Thursday Happy hour and some miss-haps!

We had one of those beautiful weather days on Thursday. What better way to spend the early evening then to go for Happy Hour on the Patio at Union 32, one of our favorite places. We had some drinks and shared the pork taco's then played cribbage. Neighbor friends joined us after our game of cribbage for dinner and a few more drinks. A good night to be outside! 

I'm still on my diet. Staying around 1500 calories for the day because I've been eating lunch and a snack of popcorn along with dinner. I still try and eat healthy low cal foods. My lunch I finished up the rest of the pea pesto. The pesto is pretty simple to make. Fresh organic peas (uncooked), light olive oil, garlic, fresh basil and some Parmesan cheese, just blend it all up. You can also top with a little fresh mint which really brings out the flavors. Super delicious and easy to make. 

I also cook up a few sweet potatoes in the oven and then just refrigerate them to eat each day. I usually cook three at a time. This way I have a lunch already pre-cooked because it takes about an hour in the oven if I didn't' make them ahead of time.  I never have to think about what to eat if I am hungry. I stock up on the Chica boom, popcorn, 45 calories per cup and it's a good fiber fill up low cal choice if I'm still wanting to eat something before or after dinner. 

Dinner is the only meal of the day where it's up in the air what I eat. I try to make good choices or just share foods if we go out so I'm eating less of it. I also try to limit drinks. Little changes to my diet and the results are weight loss, little by little! Even if I'm not losing weight due to eating out, I'm at least able to maintain. 

It's Evan's preschool graduation tonight. I made him the cake he requested. Strawberry cake, with strawberry jam filling, topped with butter cream strawberry frosting and a chocolate ganash dripped on top. Covered with some fresh strawberries and some more butter cream frosting. I hope it tastes good. I had some left over cake from what I cut off to level the cake and it was moist! I finally perfected the dripped edge on the side of the cake. This is probably the best looking drip cake I've made and most level ever! My cake skills are improving little by little with all the cooking shows I've been watching. Evan also wanted an Avenger cake. He picked out Ant man to be on his cake. I also used white chocolate and wrote out Evan Congrats, Grad and placed that on top of the cake. 

The new office color. So happy we no longer have a red office! We also switched out our kitchen can lights. They were 20 years old and looking a little yellow.. not white any more. Steve found some led light cans that weren't so deep and recessed into the socket. It makes the kitchen so much brighter. I love it! I picked up my new above our stairs light and can't wait to get that up. I'm hoping it goes up this weekend. Cross my fingers Steve wants to install it. Next is to replace the kitchen sink! I'm sooo tired of our black sink and facet. We need an update and a better sink!

Here's the miss-hap. I went for a bike ride and over a mile from home, I got a flat tire on my bike. I had to walk my bike home. There is nothing worse then having to walk a bike. It took forever! I still didn't get my tire fixed so I'll have to use Steve's bike. 

Aches and Pains.

I don't know if it's age, being 50, working out all the time or just a normal part of life! My body aches all the time. If it's not my back, it's my legs or hand/arm pain. There is always something going on but not enough to stop me from moving. In fact, moving helps the pain go away. I'm always sore first thing in the morning and it takes doing yoga for an hour with a little help from Advil to get me moving. Once I loosen up, then I'm good to go for the day as long as I don't sit too much then my body gets sore all over.

It's hard not to want to sit and rest after working. I need a little break between work and biking or running. I also think it would help to have a little mid afternoon pick up, like drinking coffee only issue is I don't drink the stuff. Lots of days I'm lazy and just don't want to do anything else. I know that I should move more but the couch always feels better at the moment. Some days I give in and just do nothing, like yesterday afternoon.

I got to take Evan to get a hair cut for his Preschool graduation on Friday. He was tired too and fell asleep waiting for his appointment. After his hair cut, we went to Walmart to pick out the action figure from Avengers he wanted on his cake. He picked out two, Captain America and some Ant guy. He only wanted the Ant guy on the cake and was already opened the package with Captain America. He also found a dragon pool noodle for the summer and a Avengers T-shirt. We got some ice cream after and then I drove him home. I was pretty tired myself after all the errands. So much for biking or running!

 Burgers on the grill sounded good when I was at the store after work. We toasted the buns and they were delicious but a bit big. I did finish my burger but easily could have just ate half. The beans and salad were also delicious. A nice dinner out on the deck!

