Rockin' Partay

This Friday has been all about taking care of business.  I don't want to be worrying about work this weekend so I made sure to focus and stay on track during my work day. 

Coffee helped.

So did my obsession with carbs and almond butter. 

At least my carbs came in the form of tiny little sprouted grain toast! 

I ate breakfast kind of late so I kept lunch light and easy.  Thankfully there was leftover Watermelon & Feta salad in the fridge...

So yummy after a night in the fridge.  All that watermelon juice mingled with the feta.  NOM!  Can you imagine if I'd had the fresh basil?  *swoon*

Although tasty, this fruity salad isn't too filling...so by 5pm I was pretty hungry for dinner.  I figured I might as well eat at my desk while I finished up for the day...knowing I had a night of packing and sorting ahead of me.

Another meal of leftovers.  Even on day two Doraku's sushi kicks all other sushi's ass.

My rockin' Friday night has included turning the TV on for company, mixing myself a mocktail, cooking up a few puffed appies, and diligently picking through my possessions for things I do not need. 

Santa Cruz organic lemonade with a splooosh of POM blueberry.  Yum!

Highlights of my packing partay include:

• sorting through my CDs.  Note:  I haven't bought a CD in like 5 years.  I am parting with some seriously bad choices from my youth.
• finding a whole box of Arron's glassware in storage.  How many pilsner glasses does one man need?
• photographing my bell collection for kijiji.  Yes apparently as a child I was a 75 year old woman.

Funny.  I have absolutely no problem selling these.  LMAO.

Soon, I am off to bring warm bevvies to my friends taking part in the Halifax Relay for Life.  Lynn raised over $3000!  Usually I would also be participating as the Canadian Cancer Society is my family's charity of choice, but this year I just have too much going on.  Instead I will support my friends and maybe even walk a few midnight laps.

Then I'll come home and hopefully crash out so I can get up and hock my wares in my driveway tomorrow.  Someone come visit!

Date Night

Saturday morning I arrived home from the Relay around 7am.  It’s about a 45 minute drive home from the Relay site for me…plus I made a stop for gas and a stop at the grocery store (we have a 24 hour Sobey’s near my house).

By the time I showered and made up the spare bed (I wanted a whole glorious bed to myself for stretching out my stiff legs, back and muscles) I was in bed around 8am.  Slept until sometime after noon, when I got up to visit with FH and a friend of ours that had slept over (boys night out!).

My eating was TERRIBLE at the Relay…damn those delicious cookies Melanie brought.  :)  So I tried to keep my eats fresh and fruity for the day, knowing FH and I were going out for a rich and meaty date night dinner later on.

Started the day with a fresh croissant with light cream cheese and berry jam…also grapes an OJ.  Plus coffeeeeeee of course. 

 

I snacked a bit more in the afternoon on some of the leftover mixed nuts, chocolate peanuts and a yogurty parfait for my lunch.

In the bowl: Liberte Svelt vanilla yogurt, sliced strawberries, pineapple, and a crushed up banana coconut oatmeal muffin.

Mostly I just snoozed on the couch…and woke up refreshed and ready to go at 7pm.

Our date night took place at Cut Steakhouse.  It is a true a la carte steak house with modern, funky decor and a comfortable vibe.  I opted not to take photos (although I am a little sad about it because the food is beautiful!) because this was a date night, plus the restaurant is quite open and it would disturb other guests. 

It was fantastic. 

I started with a crisp, cool Cosmopolitan and a couple of glasses of water.  Still dehydrated from the long Relay night I really needed the water…but also just love to start a nice meal with a well made Cosmo.  :) 

FH didn’t want an appetizer, but I was seriously craving veggies so I ordered a Caesar salad.  It was delicious!!  Full romaine leaves with homemade croutons and a salty homemade dressing. I powered through it…FH joked that conversation could wait until I was finished.  :)  Sorry honey…I was hungry!!

