February Foodie PenPal

Well, another month has come to a close which means it’s Foodie PenPal reveal day!

This month I received a package from Natalie at Sugar, Flour, Flavour. Here’s what she sent me:

– Starbucks peppermint hot chocolate and some tea and honey stir sticks
– quinoa granola (recipe included)
– homemade chocolate chip cookies
– pistachios
– dried cranberries
– baking cookbook

Seriously, this package was amazing! I loved everything, and I’m looking forward to baking some yummy treats from my new cookbook with my daughter over March Break! Thanks Natalie!

Wondering what a Foodie Pen Pal is? Well, it’s a program set up by Jen over at the Lean Green Bean and here’s how it works…

-On the 5th of every month, you will receive your Pen Pal pairing via email. It will be your responsibility to contact your Pen Pal and get their mailing address and any other information you might need like allergies or dietary restrictions.

-You will have until the 15th of the month to put your box of goodies in the mail. On the last day of the month, you will post about the goodies you received from your Pen Pal.

-The boxes are to be filled with fun foodie things, local food items or even homemade treats! The spending limit is $15. The box must also include something written. This can be anything from a note explaining what’s in the box, to a fun recipe…use your imagination!

-You are responsible for figuring out the best way to ship your items depending on their size and how fragile they are. (Don’t forget about flat rate boxes!)

-Foodie Pen Pals is open to blog readers as well as bloggers. If you’re a reader and you get paired with a blogger, you are to write a short guest post for your Pen Pal to post on their blog about what you received. If two readers are paired together, neither needs to worry about writing a post for that month.

-Foodie Pen Pals is open to Canadian and US residents. Please note, Canadian Residents will be paired with other Canadians only. We’ve determined things might get too slow and backed up if we’re trying to send foods through customs across the border from US to Canada and vice versa.

If you’re interested in participating for March, please CLICK HERE to fill out the participation form and read the terms and conditions.

WIAW #6

Happy Wednesday everyone!

Welcome to another edition of WIAW, however, I’m mixing things up a little this week and making my post About What I Ate Last Weekend.

As you may have read, I went away to a Bed and Breakfast for a scrapbooking retreat last weekend and as usual, the food was amazing! We went to Selywn Shores Waterfront Bed and Breakfast located in Lakefield Ontario. Martha, the owner of the B & B is a fantastic cook, and once again, we were not disappointed!

Here’s a little of what we are:

Breakfast –

On the menu: applesauce porridge, mincemeat cake, fresh fruit

Saturday Brunch –

On the menu: lentil soup, wedge salad, tabouli salad, hash brown potatoes, zucchini casserole, sausage casserole, and apricot bars for dessert.

Saturday Dinner –

On the menu: corn ragout, broccoli salad, rice, baby bok choy with coconut, turnip apple casserole, pork tenderloin, strawberry cake with fresh strawberries.

Sunday Brunch –

On the menu: mixed greens with cucumber and veggies, carrot parsnip soup, mushroom ferno, mac and cheese, flank steak, fresh herb bread and chocolate chip cheesecake.

The food was absolutely amazing, and what’s also amazing is that Martha share her recipes, so I will be able to make my favourites at home! I cannot wait to make that Mac and Cheese! Yummo!

A Feel Good Story

My sister posted this on her blog this morning and I just had to share it with all of you.

My Pursuit of Happiness and Skinny Jeans

We can all learn a little something from this story. Amazing.

View original post

Motivational Monday – Don’t Waste the Water!

O.M.Q!

After yesterday’s ‘Tabata That’ CrossFit workout my quads are killing me! Seriously, sitting down to pee is the most painful thing ever!

If you judge a workout by how sore your muscles are the next day, then this one is for you!

TABATA THIS

Instructions:

• The Tabata interval is 20 seconds of work followed by 10 seconds of rest for 8 intervals.
• Tabata score is the least number of reps performed in each of the eight intervals.

Tabata Double Unders

Rest 1 minute

Tabata Squat

Rest 1 minute

Tabata Pull-up

Rest 1 minute

Tabata Push-up

Rest 1 minute

Tabata Sit-up

What’s your favorite CrossFit workout?

Three Things Thursday – Catching Up!

I seriously cannot believe it is already Thursday! Where has the week gone?

Usually short weeks seem to drag on, but this one has flown by! It’s been a super short work week for me – with Monday being Family Day and having to take Tuesday off work to stay home with my kids – and it has completely thrown me off! I have so much to do before tomorrow! Aaaahhhh!

So, I’ve pretty much been MIA from my blog lately and although I miss it, I’m totally feeling blog burnout! I’ve been blogging now for almost a year and this is the first time I have missed my regular posts and the first time I haven’t been feeling the love 😦 Has this ever happened to you? How did you overcome it? Any tips or suggestions?

In the meantime, on to this week’s Three Things Thursday. I’ve got a bit of Catching Up to do…

1. I’ve been busy! This past week has probably been one of the busiest I’ve had in years! Here’s a little about what’s been keeping me from my blog:

Friday – last friday was Ryan’s third birthday and although we didn’t have a party at home, she had a super fun party with her friends at daycare. She absolutely loved the princess cake Kim made for her and was so excited that her daycare friends sang her Happy Birthday!

