Five Thoughts Friday

Hello friends, happy Friday! Another week is in the books! Since it’s been a crazy busy week and I don’t have much to report on today, I wanted to leave you with five things that I’m thankful for today.

1. Thank you to the girl in the pink tank top running around the Reservoir yesterday after work. She passed me and my competitive nature kicked in. She acted as my rabbit for a good mile, pushing me to run harder. I eventually passed her which made me feel fast.
2. Remember my friend who was in the hospital for heart issues, he traveled down to Baltimore on Wednesday to meet with his surgeon and they ended up scheduling his open-heart surgery for next Tuesday. I’m thankful that everyone is feeling really positive, including his doctor who thinks that the chance for complications is really low. Keep him in your thoughts. He’s a fantastic person – I want the best for him.
3. I’m thankful that my racing schedule fell into perfect harmony. This weekend I’ll be running the Harpoon 5 Miler, which ends with a party at the Harpoon Brewery. What a coincidence – I am scheduled to run 5 miles this weekend anyway…and I love BEER!
4. I’m thankful that my employer takes part in summer Friday hours. Starting next week, we get let out at 2:00 every Friday until Labor Day weekend. My coworker Rebekah (also the writer of the most recent Travel Tuesday Takeover posts) and I used to spend our summer Fridays at the pool at her old apartment. Her most recent place also has a pool, so we will most definitely be taking advantage of that. Favorite. Thing. Ever.
5. I’m thankful that baking mistakes sometimes turn out okay. Last week I found a recipe for banana protein muffins on Dashing Dish. I had all the ingredients, and I’ve been curious about cooking with protein powder, so I tried it out. It seemed so easy – no need for mixing – just throw all the ingredients in a blender or food processor. They were supposed to look like this:

But they ended up looking like this:

They sunk! Oh well, they ended up tasting pretty good and have proved to be a great topper for overnight oats and a perfect protein-filled afternoon snack at work. Pretty? No. Delicious? Yes.

Readers: What are a few things you’re thankful for right now? Any fun plans for the weekend? Have you ever failed a recipe that you read on a blog?

Boston Ladies Who Blog

Last night I had the pleasure of going to my first blogger meet-up! I had seen on Lindsay’s blog that her and Tessa were planning on meeting up for ice cream in Davis Sq. this week and they welcomed any other bloggers in the area to join. Bloggers? Ice Cream? You had me at JP Licks!

Of course, in true Sarah fashion everything was going well until….I couldn’t find parking. Everyone had planned on meeting at 7:30 in Davis for some JP Licks ice cream. I arrived in Davis at 7:30 on the dot, and felt excited that I had somehow fit my workout/shower/dinner in before all this and still managed to arrive on time. Well…almost on time.

I literally drove around for 45 minutes looking for a parking spot. If anyone knows Boston, they know how tough it is to drive/park in the city. I was running late, and I knew the only way I could squeeze my run in after work and a shower was to drive from my house in Brighton to Somerville. After about 20 minutes of looking, I found what looked like a spot. There was a meter! I parked, got out of the car, put in two quarters and then heard, “Hey man. You can’t park there.”

Seriously…..

Apparently after 7pm it was restaurant parking only. Very convenient.

I drove around more and more. I think I went through the square about 8 times. Finally, I found a spot down the street in a 2-hour parking spot. Or at least what I thought and hoped was a 2-hour spot. Thankfully it was.

Finally I met up with the lovely ladies at JP Licks. Everyone had already finished their ice cream and I felt somewhat weird going in by myself to go get some and eat it in front of everyone, but Tessa went in with me so that she could get a pint to go (smart girl!). If you haven’t been to a JP Licks in Boston before, it’s an ice cream shop that makes their own ice cream, shakes, frozen yogurt, ice cream cakes – you name it! Delicious! I ended up deciding on the peanut butter chip yogurt. This yogurt was PHENOMENAL! It didn’t taste like frozen yogurt at all! A+

After sitting down, I got to know all the bloggers – Tracy, Lindsay, Tessa, Sara, and Amy. We chatted about what brought us all to Boston. I found out that Tracy and Sara live really close to me – very cool! It was really fun to get to meet up with all of them. I had read almost all of their blogs before, so I felt like I knew them without having met them. I definitely would love to do it again.

Tracy, Amy, Tessa, Me, Sara, and Lindsay -- thanks for the photo, Lindsay!

Readers: Have you ever attended a blogger meet-up? What was it like? What’s your favorite thing about the blogging community?