I over ate my fasting calories for the day. I had a sweet potato for lunch with some popcorn. Then came dinner and then desert which was a spoon of PB and some salty pretzel nuggets with PB. I also had some pea pesto with a few crackers mid afternoon. All healthy but around 1600 calories for the day with the Angry Orchard drink. So much for my fast! I can get back on track today. I already have my meal planned a sweet potato and some popcorn. Sticking to 500 today is the goal with running this morning, followed by biking in the afternoon.

What's going on with my fasting diet?

My fasting dieting has been a little upside down but Tuesday I turned it around! 

I finally, got back on fasting track and stayed around 800 calories for the day. I managed to wait  till 5pm to eat dinner. Coleslaw with balsamic vinegar dressing, pea pesto on crackers, 1 small sweet potato, raspberries, popcorn and a few PB pretzels. I stayed away from cheese! Which I really wanted to eat because we had really good cheese! 

I did have that, I want to eat and keep eating after my dinner. I did make healthy choices of raspberries and low cal popcorn. 

I got in a lot of exercise. Biked 9 miles, ran 1.4 miles and then also worked. I burned around 1000 calories for my efforts. 

I kept pretty busy to stay on my fasting diet. I had to run some errands while Zoey was at the groomer. We are keeping her short fur for the summer. I have her on a every 5 week schedule. My errands were to get my vacuum fixed since the belt came off and I didn't have a spare. Then I went to Walmart to get some stuff for the office. I purchased some storage containers to put all our business receipts into. Now instead of using brown bags, I have white matching bins all stashed under the desk. They were larger then I thought so I have to return one bin and will find something a bit smaller for more receipts to all fit under our desk and out of the way. 

My ring arrived in the mail. I purchased a Groupon deal, which I never do but liked this ring. I've been looking for a ring to replace my old one and this was the best I found. My finger is a lot smaller then size 8! Oh well, it still stays on and is pretty. It was cheap so no harm in still looking for something else. 

Just like that, another weekend has gone.

We had a lot of rain all day on Memorial day. We had enough rain to fill this wine glass over half full.  It made for a cold, wet, not so fun Memorial day. 

We did get more home projects done since it was raining and nothing much was open. 
We were forced to do something inside. Might as well start with our todo list at home. 

Steve painted the office, bye bye red, hello new blue-gray! He didn't like the color I picked out for our office but it's a nice change and a bit brighter then the red. Now we could use a brighter light in our office! I'll probably replace the curtains at some point to match the room since the existing curtains are brown. 

The finished wall color. I need to clean up the desk and shelves and then we'll call it good enough! 
While Steve was painting the office, I was upstairs painting our bedroom door and the kids bathroom door white. I still have two more coats of enamel in white to paint the doors but I'm making progress and its a start to getting this long lasting project done. We can move on to our bathroom re-do's next but first our kitchen sink will be replaced. I'm hoping that can happen next week! 

This week is a fresh dieting week #19. I completely screwed up last week on my dieting goals. I'm determined to stick with my fasting diet this week because I'm tired of being stuck at 155 pounds. My goal is to lose another 1 to 2 pounds this week. I'll do that by exercising/ biking, running and painting with work. Plus staying around 500 calories per day with saving my meal for dinner and not starting at snack time 2pm. I need to close up the eating window so I don't go over my calories for the day. Getting back on track to my weight loss goals! 

That's a wrap!

I started my Sunday off with a 1.4 mile run. I'm ready for longer distances now that my feet have been feeling good. 

After my run, we went on a bike ride to Starbucks for coffee and then home 14 miles

Some old guy asked if I had an electric bike. I'm like NO, it's called you have to pedal. Made me wonder if I look like I'd need an electric bike to get me around. Hum.. NOT!

I actually got a coffee and added in my low cal hot chocolate mix. Wow, the caffeine was strong and it sure made me bike like crazy to get home. I was far ahead of Steve and kept going. Normally, he would be in front of me and wait for me to catch up. I was on a roll and there was no stopping! 

I checked off a few more home projects. I spray painted my mirror and two lamps silver. They turned out great! All to match my bedroom. Love the update and now everything looks good! 

I found two new lamp shades while at Target. I just decided white was the way to go and not more gray colors. It's clean and simple. I thought about spray painting my little side table but I think it looks fine. 

The other lamp for Steve's side of the bed. 

