The Yin and The Yang

I was SO looking forward to my full day on Sunday and I am happy to say it did not disappoint. I was meeting a friend really early so I grabbed a super quick breakfast of a Whole Grain English muffin with organic peanut butter and some V8 fusion. I decided my fabulous day warranted a fabulous glass for juice drinking!

After breakfast I got all packed up in the Wonderbug to head to Roanoke, VA to meet my friend Kristen for a girly day of fabulousness.

Our “main event” for the day was seeing Sex and The City 2 but we figured it would be almost against the law to see this movie without some shopping first. Now let me just say on the days that Kristen and I go shopping with no plan we end up just buying a little bit of everything. That is why normally we pick a store or a mission like shoes or dresses but Saturday was a super fantastic day of shopping bliss! Do you prefer to shop with pals or alone? I definitely prefer shopping with friends! Here are some of my favorite finds:

new gray shades

love the side detail

We moved on from sunglasses shopping to housewares and I got some fantastic coffee mugs and a matching serving plate.

Next we moved on to my personal favorite.. Shoe Shopping! I had some Macy’s dollars from an unfortunate run in with a rude sales person a few weeks back so I was looking for some fabulous finds.

Lucky Brand "Birna" flats in dusky citron. I have been stalking these all Spring!

Love the detail!

I also got these vintage collection 9 west flats for 1/2 price. I cant wait to wear these this fall with a fabulous gray dress and some tights!

I also picked up an embellished cardigan…

Finally, I picked up a couple of  dresses. The dark pink is very casual and I have plans to pair it with a black cropped cardigan, some chunky jewelry and some random flats or wedges in a totally different fun color. The second dress is my husband’s fave. I have big plans to wear it with some Steve Madden stilettos that I am currently stalking. I was also stoked that the second dress had 86.00 on the tag but came home with me for 9.99!! It was marked down twice and half off. Its one of my favorite styles. So classic and I ❤ the color combination!

After shopping the rain came. Fast and furious and out of nowhere. Thankfully Kristen had a huge golf umbrella and the only casualties were her soaked jeans and our hair. We managed to fight the storm and made it over to Panera for a quick lunch. The storm made me want something cozy so I got some potato soup and 1/2 chicken panini.

We loaded up the car and headed over to see Carrie and the gang in Sex and The City 2!!

Having always loved the show I of course loved the movie. I thought it was really fun. Some of my favorite parts without giving anything away….

• The “take a sip” conversation
• The gold sparkly shoes
• The “Single Ladies”
• The Dior T-shirt outfit
• Aiden (helloooo the hotness)
• A dog in a top hat
• The “Jude Law”

What was your favorite part?

After the movie it was back to the house for an absolute flip-flop for a night of urban camping.The hubs wanted to have the guys over for some camp fire/drinking/smores kind of night. I of course did not want hot dogs cooked on a stick so I had sushi and martinis.  I thought the sitting in nature thing warranted a martini!

Our make shift camp site

Carrie was jazzed for camping!

The hubs making a fire

My kind of camping dinner!

Harlow keeping us all safe!

smores -yum!

NIght Night! (No we didnt sleep outside after all but I gave it a good try)

Weight Watchers was closed today so next Monday will have to be the May wrap up. I think after the weekend of slightly overeating, having too much salt and too much alcohol this is probably a good thing. I have been drinking water today like it’s my job.  It’s funny how things have changed. I am actually looking forward to getting back to working out and clean eating tomorrow. I can tell a HUGE difference in my body when I overindulge. I like the person Im becoming. 🙂 I hope everyone had a fabulous weekend!!

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How To Make The World’s Best Sandwich

Once not too long ago there was a restaurant here in Lynchburg called Vines.  Vines was really fantastic because not only was the food great, but it was also a specialty wine and beer store. Not only was it also a specialty wine and beer store but they also brought in awesome truffles from a chocolatier in Charlottesville. All in all it was a very cool place. Unfortunately, they switched locations and even more unfortunately they changed their menu from fun and different to boring and mediocre and then the most unfortunate thing of all happened- they closed, someone bought the space and put in yet another Italian place. How does this matter? Well, they might be closed but I have replicated some of my favorites from Vines and tonight’s masterpiece was from the lunch menu.  It is my all time most favorite sandwich.  I am going to share the “recipe” with you.

Step 1: Turn your stove on to 350 degrees, cut ciabatta rolls in 1/2, drizzle with olive oil and place in the oven.

