Category Archives: holidays

Festivations!

We had a great couple of days. The weather was really rainy on Christmas Eve, though. I kept thinking that if it was snow, it would have been a blizzard and we wouldn’t have been able to have dinner!

I had a surprising amount of work to do on the Eve and I was intermixing that with getting ready for hosting dinner.

Icing tasty mini cinnamon roll cookies:

John cooking up eggnog 😀

I just love his face in this picture. <3

I got out great grandmother’s china and set the table.

Quick selfie while I was still all cleaned up and unhurried 😀

All loved ones started arriving and we got dinner on the serving table.

We had a chicken cordon bleu casserole, baked macaroni and cheese, vegetable tian, roasted carrots, biscuits, green bean casserole (for my dad).

Yum!

After eating, we had the usual music by John.

It looks like a supernova exploded behind his head – not sure what happened there LOL!

Here is a tiny blip of his playing.

Then it was time for present opening and lot of mess 😀 Since our gas fireplace is not functional right now, we had to substitute:

I recieved a game I have been wanting for a long time (Ticket to Ride) and we got down to business with that while having dessert!

My sister also set up the dessert tray with our cookie swap:

She is talented. Colleen made these adorable cookies, too:

John and I had a quiet Christmas day before heading on down to Saratoga for more games and cookies! I am starting to wear out on the cookies LOL!

I received some very thoughtful gifts this year.

The paper star lanterns I was eyeing:

My annual cupcake ornament from my mom:

The Aeropress – pretty excited to try this one:

John got me a PS3 game.

Games are my guilty pleasure. 😳

A very enjoyable couple of days, I have to say. The first of many Christmases at Radiance Manor. I hope all of you had a wonderful few days as well!

Festival of Trees!

Normally we like to do the Christmas in the Country, but Saturday weather was pretty yucky. There was snow overnight and sloppy slush going on, which wasn’t conducive to driving in the country and on some dirt roads. So, we decided to do something in town, which was the Festival of Trees!

The FOT benefits Prospect Center, which is a nonprofit that helps developmentally disabled and at-risk individuals and this is their primary fundraiser. Businesses and individuals create holiday trees and they are all on display for one weekend. You can actually buy these trees once the weekend is over as well – which is pretty neat.

There are a few rooms for viewing. The nice thing about the crappy weather is that it wasn’t very busy when we were there and could get right up the the trees without bumping into people. Enjoy the photos!

This one was called “Peas Over the World”

Some of the trees were really big:

Some were tiny table top trees, including some humor:

Cuppicake Tree!

Red Cross Tree:

This tree was so pretty. It was called Winter Roses and it had red roses and white baby’s breath in it.

Rainbow Tree!

Word with Friends Tree!

Definitely a lot of creative and talented people out there. I hope it raises a lot of money for the Prospect Center.

Feeling like Christmas!

Thanksgiving is over and now Christmas things can begin. Christmas music, shopping, decorations. All that stuff. I still can do without the snow, but it will be coming soon enough.

I worked almost a full day on Friday. I wasn’t sure if there would be work, but there was. However, I did take a break in the afternoon because temps were 50 degrees! I hadn’t hooked my bike up to the trainer yet, but did have to drag it back down the stairs and outside to ride (worth it, though).

I added another 16 miles to my yearly total. 2173 miles. Just to clarify – these are only road miles, not any miles from the trainer. I reset the mileage when the bike came outside. And yeah, I guess that means I am bragging 😀

Saturday was going out with my mom to the Shirt Factory for their annual open house with all the local artists and crafters. We didn’t even finish because there are 80 artists there! Saw lots of holiday stuff:

Not only are there artists in the Shirt Factory, but also a yoga studio

There is a tea shop and a new bakery.

The tole painters had oodles of stuff for sale. I bought a couple painted tea light holders there.

There are classes offered here by various artists as well. It’s just such a cool, cool thing to have in our area. John and I would love to move his business into here. However, spots don’t come up all that often, and it has to be a big space to work.

We would have shopped more, but as I told my mother, I was getting food cranky. So, we went to lunch at East End Eatery with John. I had a cheese stromboli!

Cheesy carby goodness! I took half of this home and had the rest for dinner.

Holiday time this weekend also meant getting out our tree. I think it is getting time to upgrade the artificial tree. This one is looking a little worse for wear up close.

