Newman’s Own Organics Rocks My Socks

There are so many things to be excited about in this post I don’t even know where to begin!  My train breakfast was a favorite,

Peanut Butter Cookie is my favorite Lara flavor by far.

School was easy today – I taught 2 periods, had 2 periods of graduation rehearsal, and then had a half day.  We had a quick labeling assignment to do and then I had the afternoon to start cleaning my classroom.  I gave Mr. H 99% of my stuff so I’m glad all the chart paper I slaved over will not be going to waste.

For lunch I went the trail mix route.

I call this Peanut Better Trail Mix.  1/4C each peanuts, dried blueberries, and pb m&m’s for a filling 570 serving.

This was bigger calorie-wise and smaller volume-wise than what I usually pack but I ended up feeling in good full-ness and enjoyment.  I also had a baggie of green grapes.

 The school provided lunch, which I obviously skipped, but I did eat a slice of unphotographed cheese cake.

I left for home promptly at 3o’clock and got slammed with a migraine before I even made it in the front door.  I almost missed my fun activity but thank goodness medicine and a nap kicked in on time.  This didn’t hurt to perk me up either.

When I saw fellow Brooklyn bloggers getting Newman’s Own Organics boxes (complete with fancy mints I’d never seen before) a while back I was quite jealous.  Several people recommended that I ask for my own and I decided to plead wildlynicely request my own sample.  Sally more than generously agreed and I expected a small sampling.  Holy frick.

Re-dic-u-lous amount of food.  A and I were deeply struck by the generousity.  Expect to be seeing a ton of Newman’s Organic Own products in my posts for the next 10 years 🙂

I floated on a cloud of thankfulness and happy thoughts to my next activity – another fitness first, this time with Vani.  We did a 45 minute spin class at Crunch.  This was my 1stish try at spinning and I sucked but I also loved it.  My history?  My mommy loves to spin but I’ve always been a bit scared of it.  

The one time I did go to a class with her I was the youngest person in the room by at least 20years and the worst by at least 50 gasps per minute!  I did my best to keep up but about 5 minutes in my foot slid out of the strap and my knee slammed into the handle.  What’s worse than getting your butt kicked by the last generation?  Having to leave early, bloody! 

This time I still sucked, but I made it through the entire class, all limbs intact.  Sadly, we have no more gym membership as of July 1st but I am going to try to attend a few gym classes over the next two weeks.

After class Vani and I walked down to 7th Avenue for some fresh juice.  I got carrot-papaya-apple.

This was the perfect pick me up.  Plus it filled me up and basically became dinner.  I did have about 1/4 of A’s tuna salad sub when I got home.

And A spent the rest of our evening doing some serious discussing.  There is a LOT going on right now with plans for next year and I got some very interesting news today.  Hopefully by the end of the week I should be able to give you guys some updates.

Now it’s much too late and I’ve got to hurry to bed, night!

Have you ever tried spinning?  What’d you think?

Sunday, Sunny Sunday

Well, things have certainly gone much more smoothly since my last post!  It’s been a fabulous weekend and I still have a block of Sunday night left 🙂

After my post yesterday A and I headed to the movies.  I packed some good snacks,

 

the rest of my TJ’s unsweetened dried pineapple and a baggie of green grapes, but also supplemented with movie candy,

Shockers.  The movie was good but not great – Ryan Reynold and Sandra Bullock were amazing as usual but the storyline was pretty flat.

After the movie A and I knew we were a little hungry but couldn’t decide on what.  We had to pick up Father’s Day cards so we stopped at Barnes and Nobel and got small pb cookie dough ices along the way.

I gave half of mine to A and then we ended up wandering more than 2miles to Flatbrush!  By the time we made it to dinner at Mangowe were mega hungry!  I ordered steamed veggie dumplings as my appetizer.

 

These were wonderful, very chewy.  The veggies had a nice meaty taste and the sauce had a little kick to it.  I only at half because I was super excited about my meal – See U Noodles!  Broad rice noodles are my absolute favorite, which means you’ve seen them before which is good because I randomly have no picture.

We headed home after dinner and I’d like to say it was time for bed but for some reason it seemed appropriateto me to spend more than an hour watching Royal Pains on Hulu.

Late bedtime aside, I was more than ready to get up for my adventure this morning!  I packed up a bag and headed into Manhattan.  On the train I tried one of these Raw-Revolution bars for breakfast.

I did the chocolate coconut flavor – delish!  This was chewy and chocolatly and pretty much perfect.  I was full of energy when I reached my final destination.

