How true! I woke up this morning, poured myself some coffee, and curled up on the comfy chair in the bay window to read for a while. I even opened the window to hear the sounds of spring, so it was pretty darn picture-perfect …that is, until Eleanor decided to try to wedge herself between the screen and the window and scale the screen. Sigh.

So today is unequivocally “rest day.” Not in like the religious-y sense of the word, but because I deemed it so in my new workout plan. Since spring has finally sprung, it was time that my workouts got a little facelift.

Monday = legs and shoulders

Tuesday = run 3 mi

Wednesday = chest and triceps

Thursday = run 3 mi

Friday = back and biceps

Saturday = spinning class or a longer run outside

Sunday = rest

It’s also getting to be that time to break out the bike for riding to work again! Oh, and my office soccer league is starting up soon. There’s totally something to be said for the whole Seasonal Affective Disorder thing. Unclear as to whether I have it or not, but I wouldn’t rule it out.

Aside from workouts, last week also happened to be chock full of incredible deliveries in the mail. My dad shipped my parents’ old school Cuisinart food processor, which happened to coincide with the delivery of the Excalibur 9-tray Dehydrator that I ordered last weekend. Usually, some of my purchases are spur of the moment…but I’d been eying an Excalibur since around 2009. A sale on Amazon coupled with a nice gift card from my dad for Christmas, and voila!

 When I opened it, I had a minor freak-out that it was too big and wouldn’t fit anywhere, but after a smidgen of creative rearranging, everything turned out A-OK. The food processor is actually now in between the mixer and the dehydrator:

See? Old school. Like, 1978 I think. But it works like a charm and was $free.99, so I’m a happy camper! I tested it out by whipping up a quick batch of hummus which Kristian promptly devoured as soon as he got home. Then, it was on to my big project: flax crackers.

Sweet sassy molassy, these crackers are outta this world delicious! They’re great crumbled over a salad, with some sliced avocado, topped with cheese, etc. If I see you in real life, remind me to let you try some!

I had a little moment where I worried that my love of appliances (Vitamix, juicer, mixer, food processor) might be getting a tad out of hand, but Kristian and I both agreed that since he benefits from me using them, it’s better than a shoe addiction! Also, those are great, versatile items…not any unnecessary kitchen gadgets like an ice cream maker, toaster oven, bread machine, or rice cooker.

Yesterday, after my 9AM spin class, we met up with Ashley and Kenny to investigate Terrace Bagels, a place deemed by the New York Times restaurant critic to have some of the best bagels in the city. The verdict? Pretty good all around, but a pretty lame excuse for a whole wheat everything bagel. There were hardly any toppings on it, which was a bit of a bummer…and there’s nothing worse than a disappointing bagel AMIRIGHT? I then proceeded to watch an ungodly amount of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills while Kristian programmed and watched March Madness to his heart’s content. We broke up the total veg-fest with a brisk bike ride around Prospect Park that culminated in a trip to Yogurtland for froyo.

Now I’m off to get some work done, wake up sleeping beauty, and make some breakfast. Have a nice, relaxing Sunday, friends! 

If you dig this, you might also enjoy:

I finally gave my recipe page a facelift and so all of the links to recipes are up to date, sorted by mealtimes. I’ve also got a bit of a laundry list for my web designer (read: Kristian) to spruce this ol’ thing up a little bit. The extent of my web design ability is tinkering with widgets and copy + pasting current HTML and just replacing images. Better than nothing, but it certainly leaves a lot to be desired.

While pouring through old posts, I stumbled across a recipe that got rave reviews from Kristian, but it hasn’t made a repeat appearance on the dinner table. And because it’s near impossible for me to follow a recipe exactly (even one of my own), I tweaked the old ingredients for Creamy Almond Butter & Sweet Potato Pasta. Honestly, don’t even bother clicking over to the old post unless you want to see that I happen to be wearing the same exact nail polish color today as I was when I made this last year. Sorta freaky.

