Cha Cha Changes!

As the title suggests, there are some changes happening right now in my life and on the blog. But first things first, an accomplishment!

I have finally done it. I have created the perfect egg white omelette at home. Ever since coming home from DC where I was having an egg white omelette made for me every morning, I have been trying and trying to recreate it at home without it falling apart on me, burning it, or not getting the right amounts of veggies or cheese. I believe this was attempt #6. Again, I am not a perfect cook.

As I mentioned, my car recently needed a huge overhaul to the tune of $2800. Well, the boy's car died at the same time so let's just say that we have had a lot of large unexpected expenses lately and have even had to postpone our move. Therefore, we are trying to cut back. (I say this all the time, but really all that means is I'm going to try to stop ordering dessert everytime I eat out or try to remember the coupons that I get for Express). One of my biggest money pits is Starbucks, so to try to curb that habit at least a little bit, I have been making my coffee from home.

So far it has worked really well! I have only been to Starbucks twice in the last two weeks.

Now that the boy and I both have our own working cars, I have been going back to the gym in the morning.

My life works so much better when I work out in the morning. If I wait until after work to go, at least 50% of the time, I talk myself out of it. In case you hadn't noticed, one major change I've made to the blog is eliminating the "My Workouts" page. Let's face it, at this point it was becoming a joke because of the aforementioned 50% of actually making it to the gym. So instead I am just going to talk about workouts sporadically (but rest assured I am working out at least 4-5 days a week).

I have been "training" for a half marathon at the end of May, but for the last three weeks I have hated it. I have been dreading every run and have even started skipping some runs. I really don't know why this is, but at this point I don't feel as though I will be ready to run the half even if I get back on track. I am seriously considering downgrading my race distance to the 5 mile portion instead (which I could do easily and would probably PR). What do you guys think about this?

One last change I've made is to my blogroll. I hadn't updated it in WAY too long and there were many blogs that I read that hadn't been added. At the same time, there were a few on there that needed to be deleted. Last week, I posted a Twitter survey asking what makes you delete a blog from your reader (for those of you who do not use Google Reader, it's an awesome little tool that essentially houses all the blogs you read and alerts you when a new post is up). I got various responses back, basically echoing my same sentiments that a lot of blogs have become tiresome for me and I was getting irritated reading them. I discussed this with the girls at Fuji 1546 last week and apprently got them thinking about it as well since Tina posed the same question on her blog the next day. Reading over those comments as well prompted me to downscale my reader significantly. So rest assured that every blog on my blogroll I read everyday and don't get sick of!

And finally, I have been experiencing some pretty heavy writer's block this week and am hoping to snap out of it soon. That being said, I want to know what you guys like and don't like about what I write about, what you would like to see more or less of, etc. As much as I write this blog for myself, I also don't want to be deleted from your readers, so tell me how I can keep you interested!

Head of the Class

Hey readers! Sorry for the late post today...let's just say I've been lacking inspiration on the blog lately. But never fear, I put the question out to Twitter and Facebook about what ten things people would like to have me talk about today and I got a request for a list of workouts I have tried and what I thought about them. The title of the post refers to the fact that no matter what workout class I take, I must be right at the front. I'm a shorty and if I'm not in the front I can't always see what the instructor is doing. And despite the picture below of the girl in pink, I am not usually smiling when working out.

Disclaimer: I am by no means an expert, these are only my personal opinions on what works for me.

1. Pilates - Similar to yoga but very core-based. It has been a while since I have taken a Pilates class, but if your core is your weak point, Pilates may be for you. It is more a strength workout, so it should be used as such. You will need cardio to supplement. I personally prefer to do my ab exercises when I have time rather than take a class though.

2. Zumba - I have taken zumba twice and absolutely hated it both times. I know a lot of people love it, but my personal opinion is that it's cardio for sissies. I barely broke a sweat either time and it was a lot of random spinning around, not even really dancing as I had expected it to be.

3. Kickboxing - I used to take kickboxing on a weekly basis and loved it. It's quite a workout. The only complaint I have about kickboxing is it has become increasingly popular over the years and every class I have been to has been very crowded...and if you have never taken a class, I will just say that it's hard to put your full energy behind your punches and kicks when you have people very close together. Aside from that, it's one of my favorite forms of cardio.

4. Spin - Spin is my workout love. I do it three times a week now and look forward to every class. It's practically the only workout that I can get excited to get out of bed at 5:30am for. It totally kicks my ass everytime and I leave a sweating hot mess.

5. Vinyasa Yoga - Vinyasa is one of the most popular forms of yoga. Vinyasa is a beginner/intermediate form of yoga that does get your heart pumping a little bit as well as stretches you out. Vinyasa is my preferred form of yoga. The only drawback is that yoga at a gym is so much different (not in a good way) than it is at a studio...but since I already pay for the gym, I find it hard to justify paying for yoga also.

6. Bikram Yoga - Bikram is a series of mostly standing poses (the sequence and poses never change) in an over 100 degree room. I have done bikram a handle full of times, and while I can say that I do like it, I have almost passed out a few times from the heat. I am a serious sweater and extreme heat dehydrates me. A few recommendations for bikram...go early in the morning before the studio gets a chance to get humid and stinky from all the sweating bodies, bring a towel to put over your mat, and freeze your water before class so that it stays cold.

