New York Part 3: Morning, Noon, & Night

Hey everyone! Happy weekend!! Hope you are all having a fabulous weekend so far, I know we are over here.. it's been hot as anything so far this week and I am hoping this nice weather continues for the next couple of weeks! Summer can't die yet!!
So i have to tell you about the other best part of the weekend - our night out. It was a really really fun time! We went a bar that was within walking distance of our hotel, which was a great thing. No money spent on cabs!

Where should I start? After the tons of pizza we consumed, we made tasty adult beverages. My friend Jillian picked these cutesy cosmo glasses up at Christmas Tree Shop (I'm not sure if any of you have one near you??)

They were perfect for serving up pretty pink Cosmos. My friend's had these in multiple quantities, I had Jillian make me a weak one. I'm a lightweight. What can I say??

We also decorated the hotel room! Ok, all we did was put cute little SATC pics up on the sole picture in the room.

Doesn't the bride look soooooo cute??

We also made her wear a nice pretty pink scarf to symbolize one of her last weekends as a single lady!

Then I went and got ready in MY room (we had two nice rooms!). I took a shower in the "heavenly shower". Ohhhhhhh it was heavenly indeed! The shower had dual shower heads.. I'm not sure what those were for- but it did feel pretty good!
(I didn't take a pic of the shower.. sorry! But you can see how lovely the whole bathroom is!)
Here is a pic of my dress and the bag that I bought from a street vendor. There was no name name brand on it, but it was only $10!!!!! What a great purse! I needed a bigger one, and I got my wish! It's a cute giraffe print with purple strips.. what a good deal!My dress was a good deal too- only $26 at Charlotte Russe. My only issue was that I should have added a hook and eye closure on it before I wore it out. The dress was REALLY fitted in the bust- and the zipper slipped more than a few times! Good thing my hair is so long, it covered up any indecency!

Now Christina pointed out that my legs are nice and tan. Ah yes.. they are! More like ORANGE! GAH!!!! I am a victim of Sunless Tanning Lotion. They NEVER work on me! I have tried almost every single one out there, (besides the uber expensive ones that is!) but they all turn me orange.

My big confession is, I have been going tanning. PHEW. Got that off my chest! I have gone a few times and I get tan fast when I do go..sooooooo let's all cross our fingers that I don't die of cancer any time soon ok?? (I never claimed to be a perfectly healthy minded individual at ALL times!!!)

We had a LOVELY night. I can't remember the name of where we were.. but it was nice. We had our own table at the upstairs bar. The other ladies consumed lots of shots!! (look for the pics on Facebook!) I didn't bring my camera with me, but they did and we got some nice ones! There is a picture of me standing outside of Forever 21, I'll try to get that one soon so you can see it! I didn't drink alot.. my reason being was that I wanted to be able to eat French Toast for breakfast and if I am trashed or hung over, I can't eat carbs, they come right back up!

We did not go to bed until 5 AM! WHO WAS I???????? I'm usually getting UP at 5 am! But alas, my eyes snapped open at 8:30. ARGH!!! We didn't go and eat until almost 10, I'm usually eating breakfast at 8:30!! I was super hungry.. LOL. We went to Brooklyn Diner for some eats....................... And we LEFT! There was a minimum of $15 PER person!!! Soooooo you couldn't even get the cheap meal at brunch?? Which was $8 Cheerios and $4 orange juice.We almost felt bad until we saw this place.

Suzanne got hot chocolate! Look at that whipped cream!!!
Here was my breakfast..... OHHHHHHHHHHH my God!!!! This was the best French Toast I have had in a LONG time! Plus it was only $11! Which in my book, is still expensivo, but.. much cheaper than the $18 dollar French Toast at Brooklyn Diner!

I had mine with turkey sausage- soooo good. I loved it! Can you tell???

So anyway- that was most of the New York trip in a nutshell- well at least the appropriate parts of it! I hope you liked my NY trip round up!

I'll be back soon, I have some food stuffs that I wanted to share with you too! Hope you all have a great Sunday!!!

The Missing Link

Holy cow, it's back to the daily grind again! Another long week is in the works.. work is busy.. it's the end of quarter, so basically unless we are dead we have to come in to work. Of course, if we are dead, they may want us to be brought back to life to be in! But I think I'll survive it! Haha!

