Category Archives: 1 minute muffin

What’s blooming this week!

Friday! Let’s all do the Friday dance, shall we?

I went out for a pre-breakfast ride this morning with temps in the low 60s. It was nice, but humid! Came back for breakfast and had a major fail. I went to make peanut flour waffles and started assembling. However, our cottage cheese was bad (pewwww!) and I had to improvise. Not a good idea. I use yogurt, but the batter was too runny, so I just put in more peanut flour in the hopes of saving it. They come out like foam rubber. Yuck! So, 1-minute muffle to the rescue:

This was topped with a sauteed banana and some coconut butter. I *love* this topping combo.

I had such a hard time concentrating on work today. I was ready for Friday! Soon enough, it was time for lunch:

What is that thing that looks like an ice cream sundae you ask?

This was frozen Wyman’s blueberries topped with 1/2 cup of ricotta cheese, drizzled with honey and a bit of cinnamon. I am glad I took this picture before I mixed it all up, because it was just a big purple blob after that. This was a good lunch and a nice change up from yogurt! I am now a big fan of ricotta. I get the part-skim kind.

Time for some blooms!

Annual dianthus. Not sure why these are so stubby, but at least they are blooming.

Yellow snaps. Tip – if you cut back your snapdragons after they finish blooming, they will bloom again. I cut mine back 3 or 4 times in a season and they will bloom until fall frost kills them.

Liriope (leh-rye-oh-pee)

Up close and personal:

The lirope are real work horses. the foliage looks nice and neat all summer and then these flowers come in late summer. They do well in all kinds of light from sun to shade (mine are in mostly shade).

Annual asters:

These are accidental. I had asters last year, and they left a bunch of seeds that sprouted. I sprinkled them throughout the garden. Somebunnybody ate the lower leaves off of a lot of the plants, though.

One lone clematis bloom:

And the other 4 o’clock. These are so hard to get pictures of because they are only open for part of the day (when I forget to take pics)

And lastly, more buds on the Scentimental.

This rose is having a banner bloom year.

I am going to make a slideshow in the early winter once the garden is put to bed showcasing all my favorite blooms pictures from tulips to mums.

Alas, I had to get back to work until the next snack break!

Note sleeping lump of Pixie in the background. Who wouldn’t want her life?

Made up a quick dinner tonight. Am I not always saying I made a quick dinner? I need to get more creative. I had baked up some coconut biscuits during lunch time and had one with my pork burger:

The biscuits came out a little more flat and I know it was because of the eggs I used. It really seems to make a difference for my recipes if I switch them up.

Relaxing tonight and a little football with some snacks. Gotta love the preseason and the plethora of games on any given day. Plus, another grain-free day in the books.

Another nice weather day on Saturday and I think a ride to the lake is in order.

Question: Do you ever use ricotta cheese for anything other than lasagna?

August Goals

Fresh new month, albeit a hot and humid start to the month. Time for some goals!

First, let me show you a graph of my bike mileage. I use Daily Mile to track my workouts. Here is how I accumulated 505 miles during July:

Of course, the graph cuts off the first couple of days of the month, but you get the picture. Imagine if I had biked every single day? Other than going completely insane, it would just be too much.

So, no biking today to start the month off 😀 I did make a good breakfast after a short walk:

1 minute muffin with blueberry sauce. Classic, full of fiber and antioxidants. I shall live forever!

So this month I have 2 goals and 2 goals only.

Goal 1: As I alluded to a touch yesterday, the scale is at a standstill now. I had said a couple months ago that I was serious about taking off the last bit of weight that I have. Well, it seems to be so very hard for me to get into weight loss mode and stay there versus maintenance mode. I am not walking the talk, so to speak. It’s just hard to get that mojo kick started. So to do that I am actually following a plan. Normally I don’t do a set plan or things like that as I tend to walk to my own drummer, but I need a big time shakeup.

I had gotten a book out of the library last week called the Perfect 10 Diet. Upon reading it, this doctor believes a lot of the things that I think are true in eating. No processed foods, coconut oil is good for you, don’t eat refined grains, don’t be afraid of eggs, whole grains are better, don’t be afraid of fat. I like that. Isn’t is always good when someone agrees with you? 😉

Anyhoo, he has a 3 stage eating program, and I am going to follow the first stage (3 weeks) of that, which is to eliminate all grains. That’s a biggie for me with my love of bagels and oats. Note – this is *not* low carb. I will still be eating about 40% of my calories in carbs, but they will come from diary, fruits, and veggies and lentils. It’s just for 3 weeks and then the whole grains will come back in, but I think I just need to give me some kind of goal to work for.