I opted for the 6oz petit filet as my main…and chose their morrell mushroom sauce on the side (I have a girlfriend who goes there just for this sauce so I had to try it…deeeeelish!).  FH chose a 12oz NY striploin…his favorite cut.  We shared three side dishes: truffled mashed potatoes, sweet potato gratin, and asparagus three ways.  All extremely rich and fabulously delicious.  I could make a meal of just the side dishes…and honestly next time I just might!!

FH picked out a lovely bottle of Australian red for our meal.  Nothing better than a thick and hearty red wine to accompany a well cooked steak.  What a treat…it was a pricey bottle.  :)

After dinner, I was tempted by the creme brule as I ADORE creme brule and I know that Cut makes a fantastic one…but we were pleasantly full and decided that dessert would ruin the meal.  Wise decision.  :)

After dinner, we walked a few blocks to our favorite watering hole…The Economy Shoe Shop.  We enjoyed some chit-chat at the bar with a few post dinner cocktails…FH with some red ale, me with a couple of tall vodka/sodas.  A late night again!  But we love our “uber-date” nights after FH has been away for long periods of time.  Must make up for the lack of mini-dates and dinners together.  :)

Thank you sweetie.  It was lovely!

Relay Recap

Sorry to keep you guys waiting for so long.  Yesterday was a mish-mosh of catching up on sleep, visiting, and a date night.  Today I’m finally feeling on schedule and back on track.

The Relay was a terrific success!!  Lynn, our team, and I had a great time…very inspiring, a lot of fun, and a great motivation to participate in this every year.

We started out strong with our entire team walking laps, then once it was darker and the luminary ceremony had taken place we decided to go with ten lap turns (sometimes alone, mostly in pairs).  We kept going all night…no naps necessary (for most of us!).

This year I put out luminaries for my Dad and my Grandma.  It was really nice to take a moment to honor each of them with the lighting of the candles.  My Dad is probably rolling his eyes at all of this hoopla :) but I know my Grandma is smiling. 

At midnight we had FIREWORKS!!  When we heard about them we were honestly expecting like two roman candles and a pack of fire crackers, but they put on a great display that lasted about 10 minutes.  I LOVE FIREWORKS.  I just stood there watching with a big ridiculous grin on my face.  Loved it!!

Unfortunately it did start to rain around 3:30am and other teams looked like they were starting to pack it in…the coordinator got on the loudspeaker to convince teams to stay (honestly, we were a little annoyed…what’s a little rain when you are fighting for a cause like Cancer Research?!). 

Around 5:00 they decided to start the closing ceremonies early and it was pretty evident that A LOT of people had left over the course of the night…but our whole team stayed strong (with the exception of one sleepy head) and would have stayed right until the official 7am finish.  But once the closing speeches were given, and the final lap had been walked there was no reason for us to stay…so we waited as long as we could then packed up and headed home.  Including set-up time, we were actually there for exactly 12 hours…so I guess it all worked out!!

Our team name this year is “All Night Fighters” so we came up with the last minute idea of building a boxing ring around our site.  Super cute and now we have lots of ideas on how to improve it for next year.

Lynn’s boss arrived and “topped up” our donation collection to take us to our $2000 goal…so awesome!  When I got home I found that I had received a couple more donations online, so we actually surpassed our goal!! 

Once again, thanks to everyone for your fabulous support!!!

   

Relay Day Fuel

9:30 am:

Coffee on the run

10:30 am:

Crumbled banana coconut oatmeal muffin and sliced strawberries mixed with an individual Liberte vanilla yogurt.  Holy yum!

1:00 pm:

Easy salad of tomatoes, cukes, a smidge of red onion, fresh basil, and a sprinkle of balsamic.

Paired up with some hummus, Mary’s crackers, Grissol crackers, and the leftover tuna from last night’s sammich.

 

4:00 pm:

Smoothie (Day Five!) for the road:  strawberries, frozen 1/2 banana, light vanilla soy milk, raw oats, flax meal, whey protein isolate (plain, found at Bulk Barn), and a splash of OJ to thin/sweeten…if this doesn’t hold me over, I don’t know what would!  :)

 

All Night Fighting team fuel:

Sammiches…ham & cheese, or turkey & lettuce

Oatmeal Trail Mix Bars

Snacks a plenty…yogurt pretzels, deluxe salty nuts (dirty!), chocolate peanuts, ORGANIC (read: expensive) gummy bears

Wish us luck!!!  And keep those donations coming. 

Pledge center is available until June-26th!!

Compromises and Harassment :)

Hi all! Busy morning so I'm stockpiling my food porn until a post later today. Think you can hold out until then? :)

I was awoken this morning by the phone ringing...which led to a very long voicemail message that I couldn't quite make out from my cozy place up in the bedroom. Curiousity (and the fact that I had been snoozing through my alarm for at least 20 minutes) got me up and down the stairs to find out what the message was.

It was the Security Department from my bank! Gah. Stupid debit card has been compromised somehow (something about being used at a place of business that is currently being investigated for fraud or card copying!! eeeek!) and I had to call in to find out what to do. Funny enough, it was just an automated answering service telling me to go to my nearest branch and get a new card. Annoying but I'm glad they are on top of these things!

FH had to (finally!) take his car in for provincial inspection today (his expired while he was at sea, which is why we've been sharing my car) so I followed him to drop that off and then we hit up my bank. Lady there said my card hadn't been frozen yet, or marked as "hot" in their system so this was more of a precautionary thing than anything. Fine with me...I'm going to get a fancy new "chipped" card in a week or so and this forced me to change my PIN which is a good thing to do once in a while anyway.

So that set me behind a bit on my work for the day, but I'm busting through it as fast as I can so I can beg off early to finish getting ready for the exciting night of Relay for Life! Just finishing up the laundry now so I can have a couple of fresh pairs of comfy pants, then I'll pack up my overnight bag, make the sammiches, load the car, and be off!

I just want to thank everyone again for your AMAZING support during these last couple of days of fundraising. Truly fantastic! I am personally at $1085 right now, and I know I have at least one more pledge coming. Our team has bumped our goal from $1500 to $2000 and we only need a couple more hundred dollars to do it...so one more day of harassment for donations before the big Relay tonight! So if you haven't done it already, and you want to help our tiny team of only 6 participants bring in $2000 then please visit the link on the side ---> and offer up a donation.

And now, back to work!

Relay Prep

My afternoon snack:

My second afternoon snack (I don`t think I really like these…):

This afternoon was spent getting organized for tomorrow`s big night of Relaying…

- groceries for sammiches for team

- Bulk Barn for midnight treats for team

- make Trail Mix Oatmeal Bars for team

- laundry

- lay out camping gear (chair, lantern, sleeping bag, small pillow, tent)

- make sammiches ---  tomorrow

- pack overnight bag --- tomorrow

(extra pants, shirt, socks, shoes, sweater, hairbrush, towel, face wash, toothbrush, toothpaste, water bottle, travel cup, umbrella, gloves, flashlight, bug spray…)

Sorry…I guess this just became my packing list!

FH had a big lunch and didn`t care if I made anything for dinner, so after I went to the grocery store I just made myself a sammich and salad.

Tuna sammich with baby spinach on sunflower flax bread:

  

Served with a simple tomato & basil salad, dressed with just olive oil, fresh ground pepper, and fresh ground sea salt.  Fresh & delicious.

Then I baked up a batch of Tina`s Oatmeal Bars but made an extreme version which I`m calling Trail Mix Oatmeal Bars.  Loaded them up with raisins, mini choco chips, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, hulled hemp seeds, and coconut. 

  Chewy and moist.  Yummmmm!

I just HAD to try one for my evening snack…crumbled up with sliced strawberries and light coconut milk (I won`t do that with the coconut milk again…it`s not very tasty on it`s own).

And now off to bed for a good night`s sleep since I`m going to be up for 24 hours tomorrow!  (the donations are still coming in…weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!)