So the last couple of weeks I have been really really focused on building up strentgh- which is always a good thing.. right?? I've been working hard, and I can feel my muscles gaining strenth and I'm toning up- which is always a good thing right?

Not for this body! I forget that I gain muscle REALLY fast and if I don't also do cardio and YOGA. I bulk up. Yepppppp Mama don't wanna be no bodybuilder! I want to be toned and sexy. Not big and bulky. My jeans have been fitting tighter- and even though I haven't gained any weight.. I can feel my legs and my bum getting bigger. What gives??

The missing link is my yoga mat. I have been slacking hardcore on the one thing that brings me back down to earth and elongates my muscles at the same time! My yoga program of choice? Mark Blanchard's Progressive Power Yoga.

I have the video tapes (hello 2004!) and this is literally my favorite yoga video ever. I have tried many through Netlfix (hello 2009!) and following yoga pod casts online (hi 2010!). But no matter what I do, I don't feel pushed, prodded, and more sexually harassed in a workout like I do with Progressive Power Yoga.
Yes, Mark Blanchard thinks he's God's gift to yoga, yes, he breathes funny and it makes you think he's &*^%$#@#$%^ off, and sometimes the pace is slow. But if you connect your breath to the mat- good God it's a good workout! Everytime I do a full workout, it's like I just ran a marathon. It hurts so good!!!!!

So anyway, I'm going to be getting back to my dear yoga mat so I can stretch out these big muscles I have now. :) Plus adding in at least 2 cardio workouts a week, rather than keep doing the Jillian Michaels and the Core Fusion workouts by themselves.

I just got this DVD today in the mail- leftover from my $50 gift card from work.. I read all the reviews on it and decided this would be a good choice for some booty shaking cardio! Boy was I right! Once I have it down pat, I will, I swear on my life be taping this one out for you. It was SO much fun! And such a good workout! I loved every second of it. It was HARD and you will sweat like crazy but Quenia does an amazing job cuing the moves and she is really fun. But I will be totally honest, either the camera does add ten pounds, or they did some serious airbrushing on the DVD cover- cuz she is so curvalicious! I loved it! She knows how to seriously shake that booty!

So tonight, I was having major technical difficulties with my phone so I was on the phone with the phone company for FOREVER. I had planned on making salmon and green beans. But after I got off the phone with them, my issue unresolved! I was fed up but just kept it moving.. I heated this up!

I found this dinner at Whole Foods and I remember eating tempeh last year and absolutely hating it- but I was willing to go out on a limb and try it.

I added more BBQ sauce to the dish, just to be on the safe side- you know.. drown it in condiments!!

But this was excellent. The quinoa gave the dish a little extra chew- and I could barely taste the tempeh. No stinky feet taste. No terrible texture.. I was impressed! Now if only I could safely make this for myself, I'd be all set!

Well I hope you have an excellent Monday night! I'm heading to bed soon! Thanks to those who did comment on my "fashion" post! I'll be doing another one this week. I have a bachelorette party to go to, and I need to decide which dress to wear to go out "whoring and drinking" (a reference to a musical.. anyone guess???)

GOOD NIGHT ALL!!!!

When I Grow Up..

I wanna repair panel boards for manufacturing plants through out the United States.

Huh? Did I just say that?? What am I talking about?? Well, today I was speaking with the leader of the repair department in my company- and we were discussing how he was retiring in a few years. We figured that his position needed a replacement and it should be me! Ha! We'll see what happens, I still have to discuss with my boss how a move to another state might affect my team here. They can't survive without me, and I might not make it to the age of 50 here. So I'll be thinking about it hard.. it's an interesting proposition, would be a lot more moolah. And you all know I need that!