I am not of the mindset that I will drop a bunch of weight or anything. That never happens for me. It’s just that little things are creeping back too much and I need to focus on doing what is good for me and my body. Not that I am not totally awesome as I am, but it’s always good to give tough love to oneself when needed.

So that is going to happen for the last 3 months of August, or starting next Monday. I promise I won’t binge on bagels prior to that LOL. Should be interesting.

Before getting on with goal #2, how about a lunch break?

Shrimps and some mango! The store had mango spears and they looked yummy. I hate carving up my own mango with its weird pit, so I was all over these.

On to Goal 2: I am going to start the Couch to 5K program again! Many of you know that I still have the numbness in my knee and calf from the herniated disk last year (takingforeverthankyouverymuch). Well, after months and months of no change, from the end of June through July – it got noticeably better. At first, I wasn’t sure, but then it definitely was much better. I don’t have all of the feeling back, but a lot of it. That makes me want to try running again. I am going to cool my jets with it by doing the C25k program, though, which also will be good to get me off the bike! I need more cross training other than weights.

Interesting, eh? It only took about 15 months to start seeing improvement in that numbness. Of course, if I start running and the numbness comes back, it will be a very short lived goal. We shall see.

Snack time:

Balance Bar. This is the new Cinnamon Roll flavor and I hate to say that it is really good. I just sometimes don’t want to know when things are good, know what I mean?

I ended up nibbling during the afternoon. Feeling very cravey today. Can I make up that word?

Poor John is really sick now. It was a delayed onset of that cold and he is pretty miserable. He is tucked into bed with the AC on. Nothing worse than a summer cold.

I cooked up some dinner and ate alone, which was weird. Summer burger time!

Evening snack — some sugared almonds that John brought me from Trader Joe’s during his trip to buy me off. He knows my weakness and exploits it.

I’ll have to say bye to these starting next Monday!

Question: Any big plans for August?

What’s Blooming Today

Hooray for Friday! No gym this morning, so I got to work nice and early. Operation Sleep is not quite in action. I started taking 5HTP and I am sleeping through the night mostly, but still waking up too early. I need to buy a sleep mask. No night sweats the last few nights, but I can never really predict when those will happen anyway.

Brekkie was the 1-minute muffle.

Yum! I miss my protein waffles. A little birdie told me I shouldn’t get a magic bullet type blender replacement just yet until after this weekend. Hmmmm….

I worked steadily today and was so productive! I did some work on a stability ball, although I don’t know as I felt much from this. Of course, Pixie had to get in my lap, so I had my ebook and Pixie in my lap sitting on the ball. I could have popped it!

Lunch break. Greek yogurt with pumpkin and Kashi Berry Blossoms.

And a side of fruit. The last of the strawberries and blues.

After lunch, I had to take a trip here as my driver’s license expires on Sunday:

Luckily for us, our town is the center of the county, which actually is pretty large. That means all administrative buildings are within walking distance of our house. Nice way to save gas. It was soooo busy there, but mostly for the line of vehicle registration. The license renewal line only had 2 people in it. Score! I had to go in person because I needed to do the eye test this time.

Cooler weather yesterday and today, so I had a hot latte today (with some peanuts).

The garden is coming along nicely. The Sunsprite rose bush is popping out all over.

Long time readers know this is my 100 pound rose bush. Nice to see it back again 😉 It is so fragrant, too. I just love it!

Snow Queen clematis exploded this week. There were 17 blooms at the top of this!

They are quite large, too.

Pretty.

My newest rose bush that I got on sale for $6 last fall (score!!) has just started blooming. It is a hybrid called Wild Plum

It has a million buds on it, but only a few have opened.

Here is my shade garden on the north side of the house.

My ferns are a bit out of control. There are astilbes in front that are going to bloom soon. The little mounds surrounding the bowling bar are liriope that I just trimmed back. Those are work horses, I tell you. This would look even better if we repaved the driveway. The driveway actually looks better in this picture than it does in person LOL!

Dinner time came and I finished up early with work – even with that break to go to the DMV. Thank you speedy doctors! I used up the last of the lettuce to make a somewhat lame salad.

Then we suited up for a Friday night ride! 16.5 miles with a stop for some of this:

Creme de menthe froyo! This is Only8, so it is not the tart kind of yogurt, which makes all flavors good.

Could I get the whole thing in my mouth?

