Category: Bubbly

Weekending: Feeling really blessed

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As I poured myself a glass of wine on Sunday night (it helps make meal/food prep easier…), I found myself reflecting on the weekend… and I just felt so blessed!

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Between drinks and dinner with my friend Liz on Thursday night,

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to spending Halloween with RM and his family, gushing over the babies, handing out candy and enjoying festive food and drinks,

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to having my parents down to meet RM’s family

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(but really, though, can you get any cuter than these two?! I nearly died when the hugged goodbye. So cute!)

to book club with my girlfriends, delicious food and lots of bubbly on a snowy Sunday afternoon

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to having a quiet Sunday evening in my kitchen with a glass of vino, Miranda Lambert Pandora and lots of healthy and delicious food,

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I really just feel so blessed! It’s so easy to get caught up in all the negatives (I didn’t sleep well, I am stressed at work, I have too much going on after work, I didn’t have a good workout, I don’t feel good, etc.), that it was a really nice change to have nothing but GOOD feelings last night.

I challenge each of you to list out 3 things making you feel blessed right now. Could be as small as not being in traffic on your way to work or finding a penny on the ground.

I challenge each of you to try and be present in the moment. To reflect on all the GOOD aspects of your lives. To say “I love you” more. To hug for a few seconds longer. To smile more. To listen. To forgive. To laugh (at yourself, too!).

… and then think about how you feel when you’re doing those things. I’m pretty sure you’ll find that thinking/feeling/living like that gives you a sense of peace and calmness that stressful/anxious/angry doesn’t, right? We spend so much of our days being angry or upset or pointing blame when we should really be focusing on everything good in our lives. I know this is something I need to work on, what about you?

Questions for you: What was the best part of your weekend? Do you tend to dwell on negatives or focus on the positives? What do you feel blessed for?

Weekending: Massages, Farmer’s Market, Lots of Shopping & Grill 23

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Good morning! It’s time to talk about the weekend! I don’t know about you, but I feel like Tuesdays are a lot harder than Mondays. I’m not exactly sure why, but I think it has to do with the fact that I generally just roll into Mondays without much thought and I’m usually pretty busy, so the day goes by fast. Tuesdays, though, are the days where everything from the weekend tends to catch up with me. It’s terrible getting out of bed, I’m yawning all day, and I have to really give myself a pep talk to get a workout in, because I know that’s exactly what I need to get some energy.

Friday

I treated RM and myself to massages at Exhale Spa. Per usual, the experience was perfect: relaxing, calming and just a really nice escape from reality. After our massages, we headed to Whole Foods to get dinner: salmon, spinach and carrots. Paired with a nice Malbec and you have a happy Monique.

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We started Saturday morning by making a trip to the Waltham Farmers Market. Athena and Ashley- thanks for the great recommendation! RM got some meat and I came home with a bunch of veggies, for half the cost of what I’d pay at the store. The only annoying this is that I could be getting these from my dad for free if I was going home anytime soon!

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We also stopped at Whole Foods again for weekly groceries and I splurged on a couple of festive treats. Pumpkin Fig granola and Pumpkin Cranberry “chips”? Yes, please.

After lunch, we headed to Assembly Place to check out the new stores. Although it was beyond crowded (hello, rainy Saturday), we were able to shop around enough to get some great deals. I forgot to take pics of everything, but here’s a pic of one shirt I got, as well as the necklace RM gave me for our anniversary.

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He also got me a gorgeous handmade frame. These are really special things because they are handmade in India. I can’t wait to get a picture of us to put in the frame.

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Although it was really tempting to stay in on Saturday night because of the rain, we made our way to dinner at Grill 23, which is one of the nice steak houses in the city that I had not been to yet. Per usual, we scored seats at the bar and enjoyed drinks, oysters and a delicious meal.

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Not the best pic, but oh well! It was a great dinner and so fun to finally have a weekend date night!

We went for a nice walk on Sunday and then headed into the city for some more shopping. It was too nice to be stuck inside all day!

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Later that evening, we came back to my place so I could do my Sunday meal prep. I had a lot going on: stuffed peppers, meatballs, acorn squash, roasted veggies, sautéed veggies, quinoa and kale. #thankgoodnessforwine

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I also whipped up a batch of these beauties. Grain free pumpkin chocolate chip muffins? Ummm, yes. I added in walnuts, coconut flakes and did half almond meal, half coconut flour and they came out SO good. Such a healthy, tasty treat!

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And, there you have it. Another weekend roundup in the books. Although we were on the go a lot all weekend, we didn’t have a timeframe which was wonderful. We did what we wanted when we wanted- if only all weekends could be like that!

Your turn! What did you do over the weekend? Have you been to Grill 23? Do you go to a farmer’s market? Have you baked any festive treats yet?

Weekending: Moving, moving & more moving

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Yup. Moving was the jist of my weekend starting on Thursday night. I keep telling everyone that moving to a new floor in the same building is just as hard, if not harder, than moving to an entirely new building! Instead of packing things up and doing a few big trips, I ended up not packing and just making a million trips up and down the stairs every time I needed something. It was a bad way to go about the move, let me tell you that!

