Friday Night In

Tonight turned into a pretty low-key night... I'm already in yoga pants, sipping a glass of white wine, and putting on some good movies.. beginning with Kill Bill Volume 1 (such classic Quentin). And I'm loving every minute of it :) Sometimes a relaxing night at home is the perfect idea...


Not to say I haven't run around like a crazy person for the majority of the day, because I did... but at this point it's barely 10:30pm and I'm ready to snuggle up in bed with the Bella-Cat and get some shut eye! Not until doing a little high-quality blogging, of course ;)


My day started off with a delicious yogurt mess... complete with Vanilla Nature's Promise FF yogurt, 1/4 cup of Kashi Warm Cinnamon, 1/4 cup of Kashi Honey Almond Flax, lots of pumpkin pie spice, & a melted tablespoon of Teddie PB...

Heaven in my favorite bowl...
All mixed up & with a couple bites of the remaining apple crisp from last night's dessert...

After breakfast I did an excessive amount of stretching because I've been feeling tight all over, ALL of the time. My legs constantly feel like they need a gooood loooong stretch. But once I got tothe gym I was ready to kick itttt....

I did an awesome 45 minute workout chock full of alternating sprints & runs ... 30 seconds & 1 minute respectively, and felt amazing! I even upped my speed during my running sessions.. I don't know what gave me so much energy and helped me keep up a consistent pace but I was loving it. (Could have been Matthew Fox's twin weight lifting in front of methe majority of that time... who knows)

My total time was:

45 minutes / 4.0 miles / 470 cal

Followed by a 20 min core strengthening yoga class from yogadownload...

Immediately after leaving the gym I had to rush off to meet Mamabear at her office to go down to the DMV and switch my car registration over from her to me (thumbs down)

1. I hate the DMV... I hate the lines, hate waiting, and it always seems to be full of the weirdest characters, seriously.

2. This means no more Mamabear paying my monthly car insurance bill (major thumbs down)

3. I guess this means I"m officially an adult (EW)

4. I was absolute staaaahvin mahvin the entire time & quickly turning into a brat...

So after what seemed like an eternity of waiting in one line, switching to another, getting a ticket with a rando number on it and waiting for that numberto come up, we FINALLY left and after getting back to Ma's office, I was sooo happy when she offered to give me her apple she had brought to go with the rest of her lunch. Which I happily ate within 5 minutes of it being offered to me...

I remembered from all the bloggies I saw this morning that the holiday cups are now out at Starbucks!!! (along with the holiday inspired lattes) soo I of course had to stop for a Grande Nonfat Gingerbread on my way home..

My belly was still yelling at me when I got home so I whipped up the most rando lunch plate ever... just a combo of a bunch of things I found in the kitchen. A "snack plate" if you will; very GC of me :)

...1/4 of a sweet potato microwaved with a bit of cinnamon

...Baby carrots & 1/4 of a yellow bell pepper w. Annie's Honey Mustard

...3/4 of a can of tuna mixed w. Dijon mustard, s&p, atop a bed of lettuce

Then it was time to get crackin on making a batch of cookies for Mama because she told me Grandma I would for tomorrow's family get together... My aunt & uncle (and maybe my two cousins!) are coming up from Maryland for the weekend so the fam has planned a little dinner & dessert event at Gram's house. Luckily, Mama remembered to tell me that she signed me up for the responsibility while we were growing gray hair (what?) at the DMV today... so I stopped and grabbed white chocolate & semi-sweet chocolate chips on the way home to make my Chocolate Almond Cookies....

Mixin it up....

I added 1 cup chopped almonds and 1-1/2 cups of a mixture of white chocolate & semi-sweet chocolate chips...

I dont know how I restrained from digging into this amaaaazing cookie dough...

Popped into the oven at 350 for about 11 minutes and they are golden & perfect!

This recipe is, by no means, a dieter's cookie recipe... I won't lie- it's got 2 whole sticks of butter, 2 cups of sugar (a mixture of light brown & regular granulated sugar) and, as you can see, has loads of chocolate in it...but I know these will get eaten and because I wasn't planning on digging in myself, I took the easy way and followed an old recipe for these I had laying around...

The whole batch came out awesome and the 1/4 or so of the cookies that I saved to keep around the house are ALREADY GONE if you can believe it... My parents had a tad too much wine and consumed what was left of the stash haha. I also remembered after dinner that it was, indeed, Cookie Friday so I indulged in one of these babies and I can safely say... I'm not a horrible baker ;) I'm sure the rest of the family will love them tomorrow...

Dinner was stress-free, mostly because Mamabear aka Jillybean whipped it up herself! It was a pretty nice change of pace because I'm usually searching through the kitchen forever, sooo indecisive about what to make.. It helps when Mama lets me know she's already on it :)

She made a recipe she found online for Chicken Scarpiello... It's a lot like a stew of some kind. It's an easy one skillet dinner that combines chicken, veggies like bell peppers & mushrooms (my favs!), potatoes, sausage, white wine & chicken broth... I can't explain how good this dinner made the entire house smell as it was cooking. I kept wandering into the kitchen and peering into the skillet to see if it was done, only for Mama to slap my hand like I was a child and tell me to "keep your fingers outta there" Fun times.

The end result? Phenom! I didn't eat more than one bite or two of the sausage, but I ate my fair share of chicken, mushrooms, and the other veggies...

Yumalicioussss!

What's a meal that reminds you of home or your parents' cooking??

Spaghetti & meatballs always reminds me of being home.. Sunday night was always Italian night as I was growing up and we would always have my Mom's homemade meatballs with some kind of pasta.. salad... garlic bread... & a dessert was always a necessity. Ahhh, those were the days... when I ate countless carbs & never gave it a second thought haha :)

Happy Friday!!