Food

Easter was postponed

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We postponed our first Easter dinner as a married couple. With good reason.

During the weekends, The Guy likes to get a couple of long bike rides in. Last weekend he biked 30km up a mountain while I drove up it just 30 minutes quicker. That’s how fast he is. Mind you, I did only end up going no faster than 25km/hr due to the fear factor of me not wanting to drive straight off the cliff. I felt so stomach sick, I was that terrified. The switchbacks were frequent, the roads were narrow. It took ages to get to the top.

But this time he was invited to go on a huge bike ride with a friend and he took the opportunity to do so.  I told him to go on and not worry about dinner because he works such long hours, I find that he doesn’t have as much fun as he should. Plus, we could have it the next night.

They went for 5+ hours with a group of cyclists and did some major ride around the area. When he came back he jumped in the shower for a quick scrub, then I drove him to downtown San Jose for an NHL Sharks game! I’m personally not into watching hockey on TV but if I’m there in person, I find it way more interactive, and entertaining. Unfortunately his co-worker’s friend couldn’t make it to the game and only had 1 ticket to spare. He asked The Guy if he wanted it, thus the rush for me to drive him downtown in time to make it to the game.

Monday night I ended up making our Easter dinner. I believe this was the tastiest Easter dinner I’ve ever had the pleasure of diving into. Gotta say, I am a pretty good cook when I want to be! Hashtag brag. Probably all thanks to my meat thermometer I got for Christmas. I can now leave stuff alone instead of constantly cutting into the meat and having the juices evaporate out of it and potentially ruining it.

Mid-cooking selfie.

easter dinnerI served up our plates with tons of cooked vegetables and delicious ham. I made scalloped potatoes, tri colour carrots (from Trader Joe’s), cauliflower, and broccoli. On the side we had spinach salads where I dumped anything and everything from the kitchen sink into it. Bell peppers, tomatoes, pecans, cucumber, cheese… I don’t even know what else. For dessert, simply cut up fresh pineapple and strawberries.

Easter DinnerI scarfed it down in no time. As you would. I posted two pictures of the same meal, different angles. Am I a food blogger now? Just kidding :)

So there you have it, a little postponed, but still pretty special. We had leftovers for days. I hate leftovers.

Come back tomorrow and I’ll tell you how I did something completely out of my comfort zone the other day! No cheating, if you already know :)

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CrossFit, Daily, FitFluential, Food, Health, In the Kitchen, OOTD, Photos, Running

Wait. Where Am I? What city am I in?

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I’m not a good April Fools pranker, so there isn’t anything fun on the agenda to trick you here today. I woke up knowing what day it was, and I didn’t get fooled by any of the blogs unfortunately. I’m naive when it comes to that stuff and I think it’s fun when I get pranked when I read blogs, or websites playing tricks. I need to forget what day it falls on, haha!

We have to book our driving exam with the California DMV before 60 days is up, otherwise we’d have to do that written exam again. Thankfully, I called to book the appointment and we got one a week out. So let’s hope I can pass this one too. I need to remember the rules of the road! It’s obviously been years since I did a road test so a lot has changed. For instance your hands aren’t supposed to go at 10 & 2 anymore?! 

Trader Joes, California Trader Joes, We were fully out of groceries and I plugged into the GPS on my phone that I wanted to go to Trader Joe’s. I have no idea what city I ended up in, but I found one. I have to say, I commend Trader Joe’s on their customer service, the quality of their products, and the low competitive pricing.I’ve only been into two different Trader Joe’s on two occasions, and both times I was helped promptly and the staff were SO friendly, one guy even told me a story about Canada! Haha.

Trader JoesI bought all this stuff for $37 there, and some of it is organic, which I didn’t intend to buy!

Trader Joes shredded coconutLove their packaging, pulls me in. But I managed to refrain. I’m excited to make Trader Joe’s one of my go-to grocery stores. Along with Safeway, and Smart & Final, because they’re pretty decent too.

20-Min-arm-workoutMr. Spiffykerms and I usually head over to the gym a half hour before it closes, so I’ve gotten pretty good at making the most of my thirty minutes there. Last night I did a 20 minute arm workout, and followed up with a 1 mile run on the treadmill.

workout-selfieFor weights, I used 15lb dumbells in each hand. My arms were definitely burning by the end of it. As for the squats with the weights, I did it sort of like I would do at CrossFit. I rested the weights on my shoulders, with my elbows up in the air, and did front squats with them. I’ve been wearing my Mizuno Wave Riders, because they’re much more newer than my Nike Free’s and feel nicer when I’m running on the treadmill.