After a few hours of strenuous moving on Thursday night, I had a glass of wine then treated my helpers to pizza and wine from Santarpio’s.

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#prioritiespeople Clearly wine is the first thing that should be in a fridge. Booze helps moving suck less 😉

I hadn’t been to Santarpio’s since my birthday weekend, and boy was I craving it! Per usual, Santarpio’s did not disappoint. Look at these bad boys!

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My parents came down on Friday to help my sister with her stuff (she’s moving in with me for a few months), so I rushed home after work to join the party. I was pleasantly surprised when I walked in and saw this beautiful bouquet of flowers from RM. For those of you who don’t know, he’s actually my landlord and that’s how we met 🙂 Last year, when I was just his tenant, he knew I was nervous about moving and surprised me with a bottle of wine and little note in my fridge. This year, as my boyfriend, he left flowers… I’m a lucky girl!

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I took a quick break for dinner (we ordered from Jeveli’s) and continued working until 8:30.. yuck! It was fun having my parents around, though. Dad broke in my new deck, I toasted to the new apartment and we all indulged on delicious food!

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I didn’t sleep a wink on Friday night, so I was up and making trips up and down the stairs at 7am on Saturday. This wasn’t a good idea before teaching cardio kickboxing! I was such a space cadet in class 😦 and tired- physically really tired!

Once I got back, it was nice to do some more organizing and a few additional trips. My downstairs neighbor, Lauren, came up for wine and snacks later that evening- it was such a fun night! It felt weird to sleep at home by myself on a Saturday night, though… and even more weird to wake up on a Sunday and have a quiet place to myself… I took advantage of it and watched tv and blogged. I can’t tell you how long it’s been since I’ve done that! I was even able to eat lunch out on my deck- such a beautiful day.

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The rest of Sunday was spent moving the final pieces of stuff from my old place, cleaning it and doing the last bit of organizing in my new place. I went to Target and picked up some new curtains and a lamp- what do you think of the place so far?

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I finally decided it was time to put together some dinner. Salads have been making me gag lately, so I knew I needed to prep enough food to bring for lunch and eat throughout the week. Since my dad brought me all these veggies, I tried to put them to good use.

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I made a big ol’ batch of roasted veggies, including carrots, parsnips and onions from my dads garden and sweet potato and butternut squash (side note: I originally typed SQUAT instead of squash… i have issues) from the store. I just put coconut oil, salt, pepper and garlic salt on them and roasted them at 400* for about an hour.

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On the side, I made some stuffed peppers with the peppers that my dad gave me. I put onions, summer squash, zucchini, broccoli, black beans and ground chicken in them. SO good!

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I made some ground chicken burgers with the leftover ground chicken. Thank goodness I had wine to keep me going through all that food prep!

So, there’s my weekend. I have to say- it was really nice being around on Sunday without a million plans. My sister was gone all day, so even though I got lonely by 7ish, it was a super relaxing day where I was able to do what I wanted when I wanted. I need more days like that 🙂

Questions for you: What was the best part of your weekend? Did you make any good meals? Do you food prep for the week? What’s a way to spice up a salad?

Weekending: Dining, drinking & celebrating mom

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Weekends are usually pretty great, but this past weekend was especially great and I think the combination of being surrounded by lots of family and the weather was the reason behind it. I’ve been trying to cut back on weekend recaps because I’m not sure how much you enjoy hearing about my play-by-play weekend adventures, but this one was filled with trying out new restaurants and celebrating someone very special so I figured it was worth sharing 😉

Friday night, I met the boy in Central Square and he brought me to a little hidden gem: Green Street Grill. This little restaurant/bar was tucked away on a street parallel to Mass. Ave right in the heart of Central Square. We were lucky enough to snag 2 seats right at the bar (our favorite) and enjoyed some vino and delicious (gluten free) dishes. I had had a very stressful (but good stress) day and it was so nice to be able to relax, have a few wines and not think about anything for a while.

Saturday morning, my sister and I went to a class at Flywheel and, just as I expected, Ann taught a phenomenal class. I’d love to say that I had a great ride, but for some reason, my legs felt like lead and I just didn’t have it in me to push myself and pedal faster. I wanted to- so badly- but my body had another thing planned. Oh well. It was still fun riding next to my sister and we left there hot yoga sweaty!

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After class, we shopped around a bit (I got a new dress for Miami!) and then had lunch at Sonsie. The weather had cleared and we got seats right near the open windows- felt so nice to have warm weather!

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I can’t say any of what I ate/drank was healthy, but life is all about balance, right?

Saturday night was date-night. We went to his brother and sister-in-law’s condo in the South End for roof deck cocktails and baby snuggles before having dinner at Stella, which is also in the South End. My friend Jess recommended it and it turns out it’s one of his favorite restaurants, so it was a no brainer to try it out! Even better? They have a whole gluten free menu. We had a drink while waiting for spots at the bar to open up (the Bruins were on. I couldn’t care less, but I wasn’t going to take him away from watching). For dinner, we shared the sausage and broccoli rabe, the arugula salad and the braised short ribs. They split that for us, which was so nice! They also served it atop gluten free penne instead of GF mashed potatoes which was totally fine.