Step 2: Make your own light cranberry mayo by mixing light or fat free mayo with canned cranberry sauce-whole berry. (You can reserve the rest of the cranberry sauce to make cranberry BBQ chicken later in the week. I am a HUGE cranberry fan so I LOVE this!)

Step 3: Slice some beautiful tomatoes and 2% cheddar from the block

Step 4: Remove rolls from the oven

Step 5: Assemble your sandwich as follows: bottom bun, fresh shaved deli turkey, cheese, LOTS of arugula, tomato, and your top bun smothered in cranberry mayo.

Step 6: get a side of fruit, fat free chips or tortilla chips, cut in 1/2 and enjoy!

For all of my veggie friends out there this is still a great method subbing some veggies, tofu, or protein of your choice for the turkey.  Let me know if you give it a try!

Now off to spend some quality time with the pups.  Harlow is expressing her boredom with my writing tonight. 😉

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I Heart Thursday (and Spinach Salads)

It was a beautiful Thursday here in Virginia. Even Carrie and Harlow were in great moods this morning!

Happy Thursday!

Someone needs a grooming appointment ASAP!

I started my day off with a Green Monster and a Vita-Top. It was really smooth this morning. (I used a little less ice) and I liked the texture much more than Tuesday’s version. I think I will be making another in the morning. I never knew how awesome almond milk was. YUM!

Today was extra busy at work, which means the day went by extra quick for this girl. I like to go in early so I can leave a little early on Thursdays. Today I just wanted to beat the 5:00 crowd to the gym (turns out that wasnt going to matter). Lunch today was veggie casserole and berries. I am sure everyone is sick of seeing this picture but I cannot help it. This veggie casserole is great. I love that it has both spinach AND broccoli (and onions and mushrooms co-starring!). If you would like the recipe click here.

I am ALL out of leftovers so this is the last time you will have to see this picture!! 🙂

My workout did not happen. I had big plans for the gym but the hubs and I have not had much time to hang out and talk this week so we decided to forgo the working out tonight and spend some time together. I always feel a little guilty about skipping a workout but I will choose to look at this as some extra time to get ready for my 5k on Saturday. I am also going to make committing to some hard work outs one of my hill goals for next week. More on that later this weekend.

Tonight I made one of my most favorite salads on the entire planet. It is a wink and a nudge to the salad I get at Mosaic. I guess I need to take this time to confess: Hello my name is Sara and I am a meat eater. I purposely limit my meat intake for both health and moral reasons but I cannot seem to go veg. I have tried. I have even tried just going red meat free. Now, I have accepted that this is part of who I am and I limit my intake as much as possible. I LOVE all of the great meatless products out there. Maybe one day I will find enough to give up meat- who knows? Anyway, this salad is a bed of spinach with fresh tomato, red onion, feta, dried cranberries, and some thinly sliced steak that has been marinated in my own special balsamic marinade and grilled. I top it with a little balsamic vinaigrette. YUM! It looks decadent but it is very low calorie. I love this dish.

After some quality time with the hubs I have big plans to go through some mail  later.  He will retire to the man room, ie: his home office to save the word ie: play video games and I will go through magazines. I also got a coupon for Bath and Body Works in the mail today. YAY! I get both of these magazines every month and I did not ever sign up for or pay for either one. Weird but also cool. 🙂

I am already looking forward to my jam packed weekend. Tomorrow night is the charity shoe event that I talked about last week. I will be sure to blog about any fantastic shoe finds. Fingers crossed that I find a cute pair or two or at the very least win a door prize! Saturday I will be up bright and early for the Race for Autism 5K in Charlottesville, VA followed by a trip to Whole Foods (Yippee!). We have no Whole Foods in our town so this is a little treat for me (I know this makes me a touch lame). Do you have a product to recommend that I just must buy and try out? Bryan and I will get back just in time to get changed and head out to a Birthday dinner for one of our friends. I think after my cake/cupcake spree last weekend I will be staying clear of all Birthday cake! Finally, on Sunday for my fun workout day Bryan and I are thinking of hiking The Peaks of Otter here in Virginia. It certainly beats the yard work from last Sunday. What are your weekend plans?

You should go check out blogger Leslie’s giveaway on her blog. Glass straws- How cool is that??

I think I might live on the edge and top my night off with a couple of these little fab m&m chocolates. Yum!

Have a Happy and Healthy Thursday Friends!

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