Noodles from the Dark Side

Yup, so I got my Blackberry!  Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!  The next few days are going to be all about setting it up and figuring it out and BB texting til my heart’s content.  I’m so excited!  What a dork.  (and all this from the girl who just mere months ago said she’d never need a Crackberry)  I think my little BB and I are going to be very happy together. :)

Did I mention it’s blue?  *giggles and claps*

Since I was heading out after work to Dartmouth (locally referred to as the Dark Side…since it’s over the damn bridge) I decided to just get dinner while I was out.

Around 4:30 I grabbed a sweet treat to tide me over.  These Nature Valley Dark Chocolate Nut bars are growing on me.  Yummy.

I threw a couple of clementines into my purse on my way out, but honestly those little buggers are too hard to peel while driving.  That will learn me for next time.  I didn’t end up eating them because I got to my dinner destination quicker than I expected.

Thankfully retrieving my Blackberry from the courier depot was a breeze.  I found the place easily (thank you Google maps!) in the giant industrial park and was in and out in about 5 minutes.  I was worried because the poor guy in front of me had been there 45 minutes and they couldn’t find his package.  Yikes.

Once I had it in my hot little hand I found my way out of the industrial area and over to Dartmouth Crossing shopping district and stopped into Wok Box – fresh asian kitchen.  Miss Lex raves about this place and I was finally in the area at dinner time so I decided to stop in.

There were a lot of customers so no interior photos…but it was a nice place for a take-out joint.  It is pretty much a brand new place so the decor is fresh and modern…slightly Asian, but mostly dark woods, bar height tables, and a few cozy booths.  I’d definitely do eat-in if I was in the area and had some time for a quick meal.  Tonight I did take-out.

I had a little trouble choosing because the posted menu didn’t describe any of the food items.  I realized after I ordered that the take-out menus have full descriptions so I will be better prepared next time.  For this go I went with their Pad Thai with shrimp (each option comes with choice of shrimp, chicken, beef, pork or tofu).

Honestly, I will say I was disappointed.  I expected more veggies and definitely more shrimp for my $11 box of noodles!  The sauce was almost non-existent and it was pretty heavy on the lime and light on flavor.  Nearer to the end I found a bit more spice (not that spice constitutes flavor) but I wished it had been a more peanuty type Pad Thai.  I still ate all of it – minus the green peppers and I still want to go back and try something else now that I have proper descriptions.  I think Singapore Cashew or Jungle Curry are more my speed.

After I picked up my dinner I headed over to a friend’s place.  FH was busy jamming with his buddy from next door so I decided to make myself scarce and invited myself out.  They were watching movies with their daughter so I showed up with treats.  Junior Mints, Mike n Ikes, and Smarties.  :)  I may have eaten more than my fair share of the Mints…I couldn’t help myself!

UPS is giving me an ulcer

OK, I think I already have an ulcer…but STILL!  (remind me to update you on the ulcer situation later…)

• UPS tracking website said on time delivery scheduled for yesterday.  Package left depot at 7:30am for delivery.
• Waited all effing day, no delivery.
• Checked tracking website up until midnight…no changes recorded.
• This morning check tracking website to find a note stating delivery attempted at noon yesterday. (bullshit!)
• FH comes home from work at 11am this morning and finds delivery attempt note stuck to front door.  (again, bullshit…do they have a broken doorbell finger or what?!)
• Call UPS.  They put in concern notice and state they will try to contact third party courier to schedule re-delivery.  Also offer than I can pick it up tonight.
• Receive call from UPS about an hour later stating that I will get a call from third party confirming they will re-deliver.
• Half hour later get call from third party telling me I can pick package up tonight between 7-9pm.  So much for re-delivery.

Gah.  It BETTER be there when I drive 30 minutes to Dartmouth and pay $1.50 in tolls to get the package they can’t seem to deliver!

<end rant>

I really wanted Starbucks this morning…but I couldn’t leave the house for fear my package would be delivered in the 15 minutes I would be gone…so I opted for coffee in my “memory mug” because memories of my TO blog gals always cheer me up!

  

Munched on the last mini blueberry danish (don’t worry the rest are in the freezer, I didn’t eat them!) with some grapes, 1/2 banana, and a couple of clementines.  Yum.

After kerfuffuling around with the UPS stuff and a work call it was time for lunch.  Egg salad bagel sammich I’ve been dreaming about since yesterday.  Deeeeelish.

 

BM multigrain flax bagel with egg salad and baby spinach.

