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

Birthday celebration

Sunday BBQ & Cupcakes!

We celebrated my birthday with a end-of summer BBQ of hotdogs (Miller’s hotdogs are the best!) and Hamburgers.  I ate too much of the chips and onion dip – my brain WAS trying to tell my hands to stop grabbing more but obviously my eyeballs had taken over the controls.  UGH.  I should just scoop a ploop of onion dip in a bowl and that is that…but that’s for people who have more self-control than I when it comes to salty snack food.  Oh, well.

Of course I have no pictures of the food, DER, other than my Cupcake Love…

Birthday Cupcake Lovin’

Now that’s attractive.  🙂  Thanks family for the laughs and the gift cards.  We will certainly use the Disney ones soon (I wish sooner…) and will get some new workout gear from Lucy and Athleta as soon as I log onto their websites.

My solo birthday buy-obration

So yesterday was my actual day of birth…thanks mom & dad for doing what you did so I can be around (that sounds gross…but it’s the truth – well unless you were mixed in a tube or something – but that’s another discussion).  Since it was a normal day – for everyone else – I took the day off and buy-0brated my brains out at TJ Maxx, Ross, JC Penney, Marshalls and Trader Joe’s (that visit was to up the snack volume in our pantry).  Get it???  I bought a lot of stuff to celebrate my birthday…a “Buy-obration”.   Dorky, I know…but I laughed.  🙂

My intent was to buy a couple of tops for work – you know to go with all my black pants (see earlier posts).  I guess you could say I was successful IF I want to wear work-out tops to work.  UH, that’s a no.  I did buy a blouse, black, but it’s one of those that wickedly hard to get on & off – you know, no zippers or buttons just a sheer overlay with an attached silk camisole.  After struggling to get the darn thing off I decided that was a “return” for sure along with a pair of super cute lace overlay shorts that was a size “M” written in teeny tiny print that I obviously didn’t see.  Bleah!

So on to the goods…in collage form 🙂

Loads of goodies!

So clockwise we got some workout clothes (those shorts were only $5!), Kelly green cardigan, 3 tops (hoorah), different printed skinny jeans, some socks (mine all shrank), really comfy Michael Kors bronze flats and some really cute boots!  I got another workout tank and shorts but wore them this morning on the treadmill for Time Trials.

Then I bought a couple of things for the house – I forgot to photo a cute glass stand with a bird on the lid.  I’ll remember to do that once I find something suitably adorable to put under the dome.  I found a really cool rustic looking 2 tier wood shelf that I put in the living room, a black metal jewelry stand (that is too tall for my wardrobe so now it’s sitting on my bedside table) and some awesome pantry organizers.  So I went hog-wild cleaning up our pantry…so pretty!

Organization is lovely

I moved the cereals up a shelf and this morning 12yo said “Hey mom where’s the cereal”… I said “right in front of your face”.  Kids, jeesh!

The best buy of the day was this awesome Lucy jacket I found at TJ Maxx!

Love me some Lucy

I can’t wait for the cold weather to get here so I can use it!

We finished my birthday with dinner from PF Chang’s – oh so good!  They are slowly expanding their Gluten Free menu options which is great.  We got Sichuan Beef, Mongolian Beef, Dali Chicken, Spicy Chicken and Chicken Fried Rice.  I also got their newest menu item: Vietnamese Noodle Salad with Crab.  Oh My!  Fully recommended!  I even had some left over for lunch today.  It comes with a citrus dressing that is practically drinkable.

So that was a round up of my birthday celebration.  Hope you enjoyed it!

See ya later!

Cathy

Do you prefer to celebrate your birthdays solo or with others?