Just what I needed for my e-cook book!!
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Weekend wrap up and goals…
With not having much of a break last week, well, no break at all in fact-I realized I’ve been slacking on the blog the last few days. Ack…my bad!
Having had worked New Year’s day, I decided to make the very most of this weekend with my family. I work next weekend, so we decided to do all the fun family stuffs. Friday I came home from work to a wonderfully cooked meal of BBQ chicken and veggies by my hubby, as well as to find all of the Christmas decorations had been taken down and put away. Score. I was ready to move past the holidays. Friday night we relaxed and watched the movie, “Big Night” starring Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub. It is an older film, from 1996, but the story was based on the relationship of two brothers who had moved to the United States from Italy to open their own restaurant. At first, you think the movie is going to be about food but in reality it’s about their passion FOR Italian food, and the relationship the two brothers share. Great flick, and I highly recommend it to any food enthusiast, or movie lover alike.
Saturday we decided to take the family to see MockingJay part 1 at the theater (GREAT movie), and have dinner at a place we haven’t tried yet that is located in Geneva, IL. Local readers, I HIGHLY recommend The Patton house, which is on 2nd street in downtown Geneva. We had bacon wrapped figs to start, and my entrée was a spicy salmon fillet over a sweet potato puree with a maple demi glaze. To. Die. For.
Today was my day to go shopping at my favorite consignment shop, Clothes Mentor, with the gift cards I received for Christmas. This store makes me happy. What can I say…I showed up with a small bag of clothes (they buy back too!) for which I received 15 dollars, as well as had a 5 dollar coupon. At the end of my spree, I bought a cute purse, Franco Sarto shoes, and several sweaters, shirts, 2 pairs of pants and a sweater dress all for $225.00. 18 items, at an average of $12.50 cents each, and keep in mind these are all high end brand names…Ann Taylor, BCBG max, White house Black market, Nike (yes, I had to get workout clothes too!) and Banana Republic just to name a few…yup…this girl came out HAPPY as a clam. I used to love fashion, but found that over the last several years I forgot to pamper myself too…so although I can’t afford these clothes brand new, I sure can bargain shop!
I still can’t run as my thumb is still on the mend, but am praying one more week and I’ll be cleared to run. Starting now, since my marathon training starts in about 6 weeks I will be eating A LOT healthier, and cutting back on my wine intake…scary, I know…but it’s needed. I am going back to my high protein diet, as it truly made me feel healthier and stronger. I’ve fallen off the wagon and have been eating far too much rice/rice pasta. I’ll still have these yummy things once or twice a week…just not daily. I was however able to cook Sunday supper tonight, which tasted great, but didn’t look very pretty…my meal prep looks much nicer…LOL!
My friend posted this on my time line today…LOL
With no true resolutions this year, I can say I have lofty goals of branching out, somehow…in my career, and in my life. What that means? I’m not 100% sure yet…
What are your goals for the year?? Do you make resolutions? Do you shop consignment?
Have a great week, gang!
❤ Michelle
Goodbye 2014
I read back to my goals for the year, as I am not one to make resolutions. The beginning of 2014 was pretty tough on me…I found out I was losing my job, and we were buried deep in sub zero temperatures for MONTHS it seemed. #Chiberia and I officially were NOT friends, and my miles and mood disintegrated at a very rapid rate.
BUT…spring came along, and I found a new job that I currently still am working at. YAY. I also PR’d my half marathon by a minute, at 2:01, trained for and ran my hubby’s first half marathon with him, as well as prepared for months for my Master Chef audition in Chicago.
Over all, it was a pretty good year. My mileage isn’t where I had hoped, but I did lose 5 of the 10 lbs I set out to lose so I am pleased with that fact. I also remained consistent with my blog, which was another big goal of mine.
Next year brings on new adventures of training for my 3rd full marathon, the Grandma’s Marathon that I will be running with my sister. I swore I’d never run another full…but yeah. We all know how that goes, right?
