Rock The Boat

Happy hump day everyone!

So who's been watching the news about New England lately? Can you see the insanity that is Rhode Island? We are literally floating away over here! Let's go for a round-up in what's happening. My boss and two of my co-workers live in Fall River, Dartmouth, and Assonet. All three towns are completely closed and drowning. No way in, and hardly ANY way out! My sister lives in West Warwick. Right on the Pawtuxet River. Her neighborhood was evacuated immediately due to the imminent flood waters coming. Her boyfriend stayed behind; presumably with a six pack and some friends- and a canoe to pump water out of the house! Crazy right?! Well, as you know I said in my last post that we were lucky that we escaped all the flood waters because, well my house is on a slight hill and we typically don't get alot of "flooding" in our area.

Check this out!!!!

That is my backyard!!!! Holy crap!

The water was being pumped out of our basement over here...

Isn't that crazy? My dad built a "trench" for the water to flow down and around the shed in the backyard. He's so crafty... lol

Tomorrow I have to head to Cranston, RI- which, if you have seen the news is the hardest hit city in all this. I'm hoping I can get there in under 3 hours, because they closed ALL major routes going in and out of Cranston! Every back road is a "minor" route which is also closed. Go figure! Cross your fingers for me!!!

Hey.. I actually cooked tonight! Can you believe it? I feel so lost in the kitchen lately! Tonight's dish featured these ingredients.. I've never tried Red Quinoa before and I was pleasently surprised at how chewy it was, but it was awesome. I liked it.. : )


I added corn, broccoli, tomato sauce, Italian seasoning, garlic salt, and pepper, and SHRIMP... it was meh. I liked it but it was forgettable. Sad really. Don't try to make it ok? It will tide me over for a few meals though.. lol


Well, since we are still recovering from the great flood, I'm not sure what we are up to this weekend! I have a salsa workshop to go to, but it's in Cranston (aka. flood city..) so I'm not sure if everything will be cleaned up or not yet!

So, cross your fingers for me twice!!!! Happy Easter to all of you! I have a couple of menu ideas for my own dinner- as my big Italian family *loves* to make things I can't eat! Dang it!!

Way Back In The Day...

Oh man, I wish I could say it is a Happy Monday like I usually do- but sadly, I don't think it is! At least in NE, it's cold, miserable, and POURING. I'm glad that my house is not in a low-lying area, otherwise we would be piling up sandbags and moving everything from the basement...like other people in my area have had to do. There is seriously THAT much rain!

I'm here at work though, waiting for 5 p.m. to roll around. I feel like I was just here..

Ok, so what did I do over the weekend? I know, you are waiting with bated breath... well I had my niece over and we went to see a show together on Sunday! Yay! But first, I wanted to tell Katie that I tried one of the Gardein "meals"... she LOVES these and when I saw them in Whole Foods you know I grabbed one up!



Can you tell I hated it????
I know these little buggers contain wheat and I thought I would report that this - was worth the headache later on that night! It tasted SOOOOOOOO good! I loved it! It won't be an all the time thing (because they contain wheat and that gives me a big headache)- but definitely a treat! YUM! Yay for Katie for turning me onto these babies!
OK- so the show!
It was at my dad's theatre- yes my DAD'S. He is the President of a Theatre company in town and a few times a year they put on these awesome shows in their new "space". This was my first time going to a show here and it did NOT let me down! Here we/they are before the show! They complained because the sun was in their eyes.. haha.


Here was the show.. all about a 1940's Radio Show, set right around Christmas time.. so cool! The music was great, acting was amazing! Loved it!



Anyway, that about rounds up the weekend. I hope everyone had an AWESOME ONE! I know once I got out of work on Saturday mine went by SO FAST! I can't wait to be able to sleep in this coming Saturday. Easter weekend, no skating, no work, no NOTHING! Yay!

Hope everyone has a great Monday- stay dry if you are in NE!!

