You hear that? That’s me, coughing. But at least I’m up and moving again.
Last week, I had the flu. Influenza A! And yes, I had a flu shot. I didn’t leave my bed for several days, and had a fever for 5 days. It was rough, but I’m nearly better now and was able to have fun this weekend with the family.
Here’s a little what the weekend included: Continue reading
Is anyone else sick of this winter? It has been cold and icy and snowy here for weeks and I’m so ready for warm weather and sunshine and a clear sidewalk to walk and run on!
Okay – enough complaining I suppose. Because despite the weather, it was still a good weekend spent with B and FW. I was sick most of the weekend, so it was pretty laid back and low key.
We of course had to start the weekend by celebrating National Pizza Day with my favorite pizza- Marottas!
Saturday, B made FW and I some pancakes to kick off breakfast. Fun fact- I never used to like pancakes or sweet stuff for breakfast- I was much more of a savory breakfast food lover – until pregnancy.
We spent some time later that afternoon at the West Side Market; we used to shop there all the time when we lived downtown, but now we only make it there maybe once every other month or so.
And of course we had to visit Rising Star for some coffee and chocolate milk (tea for me from Cleveland Tea Revival).
After the Market it was time to hit up the Great Big Home and Garden Show! I had won tickets in an online giveaway from Cleveland Magazine and it was a great way for us to get in some running around time and get Francis moving even with the cold weather.
Saturday night, B made us dinner – spaghetti, meatballs and homemade sauce.
Sunday morning we decided it was warm enough and finally not snowing/icing/raining/sleeting/etc. to go for a walk, so we walked to brunch!
FW got tired of walking, so B carried him. He then fell asleep in the carrier
We split some eggs and a lemon crepe. FW was suspicious of the crepe until I told him it was like a cookie 🙂
Sunday afternoon after our walk was pretty lazy. I got in some rest, some baking and some peanut butter making.
I realize I can’t remember the last time I bought any nut butter at the store! I got my Vitamix about a year ago and it has been the only way we’ve been doing peanut or almond butter. I LOVE having it and need to use it more!
Sunday night included dinner with B’s family and that was about it. We watched the Olympics with them for a little bit – it was the first time I’ve watched any of the events! I need to start getting into them.
Some questions for you:
I’m linking up with the weekly wraps!
To say it was a busy weekend would be an understatement. BUT it was a GREAT weekend filled with lots of memories with family and friends, so I wouldn’t have it any other way!
After doing a few hours of work on Friday morning, I took the rest of the day off to get prepared for the weekend. Meaning baking cupcakes, shopping and cleaning. But of course, I had to get in a nice run first. Love these views of downtown!
After that, I found time for a pedicure. The massage felt so good!
Said cupcakes I baked. I made banana cupcakes because FW loves banana and the plan was for him to have his first cupcake that weekend 🙂
That night, B and I ordered sushi takeout. I had a great veggie roll, seaweed salad, and some sashimi – tuna and mackerel. 
And then we had to stay up and watch the Cavs game. I don’t usually stay up ’till midnight anymore, but I HAD to watch … they finally won one! Now to win 3 more …
Saturday morning also started with a run. I got in 5.89 miles before meeting B and FW for some grocery shopping.
We headed to the West Side Market to get some groceries for the week, plus supplies for Sunday. Sunday we had plans to celebrate FW’s baptism AND birthday and we were going to be having a make-your-own sandwich station.
On the way home, we came across this great new mural. I love it!
Then it was time for Nicole’s backyard wedding celebration! I didn’t get any pics of the bride and groom sadly, but here’s FW and I all ready to go!
We left the festivities a little early because my parents and my mom’s cousin were in town! We met them for dinner at Masthead. Pizza and beers. 
Sunday morning started early- FW got baptized! 
I felt so lucky to have my parents in town to celebrate. And I know FW loved it too.
One of my college roommates just happened to be driving through Cleveland on Sunday, too so we got to see her!
FW had his first taste of cupcake. He looooved the frosting!
B’s mom made us a bear cake – it was so cute and tasty!
FW also got to hang out in the sandbox. At first he wasn’t too sure about it, but after a few minutes, he started to really enjoy it. 
By the end of the afternoon, everyone was pooped. Me included. It was a long day!
We were all pretty tired, but content after a great weekend of family and celebrations. A perfect summer weekend!
Some questions for you:
I’m linking up with the weekly wraps.
We started off the weekend with some time outside swinging. 
Playground time was followed by dinner out at Boaz, a fast and delicious local Lebanese place.
And when it’s 75 degrees, you always finish the meal off with ice cream. 
Mitchell’s is the best.
Peanut butter frozen yogurt for me, regular plain (non-frozen) yogurt for FW.
It really was a gorgeous night.
