A partner at the gym this morning!

Good morning! This morning the fiance and I got up bright and early for a before work workout. This morning was special because FH was going to stay with the boys until they got on the bus since I had to be at work at 8 am this morning. We NEVER get to work out together in the mornings since he goes in at 6 am, so this morning was a treat indeed! However, he hasn't been to the gym in a good while, so we did 50 mins on the elliptical and that was about all he could handle. haha Also, I can usually wake up, drink a little water to hydrate me a little and get through 30 - 60 mins of cardio with no problem. Not everyone is built this way and I think FH is one of those people. If he works out first thing in the morning I think he needs a little piece of toast with pb or something to give him a little fuel. Either way, 50 mins cardio is good for me! I get so "annoyed" I guess is a good word...his calories burned are usually so much higher than mine. For 50 mins I did 3.46 miles and burned 359 calories (according to elliptical). He did 3.40 miles and burned 446 calories. So unfair!

I forgot to blog about my pumpkin oats on Monday! W-O-W! The pumkin yogurt was merely "alright" when compared to pumkin oats! That is truly an awesome combo! I had 1/3 cup oats, 1/3 c. almond milk, 1/2 c. water ( I like it liquidy) with about 1/2 cup of pumpkin, pumpkin pie spice + extra cinnamon, a drizzle of grade A maple syrup, sprinkes of brown sugar (1/2 tsp?) and a couple of drops of vanilla. Oh. My. Gosh. Delicious! For toppings I added about 6-8 organic chocolate chips, a little granola plank and some sliced almonds. Totally hit the spot.

So, this morning, after the gym, I logged mine and FH exercise, jumped in the shower and got dinner started. haha That's right....dinner. Since tonight is shuffleboard, I wanted to have something semi-prepared for the fiance to eat before he leaves. So I tried a crockpot recipe that I kind of tweaked for my own benefit. I can't wait to try it tonight!

Because of the 15 mins it took to prep the chicken and crockpot I didn't have much time to spend on my own breakfast or lunch. As much as I was looking forward to having more pumpkin oats this morning, I had to settle for cereal. I had a mixture of Mother's Best Mallow Oats and Kashi Vive. I really like the Kashi Vive! Its a good combo. The mallows really add a yummy sweetness. I also made a sandwich for lunch. The fiance talked me into buying some prepackaged bologna because we got all this other stuff free. AFTER I made my sandwich, I turned it around for the nutritional info and saw 12g of fat! Yikes. As I was walking out the door I looked in my little bag (forgot my lunch box at work AGAIN) and I must have had a frown because FH laughed and asked why I looked in my little bag like that. I told him I was having such a sad breakfast with (gasp!) cereal and even sadder lunch with a bologna sandwich with 12g of fat! Of course he laughed at me and said at least we worked out. He has a point.

When I got to work I had to go straight to training, so I didn't get to eat my cereal. Then, afterwards (and after the boss left for a meeting across town) I had to meet with IT to get setup for our training sessions tomorrow and Friday. I was starving by this time, so I ate the other half of my blueberry crisp CLIF from the other day. Only AFTER that was I able to enjoy my bowl of cereal. What a morning already!

Pork Chops w/ breaded eggplant and fresh corn

The fiance and I went to go workout. He is determined that he wants to go with me so I hope he sticks with it! I love to workout with him, but a lot of times if I wait for him we DON't end up going. So, many times I go twice (as is the case today), just in case if he is too tired or we decide something else takes precedence.

Since I get home before he does and he actually left work later than usual, I went ahead and made dinner so we could eat as soon as we finished.

I love getting fresh corn for the farmer's market! So I decided to make it since the fresher the better. I was going to stop by the store and buy some frozen veggies until I remembered I had fresh veggies! We have been going to HEB on Sunday evenings and they have been having good meat specials. The fiance has convinced me to buy some of this stuff even though it isn't necessarily lean meat. Desperate times call for desperate measures. As everyone else, we're trying to cut corners where we can and that means groceries. So, I decided to take out some pork chops. I steamed the corn in my steamer for about 35 mins. and I cut the eggplant into about 1/4"-1/2" slices. I mixed an omega-3 egg with about 1/4 cup of Annie's Goddess dressing to dip for the coating. then I used about a 1/4 cup of AP flour and 1/2 bread crumbs and 1/4 cup shredded parmesan. I dipped the slices in the coating them in the bread crumbs and instead of frying in oil or baking, I fried them on my square griddle with some Pam. It worked out pretty well. I sprayed the Pam on the pan first, set the slices on there then sprayed the slices with Pam. I think the Goddess dressing realling gave it good flavor too.