7. BodyPump - In case you live under a rock and have not heard of BodyPump, it's basically a full body strength training workout set to music. Each song is a different muscle group. It's an hour long class and focuses on number of repititions rather than weight. Aside from spin, BodyPump is by far the best workout you can get. Unfortunately I no longer go to a gym that offers it, but am looking forward to moving and joining a new gym that does offer it. A lot of gyms have a similar option (sometimes called Conditioning, or Strength, etc.) but none that I have been to compare to BodyPump.

8. Step - I know you're thinking step is so 80s, and truthfully it's exactly how you would picture it to be. It's good in a pinch if you are not a treadmill person and only a class will do, however, I would not personally add it to my rotation as I prefer variety, and it's basically straight cardio with no intervals. Plus many instructors/classes don't have music and I NEED music to work out.

9 - Boot Camp - Most gyms offer some form of boot camp, and there are many free or cheap boot camps that pop up in cities once the warm weather hits. Boot camp is basically a series of circuits that totally kick the shit out of you. I like it because you are constantly changing what you are doing. I would take boot camp more often, but unfortunately my gym doesn't offer it at convenient times for my schedule, but I definitely recommend squeezing it in if you have room.

I know this is supposed to be ten things, but I have only tried 9 classes so the tenth one is one I've been dying to try.

10 - TRX - This is a strength training class using suspended cables and your own body weight. I have heard nothing but good things and can't wait to try it!

What classes do you prefer? What have you been wanting to try?

An Epic Scene Stays With You Forever

Back while I was in DC, my coworkers and I would take the hotel shuttle bus to the building we were going to.

Sometimes the driver would kindly put the radio on for us.

One day, Tiny Dancer by Elton John came on. I have a special kind of love for this song.

Me, very excitedly (perhaps too excitedly) turned around to the two people sitting behind me and said:

"I feel like we should all start singing along like that awesome scene in Almost Famous!"

...blank stares.

I turned back around, slightly chagrined that clearly they did not know what I was talking about and I clearly just made a little bit of an idiot of myself. But I literally thought about the movie for days. And days. (You're getting a little insight into how my brain works, people).

Fast forward to my returning home, telling the boy all about the bus incident. And then the unthinkable happens. He confesses that he has never seen the movie.

What???? This must be remedied immediately. So we sit down to watch and I fall in love all over again. The aforementioned scene comes on and my heart soars. I sing along and even tear up a little. I am not exaggerating when I say I have seen this movie at least 30 times. I watched it incessantly in college. The screen fades to black and I look to the boy with expectation in my face that he will have fallen in love with it too.

With a straight face he says to me "it wasn't bad."

A piece of my soul died.

Until ten minutes ago.

The boy sends me a text saying "heard tiny dancer on the way. yup, I now associate it with the movie ;)

That my friends, is proof that an epic scene stays with you forever.



What is one of your favorite movie scenes?

Chocolate Covered Strawberry Blondies

Hi guys! Just in case you are super lazy like I am, I bring you one of the easiest recipes in the world. No hand mixer required and minimal cleanup for a delicious reward. I got the inspiration for this recipe from Food Network magazine where they actually used butterscotch chips (which I think would be too much for a blondie) so I substituted the butterscotch for chocolate, eliminated the nuts, and created chocolate covered strawberry blondies.

Ingredients:

4 tbsp unsalted butter
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg
1/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup flour
1/4 cup milk chocolate chips
3 tbsp strawberry jam

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350. Line a 8 inch square pan with aluminum foil and grease the foil.

Place the butter and sugar into a microwave safe bowl and heat until butter is fully melted, about one minute.

Add the egg.

Combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Add to wet ingredients and mix well.

Fold in chocolate chips.

Spread evenly in pan. Spoon jam on top and swirl in.

Bake for 30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Allow to cool for at least ten minutes. Remove foil from pan. Makes 9 blondies.

These came out even better than I had expected, and honestly, the possibilites are endless in terms of toppings and mix ins. And the bonus was I only had one bowl to clean.

Do you prefer blondies or brownies? I prefer blondies cooked but love brownie batter!

Spring is Here!

Good morning! I don't know about everyone else, but we had a GORGOUS weekend here in Boston. The temps were in the upper 60s and sunny. So, in the spirit of enjoying the nice weather, the boy and I headed out for a walk around Lake Quinnapowitt in Wakefield yesterday. I brought my camera, so lots of picture taking ensued. I took 34 pictures, but only posted my favorite ones for you.

Welcome to Wakefield!

Bottom's up!

Care to take a seat and rest a while?

I was taking a picture of something else when the boy spotted our shadows, and since I love artsy type photographs, this one ended up being one of my favorites of the day.

I spy a bird's nest!

Rustic wagon

Beautiful blue sky...

The boy, waiting for me to finish being a shutterbug. This one is sort of artsy too, I love it :)

I stalked this bird for a good ten minutes, this is as close as it would let me get...