Putting up the tree makes me so happy. Pulling out the ornaments each year makes me remember all times past and it really is a snapshot of a bunch of different periods in your life. We don’t have a theme to the tree, just a very personal one, which I think are the best trees. I love seeing other people’s trees and all the special ornaments.

I think I will show different ornaments again like I did a couple years ago. That was fun.

Pixie now has a new spot to hide in:

Nobody can see me in here with the shiny things.

We still have to do the outside lights, but it is cold and one of our strands is out. 1 year old LED lights and the middle conked out. Boo! So, probably need to get some more. I also have a couple indoors decorations to work on that I saw on Pinterest LOL!

It’s funny – it seems like it should be December and there is still a lot of November left to go!

Merry Christmas!

Thank you so much for listening to my guitar playing! I was a bit nervous putting it out there, but really – doing a video is so much easier than a live performance 😀 I will do a couple others next week.

How about just a random Christmas countdown for the day? It’s been a bit of an odd week, so an odd post will be just fitting.

1. My morning workout today!

Exercise	Set/rep/weight	Muscle worked
Squat/Press	3 set of 10 with 10# DBs	Full Body
Stiff-legged Dead Lifts	3 sets of 10 at 55#	Hamstrings and low back
Dumbbell Pull Over	3 sets of 10 with 25# DB	Back
Reverse crunch	3 sets of 12	Core
Dumbbell Chest Fly	3 sets of 10 with 15# DBs	Chest
Front raise	3 sets of 10 with 8# DBs	Shoulders
Triceps Kickbacks	3 sets of 10 with 15# DBs	Triceps
Low Back Extension	3 sets of 10 at 80#	Low Back

2. My post workout refuel. Cookie dough truffles:

Not recommended as workout fuel, BTW. Just for cookie eating.

3. Husband baking cookies.

(His comment on this picture – “Gut? Meet cookies.”)

4. Said cookies with afternoon latte:

Yeah, you can see where my eating went today.

5. A few of my favorite carols:

Carol of the Bells
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
Es ist ein Rosensprungen (not really Christmas, but played a lot)

Feliz Navidad

6. Pixie’s wishes to everyone:

7. Hosting the big dinner on Christmas Eve. John and I have hosted this dinner for 5 years now? We like to have the big dinner on the Eve rather than on Christmas itself. John and I love to host and cook. On the menu is goose (raised by my BIL), roasted potatoes, brussel sprouts with cranberries, sausage stuffing, drunken apples, and a platoon of cookies.

8. A big thank you to everyone for stopping by my piece of the internets this year. I really value all the blog friendships that I have made and feel very lucky to have virtually met all of you, which would never have happened without the blog world.

9. Having to work late today to get in work when everyone else is getting all holiday on me. Not so good, but thankful that I have full-time employment!

10. Have a wonderful Christmas and Hanukkah or however you celebrate this time of year. It all equals the same thing: Family, friends, and love (and sometimes a lot of cookies)!

Weekend roundup, rehab, riding, and repast

Happy Easter for those that celebrate 😀

**picture heavy post coming up**

Saturday was dreary and rainy – so that meant renovations! We are just trucking along right now. Floor tiling is all done:

Still need to grout. Nice change from this:

To this:

Even without the grout it is sooooo much better!

New lighting fixture that worked the first time we put it up there.

Easiest lighting fixture ever to install. This room used to just have a light hanging by a cord and a hook that we had to switch on and off. Now we have a wall switch like real people!

Painting is done in the pantry room. All this room needs is the wall backsplash and doors for the pantry!

We purchased the sink and terlet for the bathroom. It’s one of the eco friendly ones that has 2 different flushes for less water usage. Yay!

We were a little worried about clearance space for the back toilet tank as our plumbing moved a bit during final installation, so we were sweating a little bit. This isn’t exactly where it is going, but close. I can taste the end of the project!

Food was spot on for Saturday. I’m in the zone now, which I will take and ride for as long as it lasts!

Sunday morning the rain broke and the temps were warm enough at 48 degrees to ride to bagels!

I did run over a broken beer bottle about a mile in and ended up with this:

Fast flat. Sigh. We patched it and kept going. It did delay us quite a bit and I was about bonking by the time we got to Panera Bread! If I had known I was going to get a flat, I would have eaten a bigger snack.

We take the main roads on Sunday rather than the path because it is quiet on Sundays and quicker to get to breakfast that way.

Unfortunately, they are building a Walmart on this road, so that might impact our riding on it anymore. There probably will be too much traffic.