Much Ado About Nothing

Ohhhhhhhhh Happy Friday!
I am sooooo glad it's Friday! Can you tell? But let's not get overly excited here, I don't have a great weekend planned so far! I am still waiting to hear if I have to go into work tomorrow or not. I am stuck here until 6 pm already tonight (OT though.. so I'll stay all night if I have to); but I don't know about tomorrow morning. I don't want to miss the Peanut's last skating lesson, but if I must make the big bucks, I must come in and work!

So far, I have literally been twiddling my thumbs all day today- so the idea of coming into the office tomorrow in my pjs and twiddling my thumbs (blogging, reading, etc.) totally appeals to me. Free coffee? Free donuts? Paid double time? I'm in!

Well last night the Peanut had a science fair. Remember the science project we were working on? Well, it didn't work out! We had to go to Plan B. Instead of growing bacteria in food and watching fuzz grow, we got no results and decided to change it at the last second! But it all worked out I think!

She did a project about Motion and Force- it was so cute! I filmed her and my niece rollerskating last weekend and then she did a Power Point presentation on what motion and force are. It was awesome. I can't believe at 7 she knows how to do full on PP stuff- I'm SURE NONE OF US at the age of 7 could do that kind of stuff on the computer. I don't even think Oregon Trail was out when I was 7- and that was the first computer game I had as a kid. Think I was still playing pac-man on those Apple dinosaurs. Haha! Anyway, here are a few shots of the night.



Look in this picture.. all the way to the right, HOT DAD alert! WOWOWOWOW!!!

I tried to get a picture from the front, less of the side, but alas, in attempts to NOT look like a crazy stalker- I stopped trying and just enjoyed the VIEW! Whoever he is married to is LUCKY!
Anyway- it was an enjoyable experience and I was really proud of the Peanut. She did SUCH a good job!
Here was another interesting project about bacteria in water. This girl pulled samples from everywhere, bottled water, tap water, resturants, the TOILET. According to her samples... it's safer to drink out of a well then a water fountain and then don't even get me started on the resturant drinking water. Can you see which one it is? Lucianos???????? According to her sample, I would rather be drinking out of the TOILET than from there!




Interesting isn't it???

Well, since this is a food blog, I guess I will share with you one of my Whole Foods purchases- Enjoy Life bagels. Now you know how big a typical bagel should be right? Yes, well these are tiny itty bitty little bagels. This was the only purchase I made where I felt cheated out of money! Look at this thing! In this case, size TOTALLY matters! I compared to my work badge which is about the size of a playing card.

CARB OUTRAGE! It still tasted yummy, but I was still miffed over how small it was.

This yogurt made up for it... it was SOOOOOOOOOO tasty! I loved it! Please note I have been chained to my desk for the last week and so all my pictures are taken there. Haha.

These are the days where I really miss my baby! I haven't been feeling up to snuff mentally and emotionally lately (I know you guys can't tell because I crack jokes all over..) but when the spring time hits and I think about stuff like baseball and walks and going out for ice cream at midnight, I MISS my Charlie. Fortunately, I drink out of this mug all the time- his fav.. and now mine. Next month is our anniversary, we'll see what kind of fun I can come up with for us over the phone. Oh God. That sounded so gross.. lol sorry! Bad jokes on a Friday!!!!!!!!

What are your plans for the weekend??

Mid-Week Horrors

Well, not really horrors. But fudge, it's almost Wednesday and I feel like it should be Friday already! At least I want it to be Friday.. How is YOUR week going?

So I never told you about Sunday.. or yesterday. I feel like I haven't posted in forever so I think I should start posting more often!

Here goes everything!

Sunday I woke up to this!


So I put on these! (these sneakers are actually circa 2003... kickin' it old school!)and went for another bike ride! I did do pilates to warm up the old legs and get them stretched out before I went riding. I covered a good 3-4 miles on the bike. I need to warm up I think before I take the 18 mile round trip trek to work and back!
I listened to some tunes along the way..

Before I left though, I did have a snack.. the snack of champions.

Juicy-juice and cocoa puffs. Would you expect something better from me??



Don't worry dears, my breakfast was a super one to make up for the fact that my pre-workout snack was a less than stellar one.

