Banana Muffins

I came home from work and it was rainy and gross, but I was feeling super motivated. I banged out what felt like a quick 30 minutes running around the neighborhood. It was great. Spent the rest of the evening sitting on my butt, it was just what I needed. Today was a running rest day.

As I left for work today I looked longingly at 3 bananas in my fruit bowl that had seen better days. Instead of forcing myself to eat them plain, I opted to bake them into something awesome. After some research I found a recipe for banana muffins that includes a brown sugar crumb top, mmm. I just finished pulling them out of the oven and they look divine! Just need to wait for them to cool before I pull them out of the muffin tin.

The most exciting thing about baking these muffins was the slew of new baking goodies I got to use that we got for the wedding. We didn’t unpack any wedding gifts until a month ago (and 5 months post-wedding) since we figured there was no point. So tonight I got to use, for the first time, my brown sugar bear, my new muffin pan, my muffin storage carrier thingy and my KITCHEN AID MIXER. It was so great!

The weekend and more

I’ve been a little neglectful, sorry. I’ve been exhausted (more on that later).

Anyhow, this weekend was more relaxing than they have been lately. We moved just a few weeks ago into a new apartment and for once we didn’t spend the weekend unpacking.  What a relief!

Saturday we spent the morning at the DMV getting husband his Pennsylvania drivers license (he’s from New Jersey). After that we ran a few errands including running to Best Buy to look at the Sony eReaders. Husband and I wanted to get one for my mom badly, and after I saw the Pocket Edition (for SALE non-the-less), and how cute it was, I knew I wanted to get one for myself too. I knew I had been saving the gift card I got from my grandma for Christmas for a reason! We went back to the apartment to talk about it a little and make some lunch (vegetarian sloppy joes! YUM! Just morning star beef crumbles with an organic sloppy joe mix on fresh rolls). Then after deciding to go for it we went back to Best Buy and came out with two Sony eReader Pocket Editions. I immediately hooked mine up when we got home and it is so awesome! The touch screen is amazing, the controls are really intuitive and the size of the pocket edition is perfect for me. I spent the rest of saturday downloading books and making dinner (though I don’t remember what we had, sorry). Running wise Saturday was a rest day.

Sunday I woke up early to get a run in. The goal was 11 miles, I only made it about 6.5. I just wasn’t feeling it, my legs were heavy and my mind just wasn’t there. Running is really 95% mental and if my mental game isn’t there my legs just don’t want to work. We spent Sunday really relaxing around the house and straightening up. At 7pm my grandma called (she lives just down the road in a retirement community) and said “want some cupcakes? we just had a birthday party here and have some left overs.” Um, YES PLEASE! Half an hour later we were snacking on a cold stone creamery ice cream cupcake. DELISH. We have a few left over that will probably be eaten tonight

Yesterday it was back to the grind of work. After work the husband and I went to my parents house to set up my moms eReader for her. She loves it – I hope she gets a ton of use out of it. We ordered from a Chinese & Japanese place for take out, and I got a Hibachi combo that had so much food. Salad w. ginger dressing, soup, hibachi rice, hibachi veggies with noodles, an egg roll and of course a fortune cookie. I didn’t even come close to eating it all, I have some of the veggies with noodles and the salad for my lunch today, I can’t wait.

I made an effort to get up at 6:15 this morning to run on the treadmill. That didn’t happen. For about 2 years I got up every morning and went to the gym to run or cross train. It was great and I loved the feeling of getting an early morning workout in. I’ve been feeling pretty exhausted lately and think that if I can get into this habit again I will feel much more energized during the day. Though I didn’t get up at 6:15 to run today, I did get up about 1/2 an hour later to get a morning shower and I feel so much more awake here are work than I normally do. Hopefully feeling so great now will motivate me to try to get up a little earlier to actually work out in the morning. We will see.

Yesterday & today

Banged out 30 minutes yesterday and 4×800 intervals today. It felt great! I actually got a little bit lost today when I was running. I have a pretty good sense of direction but I got all turned around and had no idea where I was. And then the weather was all crazy – it rained on and off, hailed on and off, and snowed on and off. I was out there for close to an hour when I had only planned on 30 minutes – hah! But it was great, I think getting lost was a blessing – I came back feeling so refreshed.

Dinner tonight was “Tostizzas”. We took a can of biscuits (we found some with no hydrogenated oils – score) and flattened each one out, almost into a tiny pizza crust. Then we covered each one with salsa, black beans, green peppers, onions and cheddar cheese. DELICIOUS!

The husband and I have been working hard to plan our meals for the week out, and then I grocery shop on Fridays since I have either the full day off or a 1/2 day off. Then we’re super well stocked for the entire week. Planning ahead helps me to get coupons together for the things we’re buying and save some money in the process.

Today at the store I saw B&Js maple blondie ice cream. I haven’t bought ice cream in months, so I gave in an bought a pint. I had a little bowlful tonight and let me just say it was AWESOME! It is maple flavored ice cream with some swirls of caramel (I love love love caramel ice cream) and it has chunks of blondie brownies in it. It is awesome. I can’t wait to have another bowlful tomorrow.

On that note, I’m off to watch The Next Great Restaurant reruns and finish up our laundry before hitting the hay. g’night!