Get as fancy as you want with this dish! Broccoli, scallions, bell peppers, you name it and you can probably add it. I used shirataki noodles for my dish tonight. If you’ve never tried them, give ‘em a shot! They’re a bit of an acquired taste, but if you’re in a pasta mood and don’t want to slip into a food coma afterwards, I highly recommend them.

If you dig this, you might also enjoy:

Anyways, I’ve since come to the realization that as long as white flour and white sugar aren’t consumed to the excess that they currently are in our society, you’ll be fine. Everybody (and every body) is different, so what works for one person won’t work for another. I wish I could eat bagels and cream cheese til’ the cows come home, but I know that I feel puffy, lethargic, and bloated when I do. So what’s a bagel-loving girl to do? Make these foods a super-every-so-often treat, and fill up on natural, good-for-you stuff the rest of the time.

Enter, a mid-week cookie craving. After I impulsively tossed out 1/2 of my baking cabinet, I was pleasantly surprised to come across Kelly’s recipe for Guilt-Free Oatmeal Raisin Cookies . Some tweaking was needed based on what I had on hand, and the result was nothing short of delicious! The fact that they’re gluten-free and contain no added sugars makes these perfectly acceptable to eat for breakfast, so yay for that.

So what’s the moral of the story here? Not entirely sure. Maybe something about controlling impulses or not being so easily-swayed and impressionable, but it’s gotten me this far in life so maybe I’m OK after all.

And now I’m off to brunch. Clearly I already had one of these cookies to pre-game. What? I was hungry when I got back from the gym this morning!

*Great, informative documentary available on Netflix. Pairs nicely with the article “The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food“, an excerpt from the book I’m currently reading, “Salt Sugar Fat” by Michael Moss.

If you dig this, you might also enjoy:

It’s especially painful if it happens to coincide with a flight from the west coast after a whirlwind trip. I headed out to LA last Wednesday for work, and it happened to work out perfectly that Kristian was able to come with me!

One of his best buds, Gomez, lives out in LA, so when I left for Anaheim on Thursday, Kristian got to spend the next few days hanging out in LA with him.

While in LA, I hosted a little dinner get-together at Hatfield’s for some blogger friends in the city, complete with Chobani-inspired dishes. It was such a treat to get to spend some quality time with folks that I chat with day in and day out online. Since I’ve started working in social media, I’ve developed a much deeper appreciation for face-to-face interactions, and truly love hosting these types of events.

Thursday, after Kristian and I parted ways, I scooped up one of my brand new co-workers from LAX and we headed down to the Costa Mesa studio of the inimitable White on Rice Couple for a visit. You couldn’t possibly want to meet two nicer, more genuine people than Diane and Todd. They welcomed us with open arms and a kitchen full of decadent treats, like this Chocolate Magic Custard Cake:

Then, it was onwards to Anaheim to help rep CHO at the Natural Products Expo West with 60 colleagues. I’m still recovering from two full days of handing out yogurt, chatting with hundreds of people, and being on my feet for 12+ hours both days. Oh, and a Saturday 8AM bootcamp with everyone from the company! Yup, I’m still feeling it two days later. Nothing a little shake-out run tomorrow morning can’t fix, hopefully.

I got home around midnight last night and wound up working from home today because I was beyond exhausted from the trip. I also managed to be incredibly productive today and finally feel like I’m back in the swing of things.

-huge grocery shopping trip

-juicing/smoothie supplies

-vacuumed apartment

-cleaned closets

-did dishes

-organized fridge

-cleaned litter box

-trash/recycling out

-culled my ever-growing stack of magazines

-cooked dinner/leftovers for lunches

This is a pretty drastic improvement from last night, when I ate string cheese, peanut butter, and a Fiber One bar for dinner because the fridge was so barren.

A little light spring cleaning, I guess! Also on the agenda tonight: putting up some curtains in the bedroom. Yes, I’m well aware that we’ve been here for 10 months and are just now getting around to it.