Saturday – we went to watch my Brother-in-Law Mark coach the Hershey Bears when they came to town to play the Toronto Marlies. Unfortunately the Bears lost, but it was GREAT to see Mark!

Sunday – I went to the Bon Jovi concert with my sister and 3 girlfriends. The concert was amazing (as usual) but spending some time with friends I don’t see very often was even better. We met at my friends house, took the subway into Toronto for dinner at Jo Badali’s (who, by the way, has the best pizza ever), enjoyed the awesome concert, went for a few drinks at the Loose Moose, ate streetmeat (OMG, so good) then headed home to solve the worlds problems with a few more beers in the hot tub! It was such a great time! We’ve decided we are going to take our love of Bon Jovi on the road and go and see him in Jersey! Can’t wait! Anyone know when he’s playing there?

Monday – Family Day and Ryan’s Birthday party!

Tuesday – home with the kids – unfortunately I had to take Tanner to the doctor, again, for another ear infection. 5th one of the winter. Poor kid! Needless to say, he’s been a little cranky these past few days!

Wednesday – back to work after a busy 4 day weekend! Needless to say, it was a early night! I did manage, however, to make a super yummy dinner from the most recent issue of Clean Eating Magazine. We had Sesame Pork Tenderloin with Baby Bok Choy and Apple Tamari Glaze. It only took about 20 minutes to make and was delicious! Add it to the list!

2. WIAW – I have not been eating well at all lately 😦 I know its a horrible excuse, but I have been so busy and so tired that I have not been making it a priority. Anyways, here’s what I ate yesterday…

Breakfast: OJ and WW toast with almond butter

Snack: apple and peanuts

Lunch – Booster Juice Smoothie

Dinner – Sesame Pork Tenderloin with Baby Bok Choy and Apple Tamari Glaze

Snack – Quinoa granola (a little treat from my foodie penpal – Thanks Natalie 🙂 )

3. I’m off for a weekend of R&R! I’m super excited to get away for the weekend. I’m looking forward to an uninterrupted shower, closing the bathroom door to pee, sleeping in (later than 6am), reading, maybe watching a movie and of course, getting a little lot of scrapbooking done. My sister and I, along with a few other ladies are headed back to a Bed & Breakfast in the Kawarthas. We have arranged for all of our meals to be prepared for us, so I just need to grab a few healthy snacks and i’m good to go! Woohoo!

How has your week been?

Any advice on overcoming blogger burnout?

Motivational Monday – Commitment!

TIme to get my JOVI on!

My Pursuit of Happiness and Skinny Jeans

It’s finally here. Tonight is BON JOVI!!! My sister and I are enjoying a pre-concert Corona as I type.

Many more tall cold ones to follow later as we meet up with the rest of the girls and get this party started.

So excited! This is going to be the best night ever!!!!

Rock on, peeps!

View original post

Three Things Thursday!

Happy Thursday everyone! Only one more day til the weekend, and it’s a long weekend for us Ontarian’s! Woohoo! Here’s what’s happening this week:

1. Happy Valentine’s Day! Valentine’s Day usually isn’t a big deal at our house, but since my husband will not be home from work before the kids go to bed we started today off with a bit of a party!

The kids opened little gifts.

We organized valentines for our daycare friends.

And we had cake for breakfast!

It was super fun and a great way to start the day!

My husband actually got me roses this year, which was a huge surprise. Not only are they beautiful, but they are surrounded by a 6 pack of corona and chocolate – seriously, could it get any better!

2. I tried hot yoga yesterday for the first time!It was difficult, but I loved it! I was hoping my first lass would be a Gentle Yoga class, but it turned out it was a Hot Flow. Since I’ve haven’t really done yoga before I wasn’t sure what all the poses were and when we were suppose to have out eyes closed I was always peeking to see what I was suppose to be doing 🙂 hehehe!

3. I’m going to we BON JOVI on Sunday night, and I’m so excited! I absolutely love Bon Jovi – he is so frighten hot! And his music is pretty good too!

I’m going with a group of girlfriends who I don’t get to see as often as I would like, so it’s going to be fun to catch up over dinner, rock on at the concert and then we are all spending the night at one of the girls parents house who are out if town for the weekend. These girls are so much fun, I can hardly wait to see what the night brings!

I’m Exhausted! And WIAW

It’s only Wednesday and I’m already exhausted! We had a super busy weekend last weekend so I didn’t much of a chance to rest and its totally catchy up with me.

What does this mean?

Well it means today’s WIAW post is going to be short and sweet 🙂

Here’s what I ate today…

Breakfast – Whole wheat toast with almond butter and a glass of apple juice.

Snack – 1 Dark Chocolate Chip Walnut No Bake Coconut Cookie These cookies are amazing! I think next time I will add some oats to jazz them up a little more, but they are super yummy as is. And so easy to make!

Lunch – Leftover Chicken Fajitas and grapes

Snack – Pomegranate Seeds and Popchips

Dinner – Eat Clean Spinach and Turkey Sausage Pizza. You can find the link to recipe here

Well, that’s it for eats for today, and that’s it for this post! I’m outta here and off to bed!
Happy Hump Day everyone!