5 Things I'm Loving Right Now

1)                                                      Jillian Michael's 30-Day Shred

  

I enjoy working out and staying in shape, but I absolutely hate going to the gym.  This is probably mostly due to my introverted personality.  I find it intimidating and uncomfortable.  Plus, the gym is 20 minutes from our house, and I just don't have am not willing to waste spend all that time driving every day for a workout.  So....I am much more likely to work out, if I can either do it at home or simply step foot outside my front door and go.  Between running and biking, I don't have too much trouble getting in my cardio workouts, but I have been wanting something to help build strength.  I recently saw a couple of blog/facebook reviews about people who had been enjoying the 30-Day Shred.  Since workout videos are often a crapshoot as far as quality goes, I decided to check this out from the library before buying it.  My thoughts the first time I popped it in were "I am in pretty decent shape, and it's only a 20 minute workout.  This should be no problem."  About four minutes into the workout (the easiest level), I said (out loud to myself) "Are you kidding me?!"  I was already spent!  Needless to say, I knew that this video was going to be a keeper, so I went out and purchased my own copy.  I'm definitely loving it right now.  It's something I can do in my own living room; it's quick; and it's definitely challenging me.  I'm looking forward to being shredded!

2)                                                                 First iris bloom

A little over a year ago, we purchased our first home.  Our house has a decent size front and back yard, but did not have much in the way of landscaping when we moved in.  I really wanted to have a yard full of flowers to enjoy, so I slowly started building some flower beds in the back yard.  It didn't take long at all for me to realize that I really love gardening.  I love planting flowers and watching them grow and bloom.  I certainly am no expert and have a lot to learn about building/maintaining any type of garden, but what's most important is that I am having fun.  Last spring/summer, I was very fortunate to have a couple of gardener friends give me a couple of buckets full of iris (past blooming) from their own gardens.  Iris are my favorite, and I have been dying to see them bloom.  About a week ago, this lovely yellow and white one opened up.  I also have a dark purple one blooming and quite a few more that will be blooming soon.  I love being able to look out my back window at these every day!

3)                                                  My new Thermos Intak Water Bottle

I have never been good about drinking enough water.  It's not that I was drinking other things, like soda or juice all the time, I just never drank much period.  So, a couple of months ago, I decided to make a concentrated effort to drink more water every day.  It was going pretty well for awhile, but then I started to notice that I was slipping back into old habits and not drinking much throughout the day.  So, I decided to go buy a couple of water bottles that I could carry around with me to see if that would help.  I bought two different bottles, but this one is definitely my favorite.  It's small enough that I can throw it in my bag when I go to work, and it ensures that I always have water with me.  It's also BPA free, which is great.  It has definitely helped increase my water intake on a day to day basis.  Love it!

4)                                                                Spaghetti squash

Seriously, why I am just now discovering this?!  I have been seeing recipes for spaghetti squash all over pinterest lately, and finally decided to give it a shot.  I like squash in general, but it has never really been a go to veggie for us.  I had read that lots of people use spaghetti squash as a pasta substitute, so we bought one a couple of weeks ago to try for dinner.  It was super easy to prepare, and we topped it with some marinara sauce and parmesan cheese.  I was expecting it to taste like a butternut or acorn squash.  So, when I took my first bite, and it really truly resembled pasta, I was amazed!  Now, I'm not going to swear off pasta forever, but this will certainly be worked into the regular rotation at my house from now on.  I even made this for myself last week while Albert was out of town, which was totally a big deal.  Those of you who know me well, know that I DO NOT cook for myself when Albert is gone.  So, the fact that I actually prepared a meal for me, myself and I, instead of just eating oatmeal or PB&J, is huge.  Definitely love it!

5)                                                                      New jeans

A few years ago, a friend of mine introduced me to 7 For All Mankind jeans, and I was in love.  I think most people find jeans shopping difficult, and when you find that perfect pair, it just makes you feel good.  After discovering these jeans, I bought myself a pair that have been my absolute favorite for the last 8 years.  Unfortunately, they are completely tattered now, and I have been in need of a new pair for quite a while now.  After receiving some money for Christmas, I decided to splurge on a new pair.  Even though I loved my Sevens, I wanted to try on a few different brands to see if I might like something else better.  So, with Albert in tow, I headed to the only boutique in town that carries designer jeans.  I picked out quite a few pairs to try, including some Seven For All Mankind, Citizens of Humanity, and Joe's Jeans.  After trying them all on, I emerged from the dressing room and said to Albert, "The Sevens win, no contest."  I still love these jeans.  And even though they are pricey (hence why I have not had a new pair in 8 years), for me, they are so worth it!

This is what I have been loving lately.  What are you loving?

Chocolate Mint Milkshake

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I have a delicious, and super easy, treat for you today - a chocolate mint milkshake.  I absolutely love milkshakes.  I don't get them very often because I always feel guilty about consuming so much ice cream and sugar.  So, I am thrilled that this healthier alternative turned out to be so incredibly
Ah-maz-ing.

