Birthday weekend

What a weekend!
Yesterday was my 32nd birthday. Thirty-two. When did I get that old? Where has the time gone? I can’t complain. It’s been a good ride.
Friday, my co-workers surprised me with fancy cupcakes that we all indulged in.

When I got home Friday night, Brian surprised me with season 2 of the BBC’s show Sherlock. We watched an episode Friday night. The season is only 3 episodes long, but each episode is 90 minutes. The first episode was so good. We were on the edge of our seats the entire time.
We went out for BBQ for lunch yesterday. We ordered an appetizer of poutine then decided to split a sandwich. Holy cow. The poutine had a homemade gravy that is probably the tastiest gravy I have ever eaten, globs of cheese, bacon and pulled pork.

That hit my stomach like a brick. A few bites of cornbread and I was done. The sandwich we ordered was packed up and brought home as leftovers as well as some of the poutine.

We did a decent amount of walking after that, then I had to come home and lay down for an hour.
I was able to revive myself for a beer on a patio.

Followed by a delicious empanada.

We ended the day by seeing Iron Man 3. We both really liked it.
After yesterday’s food fest, I got up and went for a long walk today. Made a successful batch of spinach and mushroom veggie burgers:

After lunch, Brian and I rode our bikes up to my garden plot and got some things planted.

Then had a very fruit and veg heavy dinner. After yesterday’s meat and fat fest, it was a necessity.

I’ll leave you with a pretty picture of the pear tree blooms in our back yard.

Thanks to everyone who reached out with calls, cards, texts and messages to make me feel so loved on my birthday.

Spring

This weekend’s weather made it feel as if spring has finally arrived. This made me extremely happy.

I spent as much of Saturday outside as possible. I was outside almost straight from 8-4 then 6-7. I couldn’t get enough of the weather! This led me to walking most of my errands and I walked a total of 9-10 miles. Unfortunately, I didn’t get much of a tan.

I started out the day by heading to Cafe Tola on Southport and Addison. I had walked by a week or two ago and they had some delicious looking donuts in the front window(they also make fresh empanadas daily). Getting there before 8 gave me the pick of the batch and I got a maple bacon and a red velvet cake donut for Brian and a big cup of strong coffee for myself.  The sun was so warm that the frosting melted a little on the way home.

I tried a bite of each, both delicious, but too sweet for my taste. I recreated my restaurant leftovers of salmon with a bacon potato hash into breakfast. How? By adding and egg, of course. Savory. My preferred breakfast.

With a protein packed breakfast, I was fueled for my walk to Home Depot to pick out some plants for my garden plot.

Still not having enough of the fresh air, I stopped on my walk to Lincoln Square to have some tacos at La Amistad. Sitting outside to eat them, of course.

I went on another walk to pick up a few things at Whole Foods to make food for the week. I threw together these “bowls” of quinoa cooked in vegetable broth, black beans, roasted sweet potato, steamed sesame kale and baked tofu. That made 5 of the 10 lunches for Brian and I to eat this week. These came together in less than one hour.

Sunday, Brian and I got up and ran the Ravenswood 5k. I really loved the route this year and was happy with my time. We had a small miscommunication about breakfast, though. When registering for the race, you could buy a ticket for a pancake breakfast to support the local food pantry. Brian bought one. I didn’t. Wah wah. Fortunately, the pancakes were prepackaged, so he could take them to go. It was probably a good thing, as I was surprisingly not hungry after the race. I had coffee and a bite of a cinnamon roll, but didn’t eat the banana or mini bagel they were handing out.

After coming home and relaxing for a few hours, I was hungry and made myself a mega lunch. I had a broccoli potato patty, two eggs, my mini bagel(toasted with butter), blueberries and an apple with mango ginger Stilton cheese. I put a little cheese on half the bagel and then a slice of apple on top of that. Heavenly. Absolutely delightful. I rarely eat cheese anymore. Or most diary for that matter. I try to make it a rule that if I am going to eat cheese, it has to be good cheese. This was GOOD cheese.

I spent the rest of the afternoon going for walk, checking on my garden plot and making up food for the week. I started a batch of cold brew iced coffee on Saturday and was able to drain it off and jar it yesterday. Just the refreshing beverage I need to have on hand with temps in the 80s tomorrow!

I have been trying to move to a more natural skin care routine. One of the hardest things from me to move away from is my inexpensive but very loved drugstore body lotion. I have tried straight coconut oil before and didn’t love it. I ran across a recipe for whipped coconut oil body butter last week and decided to whip(pun intended) up a batch this weekend. It is absolutely delightful. I can’t wait to share this recipe. A little goes a long way and it really lasts all day.

Multitasking while I was making the body butter, I cooked up some more food to round out our lunches and some dinner for the week. Look at that well stocked fridge.

I’ve had a few people inquire lately about meal plans. Hoping to get to a post soon about how I try to do meal plans. Have a great week everyone and get out and enjoy some fresh air!