Steve wanted to go on a motorcycle ride out in the country. I decided to join him since I didn't go at all last year. He said I looked like I was going horse back-riding with my red pants, boots, helmet and jacket. That is all I have to wear to go riding! We rode to Northfield and I realized they have three new breweries. We thought we had a plan for Monday, Memorial day to go back and visit the breweries only to check to see they are all closed today. Go figure! We will have to do this next weekend in the car not on the motorcycle. In all we were gone for 1-1/2 hours which is a long ride for my back and butt to take sitting on the back of the bike. It was only 70 degrees so a bit chilly too. I was pretty happy to get back home. 

All that yard work and I had a pile of branches to burn. Since I was chilled from the motorcycle ride, I made a fire. My fire making skills were a bit lacking as it never really got going. I gave up on it after awhile. I was going to cook some sweet potatoes in foil in the fire but it never got hot enough. 

I completely forgot, I did have to work at the rental for just a bit. After, Steve and I stopped at Trader Joes to pick up food for a BBQ dinner on the deck. We were there at lunch and next door is a Rtaco so we had two taco's each. They had the calorie count per taco and they are pretty low. I just had a chicken taco and a veggie one. 

I didn't take a photo at dinner. We were all too busy eating. It was delicious! Just took this after dinner photo from our room of Steve and his dad having some after dinner wine. A perfect night, no wind and the perfect temperature without bugs! 

There won't be any running or biking today. It's raining again! Maybe I'll get more painting done? 

Way off the track.

I might be smiling but I definitely have not followed my dieting this weekend! I've been having a rough time wanting to stick to my low calorie diet for dinners. There is that balance of wanting to just have fun, go out, have a few drinks and eat a normal dinner. That is what leads me to poor food choices. A few more drinks, not splitting a meal, eating late and eating the fries or onion rings. Indulging a little too much this holiday weekend. Well, just because I have a few or a week of not dieting, I can still get back on track. All is not lost and that doesn't mean I've gained weight but I sure didn't lose any either. It's not what I want to do because I'm 10 pounds from my weight loss goal.

While sitting in the sun, Steve said you have a lot more gray hairs.  I hardly ever wear my hair down. It's usually in a pony tail. Looks like it's time for a root color fix. I am 50 so I suppose I'm that age were more gray hair is just going to happen more and more with each passing year.

After stopping and sharing a bottle of wine in Cannon Falls, we stopped at the brewery in town. Another big cribbage board table. Not as big as the other brewery which was a huge table but still big! We decided its not that fun to play on a big table. Kind of a pain. The only way I'd use a big table again to play cribbage is if we forgot our small carry sized board. The big table doesn't have enough holes to play a full game. We had to go around 3 times, plus, I had to move the pegs for both of us due to were I was sitting. Our drinks, popcorn and cards got in the way of moving the pegs. We were always moving stuff just to move a few spaces. 

I wore this outfit for the day. My red jeans, white top and black sandles. Who knew so many dress in red, white and blue for Memorial day weekend? I thought that was mostly for the 4th of July? I was close enough to blue with black. I did get a complement in the bathroom on my red jeans. Some young woman said they were so fun! The only thing I could think to say was that I thought so too as I had another pair of red pants when I was a lot younger and figured why not! 

I had to coordinate my reader glasses with my outfit so I grabbed my red ones. I can't go any where without multiple pairs of glasses. Its the worst when I forget and can't see anything up close, like a menu or my food! 

We sat outside for part of the time at the brewery. It was right next to the Cannon Falls river. It was gushing! 

Here is the back yard mulch photos from Saturday morning. The back of the garage wall and the berm. 

Our burm and bad grass. Its pretty shaded in our back yard and grass just doesn't grow very well. We also had some voles that were making tunnels in our yard and killing the grass from under. Our other summer project to grow grass in the back yard. I did a little tree/weed trimming too and it looks a lot better. Now to burn all that wood in our fire pit. Today might be a good day to do a bonfire and cook outside. I love sweet potatoes on the fire and a good hot dog with a little char. 

Saturday on a long holiday weekend!

I  started my Saturday doing what I do every single morning, Yoga followed by planks and my dumbbell weights. After Steve and I went to Menards to get a wheel for the Wheel barrow. We ended up just buying a new one instead of trying to find a wheel. It was time to get rid of the old one! 