This past year I have been documenting my favorite recipes, and REALLY want my e-cook book to come to fruition this year…#fingerscrossed
For next year, I have a few personal goals that I want to keep up with that I’ll keep to myself for now, as well as over all I just want to keep movin’ forward. I lived in the past for too many years. I hope to continue to see my sister more often, as well as have ALL. THE. FUN. running another marathon with her on June 20th, 2015.
Lastly, I’ll share a couple of my favorite photos from last year!
Cheers, and Happy New Year to you all!!
❤ Michelle
Beating winter blues – Three ways to increase your motivation in winter
Tuesday truths
Well it happened. I am sick as a dog. I haven’t felt this terrible in years. Woke up with a head cold and fever but dragged myself out of bed and to work. My boss took one look at me and sent me home. I barely made it an hour into the day. But he was right. I needed rest. I drove home, took some Benadryl and poured myself into bed. I had hoped some rest would make me feel better. But here I sit after my third dose of emergenC and my head is still fuzzy and I just don’t feel myself. With my race looming just next weekend I couldn’t help but to cry. I don’t have time for sickness. But who really does?
But at the end of the day I will still count my blessings.
Truth- I have a pretty cool boss who’s told me to stay home tomorrow reassuring me he’d take care of my department.
Truth- I need to trust in my training and realize the taper madness can often lead to getting sick.
Truth- I am lucky to have family and friends who checked on me today, as well as a pretty cool dog who wouldn’t leave my side today.
Do you find taper madness leads to sickness?
Does it drive anyone else batty to miss work?
Three things, Thursday
Three things Thursday
Training is coming along nicely for our half marathon. It’s hard to believe in just over 3 weeks my hubby and I will be crossing the finish line of his first half marathon, and my 11th (I think-I really need to count up my races). Despite only running twice last week due to weather issues, we haven’t missed many training runs and we’ve gotten all of our long runs in. Saturday will mark our last long run before we start to taper down, and we will be joining the Fox Valley crew for the 6th and last organized group training run. We’ll still be running long of course, just not in an organized group. I am also volunteering again this year, and have taken on the co-director roll of volunteers. This is no easy task, but rewarding none the less. We even get cool director race bling.
Time has a funny way of healing past hurts. I know, it’s a saying everyone’s heard, “Time heals all wounds,” but I am not sure it ever truly HEALS our wounds, more so it helps us learn how to deal with them and move forward. I’ve always been one to forgive, but forgetting is something I’ve never mastered, nor do I really want to in all honestly. For if you let history repeat itself, let that guy keep abusing you, let that friend keep hurting you, let that coworker keep bullying you-you have no one to blame but yourself. I was the victim for quite a few years, and I didn’t like myself all that much back then, if I am being truly honest. So with TIME…I’ve learned to forgive, but remember always the lessons learned from the hurts I’ve encountered in my life.
As it’s nearing Tapering time, I remember how tough of a time I had last year tapering during full marathon training. I never get the full feeling of “taper madness” during half marathon training I assume from the obvious less mileage you put in during half marathon training. It’s kinda nice to be honest…hehe I am enjoying it while I can, as I know February will be here before I know it and full marathon training will begin for me again!
Questions!!!!!
Are you training for anything? How’s it going for you?
Do you have tips on moving forward in regards to past hurts?
Taper madness-agree?
Sunday Summation of sorts and recipes
Last week was a whirl wind of work, work, and more work.
We missed our long run today voluntarily due to a 99 real feel temp after I got home from work. I hated missing our scheduled 10k, but hey, I am smart too…even at 10 pm it shows a real feel of 88 degrees. Sorry, can’t do it. The humidity stabs my head with a thousand pound hammer, and I just can’t do it. I have had a nagging headache for 4 days, and when I got home from work today at 3 pm I changed into my jammies and napped for 45 minutes. Productive? Nope…but much needed.
