How Do You Unwind?

Monday’s are my formal appointment days at work — so they are normally pretty busy.  Today was SUPER busy, and I didn’t have a moments break between clients until after 3 PM.

The day was crazy — but a crazy day = a fast day, which is A-OK for this girl!

Zach had some errands he had to run today, including our favorite place in the world, the DMV — so I was a nice wife and let him have the car today.  That meant after my crazy day, I got to sit down on the West Line train, and zone out for 20 or 30 minutes for my ride home.

 

Let me tell ya — it may take a little while longer to get home by train, but it is so nice to be able to put my feet up, read and enjoy a snack.

Not to mention, the 15 minute walk home in the sunshine isn’t quite too shabby either.

 

I got home — made some more cookies. . .

 

recipe tomorrow afternoon

And sat down to relax with Zach and some Boardwalk Empire.

 

 

A healthy girls cocktail — sparkling water and kambucha.

 

Not too shabby.

And now — I’ve been told I’ve got some Sequence playing and sandwiches waiting for me .  I hope you all don’t mind if I save my recap for tomorrow :).  Seems like I’m all about unwinding this Monday night.

 

Have a great Monday night all!

Question of the Night:  What show are you guys in LOVE with right now?  

Boardwalk Empire is our current obsession — but I know there are lots of good ones right now!

Zach’s Dream Chocolate Chip Cookies

Do I have some goodies for you today!

Yesterday the baking bug finally hit again after 3 weeks of cake, and Cheryl’s brownies sent by my parents.

Zach and I were craving cookies, BUT — having huge batches of cookies around our house just leads to cookie OD — so I was on the lookout for inspiration for small batch cookies.

Since I was making small batches, I was also able to personalize them to what each of us were feeling.  For example, Zach requested:

• NO healthifying
• Use butter and real sugar
• Lots of chocolate

Where I was craving:

• Still reasonably healthy
• Peanut butter
• Chocolate

Well let me tell you, what I came up with was absolutely a success.  Let’s start with Zach’s cookies — because you always save the best for last, right? 😉

Zach’s Dream Chocolate Chip Cookies

Yields 9 good size cookies, or 12 smaller cookies

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup AP flour
• Pinch of baking powder
• Pinch of salt (I used Pink Himalayan Fresh Ground Salt)
• 1/4 cup of partially melted butter
• 1/2 cup of maple syrup
• 1 egg
• 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup of large chocolate chip cookies

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray/oil your baking sheet
• Mix the butter and maple syrup in a bowl WELL
• Add the egg and vanilla to the mixture and mix well
• Mix the dry ingredients together in a separate bowl
• Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients (flour, salt, baking powder)
• Add the chocolate chips
• Divide into 9-12  equal cookies
• Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes
• Let cool and Enjoy!

Happy Last Day of September

Happy Last Day of September 🙂

Denver was freezing this weekend, but is giving us a nice week to start off the new month — so even though it’s Monday morning, no complaints from this girl.

Thanks to my restful afternoon, I was VERY well rested and enjoyed a relaxing evening watching football and eating pizza and cookies 🙂

Not a bad night, right?  😉

I woke up this morning actually feeling good and didn’t have to work too hard at talking myself into a work out.

Workout of the Day: 10 miles stationary bike: 30 minutes strength

The strength portion of the work out was broken into 3 sets of 15, doing  2 different superset mini circuits.

• bicep curl (20 lbs)
• shoulder press (20 lbs)
• lateral raise (20 lbs)
• 60 second plank

The second mini circuit was

• incline sit ups
• bridges
• bicycle crunches
• leg lifts

By the time I finished each set — I was TOAST.  A good sign of a good workout.

I thought about my workout plan for the week while I was on the bike:

Workout Plan for the Week:

• Monday:  10 miles bike, 30 minutes strength
• Tuesday: 5 mile run
• Wednesday: STRENGTH / Yoga
• Thursday: 5 mile run
• Friday: REST
• Saturday: 13 mile run — EESH
• Sunday: Recovery run/bike

A few elements that MAY change this week:

• I am taking a blogging class tomorrow, so I may switch yoga to tomorrow and do back-to-back runs.
• We may hike this weekend, which would probably change Sunday’s plans.

Otherwise, I am hoping to stick as close to this as possible.  This is my last extended long run — after this week I am dropping mileage and beginning tapering — with a 10 and 9 mile long runs before the race.  AHHH it’s getting real! 🙂

And now — it’s time to hit the ground running at work.  Happy Monday, All! 🙂

Question of the Day:  Does it feel like Fall where your at? Are the leaves changing?

Unfortunately Colorado doesn’t really have much “color”  but we do know it’s Fall by the mountains starting to show snow tops!