So to answer a couple of questions I got. And to comment on a couple of comments. Sophia- go to a matinee! We went at 2:20 and the movie only cost $8.00 for each of us, plus we went to a gas station near the theatre and spent four dollars on candy :)
But hey, you just got back from a 6 week adventure in Asia, so, that beats the movies any day! Haha!
Biz- nutritional yeast TASTES like a powdered version of nuts and cheese. No seriously, it's a wacky way to describe it but it really does. It's not bad and it has a ton of vitamins in it- some I am seriously lacking in, so I try to sprinkle it on a few things a week to get that in there. Why did I put it on my salad though??? After choking it down, I asked myself the same thing!! *shudder*

Well today's eats and actions weren't too bad! I got up early and did yoga, that was nice and stretchy! It felt really good to do that! I'm definitely doing it tomorrow morning too.
My eats for the day mirrored the usual all the way up until lunch time.

Salad! WHAT NOW??? You guys must be thinking I'm sick! No, I just don't want my salad mix to go to waste.

I topped it with some of the above dressing. Lauren suggested that I needed some decent dressing. I must be the only person out there who doesn't really love salad dressing, hence the reason it's hard to eat salad. Too much vinegar, too much garlic, too creamy. I'm not picky about most food, but I am picky about salad dressing! This wasn't too bad, I liked it, but not loved it. So I'll be on the hunt for some decent dressing this weekend for sure!

I had some rice on the side for some extra carbonation. It was leftover from my lunch on Sunday. I love leftovers!
For my dinner though?? I tried something totally different, and I LOVED IT. Seriously!
This is an Organic Bistro frozen meal. It was new and looked really interesting in the grocery store - so I picked one up to try. This meal is gluten-free and contains no milk ingredients in it, so I felt safe knowning it would end up bothering my stomach later.
I heated this baby up and went to town. The rice had a nice light flavor to it, with mangoes and a little spice. The green beans were a bit bland, but I think it's really hard to make frozen green beans taste delish. The crab cake? OMFG.. This was SO GOOD! The flavor had a bite to it, some parts of it were really spicy- but there were hunks of real crab meat in there. It was totally unexpected, it tasted homemade. For real. The whole meal did. I was blown away.


I had a meeting at church tonight so I had to eat it quick and go there! The meeting went well and I came home and chatted with my lil baby and my other big baby. Now I'm up here, trying to get tired enough to fall asleep. I worked out at 8:30- not a wise idea on my part. I am still working on my dance for a video for you all. It was WAY too hot last week to work on it! So I'm putting everything I can into it now..
But I'm off to brush my teeth and try to fall asleep! Good night all!

Not My Idea Of a Quickie...

Hi Y'all!!!! Like my title suggests, this one is going to be a quickie!

First of all- Happy Belated Father's Day to all the dads out there who are reading my blog (how many are there??? *cricket**cricket*) and to my dad. And to my favorite dad in the whole world- Charlie- I miss him so much!!!! The Peanut does too!

End of quarter is this week and I am squeezing in the workouts even though I don't have a lot of time.. but it's good, less time to think you know?!

So yoga. YES. Biking. YES. Getting hot and sweaty for no reason. YES. It's been SO HOT HERE!

Up next; FOOD!

I made almond butter chocolate chip cookies for "my dad". He liked them the last time I made them.. but I still ate most of them!
My mother made fruit salsa and homemade pita chips for an appetizer for Father's Day lunch. She used blueberries, strawberries, kiwi, and peaches. Combine fruit, sugar, and a touch of honey- pulse in the food processor until it has a salsa like texture and inhale. Literally we all did. This bowl was gone in about 5 minutes! SO GOOD!


My dad grilled steak and sausages.. he was in his glory of course! Here was my plate.. I was carbo loading!

So that was Sunday..

Yesterday, I managed to get my workouts in.. walking at lunch time, yoga after work, then another walk to the store with the girls.. then I carbo-loaded again!

Followed by a piece of chocolate and my night was done!

Today I am dealing with some work drama, but all is good otherwise, I got the Peanut signed up for school, registered for the bus.. she is good to go to 3rd grade.. yay!
Hope you are all having a fabulous day! By the way, I loved hearing about which Disney Princesses you all were, looks like we are the whole bunch!!
I'll be checking in tomorrow!!

Which Disney Princess Are You?

Today was the Peanut's dance recital!!!! I couldn't believe how awesome today was! She did soooooooo good. She takes tap and ballet, and while I didn't get any pics of her in her tap costume, here she is in her ballet costume. Well from behind anyway..

