Hump Day Happiness

Well, since last Wednesday, I have had a pretty darn good week. There isn't much complaining I can do except for my EMT class but that is only because I dread the 7-10 class after nannying for 10 hours.

The weather this weekend was absolutely perfect! I have been so sick of the cold so I was soaking up as much sun as I could. And then yesterday and today it SNOWED! Unbelievable. If I didn't love living in Philadelphia I would be buying myself a one way ticket to Florida and selling all of my belongings.

On Thursday I got to see all my special athletes at their Valentines Day dance which absolutely made my day. I miss going to volleyball practice every week but it is just too far away for me to drive there every week. I am determined to go at least once a month. I'm scared they might start to forget who I am!

My roommate from the first semester of my freshman year at Arcadia (2008 woot woot!) came to visit me for the first time in a looooooong time. We have always stayed in contact and I couldn't wait for her to come to Philadelphia. I made her eat at my favorite restaurant in Manayunk and then we went wine tasting. If there is one thing we both have in common, it's wine (seems to be a common trend among me and my friends). I had searched for some wineries to go to and decided on Cardinal Hollow Winery in Lansdale. If you love wine, I strongly suggest to go visit! They have a lot of fruit wines and even jalapeno wine! For $30 we got to try 27 wines and got a souvenir wine glass! Just make sure you have at least two hours of your afternoon to sit there because you will need it.

On Monday, when Owen finally decided to wake up I went upstairs to find this. 

Clearly someone should start gymnastics classes. If you were wondering, he just really wanted his duck and then proceeded to quack at me. Yes, I love my job.

Well, there were lots of other things this week that made me smile but it would take me hours to write about and ain't nobody got time for that.

Hope all of you have had a great Wednesday and the week is half way over! Thank goodness.

To Juice or Not To Juice...

Last week, me and Sarika couldn't believe how much we were eating out and not going to the gym. This cold weather in Philadelphia has really put us in a slump. Once you start being lazy, it is really hard to make the effort to come back out of it. Well, we put our foot down and decided we would start eating more healthy! My brother had bought me a juicer two Christmases ago so we figured we would juice for breakfast and dinner and eat a veggie wrap for lunch. We thought that it would be a good way to start fresh and get all that delivery out of our system.

When we went to the store to buy for the week we decided that we wouldn't follow any specific juicing diet, rather we would juice things that we actually would want to eat. I have juiced once before and some of the juices that I had to drink were not the best tasting and I was forcing myself to drink them. As we loaded up the cart with apples, carrots, cucumbers, and ginger I was actually getting excited about how much better I would feel about myself afterwards.

Day 1 went by pretty smoothly. After the breakfast juice I got pretty hungry around 10am so I drowned myself in water until I decided to eat my wrap. Our dinner juice consisted of lots of yummy fruits and ended the day on a good note. Then Tuesday came around.

Holy headache batman. Tuesday was the worst day. My body was pissed I wasn't feeding it Indian or a burrito. All I wanted was a veggie burger with a side of french fries and a big glass of ginger ale. The headache made me want to cry myself to sleep so after going back and fourth to whether or not to eat a real meal, we broke down and ate some Taco Bell. I know, I know. The thought that everything would go downhill after that went through my mind for 5 seconds and then I ate a bite of a bean burrito and that didn't even bother me anymore. Getting rid of my headache was all I could think about by then.

Wednesday came and went with no problem. Most likely it was because my body was once happy again with a burrito in its belly. By this time in the week I wasn't as hungry all the time and I knew that it was starting to work. Then I discovered that frozen blueberries in water is the most delicious way to drink water and now I am hooked!

On Thursday night I went to a dance with my special athletes and all I could do was drink cup after cup of water so that I wouldn't get tempted by all the chocolate, cupcakes, and pretzels that were staring me in the eye telling me to eat them. After the dance I visited my friend Adrianna who decided to have vegan cupcakes and homemade hummus in her kitchen. I couldn't help myself at that point. I caved.  Then I went to my friends house who provided me with a delicious Whole Foods juice and a vegan chocolate chip cookie. I couldn't say no to cookie (that would have been rude), so I ate that too. And I had no regrets.

Friday was the last day, however, I didn't have time to juice in the morning and we ran out of veggies for the wraps. That meant that I would drink lots of water in the morning, sneak a vegan waffle, and go to subway with Sarika with all the kiddos for lunch. My roommate from my first semester at Arcadia came to visit so I knew that dinner would definitely not be a juice (it was pizza if you were wondering!).

Overall, I think we did pretty well. I want to keep up juicing, even if it is just for breakfast or maybe an afternoon snack. After weighing myself before and after the juicing I lost 4.4 pounds. I'm sure I could have lost more but I was more concerned about all the bad food getting cleansed away rather than the weight lose.

Has anybody else out there experimented with juicing? What were your favorite recipes? I would love to try them out!

I can't believe that it is almost March! Warm weather please make your way to Philadelphia. Please and thank you.

Hump Day Happiness

Sorry that I have been M.I.A. for awhile now. My days have been filled with snow, nannying, snow, EMT class, spending time with my dog, and more snow. I'm not only freezing cold on a daily basis, I am also lazy. I will admit to it. I've been ordering take out too often and haven't been going to the gym as regularly as I should be (I won't even tell you the last time I went actually...).

