Category Archives: christmas ornament

Winter wonderland!

It snowed wet and sloppy snow for most of the day and night yesterday.  Not much accumulation, but it was so pretty!  Off to Panera Bread with Christmas music on the radio and in the spirit for a gingerbread bagel!

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After breakfast and grocery shopping, it was time to start my work week 🙁

However, I just had to go out an snaps some pics!

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Looks a lot different than August!

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Ornament of the day:

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In honor of the snow, here is this ornament! Back when we had our retail shop,  I used to have a tree up at holiday time with ornaments that people could purchase off the tree.  I loved these snowflakes, and funny things is, no one else did – so I had about 6 left over.  They made their way onto my tree!  The light is behind it, they don’t actually light up.  (Note to self, take ornament pictures during daylight hours.)

Note on the beaded ornament – I used a book called “Beaded Ornaments for the holidays” for the pattern.

Pre-race eve

No formal workout today since my last 5K of the season is tomorrow.  Forecast is 30 degrees, which is 15 degrees warmer than last year!  Plus I am not sick.

Stacked up some protein pancakes with blueberries for breakfast.  Yay for superfoods!

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Made myself productive today with some cleaning and organizing before I get to relax for my weekend.  It’s gloriously beautiful outside!  Birdfeeders filled up and waiting.

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Driveway resurfacing is on the agenda for next year……

Had a quick lunch before going out:

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The juiciest pear ever.  Are they in season now?  I never know half the time what is in season and what isn’t if it is available year round.

Off to the consignment shop, where I got a couple turtlenecks, a sweater and a pair of pants.  I wasn’t going to buy pants, but I can never pass up petite lengths because they are so hard to find.  Being a shorty, most of my pants have to be rolled up unless I buy petites.  Size 8P!  And $5.80.  After doing some more browsing downtown, I stopped at the cafe for some of this:

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I had my laptop, so I put on some headphones with Christmas tunes and did some online shopping.  Now that is the life!  I am just about done shopping.  I also hit K-mart and scored more pumpkin!  I think I am set now for the season :mrgreen:

Ornament of the day:

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This is one of the ones I started working on this year.  I can see why these are expensive to purchase – time consuming, and I think I am blind now.   😯  I love the sparkle and how pretty it is, though!  I’ve done several in other colors, too.  Once I got the technique down, it’s much easier.

Dinner was a chicken, cheddar and cranberry wrap.  Jeez, I am in a rut with that flavor combo!

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Now we are settled in to watch a movie – Miller’s Crossing by the Cohen Brothers.  I enjoy their movies a lot.  My favorites:  Fargo, The Man Who Wasn’t There,  and O Brother Where art Thou

Have a great night blog friends!  I’ll post a race recap tomorrow.

Question:  Do you have a favorite Cohen Brothers movie?

Salad daze

Boy – everyone sure made all those favorite cookies sound so good! I’ve got a hankerin’ for some bakerin’!

Last day of the work week for me today! WooHoo!  The weather was forecast to be quite warm, so I actually slept in until 7 am today knowing I would run later outside.

Had forthought last night  to do some overnight steel cut oats.  Soaked them and then added a mashed banana during cooking.  Topped with chocolate sauce and almond butter.  Yum!

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My legs and butt are sore today from the squats I did yesterday.  Squats always do that unless I keep doing them!  I won’t be doing any lifting tomorrow to rest my muscles for a 5K on Saturday.

Lunch was salad #1 today!  I kind of got on this BBQ chicken salad kick.  It’s so easy and tastes so good!  I warm up the chicken (cooked) and mix it with BBQ sauce, then use feta cheese and sliced almonds.

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It’s one of those things that takes 5 minutes (with salad in a bag!) and looks so ‘bistro.’  This was a huge bowl of lettuce, too.

After lunch and my afternoon latte snack, I hit the track.  It was 55 degrees today, can you believe that?  Cloudy, but great running temperature.  I was thinking 4 miles, but told myself to do at least 3.  I ended up at 3.75 miles and called it a day.  Funny how my legs were so sore moving around, but they don’t feel sore when I run.

John won the football picks this week, and his choice for dinner was Chipotle.  (He changed his mind from chinese earlier!).  I had another salad for dinner!

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Barbacoa on lettuce with some cheese and salsa.  Really good!  I was really hungry after that run, too.

After dinner, we did a bit of Christmas shopping and got several more people done.  Yay!  Our dinners seemed a little small, so we decided to split a treat:

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Dunkin Donuts chocolate mint donut!  This is really good, I have to say.  With some decaf coffee.  I could easily have eaten a whole donut, but I am glad John split this with me.

Ornament of the day:

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It’s Horton!  I love Dr. Seuss (as does MizFit), and Horton is one of several Seussian inhabitants on our tree.  I grew up loving Dr. Suess books!  My very favorite is the Grinch – that is my very favorite Christmas special on TV, too (not the Jim Carrey one, ick!).

Question:  What is your favorite Christmas special?

It’s bagel day (or not!) and chin up video

Did another lifting routine today.  I need to sit down and sketch out a program to follow for a few weeks.  I tried another chin up – want to see? I actually shot this video just to show John, but I’ll share it with you, too!   Couple things: this was shot with the camera tipped up on a bench (which makes me look taller 😀  ), so it looks like I am up on the bar already.  I am standing on a milk crate to get up where I can grip the bar without having to jump up, so my arms are a little bent. This is also my “I’m at the gym and unshowered” look, so you are forewarned!