Close, but not quite

It’s the start of birthday weekend! Cause I don’t just do one day. Tomorrow is a cupcake ride. Not sure exactly what I want to do on Sunday, but I will find something fun and report back!

Happy Memorial Day!

A big thank you to all past and present military people who have done so much for our great country.

This is a weekend that is always full of barbecues, picnics and parades. Last night after my wonderful ride, we had s’mores!

It’s been a couple years since I have had s’mores.

Yum.

I felt fine today, other than some sunburn. Can sunscreen expire? I put it on twice and still got burned. Argh.

I had a 1-minute muffin for breakfast.

There was only about half an hour of work for me to do today, so I ended up with pretty much a 3-day weekend! It was really nice, I have to say. I got a chance to just putter around. It was quite hot as well. 85 degrees today! We sat out on the porch and watched the Memorial Day parade come by our house:

Fun stuff! There is a benefit to living on the main street in town. Front row seats to every parade!

We headed out to the mall after that to poke around. I didn’t find much, but we enjoyed a beverage and split a scone:

I am surprised that I wasn’t overly hungry today. That usually happens the day after long rides. Maybe it was the s’mores?

We came back and did the grilling thing for dinner. John barbecued some chicken thighs and we had sandwiches on some rolls that I had made.

These were ones I made for my dad as a belated birthday present, so we had to have a couple for taste testing purposes, right?

I feel pretty refreshed right now, I have to say.

Question: What was the best part of your weekend?

Brand new day and Happy Mardi Gras!

It’s Mardi Gras! Normally we do our dinner on the day, but had it on Sunday to make it easier, but with all that snow, probably tonight would have been better LOL! I was whupped after yesterday and I slept for 8 hours. I conked out at 10 pm last night (which is pretty early for me).

The difference a day makes. One nice thing about big storms is that the sun always shines bright the next day. It is very pretty and the temps are going to climb into the 30s!

Here is someone who could care less how much snow we get:

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz………

I made up a 1-minute muffin for breakfast (applesauce version), then topped the muffin with the rest of the applesauce cup! I also grilled this muffin, too. Makes it taste even better.

This was good enough to get me out the door and shoveling. We spent about another hour and 15 minutes finishing up the driveway. Now the garage is free and we aren’t cooped up! Not that I couldn’t have called my parents if need be, but nice to be able to get our own car out.

Our driveway is officially full for the year. We cannot take another flake of snow as there is nowhere for it to go. The banks are too high to throw snow on. I was getting a great workout with having to squat and toss with the snow to get it high enough and to protect my back. Kind of like doing a push/press, so guess I did get a strength training workout. I burned approximately 520 calories shoveling today, which I will take, thank you.

John is leaving the house now. See how the snow banks reach the top of the car?

Crazy stuff (and hooray for sun!).

Lunch time! I baked up some chicken this morning and had my salad.

I put the can next to this so you could see how big my salads are. I use half a bag of the Fresh Express salad mix for each of my salads 😳

Work was slow today, so I did manage to get a good chunk of household chores done. Raise your hands for being productive! John then made lattes, which I put on the sunny table to take a picture of.

Unpictured are the peanuts I snacked on with it.

Dinner tonight was stereotypical Finding Radiance:

With some laughing cow tucked in there. Who says real food has to taste like cardboard? Such a simple meal and yet so delicious.

To celebrate freeing of the car from the garage, we are out at Starbucks right now. I haven’t left the house since Sunday morning, so it feels great to get out!

Decaf coffee. They have new mugs, too. Must be for the 40th anniversary. Beads were courtesy of me. I am wearing them for Mardi Gras!

Unexpected day off

It’s still February, right? Had a few inches of snow overnight, so my drive to the gym was a squidge slick, but not bad. Enough to keep some people out of the gym, though. It was quiet today. I did 3 miles on the treadmill and called it a day. Fast forward to home and the 1-minute muffin! This was the applesauce version topped with some almond butter.

I got ready for work this morning. Here I am in my work shoes:

Turns out the clinic I transcribe for was closed today, but my employer didn’t tell us (they probably did not know either). So I kept checking in all day and no work. Nothing like not earning any money unexpectedly…

So, since there was no money earning work to do, I could get to more some unpaid labor working on our new laundry room. I spent time repairing the walls and fixing up the junky job whoever worked on this house last did. Felt good to do that 😀

Jody asked how Pixie is handling the renovations. She is doing pretty well. The laundry area is where her food dishes and her litter pan are, so I was a little concerned that she might decide to make a new potty for herself 😯 , but she has been fine. She didn’t like the new floor surface at first, but once the house was quiet, she explored and chilled out.