Physique 57.  Months ago Melissagave a bunch of bloggers a free pass and I think I’m the last person to use it.  I did a 60minute beginner’s class, it was strength moves for the whole body using weights, a ballet bar, a beach ball, and a mat.  I was terrible, the instructor corrected my back like 8 times and I still don’t know how I was supposed to be.  And I loved it.  I booked a class for next Saturday before I even left.

After the class I stopped at Jamba before the subway to refuel.

This was a 16oz Peach Pleasure with a whey protein boost.  I wanted the protein boost but this flavor was not happening, I brought the 2nd half of it home for A.  I can’t wait ’till we move so I can buy a blender!

I had a busy but fun afternoon – painted my nails, ran some errands.  I had a $9 credit at Staples (from my teacher rewards card) that I obviously don’t need so I bought some nuts and candy there and then I headed to the grocery store to buy some goods for dinner tonight.  I was dying for a snack by the time I got home so I ate the other half of my veggie dumplings from last night.

Then I had a romantic snack with A ❤.  We went to Union Market for fun the other day and got foccacia,

and this beauty –

Guinness Cheddar Cheese.  Yums!  A made me thin slices so it looked like more.

So good, you could really taste the beer!

We have a fun dinner planned tonight but first we are going on a walk to run some errands I forgot earlier, see ya later alligators!

What new fitness routes have you tried lately?  Did you enjoy them?  I am a new convert to Physique 57 and I’m actually trying something new tomorrow too!

Best Ever

I know I said I would be doing full recaps while my friends were in town but I got a little overwhelmed the last two days.  As I predicted I’ve been a little bit under the weather (not that it slowed my eating any!).  All in all my friends had a fabulous visit.  In addition to the fun you all saw, we also went to lunch at Serendipity, watched Up, had dinner with K’s family, and went to Museum Mile.

This morning K and C me up bright and early at 5am since their cab was coming for a 5:30 pick up.  I had plans of enjoying an early morning and eating breakfast and home but the minute they were out the door I was back in bed!  I found my train breakfast just as pleasing 🙂

Peanut Toffee Buzz Clif Bars are just as good as leisurely breakfasts at home.

Lunch had a fruity, summery theme.  A baggie of seedless green grapes,

a Kashi Cherry Dark Chocolate Bar,

and a new seasonal Dannon Light and Fit flavor – Watermelon!

I almost always prefer plain Greek but this flavor was too fun to pass up!

Lunch was a nice “end” to the day!  I taught the first four periods straight and then on Wednesdays I have lunch 5th period because we have a common prep period 6th.  Well today we had a Lunch and Learn (i.e. nothing) so I was excused from common prep.  And 7th and 8th period we did graduation activities so there were no classes.  A few fun facts –

1. We are spending 10 full 45minute periods on graduation practice over the next 2 weeks.
2. My students graduate Monday, June 22.  School does not end until Friday, June 26.
3. In my mixed class of 30 6 students are graduating.  The other 24 are attending summer school (and 3 of those students will actually be repeating 8th grade next year).

Is that not all ridiculous?  Their science teacher and I are throwing a lunch party for those 6 this week.

I stayed after school to change my hallway bulletin board and headed home around 5 to run some errands.  I met up with A and we weren’t in the mood to end our visitors=vacation feeling so we went out to dinner!  We went back to one of our favorite spots, Stone Park Cafe.

We were in a fun mood, we ordered drinks and appetizers.  I got a passionfruit champagne cocktail.

I’m not going to lie, I was a wee bit tipsy after just this one drink.  It was delicious, passionfruit is such a nice tropical flavor.  We sat outside for a little bit but finally got chilled indoors, what has been with this weather lately?!

For our appetizer A and I split the Knuckle Sandwich tempura lobster “knuckles,” house made potato roll, yuza chipotle dressing.

The picture shows half.  I actually ate mine with a knife and fork since I skipped the bun in lieu of this.

 

The bread at this restaurant is so wonderful, this mini baguette tasted like sourdough,  my favorite.  I ate this x2 (I told you the drink was kicking in!) with real butter.

My entree choice was the Pan Seared Diver Scallops with rock shrimp, fava beans, asparagus risotto, and lobster beurre.

This was amazing.  The risotto and nice and creamy, and I didn’t actually get any fava beans, but the scallops were the best I’ve ever had.  They were cooked to perfection, crispy outside with a nice amount of give, and the sauce was the perfect accompaniment. 