(Check Facebook for more if you want.. lol)
Today was a weird day in terms of eating.. I was thrown for a loop because we were stuck in the school all day long for the recital and then went for ice cream after that. At that point, my camera had long since died, so I didn't take any pics. But I had a waffle for breakfast with Justin's peanut butter, kind of like what I had for breakfast yesterday!
(this was taken at work yesterday btw.. )


(this was a new jar- I could BARELY stir this! argh!)


Snacks included half a cheese sandwich I stole from the Peanut, carrots I borrowed from her, Maria cookies I stole from her, and water bottles I stole from my mom. Are you noticing a pattern here? I didn't set myself up correctly for a good eating day. It wasn't enough to eat for me!!! I am wiped out..
But I sorta made up for it at dinner; veggie soup and a Zbar- chocolate brownie.. what can I say, I need my chocolate!

So to update everyone on my 101 Day Challenge. I am barely making it through yoga, but I'm doing it. Even when I don't feel like it.. even when I wanted to cry.. I did it. So I definitely feel proud of myself for that. It's too easy for me to beat myself up when I start losing the motivation to work out. And I think I gave myself an easy goal of yoga for 20 minutes a day! BUT, my bike riding has been seriously HARD. On the weekends I haven't had much time to squeeze in a long bike ride. Or it's been raining when I'm home after work. So I'll keep trying to get that in! Maybe tomorrow!

I found a new workout top at Target today with my sister for $3.74!!!!!! Whawhoooooo!!! I *heart* Target for those random finds! So I guess I'll try and take the kids on a bike ride in the morning. We are playing hooky from church.. : )

Please check this link everyone! Which Disney Princess Are You? I am Jasmine, hands down!!!
"You are strong in standing up for your beliefs, one of which includes marrying for love, not for social-standing or wealth. Free-spirited, intelligent and brave as you are, you like to make your own decisions, and you are unafraid to voice your opinions. You can also come off as feisty! You crave adventure and cannot sit indoors for too long. Though you grew up privileged and admired for your unique beauty, you are not self-absorbed. You are a caring person, and you feel the desire to help the underprivileged." (minus the privileged part... I wasn't!)

Well, I'm heading to bed. Hope you all are having a fabulous weekend!!!

Scheduling Problems

Holy crapola.. I'm watching America's Got Talent over here. What is wrong with people?!?! I'm sorry- but some people gotta check themselves wayyyyyyy before they wreck themselves.. um, on National Television?! But the secret performer in me really would love to be on that show! But some of these performances are incredible!

I spent some time tonight working on some dance moves, my big goal for the summer is to get ispired and do some more work-out videos for you guys..like I did here..

So today I was absolutely a big ole mess. Tired, cranky, tired, and cranky. I think that yesterday caught up with me! I was falling asleep waiting for the Peanut to get out of dance class. So I came home and ate my dinner, ran some errands, and here I am in bed- waiting for AGT to be over so I can HIT the sack HARD.

My eats for the day:


This is my gluten-free bread with Tofutti "cream cheese" and some raspberry preserves, a sweet and easy way to start the day..





SNACKS! Add in an Attune bar as well- and those are my snackies for the day. If it looks like I eat ALL day long, it's because I basically do. Also unpictured was a big bowl of my Sweet Potato soup I had yesterday.
** Slight interjection.. I FREAKIN' HATE BLOGGER! It is IMPOSSIBLE to easily upload pictures.. Blogger, you s**k!**


This was my dinner! I bought it at the grocery store earlier today, these are super easy to just heat in the microwave. And I was definitely looking for a quick dinner!
Dessert was more chocolate.. of course.. HAHA!

And I did get in somewhat of a workout- 30 minutes of Pilates this morning and some dance tonight!

So does anyone else have a rigid schedule when it comes to food? And it is a natural hunger cue or are you "hungry" because it's time to eat? Like for example, you eat a snack at 10:30 because.. that's snack time. And a snack at 3:30 because, it's snack time! And dinner at 7:15 because it's time? That's how I am most of the time, and everytime I try to switch it up or my schedule gets switched up, my body is like.. ohh hell no.. not doing this today to me!!!! (insert head bob and finger snapping here). Do you think that sometimes we just get into a schedule and then our body adjusts to that? Like for me today- at afteroon "snack time" I was on the phones, unable to reach behind me and get my snack. Dammmiiittttttttttt.... I wanted something!!!