PHEW! Since I almost feel like a semi-functioning member of society again, I’m ready for a full week of work and workouts. That is, after I plop my behind down on the couch tonight for The Bachelor season finale.

If you dig this, you might also enjoy:

Before we kick things off, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the wonderful Thanksgiving I had this year. Kman and I went up to his parents’ house in Westchester and spent the day with them, his adorable grandmother, Momma, and more food than we knew what to do with. Oh, and the apple pie that I baked that made me hate life for about 2 hours. It ended up tasting delicious, but I had some serious kitchen issues while making it.

After we got back to Brooklyn, I did what anybody does the day after Thanksgiving: set out on a mission to feng shui our apartment. Ew, did you think I was going to say Black Friday shopping? Over my dead body. Instead, I enlisted the help of Katy asking her where certain things could go, if floor lamps were ok, and lamenting how I didn’t know what to do with our Health Section. Being the amazing person that she is, she sketched out our apartment and split it up into the proper sections! Phew.

After some clutter-clearing and rearranging, we decided to make an IKEA trip last Saturday. 5 hours later, we emerged with an assortment of lamps, a new coffee table, a little extendable dining table, shelves, and a rug. Oh, and Swedish meatballs and chocolate of course.

The apartment finally feels like it’s come together! And since we managed to free up some space near the bay window…we realized we had lots of room for a Christmas tree. So naturally, we picked up a 7-8 footer today. Nice job carrying it, Kman! I helped a bit but I was carrying it like a sissy since I didn’t want to get my lululemon pants sappy. Yes, I have my priorities straight.

Tah-dah! We still have to put some ornaments up, but as I love to say…Rome wasn’t built in a day.

And I channeled my inner Martha Stewart and made a little table centerpiece because why not?

Now that the apartment is thoroughly decked for the holidays, I’m bursting at the seams with the Christmas spirit! I’ve already started some shopping, but still have a ways to go. For now, I’m off to catch up on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and paint my nails. Scintillating, I know!

If you dig this, you might also enjoy:

- lots of fresh veggie juice…until our juicer broke on Friday (Omega is kindly sending us two replacement pieces for free, thank goodness!)

- pulled pork

- homemade cheddar “buttermilk” biscuits (recipe to come in a future post) to accompany…

- chicken, butternut squash, and quinoa soup

- homemade pizza one night when we had Ashley and Kenny over for dinner

- chocolate chip cookies that same night

- banana cinnamon swirl bread

- chicken tikka masala made with 0% Chobani

The last two items are what’s crackin’ in the kitchen this afternoon. The banana bread came about because I found 3 super mushy bananas in our fruit basket, and the chicken tikka masala came about from a major Indian food craving.

Maybe all this cooking has something to do with the fact that I’m really into my new apron that I got at Sur la Table last week. I mean, I sort of HAD to buy it because it was only $20, down from $45. And because it’s peacock pattern.

Great picture, Ashley! You really captured my inner beauty. Kman, what can I say…I’m a real catch!

I’m sort of not looking forward to this week because I’m busy every. single. night. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday I’ve got work events, followed by a soccer game on Thursday night, and a friend’s birthday party on Friday. Needless to say, I’ll be doing a whole lot of nothing on Saturday and loving every minute of it!

I’m planning on morning workouts every morning this week just to keep my energy levels up throughout the day. And of course, now that the weather has rebounded from the brutal cold snap, I’ll be biking into work which does wonders for me mentally. I hate crowding into the subway in the morning with people sneezing and coughing due to fall colds, so getting some (relatively) fresh air, exercise, and some me-time always feels great.

Now, I’ll leave you all with a few pictures of goodies that I’ve whipped up this week, along with a picture of our new bedroom decor. Our living room is bustling with textures, colors, tchotchkes, and pictures, so I really wanted to go with a serene, plain look for the bedroom. Next up, curtains. Rome wasn’t built in a day, people!