This is what they looked like when they were cooking:

While I was "frying" the eggplant, I pan fried the pork chops with a little lemon pepper, garlic powder, salt free seasoning and Pam.

Here was my plate. The fiance talked me into having a G2 with dinner since we had just come back from working out:

I got seconds of the eggplant because it was THAT GOOD! With a little organic ketchup:

We got home around 8 pm and watched the last of Dancing with the Stars. I am glad the football player is on there because the fiance will actually watch this with me! haha

Feeling refreshed!

I will admit, I did not get any pictures this past weekend. However, the weekend was great and I am feeling very refreshed for a Monday! Yay!

First, I will start where I left off Friday. Once, home, the fiance and I got ready so that we could take the boys to the fall festivals. We hit the one in our neighborhood first. They had a few bounce arounds basically which the kids enjoyed. I guess I could have taken a picture of my hot dog since I had my camera. haha I am still not comfortable with people thinking I'm a weirdo taking pictures of my food. Hopefully, I'll get more comfortable with it. Anyhoo, I had a hot dog with chili and cheese at that festival.

Then, it was on to the next festival! The boys (all of them including the fiance!) had a blast! There was a rock climbing wall there - my youngest was really good at it! He just shot right up there; I think he looks like a monkey or something. They boys also did laser tag, some pitching thing that measured the speed of your pitch, basketball, a funhouse and several bounce arounds. They also had free corn dogs with 100 calories sodas and chips, snowcones and free ice cream. I had one corn with some mustard, half a bag of lays potato chips and a 100 cal coca-cola..

Adrian and Gio at the first fall fest:

Me and the boys:

Me and the fiance:

After we left the festival we decided to go home and watch a Journey to the Center of the Earth in 3D. I had bought that for the boys as a little Halloween surprise. Of course, having 3 growing boys is dangerous because despite the fact that we at a little something at each festival, they all decided they were hungry! So we stopped at Wendy's and I grabbed a 5 piece chicken nuggets. Good thing we did some walking around!

Saturday, I got up and went to the Farmer's Market. I tried to talk the fiance into going and then we could pick up some breakfast tacos or something but instead he convinced me to go alone and then come back fro him and the kids and let them choose what they wanted for breakfast. He knows I am a sucker for giving the kids choices. So off to the farmer's market I was. I didn't get a whole lot, but I still managed to spend $17! I honestly don't feel like I got bang for my buck this time though. I got:


local honey
a poblano pepper
jalapeno peppers
1 onion
4 ears of corn
2 potatoes
2 apples
1 cucumber
1 zuch
1 yellow squash
1 small eggplant


I think that was it!


The boys decided they wanted IHOP for breakfast. My kids love breakfast. They would eat eggs, pancakes, bacon and hashbrown morning noon and night if I let them. At IHOP they had pumpkin pancakes and they were delicious! I got the BIG breakfast with two eggs, hasbrowns, two slices bacon and two pancakes. To my amazement, I ate almost all of it. I usually can't finish two pancakes for some reason. The doughy breadiness is too much for me I guess. I ate about half the pankcakes, but all the rest. Afterward, we took the kiddos over to Game Stop to spend their gift cards their grandmother gave them for Halloween. We went home and let them play while the fiance and I took a nice little nap. The funniest thing is that the day before, the fiance was playing with our male dog and he accidentally ripped into our down comforter! We forgot to fix it so as we tossed and turned feathers would float around. It was doing a number on my nose though!

After our nap, we did some lounging. The boys played outside, the fiance did some online gaming and I used the peace and quiet to read! We had dinner at a new burger place that we were NOT impressed with. It was worth a try though.


Sunday we enjoyed being lazy. I can't remember what we ate to be honest. haha


Monday morning I woke up and went to work out and it felt great. I did a little stat bike and about 20 mins of weights. I forgot how good it feels to do weights!