WIAW #8: Baked Ziti {What I Ate Wednesday}

Hello friends and happy Wednesday! Today is awesome for many reasons:

1. It’s hump day! Only two more days of work until this weekend.
2. Tonight I am meeting up with bloggers Lindsay and Tessa for some ice cream in David Square. Since I’ve only been blogging for about 6 months, I have yet to meet some fellow health bloggers in my area. I can’t wait to meet these lovely ladies and chat. I think there are a few others coming as well – the more the merrier! I’m always open to meeting others in the Boston area!
3. It’s WIAW!

Today’s eats are once again, yesterday’s eats. If you want to know more about What I Ate Wednesday or see posts from other bloggers, check out Jenn’s blog, Peas and Crayons.

Breakfast

Since Bernie and I were traveling so much this weekend and eating at random times, the usual Sunday dinner was scratched and rescheduled for the next week. We settled our rain-check for Tuesday night. Since I knew that prepping and cooking it would take longer than our normal week-day meals, I decided to get my workout in first thing in the morning, instead of after work. I’m not a morning exerciser, but I’ve thought more and more about switching it up a few days a week. There’s really nothing better than a morning run on the weekends, but these runs usually happen between 8-9 am, not 6 am like they would have to during the week. Either way, I knew I had to run 3.5 miles per my 10k training, so I got up, forced myself out of bed and out the door by 6:30. I brought some water on the run with me and had a nice, relaxing run. It actually woke me up! After stretching and showering, I was starving! Breakfast included two Van’s whole wheat waffles (new brand to me), one topped with Teddie pb and the other topped with WF crunchy almond butter. A few big strawberries finished the waffles off. Delicious!

Lunch

On Sunday morning I popped two big chicken breasts in the crock pot with some chicken broth and let them cook on low all day. I like doing this because then I have left over chicken for versatile, easy dinners and lunches for the week. Today I made a chicken salad with the shredded chicken mixed with a healthy tablespoon of white bean hummus, dejon mustard, salt, and pepper. I used some cucumber slices and a serving of Kashi crackers for dipping. On the side were some leftover steamed brussels sprouts and roasted sweet potato from dinner last night.

Snack

Strawberry and blackberry fruit salad while reading the latest issue of Real Simple. Clearly I’m in love with strawberries lately since they were in two meals today. I’m also in love with this magazine – anyone wanna buy me a subscription .

Dinner

My favorite types of recipes are ones that you prepare, place in the oven set the timer, and let it do its thing. Baked Ziti is my go-to crowd-pleaser recipe. This is NOT a necessarily healthy recipe, but you could make it one by swapping out the sausage for ground turkey, the regular pasta for whole wheat (which I always do), the full fat mozzarella with lower fat, and reducing the amount of cheese.

First, gather your ingredients and start boiling salted water for the pasta. Once that’s reached a rolling boil, add in the pasta and let it cook until it’s JUST al dente. It’s going to continue cooking in the oven, so you don’t want it completely done. Meanwhile, heat your pan to medium and add about a tablespoon of olive oil to the pan. Remove the sausage from its casing using a knife or kitchen scissors. I didn’t use the whole pack of sausages, but this is just preference.

Crumble up the sausage in the pan and cook until it’s browned on the outside. You want it going from this:

to this:

Cheese time! Cut up the mozzarella into small squares and put to the side. Measure out your Parmesan and put to the side. Once the pasta is finished and the sausage is browned, you’re going to mix together the pasta, sausage, and sauce in a big bowl. Slowly add the parm cheese and mix. Pour the mix into a pre-greased pan. I then split this up into two, pouring the first half into the pan, topping it with some mozzarella cubes, pour the rest of it, then top that with cubes. It’s really totally up to you.

Put it in the oven at 375 degrees for about 30ish minutes. I finished our meal with some fresh bread, olive oil/balsamic to dip in, and some steamed broccoli. Yum!!!

Readers: What’s your favorite crowd-pleaser recipe? What eats have you been obsessed with lately?

Mother’s Day Weekend in Review

Hello friends! I hope you had a fabulous mother’s day! I spent the weekend split between traveling to CT for my baby cousin’s 2nd birthday party and traveling to the Boston suburbs for Mother’s Day at Bernie’s parents’ house. It was a busy weekend and I still feel like I’m recovering. Here are some photos from our fun-filled weekend!

The new bedroom set arrived!

The birthday girl!

1 year later, my diploma is finally framed!

And that was the weekend!

How was your weekend? How did you celebrate Mother’s Day? Any fun runs/workouts this weekend?