Reunited & It Feels Sooo Good!

Good Morning Muffins :) Hope you all had an exciting weekend (especially those of you who went to FoodBuzz!! I'm extreeeemely jealous) So it's Monday once again.. oyyy. It came so fast. I'm doing okay accepting that fact because I had plenty of time this weekend to relax for a change which I don't feel like I get the time to do very often.


I also got to reunite last night (Sunday) for a dinner date with one of my best friends & roommate of 3 years during college! That was definitely the highlight of my weekend... Alyssa & I became friends during school and just clicked. We have the same sense of humor and can be, at times, children...which we do much more often when we're together (lucky for our waiter) But we've both progressed past the time of power-houring at 8pm to pregame for the bar, get overdressed, go to the bar to consume even MORE beer, and then order pizza very late night only to wake up with a booze & food hangover, vow to never do it again, and then proceed to reenact the night a few days later. Ehhhh.... yes, luckily, I can safely say we've progressed far past this.

Alys & I during my last semester at school

So when she told me she was coming home for the night I was beyond excited :) :) We made plans to go to my place of employment for dinner:

Reason #1-the pizza portion of the meal is free.

Reason #2-Alys is quite the daredevil when it comes to eating hot & spicey things and she's obsessed with our hot sauce which you can buy whole bottles of in house and she HAD to do it....

Reason #3-GOOD, quality local brewed beer on tap. That'll do.

We had such a great time catching up, laughing, talking about old times at school, and eating some phenom food & drink! I slacked, per usual, and didn't take pictures. Apologies but I was too busy chatting with my daaaahling :) But I started with the Goat cheese organic salad (which you've seen countless times since I eat it every chance I get while at work) followed by a pizza that Alyssa & I split...

I got my 1/2 with no tomato sauce, mozz, parm & herbs, free-range chicken, roasted red peppers and lots and lots of mushrooms...

Alys ordered her 1/2 with our homemade tomato sauce, olives, Roma tomatoes, & roasted red pepers... then obvi dumped her entire pizza with Amigo hot sauce. Gotta love her.

I also had 2 (we'll say two... but it was 3-oooops) Blue Point Toasted Lagers on draft. Sooo delicious... and since my beloved Magic Hat was unavailable, this has to do and you'll hear no complaints from me on that! ;)

Since Alys had never had dessert there, I ordered us a 1/2 dessert (since we were basically full to the brim) and asked for 1/2 a brownie sundae with the Graham Central Station ice cream. Holyyy Bajeeeez, I could go on forever about this ice cream. It's BOMB ahhh! And, of course, because we have such great employees, my "half" dessert came out with a whole brownie, 2 scoops of the graham, and a tower of maple syrup sweetened whipped cream (Thanks Evelynnn you're my girl! ;) haha) we couldn't even finish half of it but IT. WAS. UH-MAZING.

Such a fun time with my biotch who I've missed sooo much :) And we're planning on getting together before I head into work tonight for a coffee or something along those lines. Yayyyy!!!! More time with the Lysssybear :)

Nowww...I suppose it's time to backtrack. Bear with me, I had a pretty uneventful and relaxing weekend which you would think would make it easier to recap my eats & acts but... it's not. Plain and simple. Apparently I'm still a scatterbrain.... hense why I've downed about 5 glasses of this already today..

And seriously needed THIS more than ever this morning...

1 cup water, 1/2 cup oats, 1 small naner, 1 tbsp. Teddie PB, 1 tbsp. chopped almonds, lots and lots of cinnamon...

Saturday morning I woke up and made oats ASAP along with making my regular coffee with the LAST of the coffee grounds (Breathe Allison. Don't Panic)

Oats with 1 tbsp Teddie PB, chopped naner, and 1 crushed graham cracker board

I headed to the gym soon after breakfast to get a quick workout in before I had to head off to my Grandma's house with brother & nephew to see some of the family coming up from Maryland to visit for the weekend.

I did 35 minutes on the treadmill... 10 minute warm up followed by 3 sets of speed intervals for 5 minutes each, did a quick cooldown and got in about 15 minutes of leg & ab work before having to race outta there in order to get back to my house, shower, get ready, AND eat lunch before brother got there!

I whipped up the quickest lunch I could come up with while in the kitchen, which actually turned out to be pretty delish!

WW wrap, peppercorn turkey, lettuce, dijon mustard, & chopped avocado

Along with a piece of perfection; yummy Honeycrisp

All wrapped up and ready to roll!

So I ate lunch on the go while in the car and brother & I made the half hour drive to my Grandma's house... My aunt, uncle, and two of my cousins had yet to see Baby Jakey so the rest of the afternoon was spent ooooh-ing and ahhhh-ing at every little thing he did :) They just couldn't stop taking pictures and each wanting to hold him and talking about how adorable he was. It was nice to catch up with the fam (my younger cousin Amy just started college.. Whaat!?) and discuss what everyone had been doing lately...

A few hours after my lunch my stomach was getting cranky again so my Grandma made me a cinnamon raisin mini bagel with some peanut butter (along with a cup of coffee because I was turning into a zombie before everyone's eyes - oops) and then brother and I had to leave so he could make it to band practice on time...

When I got home it was dark out but was only 5:30!!! Holyyy moly... I could have gone to sleep for the rest of the night I was so tired! So I made a cup of tea & just spent the rest of the night relaxing... read a few blogs... caught up on The Hills for the majority of the night (Ummmm Kristin really turned into a biotch, huh???)

This little munchkin cuddled with me for most of my Hills watching :)

Then a few hours later it was time for dinner and I wanted something warm & easy... So soup it was! I had a can of Amy's Cream of Tomato soup (which is awesome, just FYI...give it a try) so I warmed some up...


And what's tomato soup without a grilled cheese on the side? It's nothing is what it is. Pointless. HA! So I made a much yummier version to go alongside it...

Grilled Chez a la Allio - Goat cheese, sliced tomatoes, chicken (seasoned with s&p and cooked in a pan) with 9-grain bread...

Looooved ittttt :)

The goat cheese was soooo creamy & delicious, the tomatoes were perfectly ripe, and the chicken wasn't overpowering since the seasonings were so simple... This sandwich & soup combo was pure comfort food and warmed me up right away. It kept me full for quite a while but in the middle of a mini-Always Sunny in Philadelphia marathon I was having I needed a little dessert.

Plain Chobani with lots of cinnamon, a teaspoon of Dark Chocolate Dreams mixed in, and a tablespoon of white chocolate chips... holy decadence in a yogy-dessert!

Now the plan is to rush off to the gym... get showered up and ready to go to work... stop & have my coffee date with Alys on the way down to work.. and then serving the night away at worky :) What's your plan for this lovely Monday?