Where's the Beach?

Well, today started off a tad shaky (or chilly) again. Seriously, cold weather and Heather do not mix! After getting dressed and ready for work, I started to take the pups downstairs. I immediately realized that there was no heat drifting up the stairs. It was 15 degrees outside and 55 degrees downstairs. Not good, not good. I pulled out the oil heater and put it in the kitchen with the pups and told Jason about the dire situation. Thankfully there is some sort of switch under the house that he could flip to reset the heater, and thankfully he remembered before calling in backup. I did manage to make it into the office with my shoes at least. I had one particular workout in mind that I was planning to do tonight, but during lunch when I set up my step, I decided that I really wanted to try the Shock Cardio MMA Fusion workout. I only did the warm up and combos, stopping at the core conditioning drills. It was a fun workout, but not one that really pushed up the heart rate. It was sti...

I am a total cheese addict. Perhaps my New Year's Resolution should have been to wean myself from cheese. I absolutely love cheese dip. Yep, can't beat a good cheese dip! I can forgo meat, I can live without chocolate, but cheese dip, nope, must have. So when I saw a recipe from my blogger buddy Alicia from Vegan Epicurean for Queso Dip recipe, I knew I needed to give it a try. Cheeseless Queso Ingredients: ½ cup raw cashews, soaked and drained (30-60 mins) ½ cup oatmeal, ground into flour 1 ½ cups water 2 teaspoon onion flakes, dried ½ teaspoon turmeric powder 1 clove garlic, peeled 14 ounces diced tomatoes (or substitute an equal amount of salsa if you like heat) 1 teaspoon paprika 1 teaspoon hot crushed peppers (wet hots, finely minced pickled peppers), or to taste ½ teaspoon chili powder 1 dash cayenne, or to taste salt and pepper to taste Directions: Combine the cashews, oatmeal, water, onion flakes, turmeric, and garlic in your blender. Puree until the m...

So I feel like a total slug after the past two days of over-eating and, yes, over-drinking. I got up this morning and had no desire to cook anything. Breakfast was Kashi Island Vanilla . After breakfast, I made my way to the mall. It was totally over hyped (I hyped it up myself of course). I found a few things at The Limited, but other than that, wasted gas. I was not to be deterred, so I made my way to Barnes & Noble to pick up the January issue of Oxygen Magazine. Then it was on to Michael's Crafts to find holiday decorations for next year. My kitchen is a deep blue with toile accents. So next year I believe the color scheme will be silver and blue (Jason actually requested this; he's a decorator at heart). So I scouted out some blue and silver bulbs, blue lights, and hurricane vases with silver bottoms. Can't wait to put it all together next year. In fact, it was all I could do not to pull it all out to give it a test run! After Michael's, I thought I might str...

After brunch I was thinking I may never want to eat again. Stuffed! I had to put on my Christmas PJs the minute my mom and sister walked out the door. If you can recall the Friends episode where Joey wore maternity pants for Thanksgiving and called them his Thanksgiving Pants, well that's how I was feeling about the PJs. I'll definitely be hitting the gym hard tomorrow! Of course the stuffed-to-the-gills feeling finally passed...after many hours of course. It was time to figure out exactly what to do for our special Christmas Dinner. I had originally wanted to do a cranberry chipotle sauce/gravy for the Quorn Turk'y Roast . However, Jason ate the cranberries in his cottage cheese yesterday as a snack. Oops. So I had to go to a Plan B. This is why we always keep a very well-stocked pantry! I had originally planned to start with salad of spinach, leaf lettuce, mandarine oranges, and toasted walnuts with a balsamic vinaigrette. We were still entirely too full for a starter...