She doesn’t look very stressed, does she?

Lunch break of egg salad on one of the magic rolls I will post about on Thursday (tease, yes I know). Plus the remainder of the cheesy broccoli. Thank you Green Giant!

Kind of wish I had known there would be no work or I might have planned something fun. Oh well. John did make up some lattes:

And I was snacking on some peanuts.

I like the nuts – right PubsGal? I need to be careful not to crack out on these. So munchable.

We cooked up turkey burgers for dinner. The usual toppings? Laughing cow and hot sauce!

These babies pack 24 grams of protein. However, they are a little dry. Don’t think I will get them again.

I need to find something to do tonight as I already did laundry, renovations, and practiced guitar since I had no work! Think reading or maybe some game playing. And planning my lifting workout for tomorrow

Question: If you had today off, did you do anything fun?

Navigating my way…

I can’t believe my weekend is almost over already. I guess that is because I worked a little yesterday. I slept pretty well last night, which was quite a relief, but woke up around 4 am with excruciating pain in my knee. I think I like the numbness better. It was past pain pill time, so I took one and fell back asleep. This is just bizarre how the pain moves around from hip to thigh to knee. Nerves are just an amazing thing in the body. Sorry to keep talking about this, but I have never had an injury journey like this, so I am sort of feeling my way around.

I was feeling like something different for breakfast – so I made a pumpkin 1-minute muffin. It took me forever moving around. Only I could turn the 1-minute muffin into a 10-minute muffin. 🙄

It was worth it, though. Topped with light cream cheese mixed with a bit of powdered sugar. Soooo good! This also filled me up until lunch, too. It was awesome. Or maybe my appetite is catching up to my activity (or lack thereof).

After breakfast, John took me to the indoor farmer’s market. It’s smaller when it is indoors, but very charming.

My pics didn’t come out all that well. There were hydroponic greens there, and lots of root veggies. We picked up some apples and some parsnips! I was all excited for a new veggie. Is that a little sad?

We also stopped and got a new grill. Our grill completely disintegrated into powder – and I am not joking – so we got a portable gas one. I’ll get pics sometime after we set it up. Walking with crutches is so slow, so all this took most of the morning.

Lunchtime and John wanted to try the parsnips, too. He chopped them up and pan sauteed them in some coconut oil. I made an egg white puff to go along with.

The parsnips were good! They are kind of like a cross between a carrot and a potato. I have a fun recipe to try with them, which I’ll probably do tomorrow.

I am pretty sleepy today. Think it is the pain pills, but also just the fatigue of injury. I am so glad I have all this upper body strength to use the crutches with. Chin ups are good for something!

John has been busy cooking today. He made a low fat protein brownie variation, which he brought out a sample of with my latte:

I’ll see if I can get the recipe from him. Not low calorie, though.

I was so jealous, because John then went out for a bike ride. Wahhhhh!!! Although he made up for it by scoping out a store and bringing me some of this!

Pumpkin!!! My stash was getting low, so I was all kinds of happy to see these cans 😀

Dinner time was a stir fry. We had some cooked rice, so I combined that with broccoli and chicken and a little sesame oil.

So good. I wandered outside to look at my garden. I have some early tulips blooming now:

I think some of the perennials did not make it through the winter, so I might have some fun finding replacements this year!

I had a sweet urge, so I had a date. Soft medjool dates. These are like candy. Expensive, but so worth it! One with nut butter, one without.

Not much else on tap for the evening other than being slow. I am so not used to doing anything slow for very long, so it is a good exercise in patience for me. John was saying taking an extended break from exercise isn’t always a bad thing, so I am trying to view it like that.

Question: Do you eat dates?

NROLW, Chocolate Mill and vacation dreaming

Rainy, icky day here. I actually slept until a little after 7am! Yay! My gym opens at 8 on Saturday, so I went there this morning to do a little lifting. I was just doing that, so I didn’t snack ahead of time.

10 minute warmup on the stationary bike
Barbell squat/push press: 3 x 8 45 pounds
Stationary lunge: 3 x 8 35#
1 point dumbbell row: 3 x 8 25 pounds
Step ups: 3 x 8 30 pounds
Push ups: 3 x 8
Cable woodchop: 3 x 8 45 pounds
Planks: 3 x 2 minute holds

Yay on the planks! Zipped on home. I drove to the gym since it was raining. Out of bananas, no pumpkin and I just had pancakes yesterday, so I made a different breakfast today:

p8290001

1-minute muffin topped with chocolate PB2 frosting! It was quite good. Not for those that are afraid of fat, but so filling and full of fiber!