Saturday started off with a long run (for me)- 8 miles.
When it’s 50 degrees at 9:30 a.m. you take advantage of the weather and it was my first outside run in ages!
The rest of the day entailed a trip to the Market (for our weekly groceries), Gallucis (for pizza supplies) and Asiatown (for candy!).
When your baby sleeps in the afternoon, you have time to meal prep!
Preparing for a bridal brunch means baking granola.
Fact: Homemade pepperoni pizza with fresh basil is the best. 
Sunday brunch with homemade lox is the BEST.
I love these ladies!!
These cupcakes and cookies were amazing. 
Me and the bride-to-be!
And we finished up the day with dinner with B’s family. Sadly, no pictures😐
Some questions for you:
I’m linking up with Katie and the weekly wraps.
This weekend, Melgar, one of my best friends in the world came to Cleveland for a quick visit and to meet FW. We’ve been friends for 20 years, which just boggles my mind. 20 years is a long time!
They got in Thursday night so we started off our Friday with a workout and some brunch! 
We spent our Friday with a little mini tour of Cleveland. A trip to the West Side Market, some girly activities and before we knew it, it was time to head home and make dinner. We ended up making homemade pasta and ravioli for our first Friday of Lent – I thought it turned out so good! We made some tomato sauce and made a ricotta, mushroom, onion and spinach filling. Next time I’d add some mozzarella and/or parmesan to the filling as well.
I also got a package in the mail – my newest order from Skirt Sports! I can’t wait to wear these outfits.
Saturday morning started with an amazing brunch at Le Petit Triangle Cafe in Ohio City. We ordered about 6 dishes between the 4 of us and ate it all.
I got the french toast!
Jon kept FW entertained for part of the meal.
During the afternoon, we checked out the West Side Market (again!), the Cleveland Bazaar and did a little more shopping – including buying some popcorn and peanut butter cookies downtown in the 5th Street Arcade.
For dinner, we ended up getting Indian food and again ordered a bazillion menu items. It was SO good but I was SO FULL!
Sunday morning started off early when Melgar had to head back to the airport. With the whole day ahead of us, I started with a 6 mile run on the schedule. While FW napped, I hopped on the treadmill and got in 6.33 total miles. 
The rest of the afternoon was pretty lazy and productive. We stopped by an Open House (not interested!), did some meal prep and grocery shopping and caught up on work.
FW and I wore similar color schemes.
AND I played around with the Vitamix. I made my first peanut butter green smoothie AND my first peanut butter in it!
Homemade peanut better = so easy!
The day ended with dinner with B’s family, like usual.FW was.able to get in some quality cousin time.
Some questions for you:
I’m linking up with Katie and the weekly wraps.
Cheers to Wednesday! I don’t know about you – but even with being on maternity leave, having Monday off makes the week fly by. How is already Wednesday? I’m not complaining – I’m pumped and ready to share today’s What I Ate Wednesday. This was last Wednesday’s eats!
The day started off with a trip to the West Side Market. I ended up buying a bunch of fruit while I was there, so breakfast was a lot of melon and watermelon, plus the last 2 Boobie Balls (aka energy balls for all you non-breastfeeding folks). 
Lunch was a combo of a salad I had put together from leftovers (corn, beans, part of a turkey burger) plus some toppings from the Heinen’s salad bar, including tabbouleh, quinoa and tortellini!
Afternoon snacks included some bread and sweet potato with a variety of nut butter (I had almond butter and two varieties of peanut butter) and some more fruit salad.
Fresh fruit from the market. Yup, that’s a pacifier in the background.
B’s sister was downtown after work and invited us out for beers. I had a nice saison- but I was pretty tempted to get a pumpkin beer!
Dinner was SO good. FW had taken two solid naps during the day, so I was able to do meal prep and prepare Enchilada Pie from Skinny Taste. I had gotten most of the veggies from the West Side Market that morning and all day was looking forward to this enchilada-type casserole.
Speaking of enchilada casseroles, when i mentioned the dinner to B, he reminded me of the bit from one of his favorite comics, Felipe Esparza (from the Whats Up Fool podcast). I couldn’t fins the actual bit we saw him perform online but if you watch this you get the idea:
The pie was so goos and easy. And we had leftovera for lunch plus another dinner now in the freezer!
And that was it. There we go – another What I Ate Wednesday.
Some questions for you:
Disclaimer: Stemilt sent me some complimentary Skylar Rae cherries, and I loved them. All views are my own.
You guys. I had an actual productive day. If you know me, you know that this isn’t a big deal. I am not usually a person who sits still and does nothing (including binge TV watching) … but since FW was born, I’ve gotten used to the fact that I can’t get as productive as I would like. I can no longer make plans and assume they’ll get done … between napping, crying, eating, etc. I never now what I’m going to have time for. BUT this Monday, all the moons/planets/babythings aligned and I had a productive day! So, I bring you – Monday’s eats for What I Ate Wednesday!