With my laziness comes my lack of wanting to do anything. Literally anything. If I have free time, it is spent under a blanket, on the couch, watching the Olympics. Maybe I should blame the Olympics for my almost 2 weeks of laziness. Who doesn't wanna sit around and watch figure skating all day. I mean, that's what my Saturday night consisted of and I have no regrets.

I really want to stick with blogging. My goal was to blog three days out of the week, but that is a lot harder than I thought it would be. I started doing WOD Wednesday, but as my previous post stated, I have taken a Crossfit break (which is killing me). As I started this post I decided to name it "Hump Day Happiness" and that will become my new Wednesdays. 

I'm always going 110% and sometimes it can make me overlook all the good things happening to me in my life. I tend to worry a lot so I need an excuse to sit down and write out some things that happened through out the week that had made me smile. With that being said, I hope that some of these also bring a smile to your face.

1. First and fore most, MY BEST FRIEND FINALLY BOUGHT HER PLANE TICKET TO COME SEE ME IN MARCH!!! If you couldn't tell, I am super stoked. Paige has only ever been to the east coast to come visit me once in college and my life has completely changed since then, so I can't wait for her to get here!

2. Me and my roommate, Sarika, decided to make an Instagram for Sandy because lets be honest, she is the cutest dog that you will ever meet. So if you are having a ruff (get it?!) day head on over to sandy_the_hurricane and look at some adorable pictures of my pup.

3. I went on a date. Like a real date. At one of my favorite Manayunk restaurants that he choose before even knowing I loved it (2 points for him). Who wouldn't be smiling about pizza, warm cookies, and great company. And if you were wondering, I haven't scared him away yet. High five Chelsey. Until maybe now...

4. I had a gift card to a nail place on Main Street and since I had a snow day on Thursday, me and Sarika decided it would be a good idea to walk down and get our nails done before Valentines Day. And then ate some yummy veggie burgers afterwards!

5. The Heat, Now You See Me, Monsters Inc., and the third season of Dexter are now part of my ridiculous amount of DVDs.

6. At work the other day, Max and I were laying on the couch and he decided that it was going to be my bed time. He took a cushion and put it on top of me (like a blanket) then said "Okay, now here's a kiss... And a hug... And goodnight." and stopped talking to me. And when I say he said "now here's a kiss... And a hug..." I mean, he actually did them as he said them. Probably the cutest thing that happened to me all week.

7. I pushed Sarikas car out of her snowy/icy parking spot so we could go get Dunkin Donuts. This did, in fact, make me happy because I solely pushed it. Thank you crossfit.

8. Since I got my tax return, I decided to buy some little presents for people and I can't wait to hand them out.

9. I was asked to work a few hours at Whole Foods and I was so happy that I did because I absolutely loved seeing everybody there and it made me realize how much I miss the workers, however, not so the much the customers.

There you have it folks. If anything, I hope that you smiled at least once. And if not, we always have next week!

My New Favorite Breakfast

Happy Monday Snow Day from Philadelphia! Although I am sick and tired of this cold weather I am never sick and tired of snow days! I will be spending my day watching movies on the couch and stuffing my face with leftovers and maybe a few girl scout cookies.

I was so excited that I could make a real breakfast rather than just the normal milk and cereal. I sure do miss the days of bacon and eggs (more the bacon then the eggs). This past weekend I went to Whole Foods and bought some meatless sausage patties. I know I know, that sounds disgusting and probably isn't the same as the real thing but to my surprise they were pretty darn tasty. It might also be because I mixed it with two of my favorite vegan foods, potatoes and onions!

I have made many variations of this recipe and I thought that the sausage would work wonders in it this time around. I thought about putting some vegan cheese in it, but it didn't even need it! I hope that you can whip this up at home and think it is just as delicious as I do. I almost went for a second helping but I had to stop myself so I could share with my roommate.

There isn't really a name for it so you can be free to make a name up for yourself! You will definitely want to keep this handy in case you ever have to entertain some vegans for brunch.

1/2 of a Potato (or one whole small potato. I used what we had, a russet)
1/4 Sweet Onion
2 365 Frozen Meatless Sausage Patties
1/2 block of Extra Firm Tofu
2ish Tablespoons of Soy Sauce
Chili Powder
Garlic Powder

1. Dice up the potato into smallish cubes (the bigger the cubes, the longer you gotta wait to eat it!) and chop the onion.
2. Put a little olive oil in a hot pan and add the potato and onion. Cook until the potatoes are almost completely soft.
3. While the potatoes and onions are cooking, squeeze out the excess water from the tofu and crumble into a bowl and add the soy sauce, chili powder, and garlic powder. (You can mix up the seasonings with whatever tickles your fancy)
4. Cut up the sausage patties into about the same size as the potatoes and add to the pan.
5. Once the sausage is warmed up, maybe 5 minutes, add the crumbled tofu!
6. Heat everything through, lets say 2 minutes, and then serve it up!

Makes 2 very hearty helpings!

This time around, I made some toast and put sriracha on top because I love spicy but you can really do anything you are feeling in the mood for! I also tried this delicious iced coffee which is made with almond milk, definitely a must for all of us vegans!

I love this meal because it makes me feel like I am eating real sausage and eggs but it is 100% vegan this time around. I will definitely be making this recipe more regularly with different toppings to see which one is my absolute favorite.

If you get the chance to make it please let me know what you think! And if you went your own way, I would love to know what you decided to put in it to make it unique to you!

It is time now to sit back and watch Music and Lyrics with this adorable puppy dog.