weekend Archives - Page 2 of 6 - My Healthy, Happier Life

Happy Monday!

Bo and I woke up bright and early this morning to make it to Josh Arden’s 7 AM Flywheel class. While my body has enjoyed the lower impact workouts these past two weeks, I’m definitely missing the endorphin rush and sweat I get from cardio. This week I am going to try incorporating 2-3 cardio workouts with my barre classes.

Similar to last week, waking up this morning was easier than normal as Bo and I had another relaxing weekend. In fact, I was in bed reading All The Light We Cannot See by 8:30! Have you guys read this book yet? I’m only 60 pages in but can already tell it is going to a page turner which will keep me occupied on my subway commutes this week. Even though our we enjoyed a relaxed weekend, there are still a few highlights to share with you guys this morning.

Going to the movies

The weather in New York yesterday was rainy and blustery, perfect for an afternoon movie date. Our movie of choice, Deepwater Horizon, kept us both interested and entertained. We both remembered hearing about the largest man-made disaster back in 2010 but did not know the details until watching the movie. I thought Mark Wahlberg and Kurt Russell were perfectly cast in their roles!

Taking a long walk in Prospect Park

Before heading to the movie, Bo and I spent two hours wandering through Prospect Park enjoying the Fall foliage and cool weather. We covered more than eight miles, meandering through the Prospect Park Farmer’s Market and explored new areas of Prospect Park including the waterfalls. I have really grown to enjoy long walks with friends or family as they provide the perfect venue for catching up and getting some exercise and fresh air.

Cooking

We spent a lot of time in the kitchen this weekend, cooking Saturday and Sunday dinner as well as preparing healthy snacks and dinners for the week. I’ve been intimidated by kale’s rough texture and strong flavor for ages, but this delicious and easy to make Autumn Kale Salad recipe helped me overcome my fear and fall back in love with this hearty green. I especially love that kale salads keep far longer in the refrigerator, making them perfect make-ahead lunches.

Building our fire pit

As part of my 10 year anniversary with my company, I was able to choose an item from their gift list. While the list included over 100 different things, there were only a few that stood out based on our interests. After a few weeks of debate, I finally ordered a fire pit for our back yard. Perfect for Fall and Winter evenings, this above ground fire pit was a pain to build but has already been so much fun! I can tell that we’ll enjoy it often with our friends and family whether roasting s’mores or just enjoying while sipping a glass of wine.

Follow:

highlights-from-weekend-9-26-16

Happy Monday! How was your weekend? Even though our weekend was busy, I woke up this morning feeling rested and refreshed. I thought it’d be fun to share some highlights from our weekend with you guys to start off the week.

Celebrating – On Saturday I made the 2-hour drive to West Chester, Pennsylvania to celebrate my friend Colleen’s upcoming nuptials. One of my college sorority sisters, Colleen and her fiance live and work in Atlanta but his West Chester based family hosted a lovely backyard wedding shower for her. Since I can’t make it down to Atlanta for the wedding weekend, the time we spent together on Saturday was very special. We were able to spend some quality time together, laughing and catching up in between enjoying a lovely lunch spread with her friends and family.

Smoothies – Since Bo and I are both loving smoothies these days, I whipped up large batches of smoothies Friday, Saturday and Sunday. While I love our Magic Bullet for making individual smoothies, it was so much easier to make the larger batch in our VitaMix. This weekend’s flavors were pumpkin spice, strawberry peach and cherry vanilla.

Fall Flavors – The Farmer’s Market was overflowing with produce yesterday as the tables featured both the final bits of Summer tomatoes, squash and corn along with the first Fall flavors of the season. Inspired by the tables of local apples, we decided to make a Fall themed dinner last night. We started things off with a small cheese plate, including my favorite Cowgirl cheese followed by a dinner of smashed sweet potatoes served alongside pan-roasted pork chops topped with caramelized onions and apples.

Running – Sunday morning I laced up my shoes for ten miles, my longest run since the NYC Half Marathon in March. As you guys know, I’ve been increasing my long run mileage by two miles each week in preparation for the RNR Brooklyn Half Marathon. Luckily I had friends to motivate and keep me company along the way, making yesterday’s 10 miles fly by! Zoe, Nicole and I ran the entire ten miles together while Katie joined us at the halfway point. If you ever have a hard time finding the motivation to log your miles, call a friend for company as I swear logging miles with friends, especially those who are faster than you, is the best way to crush your training!

Decorating – Even though we’ve lived in our apartment for over a year, we still have decorating and final touches that we want to do. This month’s project is our master bedroom. In addition to painting the crown and bay window moldings bright white, we also moved one of our rugs into the bedroom and are going to mount the television on the wall next weekend. This morning we ordered the finishing touches from One King’s Lane (<– Save $15 with that link) – a chair for the bay window as well as flowers and coasters for the bedside tables.

Follow:

Greetings from snowy Brooklyn!

Unlike many of my friends, I spent the entire weekend smiling. Snow makes me feel like a child again. I absolutely love the peace and tranquility that a fresh snow brings to the streets of New York in addition to the child like antics that come out during the aftermath. We so often finds ourselves going constantly, with very little relaxation and down time so it is a welcome blessing to have snowy conditions force us to rest and relax. My in-laws, Bob and Mimi, happened to be in town this weekend which made things even more special. I can’t tell you the last time we all spent so much time together.

Friday evening Mimi (my mother-in-law) and I started the weekend with a donation based community yoga class at Brooklyn Yoga Project before dinner at the adorable Locanda Vini e Olii. Their house made olive oils stole the show but everything we tried was delicious.

Saturday morning, I woke up and ran to the window, like a kid on Christmas morning. I managed my expectations, after years of disappointment, expecting to see a few inches and nothing more. Instead, I saw that our back yard was a blustery, winter wonderland!

Like crazies, we bundled up and headed to another wonderful hot, power yoga class at Tangerine Yoga. Considering the conditions, we were tempted to stay in our pajamas and bake an elaborate, warm breakfast but we wanted to share this yoga studio with both Meg and Mimi after weeks of raving about their classes and hands-on instructors. By the time we left the studio at 10:30 the wind gusts were reaching 30 miles per hour and Brooklyn looked like the inside of a snow globe.

The rest of our snow day accomplishments included making homemade pizza dough, baking a chocolate cake from scratch, perfecting the art of creating snow angels, working on our snowball aim and warming up with a beer at our favorite neighborhood bar, Buschenschank.