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Yum. I can’t wait to go back- I dream of that dish. Okay, not really, but it was SO good.

Sunday was a fun day filled with pampering mom! We were lucky enough to have them agree to come down for the day instead of us going up there since we’ve been a few times in the past month or so. Danielle and I made a pretty delicious brunch, if I do say so. We had an egg casserole (egg, milk, chicken sausage, sautéed peppers and onions, spinach and cheese- so easy, so tasty), warm kale salad (with EVOO and lemon juice as the dressing, craisins, goat cheese, grilled pear and candied pecans), fruit salad and Stonewall Kitchen blueberry muffins.

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One of the best parts of the day was the fact we got to spend time on my back patio, soaking up some serious sun!

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(terrible picture, but it was all I had!)

My mini patio set is, well, mini, but we squished to make it work.

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Yummm. I love brunch food! We had such a nice afternoon drinking wine (mom loves excuses to day drink!) and catching up. My dad is coming down next weekend to help get my garden started and I can’t wait! It will be so nice to have fresh veggies all summer- I’m lucky that he has volunteered to help!

And that about sums it up. Although it was a rather indulgent weekend, there’s nothing better than spending time with the people you love and food/drink indulgences are totally worth it during those times!

Questions for you: Did you get outside to enjoy the weather? What was the best part of your weekend? What did you do to celebrate Mother’s Day? What’s your favorite “hidden gem” restaurant? Do you ever have workouts where your mind wants it but your body doesn’t?

Weekending: Babysitting, Spartan Training, Lunching, Lounging

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Happy Birthday Month to all my April birthday buddies! I can’t believe I am going to be 29 in just 2 weeks. Holy crap. Where the heck does time go?!

I had a relatively quiet weekend last weekend, which was a welcomed change! It was nice to not be under stress to get from one thing to the next, and to have time to relax and get stuff done around my apartment.

Friday night I got to babysit my 2 favorite kiddos. They love making pizza with me, so their mom whipped up some homemade dough and we made the most delicious pizza. It ended up working out well since I can’t eat meat on Fridays anyway!

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Saturday started off the best way: with a workout! As I’ve mentioned, I went to a Spartan training workout with a group of gym friends. I’d love to say that I LOVED the workout, but I didn’t. I thought it was really good and left me physically beat, it was too long. I was ready to be done about an hour into it, which I think was because it was fairly repetitive. Read: we did A LOT of burpees, squats, lunges, jumping jacks, running in place and push ups. Like, a lot (I think we did at least 200 burpees- no joke). While those are great exercises, I would’ve liked to have seen a better variety to keep us engaged for the whole time. We did run outside for a bit, which was greatly welcomed since the BC High School gymnasium was SO HOT. Overall, it was a good workout, but I don’t think I’d do one again. It was definitely fun to work out WITH my gym friends, rather than just teaching them 😉

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I definitely earned my lunch and bubbly at Lincoln Tavern with my sister! As I mentioned on Instagram, Lincoln has a “Bucket of Bubbly” deal where you get a bottle of Prosecco and 3 mixers (OJ, grapefruit juice and peach puree) for.. wait for it… $24! Even if you don’t finish the bottle (I’m embarrassed to admit we didn’t finish it…), it’s still a better deal than ordering glasses separately. I also enjoyed an asparagus, caramelized onions and cheese omelet.

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After lunch, I headed to my date’s apartment (I’m going to call him that rather than “the guy I am dating”… much easier 😉 ) to hang out. We had a nice, quiet night in which included drinking really great wine, cooking/making dinner and watching a movie.

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Have you seen the Dallas Buyers Club? We both really enjoyed it. While it was a bit more serious and intense than I usually watch, it was a very interesting story with great acting!

I wanted to share the recipe that we used for our appetizer. My date is gluten and dairy free right now, so he got this really great Paleo recipe book and we made the Tahini sauce.

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(he set this up for me to take a photo to put on here- super cute!)

It was a fun treat! He had made homemade sausages a few weeks ago, so we also had some of those with peppers, onions and a side of kale. Delish!

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Sunday started out with a workout and then grocery shopping, meal prep, laundry, cleaning and blogging. The gross, rainy weather was perfect for all of these activities! I made a crock pot soup, which was just a bunch of veggies, sweet potatoes and broth/Stubbs’ marinade. I added chicken at the end. Perfect meal for a rainy Sunday!

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I also made these amazing bars that Athena posted a while ago. I added in unsweetened coconut flakes and used gluten/dairy free chocolate chips. These things continue to amaze me!

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And that’s about it! All around really great weekend.

Questions for you: Do you make your own pizza dough or buy it? Have you done a Spartan race? Have you seen Dallas Buyers Club? If so, what did you think?