With a dish of carrot and celery sticks with almond butter (I’m still trying to use up the AB…it’s OK but I just like me some PB instead).  I prepped a bunch of celery and carrots so I don’t have to clean and chop every time I want some.  me = planner  :)

 

So now that I’ve got that courier thing all sorted out, I can actually get some more work done!  Let’s see if I can actually finish my work day on time today. 

Booty Camp Contest Reminder

Calling all readers to get off your booties to enter my giveaway of a FREE Four Week Booty Camp for September.  

Contest closes tonight at 5pm Pacific Time.  I will make the draw via random number generator and post the winner late tonight or tomorrow morning.

If you haven’t entered yet, go to this post and do it!  (Give the contest a shout out on your blog for an extra entry!)

Your booty will thank you!

This post brought to you by the letters BB

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh…FH is at work overnight so I have the TV all to myself.  You know what that means?  Four episodes of Big Brother!!  WooooT.  hehe. Is it bad that I like Jessie this time? 

The rest of my day was pretty tame.  Worked a bit late, did some tidying, made egg salad, went to the gym.  I waited all day for UPS to show up with my new BlackBerry (weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!) but for some reason they never showed!!  The website STILL says it’s scheduled for on time delivery TODAY.  Gah.

Afternoon sweet tooth:  a new Nature Valley Sweet & Salty bar – Dark Chocolate Nut.  Pretty tasty but for the extra calories it’s not as good as a Kashi dark chocolate granola bar.

At the gym I did another treadmill run (exactly the same as yesterday), sweat up a storm, and did some lower body strength training since that’s the majority of what we would have done at Booty Camp.  (Oh!  haha, I forgot to mention Camp was cancelled due to weather…yes. again.  We don’t get a Summer this year apparently.)

Lower Body:  1 minute each: regular squats, plie squats, 1 legged squats (30 seconds each leg), regular/reverse lunges.  3 x 15 hamstring curls on the ball.

Other:  wrist bends with 5lb weights, bicep curls with 10ob weights, 1 minute plank, 1 minute side plank (1 minute each side)

Dinner was a bit of an odd combo, but it filled the tummy!  I had been planning on grilled zucchini and some kind of lean meat, but because I had a smokie at lunch I didn’t want any more meat today…so instead I used some of the egg salad I made earlier on a piece of toast and served it with my grilled zucchini.

  

Yummy in my tummy!  The egg salad is just two boiled eggs, green onion, pickle, light mayo, s&p.  The zucchini was simply drizzled with EVOO, sea salt & pepper…grilled up on the Griddler (LOVE that thing!).

No plans for dessert, but I do admit that the little bag of Swedish Berries I have stashed in my purse (leftover from the airport) has been calling my name… :)

Daydreaming of Fun in the Sun

Holy Hannah.  It’s already after 3pm.  The day totally got away from me.  So much work (OK, and too much Twitter…Tweetdeck is addicting!).  At least now I seem to be caught up on all the work from yesterday and I have a couple of hours to get through my own things.

The sky has just opened up and is pouring a hard rain on Halifax right now.  Booty Camp is going to be disgusting if it isn’t cancelled.  eeeeek.  Oh well, a little mud never killed anybody, right??  Right??? 

If it is cancelled maybe I’ll have time to work on downloading my new music based on all of your fabulous recommendations.  I haven’t had a chance to read all of your comments yet, but I’m excited to get downloading!  If you haven’t already, go to this post from yesterday and let me know your favorite motivational songs.

Breakfast this morning was deeeelish.  A fresh blueberry scone from the store (toasted up in the oven) with fresh green grapes, fresh peeled clementines and a dish of Liberte Svelt organic vanilla yogurt for dipping.  Yum!  Served with coffee of course.

 

I pulled out my Vegas mug because lately I’ve been thinking about Vegas a lot after a bunch of my guy friends went down there for a bachelor party and posted Facebook photos.  Good times.  One day I need to get back there for a proper visit, instead of just work trips. *sigh*

Today’s late lunch is larger than usual so I will be prepared for my workout tonight.  If Booty Camp is cancelled I’ll be taking myself to the gym for another fabulous run and some lower body strength training.  My quads are killing me again from Tuesday night so the only thing to do is work them some more!! 

Lunch was filling! 

In the salad bowl today: organic baby spinach, chopped tomato, red onion, bocconcini cheese, and a drizzle of Renee’s Italian Spring Herb dressing.

Topped with a leftover smokie from last night and a side of pickled beets.

 

At the last minute I included a PC Blue Menu multigrain flax bagel with light herby cream cheese.  Should keep me going for a few hours.  :)

Hee hee, now that I posted that photo of the whole meal I see a happy face.  Happy Lunch!!!

