Category: Scenes from the Day

Weekending: South End, Southie, Barry’s Bootcamp, Super Bowl

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Phew! This past weekend was super busy, but super fun! I know some of you may not like the play by play of the weekend, and sometimes I’m not even sure if I like it, but since I went to some good restaurants and tried a new workout, I figured it was worth sharing!

Friday

I helped my friend Jess with an event at Little Lovage Club, located under Coco Baby in the South End on Friday afternoon. She had a baby animal petting event and I jumped at the chance to help her! Look how stinkin cute these little babes are!

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After the event, we headed over to The Gallows for dinner, which was amazingggg. I love small plates and sharing, so this was a perfect place to go. We got the Braised Beef tacos, Brown Butter Cauliflower and a delicious butternut squash dish. So many interesting flavors that made for a happy little party in my mouth!

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Saturday

After kickboxing, I treated myself to a pedicure. I had no real reason to do this other than the fact I needed to do something for myself that would make me sit and relax… this was certainly something that forced me to do this!

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Side note: don’t wear skinny jeans when getting a pedicure… I never learn.

Saturday night, I headed to the city for dinner. I curled my hair with my straightener on my own for the very first time and I have to say, I was pretty impressed! It was almost faster than just straightening it, so I know once I get better at it, it will definitely be faster. What do you think??

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Apparently everyone else had the idea to go into the city on Saturday night… our night started a little rocky since we couldn’t get in anywhere!

-We tried to go to this new restaurant on Congress Street in the Seaport, but the wait was over 2 hours for a table!!! I was bummed since it looked like an amazing restaurant and I loved the décor, but hopefully we’ll make it back there.

-We then tried to go to Drink to have a drink while we figured out where to do dinner, but there was a line out the door there, too. Mind you, it was like, 7pm, so it wasn’t even late!

-Finally, we landed at Lucky’s, which was actually really fun! I bumped into my friend, Liz, so it was nice to chat with her.

-Dinner at Lucky’s wasn’t really what we were looking for, so after our drink at Lucky’s, we decided to head to Lincoln for dinner since there was an Open Table reservation available. I’ve wanted to go there for ages, so I was excited! We shared the Ahi Tuna tacos (I’m on a serious taco kick. Literally can’t get enough of them), a salad and a steak meal… random, but everything was delicious!

Sunday

I woke up on Sunday morning thankful that we opted out of having a drink after dinner. I had plans to take a class at Barry’s Bootcamp and really didn’t want to be hungover for it (when a class is $28/class, you want to be in tip top shape!). I was super nervous for the class as I’ve heard it’s insanely hard, but I am happy to say I survived and I loved it!!! I went with my friend Lindsay and some of her other friends from Recycle Studio and had a blast. Ok, maybe not a blast, because crazy hard workouts aren’t really THAT fun, but I did love it.

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We started with 12 minutes on the treadmill. You may be thinking “meh, not bad”, but try starting that out with a run at 15% incline… yeah, that hurt! Luckily, though, we started at the top of the hill and worked our way down, but as we decreased the incline, we upped the speed, so it never got any easier. My sprints were at 10mph which was crazy fast for me!

After the treadmill, we did some floor strength stuff: walking lunges, push-ups, bicep curls, deadlifts, core, and then we jumped BACK on the treadmills for 12 more minutes. It was at that time when I was like “oh hell no. this sucks,” but I pushed through it and ended strong… we ran backwards which scared the crap out of me, but I am happy to say I didn’t trip and/or fall off! #winning

We finished the class with 1 more floor set and by the end, I was beat, in the best way. I really loved how Emily pushed us to run fast and up the incline because I certainly wouldn’t do that on my own. The strength sets weren’t anything crazy hard or fancy, but I did learn some new moves that I am going to copy and new formatting, so I’m happy about that.

I can’t wait for the next time because I know I can push myself harder!

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I went to my friend Jessi’s boyfriends house for the Super Bowl on Sunday night. He had a little get together with a LOT of food. I certainly did not follow all of my tips, but I did drink water between beers, kept it to 2 beers and had it easy since the food was kept in the kitchen rather than on the coffee table. That helped a lot!

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Ummm these are mini meatloafs- how freaking cute are they?! Jessi made these and I’m obsessed and can’t wait to make them myself!