A sunrise on the lake service? I am not religious but that sounds divine.

By the road, there is an older man who sells bottled water out of a cooler (genius I think) and he offers free doggie water, which I thought was fantastic! He was very pleased that I took a picture of his sign.

This wrought iron fence surrounds the Wakefield cemetary. As you can see, the path around the lake was quite busy yesterday!

It was so good to finally be outside, enjoying the weather and sunshine. My mood increased about a thousand times over just being able to be outside. I am much more a spring and summer person, winter brings me down.

Are you a warm weather fan or a snow bunny?

Fuji 1546

What's this? A weekend post? I NEVER do this! Don't get used to it, I'm not planning on making it a regular thing or anything, I'm just a little behind on restaurant reviews!

Wednesday night I had the pleasure of meeting up with Tina, Di, and Melissa for dinner at Fuji 1546, a Japanese restaurant in Quincy.

I know what you're thinking, what the hell is a girl who doesn't eat fish and can't even stand to be around it doing at a Japanese restaurant? I'll tell you why. Vegetarian sushi. I have never had it and have been curious for years.

A few notes on the restaurant itself. The diningroom is open and spacious, and there is a section where you can actually see the food being prepared. However, the booths and tables had more of a 1950s diner feel to it than an upscale japanese restaurant. As Melissa also mentioned in her post, there were boogers on the wall of the bathroom. Clearly someone has found themselves a hobby because there was quite a collection. Once I composed myself, and choked back the bile in my mouth, I headed back to the table to order.

To start out with, our waitress brought us a complimentary appetizer. It was fish so of course I didn't eat it, but as far as fish goes, it looked pretty good. She never really did make it clear what it was, but both Di and Tina agreed that it wasn't all that great.

For my entree I went with the asparagus roll, umeshisho maki (japanese salted plum and mint leaf roll), and the vegetable and rice paper roll.

The first roll I tried was the umeshisho maki. At first taste, I didn't like it at all...so I moved right along to the asparagus roll, which was surprisingly good. The asparagus was tender and the roll was not overly seasoned. Lastly I tried the vegetable and rice paper roll, which was by far my favorite of the three. In the roll is carrots, cucumber, avocado, lettuce, and peppers. All my favorite veggies! Once I was finished with the asparagus and vegetable rolls, I went back to give the umeshisho a second try. My initial assessment was correct. It tasted like fermented fruit wrapped in rice. I will not be getting that roll again.



All four of us opted out of a traditional dessert, but our waitress brought us over a "palette cleanser" of fresh oranges, which were juicy and made me so excited for summer.

My first foray into vegetarian sushi was a success, I will definitely have it again. As a matter of fact, I may try to talk the boy into trying it since I've been craving it the last few days!

Do you like sushi? Have you ever tried the vegetarian variety?

Chocolate Chip Marshmallow Cookies

Happy Friday friends! In honor of the impending weekend, I'm bringing you yet another delicious cookie recipe. This one I got out of Food Network magazine. It's a little labor intensive for cookies, but well worth the effort.

Chocolate Chip Marshmallow Cookies

Ingredients for cookies:
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
2 sticks unsalted butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tbsp vanilla extract
2 cups quick-cooking oats
1 1/2 cups rice krispies
1 cup milk chocolate chips
1 cup coarsely chopped pecans
1 cup mini marshmallows

Ingredients for chocolate topping:
1/2 cup milk chocolate chips
1/2 cup mini marshmallows
2 1/2 tsp half and half
pinch of cayenne pepper

Preheat oven to 350. Combine flour, baking powder, and baking soda in a large bowl.

In a seperate bowl, cream butter and sugar together.

Beat in eggs, one at a time.

Add vanilla and flour mixture and beat until combined.

Stir in oats, cereal, chocolate chips, pecans, and marshmallows.

Drop heaping tablespoons 3 inches apart on a lined cookie sheet.

Bake 10 to 12 minutes.

While cookies are baking, make the topping. Combine chocolate chips, marshmallows, cayenne pepper and half in half in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook until smooth, about 5 minutes.

Drizzle over cookies.

Makes 4 dozen.

Lessons learned in the making of this recipe:

- Use parchment paper. Greasing the baking sheet will NOT work, you WILL ruin your pan.
- Do not add more marshmallows because you think the cookies will be even better than the recipe. They will just make the bottom of the cookies too crusty.
- Don't mix the marshmallows in with everything else. Drop the cookies and then stick a few marshmallows on top of each cookie, this will solve the crusty issue.

In the interest of full disclosure, here is the photo of my first batch. Epic cookie fail.

The boy was mildly concerned when he heard me cursing and slamming in the kitchen after I realized I had ruined my almost brand new cookie sheet as well as a dozen cookies (and almost a spatula as well from slapping it on the stove in frustration). I have had cooking fails before but have never ruined a pan.

I wish magazine recipes would warn you about possible catastrophes so that I hadn't wasted so much dough, but because I don't want you guys to make the same mistakes, I'm revealing that I am not a perfect cook. When everything is done correctly though, these cookies come out delicious.

Had any cooking fails lately? Do you take it in stride or do you have a little flip out like me?