If you dig this, you might also enjoy:

Because Park Slope is slightly elevated, we were thankfully left relatively unscathed by the storm. Sure, there were lots of downed trees and some other neighborhood damage, but we were fortunate enough to be spared the horrific flooding that wrecked so much of the city. We never lost power or water, even though we were sufficiently prepared for the possibility of it. In fact, we spent the majority of the storm having a TV marathon watching The Wire while simultaneously staying up-to-date on the storm via Twitter. I hate watching the news, and found that Twitter provided a much better 360 view of what was happening in real time. Part of me feels sort of guilty for having it so “easy” in this part of Brooklyn when I see/hear the devastation that is plaguing other areas right now.

So how did I pass the time? Aside from working from home, I: cleaned the ENTIRE APARTMENT, organized the kitchen cabinets, ate a metric ton of cheez-its, talked to the cats more than is socially  acceptable, carved a pumpkin, roasted pumpkin seeds, made steamed pork dumplings, ate a LOT of bagels, watched season 1 of The Wire, and did a wee bit of online shopping. The purchases:

What can I say? Being cooped up in the apartment gave me the itch to revamp the place. Next up: white duvet cover + euro shams so it feels like I’m sleeping on a cloud. Kman, knowing that it’s futile to argue with me, has accepted my redecorating.

Slowly but surely, it seems like things are starting to get back to normal. There’s no subway service between Brooklyn and Manhattan, so there are buses shuttling people back and forth. Buses that are filled to the brim with people and ones that, if I can help it, I will NOT be riding on. Thank goodness we bought bikes a few months ago! When my office opens back up (it’s located in SoHo which is currently powerless), I’ll be biking into work as usual.

And speaking of work…Kman accepted a job offer last week! It’s a NYC based video-sharing startup and it is an amazing opportunity for him. He starts on Tuesday.

If you dig this, you might also enjoy:

Also with the cooler weather comes my favorite cooking season! I love whipping up goodies in the kitchen year round, but there’s something so relaxing about cooking a nice warm meal in the fall or winter. Using the stove during summertime is an exercise in speed-cooking, because who wants to stand near a 375degree oven in 95degree weather? No one.

So back to the title of the post. I bought a bike! I wish there were some cool story about how I want to train for a triathlon, or I was inspired by the Olympics, but nope. Kman and I were sitting around the apartment one day, lamenting the fact that the nearest 16 Handles froyo shop is 1.2 miles away. We really wanted to go, but it was too hot out. And so, after much searching, this happened the next day:

Followed shortly after by this, because c’mon, obviously.

And the most recent addition to the family came today. Since I’ve been riding my bike to work (more on that shortly), I needed to upgrade things a bit. My lululemon backpack, while stylish and functional for carrying a yoga mat, wasn’t working for a 10 mile round trip ride every day. The incline of Brooklyn Bridge coupled with the weight of my loaded backpack was draggin’ me down, both literally and figuratively. Enter, an Ortlieb bag that attaches to the back rack of my bike. Awe-some.

So yeah, I’ve been biking to work! It’s become my default mode of transportation, barring any planned after work activities, such as happy hour with co-workers, for obvious reasons. I was apprehensive at first about riding in and feeling like a sweaty mess, but I think I’ve got a pretty good system going on.

After bringing my bike up the back elevator, I drop it off at the bike rack in our new office (which, by the way, is stunning), then pop into the bathroom to freshen up. I wear workout gear for the ride, so I change out of that, give my face/neck a quick wipe-down with the Olay cleansing cloths, throw on some extra deodorant, apply some dry-shampoo to combat helmet hair, a spritz each of Ojon revitilizing hair mist and my Molecule 01 perfume then let myself cool down for a minute from the ride. Work clothes that I keep folded neatly in my bag, change of shoes, and a smattering of makeup and I’m good to go!

The whole process, from getting my bike out of the basement, riding to work, changing, and sitting down to get to work takes around 45 minutes, which is about the time it takes me to get to work with the subway, waiting, walking, etc.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to make this incredible recipe for Summer Vegetable Tian, which I found on Budget Bytes. Here’s hoping it turns out as well as this!

