EARTH FARE SWAG

Hey Hey! Dinner last night with some of the girls from work was great! We had a blast just hanging out and chatting, not having patients to worry about or medications to chart, etc. But the funny thing is, all we wanted to talk about was.... work! haha I constantly get the eye-roll from the hubs when I go all into "nursing talk mode" with my friends that are nurses or my family (mom and my brother's wife are both nurses). So I guess it shouldn't be a surprise that our dinner last night was dominated with nurse talk. Our unit is about to undergo a MASSIVE remodel, so that too, is causing a lot of excitement! 

Anyways, I did order off the skinnylicious menu at Cheesecake Factory and man was I pleased. I ordered the grilled salmon and it was SO GOOD. The portion was surprisingly normal, too. I was afraid that it was going to be teeny weeny, but it wasn't! I would have taken a pic to share with you all, but I felt like it might weird some people out, haha, so I didn't. Sorry! Lucky for you all, though, I searched online and very easily found pics of my meal that other people had posted. So, here it is! For some reason the vegetables and salmon in this pic look a little more, "greasy", than mine were. But nonetheless, this was the meal!

Source

This morning I had some hot oats: 1/2 cup of oats, 1/4 scoop vanilla protein powder, one packet of stevia, sprinkle of cinnamon and 1/4 tbsp of Justin's maple almond butter. Mmm..
Then we hit the gym where I got a nice three mile run in. It felt gooood.  We then hit up Earth Fare, the new food mart that opened up near me. We picked up a few items and some food for our lunch. I could wander around that place for hours! Good thing we had a basketball game to get home to watch, otherwise I would probably still be there! 

Lunch for me was the Mediterranean Sampler. This bad boy had A LOT of food in it. Although, I only ate about a third of it. I feel like I've had better Mediterranean samplers elsewhere. Oh well, can't win em all.

The hubs went for the made-to-order deli sandwich, which he really liked. It also came with some chips. We stocked up on some nuts to add to our almonds and walnuts. Earth Fare has so many great options of nuts and nut mixes. It was very hard to choose, but I ended up getting exactly what I came for. Pat on the back for me, thank you very much! And of course, a Justin's organic peanut butter cup found its way back to my home. Since I didn't eat all of my Mediterranean food, I munched on a few walnuts, cashews and brazil nuts and also had one of the peanut butter cups. Mmmm..

And the most awesome thing of all... a free chicken! Just for joining Earth Fare online (to rack up points and get exclusive coupons) we got a free fresh chicken. How crazy!

And our most exciting find of all... Hudepohl!! We were introduced to this AH-mazing beer while hanging with friends in Cincinnati one weekend this past summer. It is very good, and now the hubs and I are very happy! We had to get the Oktoberfest kind too, duh!

Not sure what all we will be getting into tonight. Either I'm hanging with the hubs or having a "girls" night. We shall see! 

Also, as promised, here is a sneak peak of my glasses! I threw them on before I went to dinner last night just to snap some pics for the little 'ol blog. I haven't worn them out in public yet. I am just so nervous! Not sure why! I wear them all the time when I'm at home. Maybe I'll get brave here soon.

Have a great Saturday!



xoxo MaryBeth





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FAB FOOD FARE

Hey Hey! Hanging with the hubs watching some basketball... story of my life lately! So the info on my wedding jewelry is going to be postponed to later this week. Don't have enough time at the moment to sort through wedding photos to find the best ones of my jewels, so I'll wait until I have enough time to do it the right way! :)  

Recently I have decided to try and eat a little more, "clean". By no means am I going to be able to be an ALL organic, ALL the time kind of person, but I figure if two of my three main meals are, "clean" then that's not too shabby! I tend to eat light breakfasts and lunches, surrounded by snacks, and then a normal dinner. Hopefully it won't be too difficult. The hubs gave me that look at first, like, the "are you serious" look. But now (after a couple days, ha) I think he is on board, a little. Hey, it's a start!

Since I am trying to clear out some of our not so "clean" food items, it was only necessary to polish off our peanut butter container (since I am trying organic almond butter next) with some overnight oats. Overnight oats are something that I have seen a lot of in the blog world. And when a jar of your favorite nut butter is almost gone, it is the mac daddy of overnight oats because otherwise, they would just be in a normal container. See for yourself: 

Overnight Oats

Now that this peanut butter is gone (I don't want to waste any food we already have in our pantry) I can move on with my "clean" ways. To achieve this amazingness, I used what would otherwise be tossed into the trash due to the land of unreachable peanut butter jar crevices, and filled it with 1/2 cup vanilla almond milk, 1/2 cup raw oats and 1/4 scoop vanilla flavored whey protein. Put the lid back on, place in fridge and eat in the morning. YUMmy! Obviously, you can make up any concoction you wish, but this one is pretty darn good!

For dinner the other night, we enjoyed some fresh salmon on a cedar plank, grilled to perfection by Chef Hubs. It was literally to.die.for. I consider myself a salmon connoisseur (aka I order salmon EVERYWHERE we go) and so when I say this salmon was amazfest, I mean it!! Never will I ever buy frozen salmon in bulk bags again. 

Mmmm....drooling.....nom nom...

We paired this bad boy with a sweet potato and side salad. The side salad was a doozy in itself too! Kale, spinach, cauliflower, radish, celery, carrots, feta and purple onion. Onion only on mine though. Chef Hubs dislikes onion VERY much. He also dislikes being around someone (wonder who that could be) who has recently eaten onions... ha!

For dinner tonight, I made a black bean sweet potato chili, courtesy of the Fitnessista. Her blog was literally the first blog I ever read on a regular basis and have been a die hard follower every since. I think I have been reading her blog for about two years now! She has no idea who I am, and has no idea about my little ol blog, so I am genuinely just giving her a shout out because, well, she deserves it! Anyways, here's some prep pics of dinner. Ch ch check it out! Yes, that first pic is chopped onion. As long as it is chopped up reeaally small and well cooked, the hubs can deal with it.

You can find the recipe on the Fitnessista's website, but here are the main ingredients (minus the almond butter, ha). I did add beef to mine, she doesn't. And, I found out that I do not have Cumin, so I substituted Coriander. It was goood. Now on to the maple almond butter. This brand has also been floating around the blog world so I knew that when I took the "other-than-peanut" butter challenge, I would just need to fork up the cash and try this one. I did get it on sale, but it was still more expensive than my regular peanut butter. I sliced up a cameo apple, got out my two TBSP of almond butter, and went to town. The TBSP may or may not have found its way back into the container after the allotted two scoops were gone... Ooops. Verdict: muy bueno!! 

I did make some other "clean" purchases, but I won't bore you with all that right now. I'll share as I go along. Hopefully I can keep it up! There is a new store near me called, Earth Fare, that I am way too excited about trying out and hopefully will keep me motivated! I joined online and received a bunch of coupons, so we shall see. I want to make sure I don't raise the grocery bill, and this place might be dangerous! It looks similar to Trader Joe's and World Market, which are both fab stores!


Have a great night!!



xoxo MaryBeth



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