I shared 3/4 of a scallop with A and we decided this was one of the best meals we’ve ever eaten.  I would say it was the best thing I’ve ever eaten, except that if I’m honest about my tastes I would have to choose one of the Pad See Eiw dishes I’ve eaten as my favorite meal ever.  A thought this was second only to the roast beef served at our wedding (when asked what the best thing about our wedding was his answer, with zero hesitation, is the roast beef). 

If you ever are in Park Slope I highly recommend making a visit to Stone Park Cafe.  We even got mini meringues with the bill.

After dinner we came home and relaxed.  I spent a little time catching up on food blogs and I finally wrote my plans for the rest of the week.  Now it’s time for bed so maybe I will actually get my cereal tomorrow!

What was the best meal you’ve ever eaten?  Give details!

Took the Cake

Happy Monday everybody!  Today was actually a really nice day of work.  My kids were well-behaved and we got more done than usual (although still not as much as I would like!).

I started my morning with an Apricot Almond KIND Bar, my fav.

A walked me to my train so I was in a big bliss cloud for most of the ride!

During lunch I was busy setting up my SmartBoard and I didn’t get a chance to eat anything 😦  We had a faculty meeting after school, but I did manage to snag my baggie of green grapes before I went to that.

After the meeting I stayed to clean up my room and call parents so I ended up not getting home until after 6:30!  I organized some things and cooked dinner while I waited for House to begin.  I ate this yogurt when I got home to make up for no lunch.

Wallabyis a brand of Australian organic yogurt.  Nonfat Strawberry Guava was pretty impressive, I love the look of the containers too.  I also ate at least two bites of A’s junk food (pizza and a cupcake).

For dinner I tried out this new preseasoned tofu from More Than Tofu, in peanut ginger.

I sliced it and baked it for 20minutes while I made a side using this stuff:

Heat over low heat in a small pan; 1can seasoned greens + 1/4C blue cheese crumbles + 1/4 unsweetened dried blueberries = Blue Blue Greens.

I ate the entire package of tofu! (360calories) 

It said that there were 4 (90cal) servings but that seemed a little skimpy to me, although half a package would work if you’re not super hungry.  I made a sauce for the side out of stir fry sauce, Chipolte Tabasco, rice vinegar, and honey pb.

Everything was hella yummy!

After House (amazing!) I headed to the gym; I’m proud of myself for making it two days in a row.  I did 15minutes on the elliptical at level 10 and 15minutes on the stepmill at level 7.  I ended with 5minutes of abs/stretching on the mats.  I had a great work out but the bonehead on the machine next to the mats would not stop grunting!  I get that you might struggle at the end of a set but if you are screaming straight through 10+minutes of weights you are doing something wrong!  Even worse was the fact that he kept yelling at himself, berating himself anytime he stopped.  I felt bad for him because it was clear he had some issues but please live out your body issues quietly 🙂

A met me for the walk home and we took a walk around the neighborhood for funsies.  I might have felt the need to go back to Tea Lounge to buy the gigantic Oreo cupcake I was drooling over earlier in the day.

I also might have scraped off all the frosting and thrown the cupcake away [carnage].

I am fully aware that a. this is wasteful and b. it pretty much undid any calories I burned at the gym, but damn it I like cupcakes!  Belly full, I’m off to take a quick shower and snuggle into bed, night!

How do you feel about grunters at the gym?  What is the thing that annoys you while working out?

Double Feature

Oh man, what a good weekend!  Sunday = fun day.  This will be a quick post because it is laaaate.

Yesterday morning A and I got up and trekked (in the rain!) to Target.  From there we headed to a movie theatre in Cobble Hill to watch the new X-Men movie.  We were both super hungry but the theatre is on a crappy street and it was pouring so we ended up getting food here –

There was literally nothing healthy on this menu, nor anything I really wanted, so I chose by calorie count alone!  The chicken biscuit had 350calories so chicken biscuit it was!

This actually wasn’t too bad tasting!  I would have still been hungry, but I was saving my self for movie snacks!  A small popcorn,

and Dark Chocolate Cookie Dough Bites.

A and I really enjoyed the movie, it had some great action and some really funny moments too!  When we got home I got down to business and got 90% of my work for this week done.  From there we (FINALLY) headed to the gym 🙂  I did 25minutes on the treadmill at 2minutes running/1minute walking intervals to equal 2.6miles.  I also did 5minutes of abs/stretching on the mats and 5minutes of arms on the machines.  It felt so good to be active again.

On the way home we stopped to fill in a few grocery staples we still needed and A got himself some pizza.  I made fun of him, but in reality I ate half of this slice 🙂

After doing a little more work, it seemed like a really good idea to see a second movie – oh yeah, we roll like that!  We headed to “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past.”  It was good, but a little chick-flicky for me.  I made some better snack choices for this one (especially since they ended up serving as dinner).