If you dig this, you might also enjoy:

Since you may have forgotten about me, let me just start this post off by reminding you all how cool and badass I am.

Yes, that would be my friend, Emilijia, and me chopping wood on our camping trip with the boys last weekend. BAD. ASS.

In all seriousness, I chopped a gigantic piece of wood and then sat down to eat hot dogs and drink beer because my arms were so sore. Oh, and being scared about potential ax murderers lurking in the woods. That happened, too.

The rest of our camping excursion to Steam Mill State Forest:

COWS! I freaked out over every. single. farm animal. that we saw. Ask anyone who was in the car with me. I’m surprised I didn’t get dropped off on the side of the road, but can you really blame me? They look so cute!

Once we got back to civilization (and cell phone service!), it was life as usual. Oh, except for the super exciting news from work last week! We opened up our flagship store, Chobani SoHo, on Prince St. and West Broadway.

If you’re in NYC and you have taste buds, you need to stop by. Heck, call me up and I’ll come with you! Here’s just a little sample of the sort of delicious creations that are served up at the store. And I say delicious because I’ve tried every single one of them. YUM!

Later in the week, Kman and I headed upstate to the Chobani Olympic opening ceremony party, which was held at a beautiful farm in Columbus, NY. Picturesque doesn’t even begin to describe it!

And then we happened to stumble upon the most neatly organized fruit display in the world. That’s probably not an accurate description, but c’mon…look at this array! I felt guilty for snapping a picture and then not buying anything, but I couldn’t eat anymore fruit.

Why, you ask? Because I gobbled about 15 of these suckers on the car ride up. These little guys are called Vampire Plums, and I had never seen them/heard of them in my entire life. I randomly found them at a farmers’ market stand at a rest area off the highway and promptly bought a carton of them.

We got back from Central NY at about 3 yesterday afternoon after driving through a few monsoons, and I proceeded to take a 4 hour nap. Never let anyone tell you that I lead a boring life, because they would be liars.

And as if this post wasn’t exciting enough already…CHECK OUT THE PAINT SWATCHES WE’RE TESTING OUT! We decided to spruce up the living room and paint an…wait for it… accent wall! I’m leaning towards “warm comfort”.

And now it’s time for bed. Night, y’all.

PS: Case in point for how it’s definitely time for bed — I wrote the title of this post, and neglected to even touch upon the second part. Chobani is sponsoring Team USA, and as such, I’ve become fully immersed in all things Olympics. I’ve never watched them this intently in my life! Ask me events, athletes, results…and I can tell you. I’ve also turned Kman into an Olympics freak. Sorry to anyone who has to hang out with us during the next two weeks!

If you dig this, you might also enjoy:

Um, we need to chat. Be honest with me here…am I the only girl who had never heard of a “sock bun ” before? I was introduced to this by some of the girls at work today and I am beyond obsessed.

Yeah, those are obviously not pictures of my hair. I should probably pick up a different colored sock because I tried my first sock bun with a white 80′s style tube sock. Functional only in the house, but I can really get behind this style!

Tomorrow morning, a group of us is heading to [insert town name here because I forget where we're actually going] for a camping weekend! We’ve almost got everything packed up, but we took a little break to catch up on How I Met Your Mother. And by little break I mean 3 episodes.

It’ll be really nice to be totally offline this weekend…no cell service, no computer until Sunday night. Then it’ll be time for grocery shopping, food prep, and cooking for the week!

I think I’ll wake up early tomorrow to squeeze in a workout before trekking off to the middle of nowhere and drinking oodles of beer and eating a boatload of s’mores…

And then grabbing one of these bad boys for the car ride!

Oh. And this happened the other day…

We tried to put Ellie on a leash to bring her outside for a bit. Correction: it was my idea…and Kman just lovingly went along with it. If you can’t tell by her expression, she absolutely HATED it. Well, it was worth a shot!

If you dig this, you might also enjoy: