Review: NatureBox = Tasty!

NatureBox revealed

So a bit ago I got an email from Molly at NatureBox asking if I’d like to try out their mail order snack boxes.  To which I said “really?  me?  of course? but do you have some gluten free items for HunBun”.  Yes, it was like that – all in one sentence.  Although they didn’t have GF certified items, they did send a variety that did not include GF ingredients but were made in facilities that processed wheat, nuts, etc….   Since HunBun and I got together I have spent more time reading labels on food than at any other point in my life….even when I’m buying “normal” food I’m still reading those labels.  Good habits are hard to break! 😉

Back to the box (hey, my yellow polish matched the packing material – HA!)…  So inside the box was 5 packaged snacking delights and a super cute explainer card.

What’s in the box?

PIstachio Power Clusters

Dried Pears

Lemon Pucker Pistachios

Wild Blueberry Flax Granola

Masa Chips

I LOVED the masa chips!  I love salty & crunchy snacks and these were fantastic.  The little bags are super convenient to travel with too.  I took the masa chips with me on a 2 day business trip and finished the bag up while waiting at the Burbank airport for my flight back to Oakland.  It was so nice not to spend $12 for a darn snack at the aiport – RIDICULOUS!

10yo is eating up the Lemon Pucker Pistachios.  That Pucker is no joke…the lemon flavor is right up in your face and brings a sense of springtime to the pistachio.  It’s a really great flavor combination.  Pistachios are nature’s way of portion control…because you get so tired of opening up those shells that you only take a handful.  Thanks Nature!

Dried fruit is always a winner and these dried pears were no different.  They were nice a chewy and just a tiny bit sweet.  We ate them straight out of the bag, but you could totally use them to top off a nice mixed green salad or on some steaming hot oatmeal.

If you want to try out a NatureBox of your own, lovely Molly and the folks there are offering you sweet readers a promo code that will get you 25% off  your first month’s subscription.  The 25% discount is if you do a month-to-month box order…but if you do a 6 month subscription you’ll get your first month FREE and if you do a 12 month subscription you’ll get three months FREE!

The boxes are seasonal and are a great way to try some new snacks that you may not find at your local grocery or specialty market.  The bags are substantial and offer a lot of snacking opportunity. 🙂  As a bonus, on the back of the snack card is a recipe that uses one of the ingredients.  My card had a recipe for Slow Cooker Tortilla Soup that used the masa crisps as a garnish.

Thanks Molly with NatureBox!

See ya later

Cathy

 

This is a really great idea for people

 

 

 

 

 

Good intentions

I really tried to get back into my personal/work/blog balance..you know all those good intentions.  But apparently all those intentions did not generate the desired actions as it’s been over a week since my last post.  FAIL!

I may not be one of those folks who do a post every single day.  I may be more of a 3-4 day a week type poster.  I already try to cram a whole lotta “doing” into every day that it seems that the addition of one more activity pushed me over the edge.

I think one thing that would help is if I learned how to use my WordPress app on my Android phone.  It’d probably be a whole lot easier if I didn’t have to boot up my home computer, get on the internet, open up WordPress, then actually write some stuff while on the go.  I mean I post up all kinds of Instagram photos on my FB about my daily deelio’s – it’s got to be the effort of using the home computer.

Well…since it’s almost the new year I guess I can make one of those annual promises that people do.  So here’s the thing – I need to figure out what I’m using blogging for.  An outlet?  An accountability tool?  A sharing medium?  A neat thing to do?  It may be all of the above – which means I have to figure out a priority level…how important is this for me to support the balancing act I’ve been doing.   I gotta figure out what is shareable – what is interesting – what would keep people coming back (since we’re all so different) – what would keep me blogging.  SO MUCH THINKING…and not even getting paid for it… AUGH!!!!

I do have something to blog about…it’ll be tomorrow (FOR SURE).  It’s about a company called Naturebox.  They sent me a box of treats and I wanted to give you all my thoughts on it….it was delicious.  😀

So let me get back to work work…and I’ll get back to bloggedy blogging after a bit.

Thanks for sticking with me…and not taking me off your read list.  🙂

See ya later

Cathy

Goodbye rain….or that’s what the weather folks say

Yesterday was full of rain, rain, rain.  I dislike driving in the rain not only because the roads are slick but because of people who act like the rain requires them to drive as ridiculous as possible.  It’s either folks driving really fast, switching lanes and kicking up walls of water OR it’s the folks who drive extremely slow no matter the lane and brake like 40 feet before any car or intersection (no matter if the light is still green).  UGH!

The weather folks say that we had our last band of storms yesterday…so I’m expecting a return to normality on the California freeways and roads.  Fingers crossed.

