Category: Wine

Weekending: Party, Party, Party!

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Hi there! I know I say this often, but last weekend was SO MUCH FUN! Starting with a gym friends party on Friday night, continuing on to my party and then a Sunday full of errands, laughs and “Sunday Dinner” with RM, it was pretty awesome.

I’ve mentioned before how much I enjoy our “gym friend” get togethers. I’ve got a lot of friends from various groups, but my gym friends are a group of girls that get my intense workout mindset, love of trying out new classes, and can relate to my crazy schedule. After the week I had last week, the combination of those things, as well as some amazinggggg (healthy!) food and drinks helped relax me from the week and get me excited for the weekend. The cause for this gym friends party was to celebrate Jen’s birthday. Jen is a huge inspiration for working out and eating healthy- she has lost so much weight over the past couple of months and looks truly fantastic. She has been doing two-a-days and eating healthy and you know what? It’s paid off BIG TIME. I’m so proud of her!

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I made these and they were a big hit!
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I finally slept well on Friday night- I can’t tell you how happy that made me! Kickboxing was a blast- the crowds are back and I loved that I will be there for the next 2 weekends. Burning 531 calories in under an hour is a great way to start the day 🙂

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After my class, I went home and got into full party prep mode. Thankfully my sister was around to help! I made a crockpot chili, we made Stromboli’s and buffalo chicken dip and we had a bunch of veggies, crackers, hummus and some cookies. Oh… and a lot of wine 😉 We were SO LUCKY that the weather was warm and sunny because there certainly wouldn’t have been enough room in my apartment if we were all stuck in there! I loved that it was kind of a random group of people who came… well, random in that there were friends from multiple different groups: gym, college, home, RM’s family… the best part was everyone was having a great time mingling with each other, which makes “hosting” easier 😉 Big thanks to everyone who came- and thanks for the wine, too!

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Sunday was a busy day for RM and me. We woke up and had some healthy pumpkin protein “pancakes” before hitting the road to check out a health food store in Quincy. Good Health was amazing! If you’re in the hunt for a fully stocked healthy food store, you should definitely head to Quincy- they had everything!

From there, we did food shopping at Whole Foods, car shopping and then had Sunday dinner at his brother and sister-in-law’s. It was fun re-hashing the party with them 🙂

I finally got home and sat down to relax around 7:30- and I was definitely in bed before 9 and I loved every minute of it!

Questions for you: What was the best part of your weekend? Did you get outside to enjoy the beautiful weather on Saturday? Do you like hosting parties?

Weekending: Shuck Yeahhh! {Wellfleet Oysterfest}

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Although this weekend started off terribly, things turned around much faster than I would have thought and the rest of the weekend was one of the better ones I’ve had in a long time. Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way, so we can focus on the good, right?!

RM and I had plans to go to the Wellfleet Oysterfest, but since RM was going down early on Friday to play golf, that meant I needed to head down on my own. Rather than putting miles on my car (I lease it), I asked if I could drive his since he was getting a ride with a friend. He parks at the Intercontinental, so on Friday evening, I trucked it into the city by T and got his car. Long story short, I ended up getting in an accident within 2 minutes of being out of the garage. Ugh. Both the other driver and I were fine, but I have NEVER felt worse in my ENTIRE life. The other guys car needed to be towed and RM’s had some pretty bad damage, too. Needless to say, I didn’t want to drive, in traffic, all the way to the cape and put on a good face in front of the others, but luckily it all worked out. RM was super understanding, everyone else was really supportive, and the wine was flowing…. all in all, a terrible start to the weekend, but after calls with the insurance companies yesterday, I THINK I will just have to pay the deductible. RM was already planning on trading in his Jeep, so this was just a nice push for him to do that.

….. and on to the better, happier parts of the weekend!

After some wine, RM’s cousin started cooking. He and his wife had made homemade gnocchi and tomato sauce and they also brought fresh swish chard and red peppers from their garden- talk about a delicious dinner! We also played Cards Against Humanity, which was the perfect way to end the night.

Saturday morning I woke up and as soon as I realized the car accident wasn’t a dream, I immediately started feeling really down. To help, I decided to go for a run. It was a speedy 3 mile run with some bootcamp stuff mixed in. The weather was absolutely gorgeous and my mood was totally changed around after!

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After breakfast, we all packed up and headed out… but first? #letmepackaroadie

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(mom, aren’t you proud? it wasn’t my idea, but I thought you’d love it- especially refilling the Copa bottles… he learned from the best!)

I had never been to the Wellfleet Oysterfest, but I can assure you it won’t be my last time attending! The whole thing was amazing- so much food, so many vendors, so many things to buy, an awesome band and a wine bar… hello, wonderful! We totally scored on weather, so that was just icing on the cake.

We stopped for our first round of oysters at the first vendor- they were awesome!

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From there, we wandered around, checking out the different food spots and vendors. Here’s a rundown of everything we ate: oysters, crab cake, ear of corn, fried clams, fried lobster tail, fish tacos, French fries and a cookie… and a glass of wine and beer to wash it all down 😉

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I think we got a little over zealous with the food, but it was all so good and there were so many options you’d only eat when at an event like this, so it was well worth it.