Chin up and over the bar!  WooHoo!  My baby chin up!  I’ll make a better video in a few months when I can do 3 in a row with a full hanging grip 😉

I am not sure how to stop the swinging, as that is really, really tiring on the arms to try to stop.  That’s why I can’t quite do 2 chin ups.

Rest of workout:

  • Barbell squats:  3 sets of 8 at 85 pounds
  • 1-arm dumbbell snatch:  3 sets of 8 at 20 pounds
  • Reverse lunge with forward reach:  3 sets of 8 at 10 pounds
  • Back extension (on machine):  3 sets of 8 at 100 pounds
  • 1-point dumbbell row:  3 sets of 8 with 20 pound dumbbells

Then it was some treadmill walking.  John had started walking to the gym and I picked him up partway and we went off to breakfast.  As you know, Wednesdays are one of the bagel days, but apparently one of the cafe workers hadn’t show up, so the other person was unable to go pick up bagels!  They were out!  It was okay, though – I had this instead:

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Oatmeal with nana and raisins (go iron!!) and brown sugar. It was quite tasty, although not my bagel.

Regarding Pixie’s foray into the catnip – here she is in hangover mode:

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She has absolutely no shame……

Lunch today was quick with yogurt, protein powder, strawberries, and cranapple granola:

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Ornament of the day:

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As you know, we are big Broncos fans.  We used to live in Colorado and were there at the time of John Elway’s first superbowl win!  It was pretty exciting.  I got this as a stocking stuffer for John one year. It’s always a little weird to see dated ornaments.  Makes you realize how time flies by.

No accidental vegetarian day today, as I remembered to thaw out some chicken 😀  Had a waffle sammie with it!  Yummers.  Plus sauteed brussel sprouts.  I am beginning to actually love brussel sprouts.  What is wrong with me??

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I need to look into some indoor camera lighting since all dinner pictures are now at night!  Love that appetizing yellow hue….

So, I have been working an extra hour a day starting this week.  The nice thing about working based on productivity is that you determine how much you make per hour.  I use word expander software, so I have increased my productivity enough that I finish a normal 8-hour line requirement in 6.5 hours.  So, I was just doing other things.  I have decided to work an extra hour each day and do more lines to make more a little more money.  My company does not consider that over time, unfortunately.  They just appreciate it LOL!  So, I guess that is me being more efficient and productive for one of my goals this year.

Snacky snack:

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Gingersnaps!  Okay, multiply this picture times 3 😳   Good thing they are gone now.

Question:  What is your favorite cookie?

5-miler and kitty in the catnip.

Okay, it’s too cold even for me to run outside at below 30 degrees!  I feel silly going to the gym just to run, but I wanted to have it over and done with.  Had a snacky of dates and almond butter that I made the other day.

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Hit the treadmill for 5.2 miles today!  I did a sprint (for me) of the last 1/2 mile at 6.7 mph!  Go me!

I was sta-harving when I came home!  Made another ‘crepe’ with thinned out bisquick.  It worked out really well.  For the filling, I mixed some vanilla greek yogurt with canned pumpkin and spices.  I really could have only used half of the filling, but I was hungry LOL!  Topped with some cranberry sauce.

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I proclaim it delicious!

I found this on the washer today:

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It’s Pixie’s catnip.  Normally this pot is out of reach for her and we dole out her treat, but I had watered it yesterday and set the pot on the washer so it wouldn’t drip all over everything.  I forgot about it, and someone found it.  I don’t know if it will ever recover.  Pixie even tore some of the roots out of the soil – she is such an addict!

A surprise box arrived for me today from Mezzetta! It had some fixin’s in it for easy holiday entertaining.  One of the jars was this:

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I decided to incorporate it into lunch with some savory oats!

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Bottom layer of cooked oats, then topped with an egg, some Cabot cheddar and chopped sundried tomatoes.  I stuck it under the broiler.  My first time with savory oats and they were really good!  I liked the seasoning of the tomatoes, too, with garlic, herbs, and spices.

Here is the first ornament feature from our tree:

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It’s a french horn, which is the instrument I used to play (and have college degrees in).  I began collecting horn ornaments I think since high school maybe?  This one combines my love of all things sparkly and glass.  Amazing that is hasn’t broken over all these years.

We futzed around trying to decide what to have for dinner.  No protein thawed out.  John wanted to go out for his football dinner tonight, but he either wanted Chinese or the fish fry cafe.  I really, really did not want either of those 2 things for dinner, so we stayed home and will try again later in the week LOL!  So, I microwaved a sweet potato and topped it with pan fried broccoli and a bit of cheese.  It was pretty tasty, and quite a departure for me.

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Kind of missed more protein, though.  Today ended up being an accidental vegetarian day 😀

Hot 100 update:

1. Duathlon.  DONE!!!
2. Limit the number of eggnog lattes this year to 2 or 3.   I have had 1 so far.  Doing good.
3. Keep a redline of weight in mind to not go over during the holidays.  I am at redline now, which is down from last update.
4. Complete the New Rules of Lifting for Women.  DONE!!!!

5. Enjoy time with family during the holidays.  Spent Thanksgiving with family
6.  Better organization of time to be productive.  Not so great here.

7.  Do some freelance writing.  Lame

8.  Run at least 2 more official 5K races this year.  1 down, 1 to go – it’s December 5th or bust!