While at Menards, lights were on sale marked down more then the normal 11% on sale weeks. I finally decided on a light I liked and we ordered it. It's similar to this light but more lights on it and all rubbed bronze to match all our other lights. Now to wait for it to arrive in the store and then to install. I'm excited to switch out our old stair light and put in a new one. Next is to get a new kitchen sink. Soon just waiting till that too goes on sale. 

We picked up a truck load of mulch Friday afternoon so we were ready to put it in the back yard. We need at least another truck full of mulch! It didn't cover under our porch since I used some for our berm. Next week, we'll finish it up! Good thing it's only $45 per truck full so in all we will have spent $135 on mulch. Still need black dirt, sod and grass seed! I did a little tree cutting and weed removal also and mowed the front yard. I'm saving the back yard mowing for Sunday! 

Here's the deal

I've been buying a few Groupons and Living Social deals. I've never been much of a got to buy that on line deal. I am now a buyer. I purchased a ring on line, a brewery deal and now a Kayak river deal. All we will use and now we have fun plans to use up these deals before they expire the end of summer. 

Its sooo green outside now. I love spring/summer even in the rain! Ifs always far better then snow! 

Just doing a little morning yoga before I go to work. I have a busy, busy work schedule today and I need to get going earlier. 

I made some of those crack candy bars for my customers today. Yum.. I used dark chocolate and white mixed to swirl them together topped with peanuts. Love this quick and easy candy. They are in the freezer and hopefully, will be cool enough to crack asap! 

Dieting has not gone very well this past week. Ugh! I just am at a block. Staying around 1500 calories for the day. I had Chinese take out last night since Steve went out for drinks with his brother. I had been wanting Chinese food for a few weeks now and figured why not order some up! It was delicious! Just not staying under my 1000 calories for the day. I was also pretty lazy again. With this rain and cooler temperatures, I just feel blah. Didn't want to work on home projects or do anything other then watch TV and read the news on my phone. I suppose there is no rush to do any of my projects. 

What I did do, worked, went for a 1.5 mile run and that was about it other then stop at the bank and pick up takeout. I did catch up on TV, Amazing race and watched a really good movie Drift. I guess you could call that an accomplishment! 

Our weekend plans are going to include installing this new sink! We have enough Menards cash back money to purchase this sink set for the kitchen. I'm soooo tired of our current sink. It doesn't drain right and the hard water deposits on a black sink are just not good. It will be nice to start fresh with all! I'm hoping Steve gets around to putting this in on Monday. Its going to rain, go figure so a no excuse indoor work on project day! Maybe I'll even paint those doors upstairs! 

A Night Out for our 20th Anniversary.

Here we are 20 years later on our Anniversary, May 22nd 2019! Did we change much? 

 We had dinner reservations in Minneapolis at the Capital Grill. We let them know a head of time it was our Anniversary and they were really good about making us feel special. Look at the beautiful dessert plate with happy anniversary stenciled in chocolate. Love that idea! 

Before dinner we stopped at Rock Bottom Brewery and had some happy hour drinks. 

I should have brought the cribbage board but we weren't sure if there was enough time to play a game. Turns out, we did have time but no cribbage board. They do make their own beers. I tried a raspberry/cranberry sour that was pretty tasty and $2 off per glass. 

I went shopping Wednesday afternoon and found this cute spring dress on clearance at TJ Maxx for $29. I could not pass it up. Size 4 and it fits! I did need help zipping it up! 

I bought the white sweater too and that was not on clearance but it was still around $20/$25? I realized Steve probably needed new black pants since he doesn't wear dress pants often and lost more weight and I think the last pair he bought was pleated. Outdated and needed new tapered legs and no pleats in the front or cuffed pant legs! lol.. I really miss having to dress up for work every day. I hardly ever dress up now. Not sure when I'll ever wear this dress again but it was nice to have an occasion to get dressed up and go out on the town. 

Dinner was excellent. We both got a salad but different, and we shared the potatoes and mushrooms since it's all A la Cart. We both also got the beef tenderloin 10oz. Far too much food and I was stuffed. I am sure it was the most food I've had to eat in months! Next year, if we go back we need to share a meal. Far too much meat for one person! Plus, its not a cheap place but lucky for us, Steve had a birthday gift card that we used and of course went over that amount on the meal. 

We definitely liked the food and thought it was a great place for a special occasion. I said we need to do this every year. Not sure why it took us 20 years to figure out we need a night out at a good restaurant to celebrate just us. You just can't do that on a birthday!