After a Chobani yogurt with cereal lunch, we headed out to the library. The library was recently redone connecting the old building with a new rennovation. It’s lovely.

lib

p8290014

Stopped at a new place downtown called The Chocolate Mill. It’s kind of an upscale chocolate shop/bakery that serves breakfast and lunch. I don’t have many pictures of the inside as there were so many people. I’ll have to be more detailed at a later point. We waited in line for quite a while and I stared at these:

p8290016_edited

so that’s what I got. Plus a skim latte.

p8290019

I really loved the little cinnamon roll. Small desserts always are so appreciated! I do wish (as did John) that there was more than 1 size latte. This was a smaller cup than we do at home. The flavor was quite good, although maybe a bit bitter with the crema. Definitely need another visit here to really make up my mind.

We sat with a few books while trying to decide on our winter vacation next year.

p8290020

We didn’t go anywhere together this year, and I only took a long weekend to New Orleans with my sister. So, John and I need a nice long getaway.

Tonight went to see the original black & white 1925 Phantom of the Opera movie with live organ music with my mom. Fun! Wish I could have taken a pic during the showing! This performer brought his own organ!

p8290024

Then we ended the evening at Starbucks and I got a “why bother” 😀

p8290026

Sleeping cuteness – I think she didn’t want me to take her picture!

p8290011

Talk to you tomorrow!

Question: Do you go to the library? And how many books on average do you take out?

Read to Run 5K

Got up this morning expecting rain, but it had passed through during the night – yay! I didn’t really want to race in the rain (that is not so fun).

Fueled up with my standard prerace meal – a 1 minute muffin (although 1 time I did oatbran):

brekkie1 Ingredients:

1/4 cup ground flax meal

1 egg

1 tsp brown sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp baking powder

Mix together and put in a silicon muffin cup and microwave for 45 seconds or so. I normally do this with pumpkin, but I didn’t want to open a can to take out 1 tablespoon, so I just left it out. It made it a little dry, but I spread it with fig almond jam and it was tasty.

We did the Read Run 5K to benefit literacy, always a good cause. My sister met us there, but my neice decided against the race, since she did 2 last weekend.

John kept up with me for the first 2 miles, then I did an assessment on how I felt and decided to push faster (sorry John!). My goal was to finish in under 3o minutes – which I did (barely!). My time was 29:52, or approximately a 9:37 mile. I was pretty happy with that, although not quite as good as my last race time. Both my sister and John had new PRs for themselves, so it was a good day over all.

Here is Colleen and I enjoyed some well-deserved java after the race, although I didn’t get my bagel because they only had onion or everything ones – ick!!

p6140008

Then I had to come home and work 8 hours after the race! Oh well, gotta earn the $$, right?

Tomorrow starts NROLW stage 2 – I’m glad to get back to lifting!

HIIT run today… ugh.

Normally I do interval training with my runs, where I increase the pace for x distance and come back. Not too heavy, as I am just working to increase my speed. Well – I decided to do HIIT today with the jog. Went out with John to the track. He walked, I ran.

So – I did 1/4 mile warmup jog, then started the intervals, going all out for 1 minute, then slow for 1 minute. I actually had to increase the rest time to 1.5 minutes because the intervals were that hard. I blew right by John one time and I actually heard him say “Woah” as I zoomed by, kind of funny! I don’t know as I really enjoyed this level of activity. But, it was something different. I know many people swear by HIIT and that is the only way they do cardio, but it isn’t really fun for me. I do like my slower intervals, guess they are ITs instead of HIITs 😀

There are always new levels of fitness to aspire to.

New variation on the 1 minute muffin:
This one is a little fattier than I like to eat, but very tasty. Might try the pumpkin in place of the oil in this one as well, or possibly applesauce.

1/4 cup almond meal
1 egg
1.5 tsp oil
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp sugar
ground nutmeg to taste

Mix all ingredients together. Microwave in a small bowl or silicone muffin cup (large size) for 80 seconds.

This looks a little like a corn muffin, and has a yummy flavor. A bit eggy, but good. Would also be yummy with some cocoa powder added, or almond extract!

** Note, this was actually DH’s breakfast, but that little bite in the picture was from me. I grabbed the camera, and he said “Are you going to put my breakfast on the internet?” LOL.