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And! I won $20 (it was $10 to play), which was just icing on the cake. I left after the halftime show since I was exhausted, but I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed the halftime show. I could’ve done without the Red Hot Chili Pepper part because I thought that was a little weird, but I thought Bruno Mars absolutely killed it!! Anyone else?

Sorry about the super long weekend recap, but I really wanted to tell you about the restaurants I visited and about Barry’s Bootcamp, so if you made it here, thank you for sticking with me!

Questions for you: Have you eaten at any of the restaurants I went to over the weekend? When’s the last time you pampered yourself? Have you been to Barry’s Bootcamp?

Weekending: Margarita’s, Birthdays, Puttering…

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Last weekend was so much fun! It was a good mix of social events, fitness and relaxation. I was able to hang out with a number of different groups of people, which was a nice treat.

Friday

Friday night, I got together with some of my gym friends (Athena, Ashley, Jen and Stephanie) at The Painted Burro in Davis Square. I didn’t get a picture of us, but I got a picture of the food and margarita’s, which is just as good, right? 😉

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Have you been to the Painted Burro? Holy crap do they have amazing margaritas AND tacos. I got the zucchini one and the Mahi Mahi one.

Unfortunately, I ended up being double booked on Friday, so I had to leave the girls after dinner to make it into the city by 10 for my friend Keefe’s birthday at The Brahmin. I hadn’t been there since my birthday and was quickly reminded of how much I like it there! It was great to see so many friends from home and I’m happy to report that I only had 1 wine while I was there because I didn’t want to be hung over for kickboxing.

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Saturday

After a sweaty and packed kickboxing class (love having my A team in the front row 🙂 ), I treated myself to a Skinny Chai Tea Latte and shopped around Target, of course buying impulsive treats…

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Since I had absolutely NO food in my apartment and wasn’t about to go grocery shopping on an empty stomach (worst idea ever), I swung by Panera Bread for some soup to warm me up!

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‘Twas a nice little Saturday afternoon 🙂

I was tempted to stay in on Saturday night, but my upstairs neighbor, Lisa, invited me to join her and some friends at the Back Bay Social Club and since I didn’t have any reason not to go (I’m trying to be better about going with the flow and being spontaneous), I took her up on her offer. I quickly made a pizza and got ready. I’ve been doing straight hair a lot lately, but since I didn’t have time, I opted for an up-do. With curly hair, I don’t even have to use a sock or bun maker to make a nice looking bun- I love it!

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Sunday

My first thoughts on Sunday morning: Holy hamstrings! I couldn’t believe how sore they were from kickboxing. Good thing yoga was on the agenda!

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I love Exhale spa SO MUCH. Seriously. The locker room alone is worth the cost of the classes- gorgeous showers, sandals, robes, razors, combs, lotion/gel/hair spray, etc. It’s such a nice treat since I’m so used to crappy gym locker rooms at the Y and the BSC.

The rest of my Sunday flew by, which is always a little disappointing. I changed the sheets on my bed, cleaned, prepped my lunches/salads/snacks for the week, blogged… and next thing I knew it was time to start cooking!

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Yes, that’s the most delicious lasagna- I’ve got to share the recipe with you!

And that’s about it. I finally got to get caught up with writing a bunch of posts that I’ve had drafted for a while, so be on the lookout for some good recipes, workouts and a few other things this week!

Questions for you: Where is your favorite place to do yoga? Where is the best margarita in Boston? Where is your favorite place to go out in Boston?

Weekending: Pure Barre, Crock Pot Meal, Boston Visiters

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This past weekend was relatively quiet, which was good since I was still feeling pretty crappy unless I was drugged up on Sudafed. By Friday afternoon, though, I was itching to get out of my apartment (2 days in a row of working from home will do that to you!), so I decided to get my grocery shopping done. Woohoo, wild and crazy Friday night, huh? To spice things up, I stopped in at TJ Maxx first and scored this awesome Essie nail polish. Did you guys know they sell it there for $4.99?? I’ve been really into paining my nails recently, so I was stoked!

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My Friday night wasn’t entirely boring, though, as I did get together with someone for a class of wine, which ended up making me so stuffy I had to stop after one. The horrors!

