania region, I'm down for some riding buddies and roommates! (:

Have an awesome day little bloggies! I have to work all day unfortunately, but at least it's another rainy day. Has anyone seen the sun lately? I'm about to file a missing persons report.

Monday, May 17, 2010

New kicks

I love sneakers. I'd consider it one of my many addictions. You know, I never realized how many I had until I started blogging? I haven't decide whether that's a good thing or a bad thing yet!

Good or bad, I scored a sweeeeet pair of kicks yesterday! Limited Edition Virtue Sauconys! It was the very last pair and it was my size! I so love destiny.


Excuse the dark tint, you just can't find good sunlight these days. My favorite part: the lace-like flower detailing.


I also picked up a pair of new nike running shorts! I've had a gift card to Finish Line since Christmas and I finally decided to use it.


Is it weird that nothing makes me happier than new workout gear? After malling, my aunt invited me to dinner and I was only too happy to oblige her. They all had grilled steak, but my uncle was kind enough to grill me a salmon burger! What a great guy.


A salmon burger, enormous salad and greens with parmesan! You can see why I never turn down an invite. My uncle also had the gall to bring out a mini plate of assorted cheesecake bites!! Thankfully, they were a little more than half gone before he brought them out, but my cousins and I did some damage too, I think.


Cheesecake - it's my kryptonite. Is there any one food you can never turn down, even if you're full? 

Well loves, I'm off to start the day. I have a few things I need to do before work, the most important being shower and run - catch ya on the flipside and have a great day!