Well. I'm off to bed. Let's try to have a non-tired and cranky day tomorrow, m'k? I think I bit a few people's heads off at work, I'll have to kiss some butt!!!!

Stop Calling...

Well this is just a quick post..

This happens to be one of my favorite songs this year. AND LOOK AT THESE GUYS!!!!! Too funny! This definitely MADE my day.

More to come, gotta busy day ahead ; ) ENJOY!!!!

On To The Next One

Wow... I don't even know what to say guys. First of all, thank you for all your sweet comments. I don't know what I would do without the support of blog world- seriously. I haven't had the chance to email everyone who commented or wrote.. but I promise I will.
I wish I could say that I have come back refreshed, joyous, and full of promise.
I wish I could say that I ate like a star all week, and didn't stare blankly into the pantry or fridge, only to walk away empty handed. My appetite and grief go hand in hand.
I wish I could say that my "real" friends were as supportive of this whole thing as my "bloggie" friends. I have been stubborn lately, and saying, "someone will call me. someone will reach out." and nothing. Does anyone want my phone number?!
I wish I could say I didn't cry every night.
I wish I could say anything brilliant, worthwhile, refreshing, profound. So many words just jumble up in my head and to make them come out on paper? Man that is a task.
I came across my journal I kept two years ago at around this time and I was *shocked* to see that my thought process about myself was quite honestly the same.
I wish I could say that I think in the last couple of years I have grown mentally and emotionally. Although I have CLEAR goals in my head- I think they are lost a little at this time.
I quit dance class.
My teacher was the creepo who tried to *molest* me a while back and as much as I wanted to keep dancing there and as much as I LOVE it, my gas tank, wallet, and mental health will thank me.

Instead I bought these two DVD's. Anasma Liquid Fusion Hip Hop/Belly Dancing. Um sexy much?! I'm really looking forward to getting them and they were really cheap. I will do them twice and they will pay for themselves compared to dance(my dance class was $10 per class).

Even though this post finds me still struggling, I do have faith that it will get easier and THIS TIME will not be forever. The future is way better than the misery of the present and as long as I'm still able to get up out of bed- I consider the day a success. Obviously, I need to work on my expectations ; )

That brings me to some of my eats. Like I said, lately this has been a hard area for me- BUT I'm a work in progress.

This was yummy.. I really liked it, even though I thought I wouldn't. I love eggs, so I thought this would end up being a poor substitute for scrambled eggs, but it was delightful, savory dish. The hash browns even had a "crunch" to them despite being nuked..
These weren't too bad. I bought a weeks worth of Attune bars because I wanted to see if my stomach would be able to handle it and react well. So far so good. I love chocolate so this was a good way to have some "functional chocolate".


Another snack I felt I needed to try. Please guys, don't go shopping with my daughter! Everything I picked up she made me throw in the cart. So when I pondered over these in the yogurt section of Hannafords and explained how they worked to her, she said, "oh just get them mom, seriously!!!". Yea, 7 going on 17 right here guys!
And then one more I got, you know, just for good measure..
Freeze-dried pineapple. It wasn't too bad, but I forgot that pineapple is one of those fruits that if it ain't cooked my mouth don't like it. So I ended up drinking about 5 glasses of water after eating these babies.


I did bake though. What? Me? Cook something? Yes, I know you are all shocked!! Another purchase the Peanut said I "needed to get" at Hannafords. She kills me!
Sorry it is such a crappy picture of the finshed product, but this was really good!!! I managed to spread out eating this through-out a few days, but it was hard to not eat it all in one sitting.
I added honey to the batter and used rice milk in place of water to make it "richer". YUM! Loved it! (P.S. Peanut painted my nails for me.. I think she wants to be my boss, always pushing me around, telling me what to do.. lol)


I should be cooking tonight. I have some chicken sausage in my fridge that needs to get used up. Plus some rice mix (you know I love my Goya rice...). I hope this post finds everyone who reads and comments blessed. Seriously because I feel blessed to be able to be a part of this community. You guys are awesome and really do make it all worthwhile.
*MAJOR HUGS*

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!!