Snow Day Giveaway!

So this morning I woke up to the biggest snow storm we’ve had all Winter here in Victoria.  What the heck?!  It was Spring here two days ago.  I saw cherry blossoms, damn you!

Most of the city is taking a snow day, and even though I work at home and snow days don’t really exist for me I still get caught up in the excitement my friends are feeling about staying home with their pj’s, kids, or good books.

I had plans for a giveaway this week anyway, but this just made it seem even more appropriate.  Who wants a good book?!

Not long ago The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond, released her new book Black Heels to Tractor Wheels based on her true life love story.  Expanding on the wildly popular serial memoir Confession of a Pioneer Woman, Ree’s memoir covers everything from her giddy twenty-something days dating surfer boys to the night she first met her husband, Marlboro Man, to their hot-and-heavy courtship and wedding. The book picks up where the website leaves off, telling the story of their dream honeymoon in Australia and their first years as a married couple.

The Canadian publishing company sent me a copy of the book, and once I sat down to read it I pretty much didn’t want to put it down.  I read it over the course of three nights and was wishing for a second book in the series!  It’s an incredibly romantic, cute, and hilarious love story!

I know there are a lot of Pioneer Woman fans that read my blog so I asked if I could have another copy of the book for a giveaway and the Canadian publishers were happy to oblige.

So let’s make it easy!  Leave me a comment below telling me your favourite thing to do on an unexpected snow day.  Me, I love to bundle up for a walk in the white stuff, then come home to a hot cup of tea, a cozy blanket and a good book.

One entry per person. I will tally up the entries and choose a random winner this Friday, February 25, 2011 at 12:00 noon PST.  Make sure you leave me a way to contact you!! Contest open to Canadian residents only (sorry y’all). 

Maybe I will read it again after my walk!

Smoothie & a Winner

Happy Friday everyone!  I don't know about you all but I'm kinda stoked for the weekend.  Feeling like I need a recharge over here!

Yesterday was rushed and a bit random, but it did involve a deeeeelish snackie plate lunch...

And awesome pre-workout smoothie....

This involved this...

And a take on this.  Modified to fit what I had on hand. Yes...avocado, banana and coconut do make a delicious protein filled treat.

Group Training involved some more of Tia's favourite hill torture and as I suspected mucho lunges and squats.  Although I should not complain because all of that tushie training does seem to be helping my piriformis pain!

Dinner was a fly-by affair.  I literally ate leftover chicken salad standing over the sink in the kitchen.  I had long lost friends to visit!

In honour of my HoneyBar giveaway, I had to snack on this yummy Nutty Crunch bar too.  I'm totally in love with the bars full of nuts!!

Oh, so I suppose you would like to know who the winner of said giveaway might be???  Hmmmmmmm???  :)

Well fine.  Without further ado… the winner is…

[source]

#15 = Amanda from Get to Goal

She wrote: “I would like to try them all but to name the top ones...Trail Mix, Cranberry Delight, Nutty Apricot...So good sounding!"

Congrats Amanda! Send me your delivery information and I’ll pass it along to the lovely people over at HoneyBar.

 

TGIFriday y'all.  I see a cardio session and a cocktail in my future.  How bout you?

Honey of a Deal

Wow.  Feel free to groan at that title.  Obviously it's been a while since I had to come up with an imaginative title for a giveaway.

Wait.  What was that?  Yes!  The return of the giveaway!! 

After a few busy months and no fun treats to thank you for stopping by I have a great one for you! HoneyBars!

The lovely people at this all natural Canadian snack bar company were kind enough to send me a sample pack of their tasty bars.  I've been enjoying them for about a week and now it's time to share some of the love with you guys!!

They are offering up a variety pack of one dozen assorted bars (and maybe a few coupons!!).

WHAT IS A HONEYBAR?
HoneyBars are great tasting snack bars that just "happen" to be healthy. They combine some of Mother Nature's tastiest ingredients, held together with ONLY honey.

Seriously deeeeelish.  I haven't met a bar I haven't liked yet!

Try some of the original HoneyBars..and maybe some of their Everyone's Organics Bars...or how about a Nutty Crunch Bar.   As always, it's super easy to enter. 

In order to enter to win this great prize you can:

• Visit the HoneyBar website and then leave a comment on THIS post telling me which flavour you think you would like.
• Tweet this: “A Honey of a giveaway! Win a @Honeybar prize pack from @balanceblog: http://bit.ly/cA7779”, then come back and leave another comment here telling me you tweeted.
• (Follow @Honeybar while you are at it!)
• Post a link to this contest on your blog, then come back and leave another comment here telling me about it.  (Make sure you include a link to your post.)
• Do all three things for multiple chances to win!

Contest is open to Canadian and US residents.  One entry per method per person please.  I will use a random number generator to chose the winner on Friday, August 27th, 2010 at 12pm Pacific Standard Time.

Good luck everyone!  Tell all your friends!

What’s Up Cupcake?

By now you are all probably wondering what the heck was up with all of those fabulous cupcakes you’ve been seeing around here!  :) 

Back in December, TJ at Susie’s Shortbreads did a 12 Days of Christmas giveaway on Twitter.  She gave away a dozen of her freaking adorable cupcakes every day for twelve days to a random entrant.  I won!!  I think I was Day 11. 

Bummer was that I was leaving town like two days later to go home to visit, so I asked her if I could retrieve my gift when I returned.  She was very obliging!  I did try to grab them for our New Years get together, but we missed each other via email so it didn’t work out.