So I finally opened the swag bag I got at the Athleta store opening on Tuesday night…I know I took a while.  Some pretty nifty stuff in there.

Athleta swag

I need to start using my regular camera to take photos for the blog.  My Instagram App pictures are just not cutting it.  Bleah.

Snack Attack

So yesterday I was in a snacky mood.  So I poured a handful of cashews, dried cherries and dark chocolate baking chips onto a plate to eat while going through work emails.  Then I made myself a Swiss Miss Dark Chocolate cup of cocoa.  That instant mix is definitely one to try.  Tastes rich and creamy even when made with water.  I haven’t made with milk yet which I may try today with almond milk (cause of my tummy), if I’m craving cocoa later today.

 

 

 

Eats

I’ve been eating my normal protein pancake breakfasts and my random veggie lunches.  I am always envious of folks who have left overs to warm up but usually make just enough to feed the family with maybe a teeny tiny bit that wouldn’t fill anyone’s plate for a next day meal.

 

 

 

Pumpkin pancake

Pancake with some new toppings

Veggie lunch

Sweats

I did a circuit workout yesterday morning to start the day right.

Warmed up with 2 minutes of sun salutations, followed by 12 sets of 60sec/10sec of plyometrics and old fashioned calisthenics (jumping jacks, high knees, etc.), then ending with 12 sets of 60sec/10sec of upper body exercises.

Whew!  Sweaty delight.  I like moving so quickly from one exercise to the next, doing that gets your heart pumping and keeps it pumping until the very end.

Then I went to Vinyasa Flex over at my yoga studio, Xplore Yoga.  The instructor focused on hamstring flexibility – which is great for my half-marathon training.  I always find I am more comfortable with my form when I continue with my yoga practice.

Finished the night by cooking some dinner for the family, trying to read all the blogs I subscribe to (didn’t) then falling asleep around 9:30pm.  I pressed some button on my alarm clock and couldn’t figure out what was happening with it.  It just showed 0:09.  Wha?!?  So after 10 minutes of fiddling with it HunBun said “hey maybe that’s the time you set for the snooze”.  Der!  As soon as I hit the snooze button the time showed up.  ARGH!

This morning I did a hill workout on the treadmill followed by 10 minutes of upper arm/back exercises with 3lb dumbbells.  I’m working hard to get that little jelly spot tightened up, you know that piece right under your arm pit?  Yeah that one.  It’s getting smaller…so I’m on the right track.  🙂

Anyhoo….gotta drop the boy off at school then get to working!

See ya later

Cathy

 

Back…with a new word!

I know right?!?  That’s what my 10yo would say and I find most appropriate here.  Long break again where I just didn’t find a moment to log in and jot stuff down.  So let’s catch up shall we?

It wasn’t a Staycation it was a Projecation

So last week HunBun and I took time off from work to do a bunch of stuff that we had procrastinated long enough on.  You know how you do “around the house projects” and then look back and say “why didn’t we do that last year (or 2 years ago)?”  Yeah, that’s us.  So with the wonky weather in the Bay Area, CA last week we decided that it was going to be filled with long awaited projects – Whee!  Bleah!

The weather was a major decider in what we dd every day.  So with Monday being projected as rain-free, we decided to tackle the dirt square by the front door.  Now it hasn’t always been a dirt square, but over time the plants got all janky and we moved the big tree that was the focal point…so that gradually it became that uneven dirt/rock spot RIGHT WHERE EVERYONE CAN SEE!  It irritated HunBun to his last nerve…so we decided to do this.

Now that’s a welcome

We planted 3 palms and then covered the dirt with some landscaping river rocks.  We have to get taller pots for the 3 plants we’ll have in the back right under the window.  The current plants are in shorter pots and we need some height change for effect.  Thanks HGTV!

We should have kept going on the other side of the door where we have a rectangle planting area under the other window.  But this project took us about 4.5 hours and we were hecka tired from lugging rocks and placing them.

Then the rain came….

So when it was cold and wet outside we spent the days inside doing everyone’s favorite maintenance activity – touch up painting – YAH!  You know those projects where you can’t tell you did anything?  That’s what touch up painting is.  I mean I guess the crown and base looks shinier…and we don’t have those random pencil/scuff/chip spots in the hallway, office, master bedroom, master bathroom, front bathroom, laundry room.  But really you can’t tell that we spent 2.5 days doing touch up painting.  Well except in the laundry room where the door and casing went from a yellowish straight from Home Depot color to a crisp clean white.  And in the hallway where we unfortunately, for us, used a different paint finish on the touch ups and can now see blops of color here and there.  UGH.  We’ll have to re-touch the hall when we do the front room where the Christmas tree is since both rooms are the same gray color.  I don’t have any pictures for you…since it’d look like I was just showing you pictures of every room in our house.  🙂

So my new word, projecation is really because we did a whole bunch of projects while on our “vacation” or “staycation” as they call it now since we didn’t go anywhere.  Well projecation can cause some provocation of mini arguments and irritations.  Too much together time?  No more like two people who like to do things a certain way and expect the other to be a mind reader to know exactly what we’re going to do as soon as we decide to do it.  Nothing major…just a bunch of long loud breathing and forced quiet to calm down.  🙂  I’m sure any of us in a relationship totally gets it.