Breakfast time!

The ride home was really fast without having the flat and a nice tailwind to boot!

16 miles round trip.

My Easter treat today?

I can’t have these in the house as these are my very, very favorite candy. Any chocolate/PB combo. I bought a single egg so I wouldn’t even have the 6-pack in the house. It was really good!

My parents invited the family to dinner on Sunday.

Guess who brought the big bowl of fruit?

I also brought the coconut bread biscuits, but I think only my dad liked them besides John and I.

My plate:

Yum! We had dessert later. There was a vanilla cake with frosting.

I did not have any cake, but I ate a bunch of the little malted eggs. I like those. I did have some ice cream and coffee.

I would give myself a C for eating today. A few too many nuts and the malted eggs, but I am not stuffed, which feels great!

Came home to Pixie all snuggled into pillows.

She’s so cute!

Now for a nice relaxing evening!

Question: What was the best thing you ate this weekend?

Food, family, and fun!

Well, here I sit taking a break from work on Sunday (back at the grind already). I can’t believe how fast the last couple of days went.

We had a wonderful holiday. Christmas eve and we had the spread set out. We had a little snack table before dinner with cheese and crackers (snow flake-shaped, too), candied nuts, clementines, and a cookie plate.

We decided this year to have it buffet style instead of trying to pass things around the table and find room for everything. Don’t you find that food ends up all piled at one end that way?

We used a smaller main table, so this worked out the best.

We had the pot roast from the pressure cooker (took 1 hour to cook), sweet potato casserole, regular carrots and potatoes from the roast, broccoli, green beans, fresh fruit

and John baked a circular french bread loaf.

My plates:

Quite tasty!

After dinner, we played a game, as per usual. Tri-bond.

I think we don’t like this game so much.

Then it was time for the special cake! This is the cake made for my grandfather every year since he was a little boy as he was born on Christmas and this was his birthday cake. Even though he is no longer with us, we still make the cake on Christmas. My mother made it this year. The original cake tin as well, at least dating back to my great grandmother:

My slice of “the cake”:

I didn’t take pictures of the cookies I nibbled on all night, but I am sure you get the idea. A nice night was had by all!

I was up early and in the on Christmas morning. You would think I was 5 or something.

Pixie and I enjoyed the tree in the dark for a while and listened to music.

Present time for John and I!

Check out my new bike jersey! Eeeeeeeee!!!!

Pixie had lots of wrapping paper to play with.

I was so happy to have a normal breakfast on Christmas. I made gingerbread oats.

Not pictured is the tablespoon of eggnog I drizzled on this. My body was really pleased at having oats.

John and I spent a relaxing day. Nothing special for dinner as we had leftovers to eat from yesterday.

The family gathered again at night for the other gift exchange. My sister had a giant, squaty tree – isn’t that funny?

Lots of room for presents under that tree! Plus all the stockings:

We had snacks and then it was time for more games. We love playing this game on Christmas.

And yes, it does get even funnier with a little booze.

Basically, you are given a card with phonetic-sounding words and you have to guess what the phrase is. For example:

Read the card out loud over and over until it makes sense. (answer below). The coach knows the answer and has to try to help you, although the coach does not know what you are looking at for words.

We always laugh and laugh over this game.

More cookies were consumed, although I stayed out of the pie.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend, whatever method of celebration you did! I am actually kind of glad to get back into normal food mode today. All leftover cookies are packed in the freezer now out of sight. The cupboards and fridge have our good normal food items stocked up.

We are also stocked up because we are in direct line of fire for a lot of snow overnight! I may not be getting to the gym to lift tomorrow…

Mad Gab answer: Dr. Doolittle (did you get it?)

Holiday week thoughts

The holiday week is officially beginning! Let’s start out with a holiday favorite of mine that is back now – the gingerbread bagel at Panera!

Yuuuummmmm!!!! Yum!

Today was a slower work day with both jobs. It’s going to be spotty all week with the holiday, so I am going to have to flex my hours a lot to get in all my work. It’s going to take some planning to get everything done that I need to.

After working what there was in the morning, I got busy in the kitchen making something fun that I will share for recipe Tuesday:

Then I made regular lunch. Stocked up on groceries after bagels, so I had lettuce and pita. The carrots are old, though LOL!

And some red grapes – on sale for $1.89 a pound!

