smalltownhealthyliving

I believe that’s what Hubby references to on some of this posts, the highway to the health zone?  Something like that.  Well that’s where we were this weekend, for the most part.  I did make a batch of peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, to get rid of some chocolate chips and “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” sticks.  I also used whole wheat flour, so I guess that healthified (I just made up a word) them a little.  Moderation people, moderation.

Friday lunch was a little off track, but I was starving since I hauled my butt to the gym early that morning to get a quick circuit workout in.  We put together some homemade double-decker tacos- yum.

Supper was a portion of a premade Fareway salad with sharp cheddar cheese, sliced almonds, and balsamic vinaigrette. 

Saturday was a horrible day outside- very rainy and cold.  Not a good day for city-wide garage sales, which I did not attend.  I did go to the gym, where my workout buddy and I killed another circuit workout- the same one I did on Thursday.  I thought I was going to be sore again, but not too bad this time.  More salad for lunch.

After getting quite a bit done on Saturday, I topped it off by making supper.  Chipolte crusted salmon with baked sweet potato fries and steamed asparagus.  It was so yummy, I could eat that every night… for awhile at least. 

I also enjoyed one of my birthday presents- Purple Cow wine from Stone Cliff Winery in Dubuque.  I liked it, but it was a little “grape-y” so I only had one glass.

I made breakfast today as well, but nothing special, just some farm fresh scrambled eggs with leftover grilled peppers.  I had to take a picture of this egg though.

Not an Easter egg, it’s an egg from an Araucana chicken.  Not sure what exactly that is but the guy who buy our eggs from was really excited about it.  I thought it tasted like all the other eggs. 

We had a special treat for lunch- HuHot in Cedar Rapids.  All you can eat stir-fry.  No pictures, but it was delicious, as usual.  We met up with my brother and his wife and their little guy Beau.  They had some fun play time at the mall before we went on Hubby’s annual shopping trip.  He only shops about once or twice every other year for new clothes.

After arriving home, I played with Tyler for awhile before putting him to bed.  Then I forced myself to go to the gym for a 20 minute interval workout followed by another ladder strength workout.  After the gym I ate the last of the Fareway salad and a cookie.

Today wraps up the last day of the Best Body Bootcamp that I took part in.  I loved having the workouts sent to me, and some of them really kicked my butt.  I didn’t track any changes, just know my pants fit a little better.  I didn’t really follow everything to a T though, really slacked on some of the cardio workouts.  Some of the strength workouts were so long, I just didn’t have time to do all the cardio.  Some workouts had me in the gym for over an hour.  Maybe I’ll go back through and try to get more of the cardio in this time around.

I’ll leave you with a couple more pics from Tyler and Beau’s playtime.  Sorry I didn’t take time to crop out the guy in the background who was on his phone the whole time, obviously not watching his kid. 

Yesterday morning we took off for Davenport to get the last couple hours of our required continuing education over with.  7 hours later we are done… until August.

Thank goodness for smart phones and e-readers- they sure make time go by a lot faster when you’re sitting in a classroom.  I finished another Nicholas Sparks book- The Last Song.  It was just ok, kind of boring actually.  The end was sad, but I’m not too excited to go out and watch the movie or anything, especially since it stars Miley Cyrus. 

Not sure what book is next… think I’ve had enough of the sappy stuff for a little bit. 

Don’t worry, I still paid attention off and on to the speakers.  It wasn’t one of the most exciting seminars, this one included all our mandatory classes that everyone needs every 2 years.  2 hours on Iowa Code, 2 hours on professional boundaries and 3 hours on child and dependent adult abuse reporting.  I could hardly listen to the child abuse portion; the instructor pretty much just sat there and told horrible story after horrible story.  I just can’t believe that people would do such things to innocent children… it made us want to go see Tyler right away and hug him. 

Tyler stayed with a friend of ours that lives in Davenport, and had a blast.  He got to go on several walks, eat all day long, play piano and dance to some guitar music…. thanks Denise!!

Turns out we didn’t need the hours of today’s class, so we just drove back last night after visiting Great Grandma Whalen.  We ate supper at the Hy-Vee next to her house, and I was so proud of myself.  I didn’t get greasy Chinese food like always, I got the salad bar.  Had a nice bowl of soup, a spinach salad, some fresh fruit and of course a couple desserts.  Felt way better afterwards than I would if I had had Chinese.  Go me. 

Not a ton of pictures for you, here’s a pizza we made on Friday night with the leftover pizza ingredients from earlier in the week.  This time we chopped up spinach and put it on the pizza.

Today I scrambled some farm fresh eggs with a little pepperjack cheese for breakfast.

We had just a tiny bit of taco meat left, so I made some quick nachos with shredded cheddar and monterey jack cheese for lunch.  I dumped some hot salsa on after popping it in the microwave for about a minute.

Tyler and I went over to my friend Erica’s house and played with her daughter Brooke, who turned 2 yesterday.  Happy birthday Brooke!

Hubby grilled some bbq chicken drumsticks on the charcoal grill tonight, and I was so busy getting Tyler fed and ready for bed that I forgot to take a picture.  They were excellent though.  Thanks darling.

I was pretty lazy when it came to working out this weekend.  This week I’m going to make an extra effort to get some quality workouts in.  No excuses, just do it!!

So yesterday was my birthday.  31 feels just like 30.   

It was actually a great day.  Tyler slept til 6:00, so I got some play time in before work.  We had a busy day in the clinic, which I always prefer- helps the day go faster.  Two of my patients even brought me a card and a present!  I have the best patients ever. 

Hubby went and picked up lunch for me from Las Flores.  I had the burrito quesadilla, a nice little calorie bomb to start off the afternoon.

Hubby doesn’t like getting his picture taken apparently. 

After work was more play time with Tyler.  Just a small egg salad sandwich for supper along with some homemade strawberry frozen yogurt. 

Here’s the approximate recipe: dumped whatever was left of the coconut milk (1 cup maybe?) with about a 1/2 cup of plain Greek yogurt, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 tsp of vanilla and a pinch of salt.  I chopped up a container of strawberries and added them and then refrigerated for an hour before putting it in the ice cream maker.

I didn’t get in my birthday glass of wine since I was exhausted after the big day.  Maybe tomorrow.

Instead of boring you with the little details of my day, here are the three highlights:

1. Tough circuit workout at the gym with lots of lunges and dynamic movements that tested my core.  Try these 180 degree squat jumps and see how your quads feel afterwards.

2. Zucchini Bread- wanted to clean out the freezer so I defrosted a bag of zucchini and made some bread.  The recipe came from Cooking Light but here’s a link to a printable version.  The only difference is I didn’t use any lemon at all or make a glaze.  Still yummy.

3.  The best highlight: this guy!