Here Fishy, Fishy!

Ugh, so overloaded with work today.  I didn’t finish until like 8:30!  I had intended on quitting at 6:00, heading to the gym, then coming home for a late supper…instead I took a supper break at about 7:30 then didn’t even leave for the gym until almost 8:45.  Geeeesh. 

I had eaten my pre-gym snack around 4:30 thinking I’d be heading out within an hour or so…half a Granny Smith apple leftover from my lunchtime salad with a big dollop of crunchy organic PB.

For dinner I asked FH to grill up some smokies so they’d be ready to eat when I got back from the gym…of course, instead they were ready when I finally tore myself out of my office chair for 15 minutes.  I asked him to cook two for me, but I ended up only eating one (my eyes are always bigger than my stomach on things like this). 

 

I filled the other half of my plate with raw veggie sticks.  Carrots, cucumbers and celery.  I rarely buy celery but I recently realized that poor celery is often under-rated.  :)  Crunch, crunch, crunch.

Even though I had to do a quick workout it was sweaty and just what I needed.  My runs are getting easier and easier, which provides me with incredible amounts of motivation to keep going.

Tonight’s run: 25 minutes, approx 2.5 miles, almost 300 cals burned. Intervals of 5:1. 4.8mph seems to be my best speed.

Strength training:  upper body – 2 sets of 15 reps

- tricep pulldowns

- bicep curls

- military presses

- other barbell exercise I don’t know the name of ;)

Core: 15 reps each

- crunches, reverse crunches, bicycle crunches

+ 1 minute plank with leg lifts

+ 30 second (each side) side planks

Post workout snack #1 was a quick Kashi granola bar (I wish we would get more fabulous new flavors in Canada!) with a second litre of water.

While catching up on Nurse Jackie after my post-gym shower and enjoying a much needed relax on the loveseat I mixed up a protein filled dessert of organic vanilla yogurt, 1/2 sliced banana, hulled hemp seeds, a few raisins, and a sprinkle of oatmeal.  Deeeeelish.

We finished the evening off with a bit of popcorn but I didn’t take a pic…I’m pretty sure you all know what popcorn looks like. :)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

So here are the big fishies from Bradley Bay this past weekend.  I don’t know anything about fish, but the boys tell me these were all photo worthy.  (I need to get proper copies…I picked these up off Facebook and they are the wrong size.)

 

Sean’s 40 pound Muskie (2nd row far right & 3rd row first pic) was the one to beat…he was on cloud nine the rest of the weekend.  It was pretty effing cool watching how excited they were when he hooked this big bugger.  I LOVE watching other people’s excitement at things that make them this happy…it honestly helped make my weekend almost as much as it did his!

Lime is the new Lemon

While at the cottage this weekend we realized we had all of the ingredients for salad but neglected to pack anything resembling salad dressing.  Ooooops. 

But we did buy limes for the drinks!  Voila!

We were all sceptical but our host pulled it off.  Yummy refreshing tart salad!  Who knew it was that easy?

Since I failed to take photos of said salad, I decided to recreate it today for your viewing (and possibly chewing!) pleasure.  I give you Tart Cottage Salad (er, or something like that!).  :)

In the big bowl:  organic baby spinach, chopped tomatoes, chopped English cucumber, cubes of marble cheddar, and (the star ingredient!) chopped Granny Smith apple.  Dressed with the juice of half a lime, salt and pepper.

   

Refreshing!

Served with some Kashi crackers for some crunch…although they seem to have gone stale so not very crunchy…booooo.

Enjoyed on the deck with my book in the sun.  yaaaaieeee for sun!!

Before heading back up to my office I heated up my second cup of coffee for the day and grabbed a mini apple danish (I have now frozen about half of these so I’m not tempted to eat one every time I pass through the kitchen).

ooooops, backtracking!  I forgot to start with breakfast.  LOL. 

While waiting for coffee to brew I enjoyed two of the mini clementines I bought last night.  Juicy and sweet.  Deeeelish.

Then another Blueberry Chia muffin with my first cuppa.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Stayed tuned for tonight when I show off the pics of the cottage crew and their fishies (don’t worry…catch and release!).

Did you leave me some song ideas on this post?

Did you enter to win a FREE four week Booty Camp on this post?  Contest deadline extended til this Friday.  Earn an extra entry by giving the contest a shout out on your blog.  (Make sure there is a location where you live.)

And now to finish work and head to the gym.  I needs me a good run!