Breakfast was some yogurt, granola and LOTS of fruit – peach, fruit salad, etc. My parents visited over the weekend and left me with some of my mom’s homemade granola.
I also had some more granola as a snack after eating the parfait. It’s too good. I’m going to finish it before this week ends!
FW and I took some time during the afternoon to take a walk with B during lunch. It was nice to get out of the house and go for a drive – and then a walk. It was really nice to get out of downtown and walk in a new part of the town. And then, lunch was this bowl of veggies and some cheese. Disclaimer: I had about twice as many roasted veggies as this, but forgot to take a picture until about halfway through.
walk with dad!
Snack during the day included some of these peanut butter energy balls. Anson made them for me and I’ve been hooked!
I also had a spoonful (or two) of peanut butter. Yup, peanut butter twice in one day.
During the afternoon, FW and I hit up the West Side Market to buy supplies of dinner. And then, FW took a long afternoon nap, and I managed to have time to prep dinner AND make dessert- this lemon zucchini bread! I haven’t baked with FW around unless B was home yet, and yes, maybe I should’ve been napping, but baking felt so good!
A pre-dinner snack of some cheese.
Dinner was some salmon, salad, corn and orzo salad. And a glass of white wine. And because FW had been so good during the afternoon, it’s no surprise that B and I took turns eating while FW screamed. Ahh well, you can only have a happy baby for part of the day, right?
And dessert? Some of this lemon zucchini bread from Two Peas and their Pod. It came in my inbox in the morning and when I bought zucchini at the market and FW napped, I knew I’d had to make it!
And that sums up my day of eats. Now, some questions for you:
I had the perfect weekend. It may have been just perfectly ordinary, but it was perfect. It was a great mix of relaxing (definitely needed – I still feel like I’m playing catch up from last week!), catching up on work (again, still playing catch up), seeing friends, being productive and enjoying the outdoors. The only thing missing? Maybe some family time and a long run, but it will be a while until I’ll get in either of those!
Friday night started out with dinner/drinks with friends. One of B’s coworkers who moved to Seattle was in town and we were meeting up with her and some other people at 8 for dinner and drinks. Let me admit something – I haven’t met at 8 for dinner in a few months. Since being pregnant, my 8 p.m. often looks like PJ and TV time. But it was GREAT to feel like an almost normal person and meet up! We went to Bar Cento for some meatless Friday eats (pomme frites with their dipping sauce and pizza) and a few drinks (obvy none for me). Note – I didn’t take the pics below, I was actually not on my phone most of the night!
Not our pizza. This is from their website. And ours didn’t have meat. (Friday Lent)
Image via cleveland.com
Saturday morning B and I decided to be productive and start our baby registry. I’m not going to lie – setting up a baby registry is not as fun (at least for me) as a wedding registry. Mostly because the entire time these are the thoughts running through my mind:
And there went our Saturday morning. Seriously, I think we spent four hours at Starbucks and registered for four things. Before we knew it, it was time to go view some houses. No – we’re not moving; but we’ve been looking at houses for several years now. We decided to go for a walk after looking at houses and came across the A Christmas Story House! (confession – I’ve lived in Cleveland for almost 10 years and I still haven’t seen the whole movie AND this was my first time seeing the house)
We then hit up the West Side Market for the first time in a while and I was SO happy. We have been either out of town or busy on Saturdays and it was great to pick up some things again. I ❤ the Market!
And it was already around 3:30 pm and we hadn’t eaten lunch yet, so we made a quick stop to Souper Market. Their curry cauliflower and chickpea soup hit the spot! Large chuck of bread not included.
After Saturday afternoon Mass, B had plans to go to a high school basketball game. I decided to stay in and do some baking. Double fudge brownies. Yes, please!
Sunday morning started off a little early – I couldn’t sleep Saturday night (is this going to become a normal pregnancy thing?) because I couldn’t get comfortable, so I spent the morning cleaning a little and catching up on some work. I dilly dallyed until B got up and then finally got off my butt and went for a run.
It was the first run in a while that I’d run outside by myself. I don’t know why, but since I started to seriously show, I’d been a little anxious about running alone outside. But today, B didn’t feel like running and I knew I could do it on my own. So I did. Yup, it’s the little things – I’m proud.
The afternoon included some meal prep and grocery shopping.
My grocery store is prettier than yours, isn’t it?
Oh and my favorite yogurt was on sale. Little things make pregnant me super happy 🙂
Speaking of being pregnant, I’ve really really popped. I’m a little more than 6 months now and can’t imagine 4 more months of this!