One thing that I adore about blogging is that you can go back and read about stuff in the past in detail, not just memory stuff. I had said this after last Thanksgiving, and I really think it says a lot about my way of life now.

I despise feeling stuffed. I don’t like it when I am so uncomfortable after eating that I can feel my stomach bulge (something that I could not notice at 250 pounds) or that I wished I hadn’t eaten something.

That last part is so important to me. I have made it my mission to not feel guilt or remorse over food anymore. To do that meant to conquer the part of me that would just eat and eat because it was the holidays (or whatever occasion) and the food was there. I don’t have to eat 5 slices of cranberry bread just because 5 slices are available to me. I don’t believe in deprivation, but I also know that is is okay to *not* want something. I didn’t have any pumpkin pie last night because I didn’t want any. I certainly could have had it because it was there, right? What I really wanted was the cheesecake. I knew that if I had both the cheesecake and the pumpkin pie, I would have been stuffed. So, I didn’t have the pie…

As you all know, enjoying food on a daily basis is important to me to keep the weight off. That way I don’t feel the need to gorge on particular days of the year, especially since I don’t restrict my calories to the extent that I feel the need to do that. That is just what works for me. Everyone is different in how they need to approach these things.

Maybe that is what is meant by everything in moderation? Not to say that I don’t have those binge/snack days still, but as time goes by, I am becoming more comfortable with myself. Sometimes I wish I could go back to my 20-year-old self and hand her this post. 😉

It was cold today at 39 degrees, but we took an afternoon walk today.

All the leaves are gone except this one tree. How odd.

Football and afternoon lattes commenced after the walk to warm up. I just love latte time with John. Not only is he my biking buddy, but he is my coffee buddy. And to think 16 years ago when we met he hated coffee (can you believe I still went on a date with him??)

Pixie also likes latte and football time. I don’t think a kitty could look any happier.

I also made dinner tonight – very productive in the kitchen lately. I got some fresh stew beef at the smokehouse yesterday and wanted to do Alton Brown’s pressure cooker chili. It’s so easy and so tasty! I subbed baked tortilla chips for regular. Actually used up the 1 beer that has been in our fridge circa 2009. The pressure cooker is one of those kitchen things that I forget about and then wonder why after I use it. I also managed to hit the Baked Tostitos pretty hard while cooking dinner. 🙄 What was I just writing above about not eating something just because it is there??

I must say this was so, so good. Wow. It is rib sticking, though! I didn’t need any fruit with this dinner as I was quite full.

Gotta get back to checking in with work and losing the football picks again this week…

4 days until egg nog lattes!!

Happy Mother’s Day!

Happy Sunday to all (or Monday morning, likely).

Met my parents at Panera Bread so we could take them out for a bagel for Mother’s Day.

Had a nice chat on this cold and blustery day! Thanks for having me, Mom! And thanks to my MIL for having John

It looks like I have a black eye in this picture LOL!

Unfortunately, I had to work today (as per every Sunday). At least it was busy.

I made a quick lunch of tuna salad. Shared a pear with John today instead of eating the whole thing as usual 😀

I would have loved to take another ride today, but it is seriously cold out here. I don’t even think it got to 50 and it is windy. There is also a freeze warning for tonight and tomorrow night, so I have to cover up a whole bunch of plants! Hello May – where are you??

I had a Kind bar for the first time. They were on closeout at Hannaford for 89 cents each, so how could I pass them up?

Note how you have not seen protein or any other kind of bars on this blog since late February. I gave them up cold turkey because I was starting to eat them like candy bars. Not sure if this bar counts or not. It was quite good. I need to make my own.

With a latte:

Made with love, per John….

Been really trying to keep from snacking. I had more than one cookie yesterday 😳 Here are the cupboards with what is currently out of reach for me:

That would be chocolate chips, peanuts, cashews, Kashi cereal, and Sun Chips. It does work pretty well, surprisingly.

Dinner time! Did someone say BBQ chicken salad? Oh, it must have been me.

New birdie has come back to be on the feeder today. This isn’t a picture I took because he flew away, but it’s a tufted titmouse.

Judy Howle Photo courtesy of NAS

I love my feeders. They are very entertaining.

Evening sweet:

Plus some unpictured crackers.

Not much wise and wonderful to say today. My mind is actually fairly calm for a change. Need to bottle that. I am hoping to have John’s maintenance post up early this week! I look forward to his answers.

Happy Peep Day!