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That was a bottle included in an awesome “box” of wine that I got as a Christmas present. I’m going to do a whole recap on that in another post because good wine deserves its own post, right?!

I had been looking forward to Saturday all week because I was finally cashing in my Christmas present from my sister, which was a class at Pure Barre on Newbury Street. I’ve been to a few barre classes, but I still went in without knowing what to expect. Well, 5 minutes in when I was dripping sweat holding all sorts of leg lifts and inner thigh squeezes and 90 second planks, I realized I was in for a real treat!

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I loved the class and could see myself going more often if it wasn’t so expensive, but I have to say that my first reaction of my first class wasn’t what I expected it to be. I think the reason I felt this way was only because the class moved SO fast and I had no idea what I was doing, which left me a little frustrated (it’s the Type A “I want to know exactly what to do, how to do it, what it should look like and how long we’ll be doing it for” in me.). I kept trying to look around for someone who looked like they knew what they were doing, but it was a class primarily full of “newbies” like Danielle and me, so I was out of luck. Even though I spent a lot of time fumbling around trying to figure out what to squeeze and tuck, I was able to “get” the move before it was time to move on, which was good. The instructor was also really attentive and walked around and corrected form (I kind of wanted her to just stand by me and fix me the whole class…) which was great.

I talked to the instructor after class to thank her for a great workout and to ask if it’s normal to be confused with the moves/terminology and she said that everyone feels that way after their first class and that after a few classes you learn the lingo and the moves and it becomes easier in that respect (not in terms of the workout). This made me feel better! And just because I was frustrated didn’t mean I didn’t like it, because I loved it. We worked muscles I didn’t know I had and when I woke up on Sunday morning, I could feel EVERYTHING. Holy moly. My hamstrings, abductors, triceps (I didn’t even think we did anything to work our triceps) and back were screaming as soon as I woke up. It was great. Thanks for a great Christmas present, Danielle! It was so fun trying something totally new and having it literally kick my butt. I want to go back!

After class, we headed to Douzo Sushi for a healthy and light lunch. We shared a Bento Box, Tempura Broccoli and Edamame. We didn’t share our wine, though 😉

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I love going out to lunch and having wine SO much. It’s probably one of my favorite things to do on a Saturday! I had to babysit on Saturday night, so I had to stop after 1 glass. Womp, womp.

Sunday morning I got up, did laundry, made granola (I’ll post it soon- SO good), went for a run and then got my crock pot meal ready since Danielle and I were getting drinks with our cousin on Sunday evening. I got the crock pot recipe from Eat, Live, Run and was happy with how easy it was to prepare. Are all crock pot meals as easy as cutting things up and putting them in the crock pot? I should do more of these…

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I followed Jenna’s recipe exactly except I used sweet potatoes instead of white potatoes. I tried to halve the recipe, but I ended up doing probably 3/4 of the recipe. Soup freezes well, so I’m sure I’ll be doing that!

On Sunday evening, my sister and I met up with our cousin who was in town for various camp fairs (He’s the director at Hosmer Point in Craftsbury Commons, VT.) at Otto Pizza in Coolidge Corner. We got to meet some of his former campers/counselors which was really fun. We talked about Burpees to Bubbly (Hi everyone if you’ve ventured over here!) and I loved it 🙂

And that about sums it up! All in all, it was a good weekend… a little quiet/laid back, but with this stupid cold thing that’s probably just what I needed.

Questions for you: What was the best part of your weekend? Have you been to Pure Barre or another Barre studio in Boston? Do you have tips for a newbie?? What’s your favorite crock pot recipe?

Being snowed in, afternoon cocktails and Cards Against Humanity (aka, best game ever)

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Did the cold weather and snow ruin anyone’s plans on Friday night? I kind of liked being snowed in and was fully prepared to drink wine by myself until my upstairs neighbor ended up being around and joining me. I have no problem drinking some wine by myself, but it’s always nice to have someone to drink it with, too 😉

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Especially when she comes with cookies in hand 🙂

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Don’t worry, before I enjoyed one of them I had some homemade pizza. I used whole wheat dough, which I don’t always do, and it wasn’t bad!