Earlier this week at the store, I purchased some chocolate coconut milk.  I was intrigued and simply wanted to try it.  I honestly hadn't found much use for it though....until now!  So, here it is.

Ingredients:
1 cup chocolate coconut milk
1/4 tsp. vanilla
2-3 drops peppermint extract (optional)
1-2 tbsp. chocolate chips

Mix these four ingredients together.  (If you choose to use peppermint extract, be very careful not to get too much.  It is very potent and few drops is really all you need.)  Pour into a shallow container and freeze.  After mixture is frozen, remove from freezer and defrost for 20-30 seconds.  Just enough to help pop it out of the container and break it up a bit easier.  Then throw it in a blender and blend until smooth and creamy.  If you have a high performance blender like a Vitamix, this will be no problem.  If, like me, you just have a regular old blender, it will take just a bit of manipulation.  Blend for a minute, then stop and mix it by hand, then blend again.  Just repeat this until it is blended smooth.

I chose to drink mine as a milkshake, but it was thick enough that you could eat easily eat it as ice cream.

(Image is not mine.  I was so excited to drink this, I failed to take a picture.)  :D

You can thank me for this little gem later!  Have a great week!

Good happenings

I've been feeling pretty down in the dumps lately, and I'm not exactly sure why.  Maybe it's been the weather over the last few weeks (mostly cloudy, rainy, dreary, and chilly), maybe I'm more stressed about work than I realize, or maybe it's just good old fashion hormones.  Whatever the reason though, I have been having a hard time finding the motivation to do much, including posting on the blog.  I have perked up a bit over the last couple of days, so I thought I would write about some of the good things that are going on right now.

1)  It's spring break!  And who doesn't like a week off, right?

2)  Even though the weather has been dull lately, there are signs of spring.  Flowers have started blooming, plants have begun reemerging, and it's finally going to be warm this weekend - 70s!  I'm hoping that we are finally, truly heading into spring.  We have been getting teasers lately, a warm day here or there, only for it to turn chilly and rainy again.  These teasers almost make things worse.  It's like Mother Nature is saying "Na na na na boo boo!"  Ha!  I know I shouldn't be complaining too much.  At least we don't have any snow on the ground.  But as someone who does not tolerate the cold well, I am more than ready for spring.  So, fingers crossed that it is going to get warm, and stay warm!

3)  Cooper is doing well!  Last May, we adopted Cooper from an animal shelter here in town.  We visited many of the shelters in the area before finding Cooper and deciding to bring him home.  At the time, the shelter estimated him to be about 8 years old.  He was skinny, matted, and heart worm positive.  We brought him home though and immediately started treatment for the heart worms.  If you don't know anything about heart worm treatment, it is a long, and in Cooper's case, grueling process.  He was so ill throughout the treatment that I was afraid he wasn't going to make it.  There was one night in particular where I was sure he would no longer be with us when I woke up in the morning.  He's still here though!  About a month ago, we took him in to have a heart worm test 6 months after treatment ended.  It was negative (yay!), so he is officially heart worm free.  :)  Also, Albert and I have both noticed lately that he has been gaining weight (much needed) and is looking great.  I've always been more of a cat person than a dog person, but Cooper has slowly worked his way into my heart, and I'm so glad we rescued him.

4)  Finally, we just booked a summer trip to Ireland!  We have been talking about this trip for months, but just in the past week, we booked our flights, lodging, and car rental.  We will be making a loop around the southern half of the island, starting and ending in Dublin.  Some of the sights we will be seeing include, but are definitely not limited to!, the Guinness Storehouse, Temple Bar, Kilkenny Castle, Waterford Crystal, Jameson Distillery, Blarney Castle/Stone, Killarney National Park, Ring of Kerry, the Cliffs of Moher, Kylemore Abbey, and more.  We are so excited we can't hardly wait!

After all of that, it's hard to imagine that I have been feeling down.  Maybe I just needed a reminder of all the good happenings lately!

Blueberry breeze

I can't believe it is almost March!  You would certainly never guess it based on the weather.  Fortunately, we aren't buried in snow, like much of the country is, but the temperatures here in Memphis are definitely below normal.  The normal high here in February is 58 degrees, yet they are calling for possible flurries tomorrow night and a high of 42 on Saturday.  Ugh...  I'm so ready for spring.

Yesterday, I thought that maybe if I whipped up something a little tropical tasting that I could trick myself into believing that I was somewhere, well...tropical.  Or at the very least, I could pretend like it wasn't so chilly outside.  So, I made a blueberry breeze smoothie.

Delish!

Ingredients:

~1/2 a carton of my favorite yogurt - Atlanta Fresh, Vanilla Caramel flavor

~2/3 cup Coconut Milk

~1/2 cup frozen organic blueberries

5-6 chunks of pineapple

1/2 - 1 tbsp. chia seeds

Toss the first four ingredients into the blender, and blend until smooth.  Then, add the chia seeds, and blend briefly until they are mixed in.

That's it!

While it didn't transport me to a beach far, far away, it was pretty tasty.  Happy Thursday!