So this past week I thought I should probably claim them because it would be rude to continue dragging it out toooo long.  Again, TJ was very obliging.  She promised to have the dozen all ready for me with labels in the box so I would know what they all were.  What a girl! 

I arrived in the SUPER CUTE shop on Dresden Row mid-afternoon on Saturday.  It’s gorgeous inside.  Retro and pink and lovely.  I honestly felt like I had walked inside a giant hot pink cupcake.  Loved it.  I cannot believe we have been here two years and I had never been to Susie’s. 

Not only do they carry the amazing cupcakes…all displayed behind glass for you to oogle and drool at, but also several varieties of cookies, fudge, buttons, and treats galore.  I will have to really have a look around the next time I go in.

[photo borrowed from Susie’s website]

Anyway…on with the good stuff!  TJ put together one of each of the flavors of the day for me.  Some are everyday favorites, others rotate on and off the menu.

  

As you saw, I choose the Caramallow for my first cupcake.  It had marshmallow fluff in the middle!  And a Caramilk square on top! It was a seriously difficult decision, trust me!  Every.single.cupcake looked absolutely deeeeelish. 

FH chose the Death by Chocolate for his first venture into the cupcake box.  When asked for his review, he gave a resounding “YUMMY”.

(It must have been good, I don’t have an individual pic of it!)

Wisely, I opted to share half the box with friends.

As you saw, this morning we brought the Red Velvet, Black & White, and Root Beer Float to Mark, Coco, and Camille…

We also gave three to Frank, Joanne and their daughter Danika…Toasted Coconut, Peanut Butter Cup (that was a tough one to let go of!) and Birthday Cake…

FH opted to keep Twice Baked…

…and S’Mores (I called this as possibly the best in the box, and I can now say that after stealing a bite I think it was!!)

And I saved Suzie’s Classic and the Mint Chocolate…I was trying for variety…

I adore the Classic!!  My favorite simple vanilla cupcake base, topped with lovely light pink buttercream.  O.M.G.

All of the cupcakes are dense and delicious, with large stiff peaks of frosting.  Perfectly swirled and slightly hardened, they were all just as fun to look at as they were to eat.  FH and I both agree that we’ll be heading in and trying out EVERYTHING Suzie’s has to offer.

Thanks so much TJ!! 

(Let me just say how fun it was to photograph the cupcakes too!!)

…and now back to our regularly scheduled healthy lifestyle programming…  ;)

Good Morning!

Good morning everyone!!

I just wanted to check in to toot my own horn that I did indeed get a decent night’s sleep (not perfect, but it’ll do!) and got up at a reasonable time this morning.  No crazy weird sleep in for this girl!

I sure hope that this marks the end of that nasty slump I was in. 

Deeeelish coffee this morning.

Water water water!

1/2 Cinnamon Raisin Bagel with organic PB and a side of grapes.

Off to a good start!!

Work has been super productive this morning too, and since the grey skies have turned blue today I am soon to head out for a crisp walk around the neighborhood.  Yaaaaieeeee!  (OK, maybe now I’m being a bit over excited…haha.)

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Another good thing…

Head on over to visit Angie’s blog where my girl is having a contest giving away some Amazing Grass!  Free stuff rocks.

And the WINNER is…

True Random Number Generator

Min: 1

Max: 12

Result: 12

Powered by RANDOM.ORG

#12 is Bee from Ordinary Miracles!

Bee said...

I'm in for this contest for sure!
I was just posting the other day about how I don't exercise ever, and I NEED a kick in the booty!
I live in Milton, Ontario.

Congrats Bee.  Email me your details and I will pass them along to Booty Camp Headquarters.  Classes start in your area on September 7th.  Get ready!!

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!

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.

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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!

That’s What She Said

Quote of the weekend. That’s what you get when you spend three days on a pontoon boat with avid fishermen (and woman!). Have you ever noticed how every fishing comment can be construed two ways?

“I think your rod is too long.”

“Did you see how big that thing was?”

“Boy, that sucker sure is slippery.”

I told them I’m going to have shirts made for them so I don’t have to hear that line ever again. They can just point at the shirt. :)

As for photos, I’m a terrible food blogger. Not one shot of any of our food. I sort of put my camera down and completely forgot about it, except for a few shots out on the boat. The trip was more about stepping away from technology and enjoying nature anyway…um, except for the people with Blackberries and the movie we watched on Friday night via a large screen laptop. hehe. (OK, so my only excuse is that I suck.)

I will say that food was actually quite healthy. Pancakes, yogurt and fresh berries for breakfasts. My homemade granola bars, grapes and apples for snacks. Lean beef burgers, huge salads, and simple chicken & pasta for dinners & lunches. Only one night of drinking and that was really only a few drinks for a drinking game (although those 4 drinks were consumed in under 45 minutes…eeeeek, have any of you every played Circle of Death? It’s nuts).

Good times. Now back to the real world. Today is all about keeping up the water (6 people used 72 bottles this weekend…not bad!), getting to the gym (who knew I’d miss my running?!) (oh, actually it’s Booty Camp night!), and restocking the fridge with fresh, healthy foods.

Vacation over. Boooo.

** Did you enter for your chance to win a FREE Four Week Booty Camp? Do it now. (I’m extending the deadline to this Friday at 5pm Pacific Time). Put a link back to the contest and let me know about it for an extra entry. So far there are only two entrants, so the odds are really good. Where are all of you that wanted to do this? huh?