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Saturday started off with a super sweaty kickboxing class and then I met up with a friend for afternoon cocktails at The Kinsale in Boston. I had never been there before, but I’ve been to the Asgard, which is their sister restaurant. It was a nice way to spend a cold Saturday afternoon!

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I went over to my sister and Amy’s apartment after and got to snuggle my little Zeke, who is not so little anymore. I can’t get enough of his cuteness!

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Cards Against Humanity

Ok, so have any of you played this game? I first heard of it when I went to Chicago and JP had us play, but now it seems as though everyone is equally as obsessed with it. If you’ve played, then you know why. It’s very similar to Apples to Apples, but I like it better because it’s a little edgier and just has funnier cards. I’m not a very funny person, but somehow I came in second place- a total shocker!

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I want to buy this game because it’s literally the best game to play with a crowd of people. You get to know everyone pretty well after a few rounds 😉

After a number of rounds of CAH, I went to The Playwrite Bar in Southie with my sister and some of her St. Michael’s friends. I stayed for a few drinks and called it a night before I got to the point where I’d have a hangover on Sunday 😉

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On Sunday, I started out my day with some serious puttering. I cleaned, did laundry, changed my sheets and took down all my Christmas decorations- womp, womp 😦 Does anyone else ever feel a little sad/depressed when it’s time to take down Christmas decorations? I wasn’t ready to do it, but as it was already January 5th, it was time.

I also went grocery shopping (drove to Market Basket and immediately turned around and left. It wasn’t worth facing the masses of people to save a few bucks.), worked out and made a delicious dinner! Remember that Spaghetti Squash Casserole I made a while back? I made another one, but this time with different (colorful!) veggies and chicken sausage. The verdict? Amazing. I love eating a super healthy meal on Sunday nights because it sets me on the right path for the rest of the week. My goal is to also cut back on week night drinking again. It seems I’ve had at least a glass of wine probably 5 out of the 7 days in a week lately, which is fine, but I’m ready to cut back!

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I hope you all had a great weekend, too! Here’s to a new week- what are you doing to make it great? Have you ever played Cards Against Humanity? When do you take down your Christmas decorations?

P.S.- Get excited- I’ve got a new, little January fitness challenge going up on the blog tomorrow!! Hint: it involves burpees 😉

P.P.S.- Do you Uber? If not, it’s the best way to get around the city. They’re running a promotion right now, and if you use this code as a first time user, you’ll get a $20 credit after your first ride. That’s a great deal!! Code: zjbnz

Ringing in the New Year (by pictures)

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Remember how I said I was feeling really blah about NYE this year?  I think part of the reason I wasn’t hyped up and excited about NYE this year was because my friends weren’t all doing something together. With that said, what I really wanted was to be dating someone and be able to just go somewhere fun for dinner and to ring in the New Year that way. Obviously that wasn’t the case for me (this year), but I am happy to say I pulled myself out of my little “womp, womp” mood and decided that I would go to my friends’ (Christy and Jamie) house party in Exeter, NH.

I wasn’t in the mood to drink (I had a glass of bubbly, though), but I still had a great time catching up with my friends that were there and getting to meet some new people, too. Waking up without a hangover and in my own apartment on New Years Day was ahhhhmazing! Here’s my recap by pictures- enjoy!

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Big thanks to Christy and Jamie for throwing a fantastic party!

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For the past handful of years, my sister and I (and whoever else is around) have had a tradition of going out to lunch on New Years Day. We’ve had our fair share of hangovers for these lunches, but this year we were both hangover free- yay! We decided to try someplace new and went to Stephi’s in Southie. We were both totally impressed with the restaurant! It had a great vibe, neat décor and a super tasty menu (and affordable wine and cute guys. True story.). We enjoyed white wine, the black forest ham and brie sandwich and the special of the day: open faced omelet with hollandaise sauce, mushrooms, tomatoes, cheese and asparagus. Yuuu-uuum. We foresee going back for a girls night dinner sometime in the near future!

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So, although I wasn’t super amped to go into the new year, I’m feeling really good about it now. In all honesty, your life is what you make of it, so I’m trying to go into this year with a positive outlook and make it a terrific year.

Questions for you: What did you do for NYE this year? How do you manage a hangover? Have you been to Stephi’s?