Monday

Buff Borgey No?

That's how I say Boeuf Bourguignon in my head. This weekend I watched Julie & Julia and loved it!! Such a cute movie! Sometimes I think I want to do a crazy blog-project like that, but then I get side-tracked and remember that I would rather read than write most of the time. So, now I want to make boeuf bourguignon really bad!! However, I feel like it may turn out similar to Julie's first version in the movie and I'd ruin it. I guess that's a chance I'll just have to take, right?

Speaking of reading - I FINALLY got my Girl with the Dragon Tattoo book back from some family members who borrowed it. I know now that I do not want to let them borrow my books unless I really don't want to read them again within a year. I just watched the second movie (Swedish version) of that series and am dying to re-read the books before the third movie comes out so I'm fresh on all the deets.

I also need to re-read the HP series before I see the last movie. I haven't seen it yet (gasp!) because we were out of town the weekend it came out, and now every one of my friends has seen it already or isn't into witchcraft and wizardry the way that I am.

Saturday

Merry Christmas!


The pup was not so sure about going outside in the snow. Can you tell he looks a little worried?

Wednesday

Happy Holidays!!

WHOA. The holiday season is here in full force. What happened to November and December? I've been lost in the shuffle.

But, I'm excited about the holiday food coming up, and I love the tradition the hubs family has. They bring their favorites to Christmas - regardless what kind of crazy combo they come up with. Things I know will be on the menu this year so far: tator tots, potato salad, homemade ravioli, cheesey potatoes, chicken wings and a cheeseball. I'm hoping a certain cousin makes the brussel sprouts she made last year so I can have some green on my plate :)

Tonight, I'm going to make some homemade chex mix. A sweet old lady brought some to one of the five work-holiday parties I've been to in the last week and it was really good. She was even nice enough to write out the recipe on cute Christmas stationery.

The hubs is dying to exchange gifts. I'm not sure I'll be able to put my foot down any longer.

Tuesday

I'm off the wagon

It's official. I'm off the wagon. The good news is that my pants still fit. The bad news is I feel like I've gained 30 lbs.

For example, I have a meeting at work every other week. This is one of the few meetings that someone is required to bring a snack. We all take turns bringing in treats and I usually try to rock the boat by bringing in something semi-healthy. Today was the regular - sweet baked goods and salty chips and salsa. So what do I do? Go straight for the mini peanut butter cups. I like chips and salsa as much as the next girl (as long as it's mild salsa), but I have been in a sweet-searching mode lately. I really do believe the research that says once you start eating sweets, you want more - like an addiction.

So, I better go get on the treadmill to make up for all of those pb cups.

Sunday

Lazy Sunday

Today we played in the snow, baked cookies, make veggie-beef stoup (a la Rachael Ray) and wrapped presents. It was a great day.






Thursday

Tonight's dinner

Since football season has been over, the hubs has resumed his place as Head Chef of the household. During the fall, I try to take off my Sous Chef hat and play Head Chef, but I don't think cereal and grilled cheese, or maybe tacos are good enough to call myself Head Chef.

A while ago, I bought some homemade pasta at a farmer's market so I this morning I put it on the counter as my hint to the hubs to cook it for dinner. He ended up making the pasta, but on top of it he stuffed some turkey meatballs with mozzarella cheese, making a really nice touch to our traditional version of spaghetti. And the meatballs were not dry - which is a first for us. Anyone who cooks with lean ground turkey knows it's pretty easy to dry out. I've tried meatballs before in the broiler that turned out to have good flavor, but were still a little dry.

I wish I would have taken a photo to show you all how perfectly pan-fried they were. The cheese was gooey in the middle and made a Thursday night dinner pretty awesome.

Monday

My kind of yoga

Even though there's a gym in my building at work, I prefer not to pay to be a member. I've explained this before, but basically we have too much equipment at home to justify paying for a membership - anywhere.

Tonight I took my first "plain" yoga class there with my punch card. I say plain because I've taken "power yoga" there and did not enjoy it as much. Don't get me wrong, it was a really tough work out, but that's not what I like yoga for. I like yoga for the mind and body combination. I like to hold poses for a long time and really think about getting them just right. I like to focus on my breathing. In power yoga, it was a lot of fast flowing moves that were meant to built up strength while doing some of the yoga poses. It felt like a LOT of push-up-type moves that left me sweating and out of breath. And, power yoga didn't have any much of the relaxing "corpse" pose at the end - which I love. It really helps me relax after focusing on my breathing at the very end of the session.

Wednesday

My black Friday purchase

Because I'm a rockstar and won an award at work for my healthy lifestyle, I won a gift card to the gym in my building. I spent said gift card on their black Friday special. I bought two "punch cards" that can be used for classes. Normally they run for maybe $80 for 10 classes, which is not bad to start with, but I bought them for $50 each. So each time I go to yoga, spinning, boot camp or some other form of torture fun, it will only be $5.

I bought them with spinning going through my brain, but now that I have the updated schedule, I see that spinning is a full hour instead of the 30 minute baby-classes I took a few weeks ago. I'm not sure I'm up for a whole hour of bike-riding. That sounds like a sore butt to to me, but is probably worth it.