Thankfully it finally stopped raining here. Now it's just really cold - but sunny at least. I had really hoped to sleep in this morning as a Christmas gift to myself. I suppose 7:50 is better than 7 am. While hubby snoozed, I made Pumpkin Oatmeal for the both of us for breakfast. I used steel cut oats, stirred in pumpkin, cinnamon, vanilla protein powder, and topped with toasted walnuts. I topped mine with just a drizzle of agave nectar while Jason stirred in brown sugar into his. After breakfast it was time to open our goodies to each other. I am now a proud new owner of a high step , new weight gloves , 6 ' resistance bands , plus jewelry (2 necklaces, bracelet, earrings), and gift cards to DSW (oh he knows me so well), Bed Bath & Beyond, and Amazon. My mom and sister showed up around noon for our Christmas Brunch. I was very excited to have them over again this year. I wanted it to be special so I made sure the table would match the food. I found the place mats, ...

Another rainy day here. I decided that I actually had time to make a real breakfast. I usually just eat oatmeal with blueberries and protein powder at my office. I decided to make Blueberry Protein Pancakes for Jason and myself. It's a super easy recipe, but I apparently need to practice flipping pancakes. Got a little messy here and there. Blueberry Protein Pancakes 1/4 cup low or no fat cottage cheese 1/4 cup rolled oats 1/4 cup egg whites 1 scoop vanilla protein powder handful of blueberries (or other fruit of choice) Mix all ingredients in blender and voila, pancake batter. After breakfast, we made a soggy trip to Whole Foods for some last minute food items for tomorrow's meals. Then we went up to the gym for a noon spin class. It was short and sweet. It was done in a tabata style, and we also got off the bikes and did kettle bells. Intense, but the time flew by! Still raining...I was in my Christmas PJs by 3:30. While hubby wrapped presents, I tried a new re...

Well, my shoulders and biceps are sore from my gym workout yesterday. Guess I pushed myself harder than I had thought. My quads were a little sore from spin, but they loosened up over the course of the morning. I was still debating about whether or not I was going to take my leg workout to the gym or just do it at home (or take a rest day). Well, we have a fancy schmancy party to attend tomorrow night, so Jason had to get his hair cut at lunch (of course he put it off until the last minute). But, I took the opportunity to go home and do my leg workout before I talked myself out of it entirely. I did the weighted leg exercises from Pyramid Lower Body , but I did not rely on the DVD even though I was home. I honestly felt like I was able to better concentrate on the moves since I wasn't focusing my attention on Cathe. I brought a mirror into the room - it's a spare room that was just cleared out for my weights. I feel like I was able to really work on my form as well. I am defi...

I thought I might post about two of my addictions: my workouts this week and cooking (aka tonight’s dinner). Workouts After completing Cathe’s October rotation for my weight lifting, I decided to tack on two more weeks (repeating the first two weeks). I may end up just finishing it out at this point. I'm really enjoying it. Sunday : I did STS Disc 31 for chest and back. It was 90% of my 1 rep max. I am still feeling it. Apparently I have chest muscle that I never knew existed. Very happy that I have a patient husband to spot me through the workout! I also did a 30-minute bootcamp style workout ( 4-Day Split , Bootcamp ), floor work for glutes, hamstrings, and inner thighs, then abs ( Butts and Guts ). It was a longer workout than I had really anticipated. Monday : I went up to the gym. Ran just under 20 minutes then did a 45-minute spin class with hubby. Tuesday (today): Cathe’s – Cardio Fusion and abs. Cardio Fusion is a fun one because it mixes workouts from three diff...

My workouts this week have been highly leg focused thus far. Sunday was legs and then I did a spin class on Monday. I thought I might take today as a rest day, but I went ahead and did a step workout and abs from my library of Cathe Friedrich workouts - Step Jump and Pump/Step Blast . The next part of the evening involved refueling! After unseasonal upper 60's this weekend, the temperatures are finally starting to drop. Today we didn't reach 50 and tomorrow is supposed to be 45. Needless to say, I was thinking along the lines of something warm and cozy for dinner tonight. I had half of a butternut squash that needed to be used and a couple of different recipes for a Black Bean and Butternut Squash Chili. I didn't have all the ingredients to fulfill one recipe or the other, so I'm melding them together and creating my own. Black Bean and Butternut Squash Chile Ingredients : 1 tsp (or less) Olive oil  1 small yellow onion, diced 1/2 yellow bell pepper, diced ...