I have made a goal of having Sunday Suppers each week, regardless of schedule, time, or energy.
I have spent so much time studying the basics of cooking, so why not put it into play in my own kitchen?
So tonight, I made goat cheese and fig crostini’s with baked salmon that was topped with a garlic herb butter. Our side was a simple cucumber, red onion, and tomato salad that was tossed in my favorite vinaigrette.
For the figs:
Thinly slice French bread and spread with goat cheese. I used a garlic herb blend. Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil, and season with salt and pepper. Thinly slice figs, placing on top of the bread, add lightly fried bacon, and bake at 375 for 10 minutes. Garnish with fresh parsley and serve.
For my salmon, it was an easy prep. I took one stick of unsalted butter brought to room temperature and added 2 cloves of garlic, minced, the zest of one lemon, a pinch of cayenne pepper, kosher salt and pepper, oregano, and parsley. Mix well, and spread generously on your salmon. Cook at 375 degrees for 20 minutes or until the salmon flakes lightly with a fork.
I served the salmon with basmati rice, and a simple salad of red onions (soak sliced in cold water for 10 minutes to reduce the bite), cucumber, and tomato’s. Dress with a simple lemon/Dijon vinaigrette, and serve!
I sent in my pre-registration for Master Chef on Friday, and am terrified. I keep getting comments and posts asking “Do you have what it takes?” basically…and now I am second guessing myself, just like I did last year.
SO I am trying to remain focused, while continuing to study. Research. And practice the skill I love so much.
We shall see!
How was your week with exercise and eats?
Running and flying, in no particular order
Tuesdays are typically our speed/hill work runs. We are remaining pretty consistent with our training, and I have to give my hubby a huge shout out for not giving up with his first half marathon training. Yet with the humidity the Chicagoland area has been hit with lately, it’s been hard for me to keep my breathing steady and my legs not feeling like I am carrying 2 bricks as I run. So today, when walking out of work I was hit with a cool breeze that slapped me in the face and I smiled. We were going to have an Epic run tonight. Despite the huge blister on my second toe that I acquired in last year’s 20 mile training run (20 miles of running in torrential downpour rain, with thunder and lightening to boot) that I’ve had to now bandage as it’s resurfaced with all the rainy runs, I knew this one would be good.
We laced up for our 4 miler as soon as we got home from work, and hit the road running. I knew immediately my intuitions were spot on, and even the first mile felt GREAT. This NEVER happens for me. My goal for us on this run was an average of a 9 minute mile, as this is our race pace goal. Our course is laden with 2 significant uphill climbs that I incorporate for our hill work outs. I love doubling both hills, with speed as it makes the run tougher…but in turn it makes us stronger runners.
By mile 2 I felt the wind not only fighting me, but fueling me to push harder…and suddenly I was flying. I settled in as we barreled up the first of two hills at an 8:58 pace, where just last week we were at a 9:06 pace. The second hill was tougher as it is in the last mile of our run. I looked down at my watch, and we were clocking a 8:46 pace…KEEP PUSHING…I had to stop briefly to stretch my calf, but we took back off full force towards our house…and as we hit the last half mile, I took off…I didn’t think…I didn’t look at my watch…I just RAN. I peeked out of the corner of my eye, and there was my hubby holding steady next to me…so I ran faster…I flew…we finished our last mile at an 8:33 pace, which is probably my fastest mile in several years. After several high fives, and a sweaty kiss we finished our run with huge smiles and a great feeling of satisfaction and pride. Our splits were: 9:11, 9:00, 9:03, 8:33
Do you incorporate speed and hills in to your training?
The obligatory like
Part 1.
I caveat this post, with the fact it has nothing to do with food, or fitness-at least the physical type…
I will however say, it has a lot to do with moving forward, or ‘keep movin’ forward as my mantra states.
First point: Social media doesn’t always make you socially connected with people. Can I get an amen? It hit me recently that while scrolling through news feeds and ‘liking’ people’s posts, I still felt very removed from many people’s lives.