Our Sunday ended with a walk and Sunday dinner at B’s parents’ house.
chilly but nice day for a walk
Spaghetti, meatballs and gelato!
Some questions for you:
I’m linking up today with Erin for my weekend snapshot post, Katie for MIMM and the weekly wraps.
Happy What I Ate Wednesday! It’s my 23rd WIAW post and for those of you that know me know that 23 is my lucky number. So of course this WIAW includes some of my favorite foods – cheese and froyo and candy 🙂
I had jury duty this week so my eats were a little more controlled. Meaning I had to pack my own snacks unless I wanted to see what they had at the courthouse (note: Apparently the food at the courthouse was actually good. Oh well!)
Breakfast, instead of my usual egg whites (I didn’t think bringing those would be a good idea) or smoothie (I usually make this with the office Vitamix), I grabbed a big bag of frozen grapes. Only some of the grapes are pictured, below. Because let’s face it, I already ate half the grapes before I took a photo.
frozen grapes are SO GOOD!
I had done some meal prep over the weekend and managed to make a few salads for B and me to take for lunches this week. You can’t see all the goodness in here, but it’s baby lettuce (my favorite!), arugula, tomato, roasted sweet potato and chicken.
For snacks, I had made some peanut butter granola. Again, that’s about half of the granola I packed. I also packed some carrots.
For dinner, I made some spicy Italian chicken burgers (these were bought at the West Side Market, I just cooked them) with some peppers and onions and a caprese quinoa salad (with fresh mozzarella, tomato and basil). The meal tasted so summery to me – it was perfect!
It was a beautiful evening, so B and I took a walk and got some froyo at a place not to far from our apartment. I LOVE frozen yogurt places – mainly for the toppings bar as you can see – and it is the first time we’ve gone all summer!
That concluded my Monday. How did I do? Would you eat all of that too?
As always, click on the badge below to see what WIAW is all about.
Some questions for you:
I seriously love weekends so much. I know – not surprising. Everyone does. But summer weekends where the weather’s perfect and you end up with equal parts fun, productivity, and relaxation? Those are THE best.
Friday night started with an Indians game with B and his company. His company outing included all you can eat and drink, plus grew seats at a fireworks game. AND we won!
Such an amazing sunset … No filter needed 🙂
Also, great fireworks!
After the game, we went out and met up with B’s friend from high school and his girlfriend who were in town. We ended up bar hopping until the bars closed. Yup – I may be getting older and may have been tired, but I guess I still got it!
Saturday morning, I met up with Mary for an easy run. I had done 8 miles Friday morning and had gone to bed late, so I was hoping to just get in 3-4 miles. Barely made it 5 miles. It was finally seasonal temps (70 degrees in the morning) but felt SO hot to me. Gotta get used to hot summer runs again!
Had to pause on the bridge to breathe heavily take a picture:
After our run, I met back up with B and we hit up the West Side Market for our groceries. We typically go there weekly but it had been a while — so glad we got to go back!
I was craving something refreshing after the run – a big thing fruit was just what I needed.
After the Market it was time to hit up the Flea. I love the Cleveland Flea – during the summer about once a month there is a giant flea market with food, drinks and stands of people selling antiques, clothing, jewelry, soaps, etc. It was the most perfect sunny day and we visited with Dave and Anson and Dave’s mom who was in town.
After the Flea, B and I checked out a few open houses with my friend Cuoghi. Yes, we’re sorta house hunting! And then it was time for ice cream. I love Mason’s Creamery- a cute ice cream shop in Ohio City and the owners are SO nice.
I couldn’t stop by Ohio City without a stop for some kombucha from Cleveland Tea Revival.
I was in the mood for pizza for dinner, so B and I hit up Gallucci’s for some supplies. I love Gallucci’s – look at all those great Italian canned/jarred goods!
And our great supplies:
So I made some sauce, and B made pizza.
Sunday was actually pretty laid back. B had plans to play golf so I took it easy – got in an easy workout (Sundays are my “stretch and strengthen” day on my half training schedule), did some meal prep, made some granola and got a pedicure. After a long winter and season of running – my toes are finally flip flop ready!
We had big plans to go to the beach, but it was not as nice as Saturday and looked like it may storm all day (it didn’t actually rain until late afternoon), so we pretty much hung out indoors. Ah well. My toes are happy!
We didn’t end up having family dinner, so B made me something I had been craving for a while – fish. Anytime I can relax, enjoy my pedicure and enjoy a homecooked dinner – pretty much a perfect Sunday 🙂
PS – Happy birthday to one of my dearest friends from high school, Alisa 🙂 Can’t believe it’s been more than 4 years since we took the below picture!
Linking up with Running N Reading and Her Heartland Soul today!
I Crashed The Web 