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The fest ended at 5 on Saturday so we headed back to the house RM’s friends were renting, which was walking distance from the fest. RM’s nephew wanted to hold my hand the whole way… my heart melted a little! Such a sweet boy.

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We had more wine and some snacks and played with the little ones (3 of them under a year and a half!) before hitting the road to go back to Cotuit. It was a relatively quiet night consisting of pizza (I know… just what we needed) and laughs and a decently early bedtime.

We hit the road early on Sunday and RM and I went to the Hingham Whole Foods to do our groceries for the week. It was such a nice store! I was able to do so much food prep when I got back: delicious chicken & veggie crock pot soup, paleo pumpkin banana bread, purple kale and a veggie, chicken and gluten free pasta bake… so good!

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So, even though the weekend had a rocky start, it ended on such a good note- I wasn’t ready for it to end, but luckily this weekend has a bunch of fun stuff lined up, too 🙂

Questions for you: How was your weekend? Have you ever been to the Wellfleet Oysterfest? When is a time you allow yourself to really indulge on foods you normally don’t eat?

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?

#BosFIT Review/Recap & Other Weekending Things

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As I mentioned yesterday, the #BosFIT event I attended over the weekend was amazing!!! I kind of knew it would be, because anytime you combine fitness, friends and free stuff, I’m a pretty happy girl, but I have to say that it exceeded my expectations.

Since I knew I had to be up and out relatively early for a Saturday, my Friday night was spent much like this:

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Saturday morning, my sister and I headed to The Club by George Foreman III for the #BosFIT event.

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My gym friend (and most loyal class-goer everrr) Dana won my tickets since Julie ended up buying her own. Another BSC member, Caroline, also bought tickets, so it was fun to workout WITH some members rather than teaching them. My YMCA gym-friend, Steph, was also at the event, so it was a blast!

The event offered 4 classes to everyone and you could pick from Bags and Beats, Boxing Bootcamp, BollyX, Suspension Training, Core Fusion Barre, Barry’s Bootcamp, and Turnstyle Cycle. I think the hardest part of the day was deciding what class to take at what point in the day… ok, that’s a lie. Barry’s for the last session was the hardest part of my day!

My first class was Bags and Beats. George introduced himself and gave us a high level overview of the punches. What I liked about this class was that you were punching to the beat of the music, very similar to how I teach, except it wasn’t cardio like I do. Anyway- we had our hands wrapped and wore boxing gloves and got to it for a bunch of songs. The combos were easy to pick up and I liked that we altered our tempo and added in squats, lunges, push-ups and planks throughout.

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Steph and I tried to do Barry’s next, but it was already full. From there, we tried to do a suspension class, but that was also full (I think if they do it again they should have people sign up for classes before the event rather than on a “first come first serve” basis). We ended up taking a BollyX class, which is similar to Zumba in that it’s a dancing workout, but different in that you’re supposed to “strike a pose” at the end of each song. It was a little weird, but my heart rate was up the whole time and it was fun to dance.

There was a break after this where you could “ask the experts” questions on nutrition and training and things like that. Caroline did a fantastic job moderating the panel- proud of you, girl!

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My sister and I headed to a Turnstyle Cycle class after the speaking session and it.was.awesome!! We were both drenched by the time we left. I really need to get there for a class.

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Steph signed us up for Barry’s as our last workout of the day. Holy moly. I don’t know how I survived! Running at a 12% incline and running backwards and sprinting after 3 other classes was rough, BUT we did it and felt amazing after!!

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Check out this calorie burn for the day- solid start to my Saturday 😉

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All in all, it was such a fantastic event! I loved working out with so many friends and getting to see Caroline in her element.

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Thanks to some pretty sweet swag bags, I get to go BACK to many of the studios who participated in the event.

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Post #BosFIT, I headed to Charlestown to have a late lunch and drinks with Jessi and Amy at Pier 6. Man, it was HOT, but the view was worth it!

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Jessi and I continued to drink throughout the afternoon and evening (her place, Tia’s and then dinner and a glass of wine at Sterling’s) and between that, the sun and being dehydrated from the morning’s workout, I woke up with a wee bit of a headache on Sunday. Whoops! Such a fun night, though.

Sunday was spent cleaning, running errands, grabbing a quick lunch with my sister and then heading to Jessi’s for our first book club meeting.

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Check out that spread! I made 2 Stromboli’s and they came out SO GOOD! Seriously, look at these beauties:

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Anything with ooey, gooey, cheesy goodness cannot be bad in my book! The next book we are reading is Sharp Objects, by Gillian Flynn- anyone want to participate? If you do, leave a note in the comments. We are meeting on November 2nd and after that date I can put together the questions and discussion topics we went over if you’re interested? Let me know 🙂

I hope you all had a great weekend, too! I hope this one goes by slower than last weekend- I feel like I blinked and it was over.

Questions for you: For those of you who went to #BosFIT, what did you think?? What was your favorite part? Has anyone else been to The Club for a boxing class? What was the best part of your weekend? Did you do fall or summer things? Have you been in a book club before?

 

 

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?