Sweet Treat Saturday - Individual cheesecakes

Hello!  I have another great treat for you today!  Individual cheesecakes, or cheesecake cupcakes.  I got the recipe for these here, and they were a pleasant surprise.  I say a surprise because the recipe called for Stevia, which I am personally not crazy about, but I had some in the cabinet that we had purchased a while ago and figured this would be a good way to use it up.  Fortunately, after baking them, you really don't get much of the Stevia flavor.

That being said, I may try these again using some other sweetener - honey or maybe Xylitol.  We'll see.

Anyway, here's the recipe:

Ingredients:
8 oz. cream cheese (softened)
2 tbsp. unsalted butter
1/4 cup almond meal/flour
3/8 cup stevia
1 tsp. vanilla
1 egg

Directions:
1)  Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and fill six slots of a muffin tin with cupcake liners.  Set aside.
2)  In a small bowl, melt the butter, then add the almond flour.  Mix well to form the crust.  Spoon a little bit of the mixture into each of the cupcake liners, and pat down to form a thin crust.

3)  Then, in a food processor or mixer, combine the cream cheese, egg, vanilla and stevia until smooth and creamy.
4)  Fill each cupcake liner about 2/3 - 3/4 of the way full with this mixture.

5)  Bake in oven for 17-20 minutes.

6)  Remove from oven.  Let cool a bit, then chill in fridge for a few hours.
7)  When ready, remove a cupcake and enjoy it either plain, or with your choice of topping (whipped cream, fruit preserves, etc.)

These were super easy, and my husband gave them two thumbs up.  :)  Beware - they are rich!  So, you might want to consider sharing, if you can...

Let me know how it goes if you decide to try these!

Valentine's Day!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine's Day!  Our schedules have both been a little crazy lately...  Albert had a concert to conduct on Valentine's evening.  Then, he had a honor band clinic all day/evening Friday and Saturday.  I, obviously, attended the concert on Valentine's Day, then, I attended another concert Friday night.  So, we kind of had to fit Valentine's Day around everything that was going on this week.

So, Wednesday night, I made dinner - butternut squash risotto.  (Although it wasn't a true risotto as I just used brown rice.)  And then Thursday, after the concert (which was amazing), we celebrated with some gluten-free cupcakes.  After a recent google search, I discovered that there is a gluten-free bakery here in Memphis.  So, of course, I had to try the cupcakes, and they were fantastic!  The woman that owns the bakery also gave me a sample dinner roll, and it was also truly delicious.  Her motto is "You won't miss a thing!" and she is right!  Of course, my first thought was, "I have got to learn how to make this!"

(Since I didn't have time to try out any new recipes this week, this is my Sweet Treat Saturday tip for you Memphians.  And I promise, that next week, I'll have a new recipe for you to try.)

I also got Albert the book The Five Love Languages by Gary Champman.  They were talking about it on K-LOVE all day on Valentine's Day, and so I picked one up for us to read.  Have any of you read it?

It is a book that I have seen before, and I am somewhat familiar with the concept.  Even though I haven't read the book, I know for a fact that Albert and I have completely different love languages.  This is tough, because I think our instinct tells us to do for others what we would like to have done for us, not necessarily what will be the most meaningful for them.  So, we are looking forward to reading this book together, and hopefully, discovering some new things about one another.

Finally, I just ordered some new tennis shoes that I am really excited about, and are somewhat appropriate for Valentine's Day.

No one will miss me coming with these on!  Have a great week all!

Sweet Treat Saturday - Chocolate Mug Cake

Welcome to another installment of Sweet Treat Saturday!  I've got a great treat for you today - one that I have been working on all week.  Recently, I have come across a number of recipes for single serve "mug cakes," and when I found this one that was gluten-free, I just had to try it.

When I made it for the first time though, I felt like it was just too much for me to eat by myself (and I really don't like to share my dessert :-p ), and I also thought it was a bit dry.  So, every day this week, I made one and tweaked the recipe a bit each time.  It was a tough job, but I think I handled it like a champ!  Finally, I got it to the point that I thought was post worthy.  (I may still continue tweaking a bit, but it is pretty darn good as it is.)

So here it is:

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons almond meal/flour

1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa

2 tablespoons honey

~1/2 tablespoon of vanilla

1 egg yolk

~1/2 tablespoon milk of choice (I tried both almond and coconut)

small pinch of salt

dash of cinnamon (sorry I never measured this out)

Directions:

Mix all ingredients together in microwave safe mug.  

Microwave on high for 2 minutes.

Then, I like to pour a bit of milk over the top of mine.  I tried both almond milk and coconut milk.  They are both good, but I love coconut.  So, even though the photo shows the almond milk, the coconut milk was definitely the winner for me.

If you want a spongier texture, then you can use a whole egg.  I prefer the texture with just the egg yolk, because I think it's closer to the texture of a flour based cake.  It is so easy to make though, you can try it both ways and decide for yourself!

This is a fantastic way to satisfy your sweet tooth.  It's fast, easy, chocolate, and there are no leftovers to have to deal with.  What could be better?!