A Sigg full of h2o, a big baggie of green grapes, and 1serving of Coldstone Jelly Bellys.

It is clearly time for bed, good night!

How often do you go to the movies?  I know A and I go a lot, but honestly, I really really like movies!  I think acting, and not just stage acting, but particularly film is so beautiful – this is a Lot of power in a well done scene.  People like Zach Braff and Will Smith seriously make me wonder how I kept myself from throwing sense away and doing something in film (fun fact – I have dreamed of being an actress since I was a little kid and I saw “Annie” for the first time).

No More Days Until the Weekend!

How excited am I that I have 1full week/1half week until Spring Break?  Very!

I refuse to be too tired from work to take care of myself, and am insisting on going to the gym (and back to the grocery to get what I missed yesterday) before dinner so this will be a quick post.

For breakfast, on the train, I brought  True Delights bar.

I bought a box with a coupon yesterday.  The flavor was good but it was not filling at all.  I was so hungry I wanted to chew my arm off by the time I got off the train!

I forced myself not to eat anything else but I did buy a drink at the bodega near my school.

Aloe juice with guava.  Are you kidding me, this was awesome!  The c-store at UM used to sell aloe but I’d never tried it with papaya before.  I will be stopping to for another one of these next week for sure!

Lunch was very predictable, fruit and yogurt.

A baggie of green grapes, a minneola, and a new brand of yogurt – Wallaby fat free maple.  I bought a bunch of new yogurts at the store this week for funsies so I shall be doing some branching out from my usual plain Greek.

Today I had to teach all three of my 8th grade classes what the word flattered meant.

When I got home from school I tucked into a snack pronto.

A serving of Mini Wheatabix Chocolate Chip with some chocolate soy milk.  I also had 1T of chunky pb as I started blogging but was too lazy to take a picture.

My plan for tonight is 1. gym, 2. grocery, 3. shower, 4. dinner, 5. blog, 6. cuddle up with the magazine my mommy sent me.

Have you ever tasted aloe?  What did you think?

What is the most fun thing you have planned for this weekend?

I’ll leave you with a few contests that I am really hoping I win:

1. A ton of Newman’s Own goodies from Fitness NYC
2. Pure bars from Carrots ‘n Cake

Little Bits

Hello folks!  Sorry for my two day hiatus, life has been a bit crazy.  On Tuesday I was running late and actually fell on the way into school.  I skinned both my knees, hurt my elbow, and we thought I broke my finger at first.  I’m feeling better now, but I kind of limped around in a daze all Tuesday.  I stayed super late after school so my students could work on projects and by the time I got home around 8 A met me at the train and I looked like I had been hit by a bus!  On Wednesday I spent my entire evening (and most of the night!) getting all my grades in order.

So that leads to today.  I met with my principal and got my grades for the quarter ok-ed (a meeting during which she decided my gradingsystem is amazingand actually asked me to make copies of my book so she could show others!!).  And my students have officially finished the aforementioned projects.

However, walking into my room is like walking into a glitter ocean!

For train breakfast this morning I ate a White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Clif Bar,

Yum!

And for lunch I packed a yogurt and a big baggie of green grapes.

The yogurt was a Rachael’s Vanilla Chai, sooooo good!  I am so buying the other Rachael’s flavors!

Today was nice and easy, especially because there was an assembly at the end of the day to give the kids their high school acceptance letters.  I left as soon as physically possible and came home and had a snack.

Mary’s Gone Crackers and baby carrots with a trio of dipping sauces.  Roasted red pepper and basil hummus,

Stonewall Kitchen Maple Pumpkin Butter,

and Stonewall Kitchen Hot Pepper Peach Jelly.

I might have enjoyed a handful of gummi cola bottles when I was done.

A and I hung out a bit and even went to the grocery store.  Sadly, I realized once I got home that we forgot half of what we needed and will have to go back tomorrow but it’s always nice to take a walk.

For dinner I started with two scrambled eggs.

I didn’t whiskthe eggs and the yolks and whites ended cooking separately which was very tasty.

And I also made a roasted sweet potato.

The bowl is ketchup and maple syrup.  I have never done roasted sweets in sticks like this before Ah-Maze-ing!  I think I will cook them longer next time so they are more fry like but the flavor was just too good.

I have to scurry off, I am definitely eating a mini bag of popcorn before bed!  Have a great night!  P.S. I promise my next post will be longer 🙂