Now, off I go looking at my dream homes online. #WishfulThinking.

Have you ever been to Trader Joes?

What are some must-have’s on your weekly grocery list?

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Daily, Food, Health, Photos

Tea Sparrow

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Hope everyone had a nice weekend or what’s left of it!

So, Tea Sparrow must’ve read my mind (or twitter and instagram feed) on how much tea I’ve been ingesting and asked if I’d like to sample their march monthly tea box.

Four-Tea-Sparrow-teasEXCITED! Even my instagram friends were excited for me in that one pic. Ha!

My doorbell rang earlier in the morning and it was the town house staff mentioning some maintenance they were going to do on the homes next week. About 10 minutes later the doorbell rang again… making Alfie go on a rampage (he hates anything out of the ordinary and barks like wild). I ran downstairs but nobody was there. So it scared me. Lol. I looked out the peep-hole and no one was there.

Tea-Sparrow-shipping-boxThankfully, it wasn’t an intruder. The Tea Sparrow box was just dropped off at my doorstep. YAY!

4-teas-one-boxI’ve never heard of this company before, but they’re Canadian so I thought why the hey not. They’re based out of Vancouver B.C and is North America’s first monthly tea subscription box. It’ll cost you $20 a month and you’ll have 4 different varieties of herbal and caffeinated loose leaf tea that will total around 35 cups of tea. One thing I like about Tea Sparrow, is that they have free shipping for Canada and continental USA.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been drinking tea and never a pot of coffee. In fact I can count on one hand, how many times I’ve had hot coffee. I’m greatly affected when I drink it — which can be fun, but tastes gross unless it’s iced. Am I making any sense?

With my time of exploring the sights of California, I’ve been dying to get my hands on some orange pekoe tetley tea. I’ve found some Tetley, but not that flavour. Either way, I’ve been trying out different kinds from all sorts of stores I’ve dropped in on. Most are posted on my instagram feed.

White-Tea-ChampagneThis flavour of White Tea Champagne? Definitely the first one I dug into. It’s pretty much the bees knees. I’ll be drinking that one on the regular.

Loose-Leaf-Tea-from-Tea-SparrowI’ve never had loose leaf tea before, mainly because I haven’t bought a steeper. Seeing the loose “stuff” in it was kinda neat. No wonder it smelled so good. Tons going on in just a tablespoon.

White Tea Champagne is described as:
White tea with a fresh sparkling note of champagne and cassis.

Ingredients:
White tea, black and red currants, balm leaves,
lemon grass, cornflower and sunflower blossoms.

Steeped-TeaWhite Tea Champagne shown above. I’m not too complex of a tea person. I have my tea pot, and little sweetener jar to match but the way I go about it is definitely not fancy at all. I boil water in a cooking pot and then dump it into my tea pot. Or in this case, since Tea Sparrow tea’s are loose leaf — I borrowed my friend’s steeper thing and it worked perfectly fine.

Sipping-on-Hot-TeaI steeped the tea for a total of 5 minutes. I like strong tea. First sip with my St. John’s Newfoundland mug… represent!

LunchSet up for a nice healthy lunch. Leftover quesadillas? Best kind.

Tea-SparrowIs anyone interested in me reviewing the other 3 flavours? Each monthly Tea Sparrow box will be different but you can order them on the websites shown on the front of the tea packages.

Tea-shelfTea Sparrow bags just chillin out in the cupboard with all the other teas I’ve bought since moving here.

Best part — if you guys want to sign up you get 60% off your first Tea Sparrow box. The password is “teas”

If you like them, you can subscribe monthly. Here’s the run down:

  • A One Time Tea Box - one Tea Box, one time ($25)
  • 3 Month Prepaid Subscription - three tea boxes over three months ($66)
  • 6 Month Prepaid Subscription - six tea boxes over six months ($120)
  • Ongoing subscription - here you can subscribe for ongoing tea boxes at $20 per month.  You can start/ pause/ stop this subscription at any time.

Disclosure: Duh, of course I received the first monthly box to review for free. I had no idea who they were when they contacted me. Since I love tea, I obliged. Review is my own, as always friends! (Who’s isn’t?)

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