Sweats

I did a couple of runs and circuits during the projecation.  Nothing too jazzy or exciting.  Just used my interval clock and did a bunch of random things until sweat started dripping all over. 

I did get to 2 yoga classes during the week.  My favorite Monday night Vinyasa Flow class from 5-6pm then did a new class Xplore Yoga just added – Wednesday night Vinyasa Flex from 5-6pm.  I liked the new class a lot.  Building up some flexibility and the instructor was fantastic.  Xplore also added a new class on Friday night – Crossflow, a blend of cross fit and yoga.  I wasn’t able to get to the class because 12yo had his first band concert.

Yes.  That is my 12yo.  Currently taller than me and I’m 5’10”!  They had the church sanctuary decorated with white christmas trees in groups of 3.  It was really beautiful and the concert was lovely too.  HA!

Eats

On Saturday I did the Dr. Oz 3 day cleanse, where all you do is drink 4 smoothies a day.  It’s pretty easy to stick to and the smoothies did fill me up and kept me satisfied.  I didn’t do the epsom salt bath every night though, not sure what impact that would have on the detoxifying.  It must have worked because by the 3rd day my tongue felt perpetually coated with guck.  It was probably the easiest “cleanse” or “deprivation” style diet I’ve ever tried.  I call it a deprivation diet because you deprive yourself of certain types of food.  So on the last smoothie of the last day – I quit.  I know right!  Well the reason I quit was because I made this tasty delight:

Easy Dinner

4 ingredients (+ salt & pepper): Red potatoes, Hilshire Farms Hardwood Smoked Chicken Sausage, Leeks, Fuji Apple.  Instructions:  1) Slice everything up – the potatoes, leeks and apple into thin slices for quick cooking.  2) Add 1 Tbsp olive oil to pan and saute the red potatoes until almost cooked through.  3) Add the chicken sausage to get a nice brown color and warmed through as the sausage is pre-cooked.  4) Add the leeks and apples at the same time and cook for another 5-6 minutes until the apples and leeks start to soften.  EAT!

It smelled so good and I really wanted something warm and hearty to eat instead of another cold veggie smoothie.  So I said goodbye to Dr. Oz and hello to warm delicious food that I could chew.  🙂  This dish was a big hit and as soon as I posted it to my FB I got a bunch of questions from family about what I made and how to cook it up.  Winning!

My other eats since Monday have been my norm, protein pancakes and wraps.

I forgot the banana

Cukes & Carrots for snack

Roast Beef wrap

Then last night 12yo and I headed to the Westfield mall down in Santa Clara for this:

Oh yeah!

Althleta opened up a new store and I got an invite to the grand opening.  .  So I asked HunBun if he wanted to go.  He said “uh, no”.  So I asked 12yo and he said “Sure”.  Don’t you love kids?  I appreciated it because that meant we could blaze down in the car pool lane since we’d be heading toward San Jose at 5pm – smack in the middle of commute traffic.  Sweet!

We got a parking in the first row we turned down – Winning!  Then did a quick search for the store, since we got there at 530 and the invite said the opening was from 6-8pm.  Well once we found the store we saw that they were letting the invitees in the doors.  So instead of heading to the food court 12yo agreed to go in to the store.  😉  It’s like a healthier candy store!  They offered some little bites and wine/sparking water as you roamed the racks…which made it difficult to try things on.  Good thing I had an extra pair of hands….which meant that he drank up my sparking water.  LOL

I found some cute new winter running gear that I can’t wait to sweat on:

Sweet new gear

Goody bag with purchase

After enduring my shopping activity – which included 12yo holding my purse, belt and sweater at different points as I tried on 3 tops; we headed up to the food court to find something to eat for dinner.  He got a sushi platter and I got Chicken Pad Thai.  It was so much food that he and I shared my Pad Thai with some left over for his school lunch today.  It was really tasty…but next time I’d order without the protein.

Food court Pad Thai

We grabbed a hot drink from Starbucks and headed home.

It was a great week off from work and hopefully I’m back in the routine – early wake ups to exercise, blog, work, yoga, cook, chill, sleep – Repeat.  🙂

See ya later

Cathy