I have been doing a little ‘soul searching’ journey if you will over the last several weeks. More so, because I saw myself spiraling back in a bit of a negative funk that I did NOT want to revisit.
While on my bike ride last weekend, I decided to open my mind up a bit, and try and figure out what my deal was lately…
Guess what…I realized that despite who I wanted to blame, it was MY fault for allowing others creep up on my joy like thieves in the night…Time for some “Talk to the hand” action again. Right?
So lately on this journey of moving forward, I decided I would put forth more effort in things I found tugging at my heart. One, is being so close, yet still so far apart from my family. Realizing you can’t just pick up the pieces after being gone for 20 years I knew I needed to try harder. I miss them dearly, so I picked up the phone…
I reached out to my sister first, and we’ve decided to run Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth Minnesota next summer. She has ran the race previously, but since this race is in our hometown I thought HOW COOL would it be to run it TOGETHER!!!! She agreed, and we signed up on opening day-July 1st.
With that, I WON a shirt and a goodie bag for sign up on opening day. HOW. COOL. IS. THAT. LOL…ok, maybe not that cool but having not won many things in the past, this girl was stoked.
Secondly, I called my parents last night…often times a month can go by without us catching up as life gets busy, and time is easily lost track of in the midst of careers, travel, life, kids, training, household disasters, etc…LOL.
In the end, I am glad I picked up the phone vs. just liking status posts or pics on fb…sometimes you need to hear that person’s voice to really feel that social connection.
Is it me, or is social media making us LESS social?
to be continued…stay tuned for Part 2.
Breaking up with the past, and more…
I didn’t blog last week…we all have those weeks that catch up with us and we find ourselves too busy to have time to unwind.
And this blog, is my unwind/rant/let it all go type of space.
Last week I only logged 10 miles. 2 runs with my hubby, and a five miler on my own. I see myself getting stronger, and a tad faster despite the impeding humidity. We gave ourselves the weekend off, as my hubby was suffering from a pretty sore knee and I don’t want him to get injured before official half marathon training starts next month.
Last week I cut out nearly all gluten, processed foods, and wheat to see if it helps my tummy issues. So far, not a big change, but I am continuing on my search for a healthier me. I am down 1 lb. with 8 more to go.
Last week I let some unnamed ghosts of the past haunt me, and I have since then kicked my own tail, and have decided to quit chasing relationships that don’t exist and focus on the great people in my life instead. It’s a daily struggle, but I’ll keep movin’ forward.
Last weekend, I spent the weekend with my family having fun in the city, and working hard on our home. We also enjoyed some yummy octopus that I can proudly say my kids ate and loved. I was also blessed to attend church with my family and friends, who have become family to me in these last three years of living in the Midwest. I even attending my running sister’s first Mary Kay party! What fun to be pampered for 2 hours!
Memorial day we spent the day staining our deck, weeding the garden, and trimming the hedges that have somehow have TREES growing in them…WHAT? I have the scars to prove it, LOL. I got nearly 2 miles in before some major storms hit, and kept my pace in a sub 9 min mile pace. My goal is to keep that pace for many more miles, but I am starting this goal with realistic expectations.
Last night, my husband and I watched my all time favorite show, “The Master Chef” and I was reminded of my desire to be a professional Chef/cook one day. Besides running, I find myself at peace the most when I am in the kitchen ‘creating.’ He urged me to try out last year, but sadly real life can get in the way of our life goals and dreams sometimes and we have to keep plugging forward in jobs that satisfy the ultimate purpose of paying the bills, not fueling the life passions we may currently covet.
Tonight, the hubby and I ran our 2 miles in a gazillion percent humidity at a 9:18 min mile average pace. Not our best, but we got out on the trails before we were hit with some crazy storms.
As much as I preach it, I am still learning myself…to Keep. Movin’. Forward.
Movin' it with Michelle 