Happy Easter! We were up pretty early thanks to Pixie playing outside the door. She kept banging on the door… grrrr… So, it was off to bagels!

And some coffee:

No grounds, either! Woo Hoo! We had a nice relaxing breakfast and then some grocery shopping. The guy bagging our groceries had a lot of comments on what we were buying. He saw my medjool dates and then was mumbling about all the great stuff we were buying like strawberries and brussel sprouts. I think his comment was “This is where it’s at!”. I wonder if he would have said anything if the cart was full of junk food….

I had to keep checking in with work today. Not much to do, but some. Since clinics are closed, it is only PICU work, since hospitals don’t close for any holiday. I had a quick protein shake, and then it was off to my sister’s house for Easter dinner!

We had a nice spread:

I made the fruit bowl pretty:

My favorite mints arrived via my Mom. We called these great grandma’s mints, because she always had them. I think the real name is french creams:

My plate:

Plus seconds on broccoli and some fruit. After eating, we took the puppies out for a walk (okay, 1 puppy and 1 older dog)

Honey went into the water for a little fetch:

My BIL is the manager for the tree nursery and part of what the nursery does is to grow the flowers for the DEC owned state campgrounds. Here are some Norway spruce seedlings:

The greenhouses have seedlings!

Sigh…. I love flowers….

It was time for dessert when we got back! Lots to choose from:

Jelly bean cake, which actually had jelly beans baked in it, kind of weird.

My sister’s birthday choice. This was good!

And a selection of little pastries.

My plate:

Plus another eclair piece. These were good.

After this – it was bonfire time:

Because there were some of these in the house:

Peep roasting time! Peep brulee anyone?

Past the point of no return here:

Now we all smell like campfire! I did not have any roasted peeps, although I kind of wanted one.

Good times.

I need to keep checking in with work tonight for a while longer and eating a little ham snack for dinner.

I hope you all had a wonderful day!

Kickoff to the eating season.

The eating season has officially begun. Whether you made it through Halloween sans candy or awoke on Sunday in a chocolate-smeared haze, how you go about the next couple months can really make an impact on your mental and physical health for the rest of this year.

Many times, people sort of give up now and have the date of January 1st already in their mind as the next time to really get on track. The problem with that is that it is so easy to give in every single day (60 of them) to the “Oh, I’ll make it my New Year’s Resolution to diet”, or “I’m too busy to take care of myself right now”. There are a lot of treats out there between gingerbread lattes, pumpkin scones, office candy, office parties, etc… If you eat a treat every day and consume an extra 400 calories (2 cookies, not hard to imagine), but slack off on the exercise – that is an extra 24,000 calories over the 2 months, or an equivalent of about a 6.5 pound weight gain. And then we all know how hard it is to try to put that machine into 180 degree reverse right on January 1st, and then how everybody is so miserable at having to “diet” again.

How about doing it different this year and planning ahead a little bit? For me, I love eggnog lattes. Heck, I just love eggnog. (One thing about me, when I love something, it’s always one of the most calorie dense items out there 😯 )

My plan is to let myself have 2 of them in a coffeeshop this season. That’s what I did last year and it worked really well. What that does is make the eggnog latte really mean something instead of just having one (or 2 or 10!) on a whim. The rest of the time will be my standard lattes.

I also am going to make sure that I keep my exercise schedule. Don’t ever be afraid or feel guilty about putting yourself first. In order to get through one of the most hectic and stressful times of the year, you need to be at the top of your game, and that means doing for yourself what makes you strong and healthy. Happy you = happy family.

Let yourself have some indulgences, but keep them in control. It’s okay to have some treats, but really ask yourself if you need them every day (or multiple times a day). Is that the definition of a treat? Treats or indulgences are supposed to be special, not common place.

You can also think about treating yourself in nonfood ways. How about some ‘me’ time with a manicure or pedicure? Or a quiet couple of hours at the library, or just some meditation?

So instead of freaking out about the rest of the year, take some time today and make a plan for yourself and how you are going to handle the situations that come up through the holidays. You don’t have to be 100% perfect to be successful.

Do you have a plan set up for the holidays?

Finding Radiance

Trying to live a fit life loving food, cycling, gardening and everything in between!

Category Archives: holidays

Festivations!

Festival of Trees!

Feeling like Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Weekend roundup, rehab, riding, and repast

Food, family, and fun!

Holiday week thoughts

Happy Mother’s Day!

Happy Peep Day!

Kickoff to the eating season.