In this "mess" was rice yogurt I found at Whole Foods topped with gluten free granola and a blob of Dark Chocolate Dreams. Pretty darn good! Plus these little thingies on the side:

These are freeze dried apples I found at Stop & Stop. They look like this.. so tasty!

I wasn't sure what to have for lunch so I decided to go with more Whole Foods goods. I have no desire to be cooking up a storm or dreaming up recipes, or shoot, doing anything in the kitchen when it's nice outside. Therefore, I shall eat these and be happy!

Here we have veggie meatballs topped with Muir Glen marinara sauce and "nooch". YUM! Along with some random Spagetti like things. They legit tasted like Spagetti-O's.



Well that about rounds up my day, I spent Sunday night doing my usual thing- prepping veggies and fruit for the rest of the week. I usually cut up a couple of days worth of things so that I don't have an excuse not to get my veggies in at lunch. Here is a small sampling of said task. : )

Soooooooo it's 10:30, I think I'm going to head to B-E-D! I've been watching the show the Good Wife and I start each week saying to myself, I'm going to go to bed early tonight.. and I end up getting SUCKED IN. If you don't watch it, it's really good!!!!
Have a fab night peeps!!

Virgins, Nooch, and Threesomes...

Sooooo...
Virgins, nooch, and threesomes...

What happened to me this weekend?!! First of all, it was a gorgeous beautiful weekend here in NE, and I was soooo excited to be outside!

Let's start at the very beginning though..

Thursday night, salsa night! I loved it as usual.. there were 6 performances which were totally awesome, amazing, awe inspiring.. I taped all of them, which you will see soon! I promise! For dinner though, I had something new.... and pretty good!



It only had a 140 calories in one souffle (you know, it says that right on the box too..lol) but I think I could have made this much cheaper myself! It was $3.50!! But it was tasty and the perfect "light" meal for before a night of tail shaking!

So Friday was pretty bad, I felt like I got hit by a bus, I paced around the office, trying to be useful- I went home and crashed to pieces.

Today was good! I got enough sleep to make up for Thursday and was able to get up for roller skating with the girls... my niece was visiting and I conned the skating folks into letting her skate with the Peanut's class..


They did great, we had a good time!! It was an awesome workout for me too- haha. After we left skating we ran over to Target to pick up helmets for our afternoon plans... bike riding! I have a nice shiny purple bike from Christmas but NO HELMET! I found a pretty silver helmet at Target for $9.99. Safety first people!

Here I am looking like a complete dork. (Biz, note my arm placement lol)
I fell when I got onto this pup the first time though, I guess remembering how to ride a bike is easy to forget! It was a good ride, I got the hang of it pretty fast! Haha!
So when am I going to get to my post title? That's coming up!
I had the afternoon free of children and I was headed to the southern part of the state for a bit.. Wait, backstory.. my mother was having a dinner party and she made a ton of roasted veggies which I was super excited about.... until she sprinkled parm cheese all over them... then I remembered that a couple of other hot mamas swear by this "cheesy" substance called nutritional yeast aka "nooch". I've never seen it in any store in my local (within 5 mile) shopping area. And that was it- I knew I had to get my ass to Whole Foods. Thankfully, there is one in University Heights in
Providence, about 6 miles away from where I used to live. Wow, I felt kind of pathetic going there, like ummm.. I could have ridden my bike here??? (I can defend myself by saying I didn't have a bike until AFTER I moved out.)

I devirginized myself to Whole Foods today!! It was spectacular!!! I loved every second of it and spent WAYYYYYY too much money. If the Peanut was with me, I would have had to hand her over to pay for it...
Here are some of the goods..




I got my nooch!
I sprinkled it on my roasted veggies my mom set aside for me. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.... HEAVEN.

So tasty...
There we go... no longer a Whole Foods virgin and I got some nooch. Sounds like I got some action!!!

Speaking of action... my threesome- Jacob and Edward. New Moon came out today and while I was in Target this morning I saw it and somehow it ended up in my cart!!!! I'm watching it right now. Swoon...

Hope you are ALL having a lovely weekend!!!! By the way, I updated my blog-roll, if you don't see yourself over there chew me out and I'll add you!