Daphne Alive: Fantastic foods, company and Christmas decorating

I know I've been complaining a lot about how stressed I am lately. I was completely shocked to find out last week that my boss gave me FOUR days off in a row over the weekend and the beginning of this week. It has felt like heaven! Obviously on Saturday we went to the concert. On Sunday Dan had to return to work (he had 3 days off last week, which is a record for this time of year ;D ) and came home late Sunday night saying he had to be up at 2 am because he was being sent out of town for a few days. Talk about no notice (and no sleep! He had maybe 4 hours). I had already pulled out a turkey roast that day to thaw because I wanted to surprise him yesterday with a big turkey meal. Foiled again!

Yesterday morning I made myself a treat with a tortilla and ice cream. I made it a few days ago for Dan and he LOVED it, so I figured I'd try it myself.

Basically I spread about 1.5 tsp of light margarine on a tortilla and sprinkled on some cinnamon, nutmeg and 1 tsp of sugar and tossed it in the oven at 375F until done. (Slightly browned and crispy). Then cut it with a pizza cutter and served it with ice cream. It was SO good! I used the "chips" for scoops for the ice cream.

Eat Right Whole Wheat Tortilla- 130 calories
1 tsp sugar - 16 calories
1.5 tsp light becel margarine - 26 calories
Total: 172 calories
Calories with Ice cream: 262 calories

It was perfectly decadent! I think I'll make this a regular treat around the holidays. What's great is that it doesn't take long to prepare and when you eat it you want to eat it slowly so that way you can savor it. Yum yum! To cut back on calories you could use a low calorie sweetener, and smaller tortillas (since this one was pretty big for the amount of ice cream I ate). Remember some tortillas have a lot of salt in them, which might change the taste.

Yesterday afternoon I spent a good deal of time hunting down Christmas decorations in the basement. I had decided that I was going to decorate as planned, even if Dan was gone to work. He only wanted to be around for putting up the tree anyways. While hunting in the basement I found a several large plastic containers filled with wedding stuff. I found our old centerpieces, a box of programs, champagne covers, wedding bubbles (all dried up now!), BAGS of fake flowers, and my glue gun! One day I'll have to go through it all more thoroughly and purge our basement of a lot of wedding stuff. What do I really need a box of programs for? Maybe one for our wedding book and that's all.

Once I was done in the basement I finished making my big turkey dinner (No sense letting it go to waste!). My friend, Sarah happened to be free for the evening, so I invited her over to share my dinner with and it ended up being a fantastic evening full of girl talk, Christmas music and decorating!

Somehow the image turned and I can't turn it back :(

We had the turkey, pickles, carrots, grape tomatoes and mashed cauliflower! I chopped up a full head of cauliflower and tossed it in a pot. Added a whole jug of chicken broth, topped it off with water and boiled until tender. Then drained and mashed as usual. Adding the broth was a new twist I tried and I'm glad I did! They turned out fantastic! I added a bit of margarine to make them creamier.

Our wedding cake topper with Christmas lights behind it

Decorating was pretty fun too. I'm pretty sure she had more fun than me though. I complained pretty loudly the whole time. Now I remember why I like having Dan around to decorate, he's strong enough to push pins into the walls and ceilings! Haha.

Sarah is a Red Seal Chef and currently lives in a place where she doesn't have good access to a kitchen. So tonight she will be coming over to make me a meal, partially in thanks for the turkey I made, and partially to get her groove on in the kitchen! I'm very excited for tonight's meal, her food is always awesome!

Today I had a run scheduled before noon. I changed up the view on the treadmill so it shows the intensity and calories burned per minute. You can see where I warmed up, then slowly increased the speed throughout the workout. Then for the cool down you can see it drop drastically.

I started off at 4.5 mph but had to lower it immediately to 4.3 mph since I started getting a slight pain in my shin. Once it went away I upped the speed again to 4.5. For the last 5 minutes I upped it to 4.6, then to 4.7 for the last two minutes (which was very hard!). The run went fairly well, somewhere in the middle I was feeling really fantastic and had a spring to my step. Then I realized I was running to the beat of the song that was playing. It was perfect, like I was in the "zone". I was listening to First of the year by Skrillex.(Shut up, I like some Skrillex!) After my run I headed over to jog.fm and searched for songs that matched my pace. I found quite a few, actually! I tried looking for songs I already owned, because I'm cheap! I have about a 14:06 pace as an average, so I searched by that pace for songs.

I came up with:

3 A.M - Matchbox 20

More than a feeling - Boston

Ballroom Blitz - Sweet

Some Nights - Fun

Everybody - Backstreet Boys

Numb - Linkin Park (LOVE Linkin Park!)

Life Less Ordinary - Carbon Leaf

Play that funky music - Wild Cherry

Burn it down - Linkin Park

Runaway - Linkin Park

and the best one...

Eye of the tiger - Survivor!!! I'm quite psyched that this song matches my average pace. My next run is going to be epic!!

This afternoon I set up my 3DS with Netflix. I'm not sure if I'll ever use it, since I have Netflix on my computer, Wii, PS3 and my phone! I suppose it might be handy if I don't have my phone on me and I want to watch a movie. It's easier to prop up than my phone at least, but I find the internet connection drops more frequently than my phone does.

So I found out today that Dan may in fact be home tonight! I'm very psyched! I thought for sure he'd be a few more days at least! Tonight we plan on having a spectacular supper with Sarah, maybe put up the tree (if he's home early enough!) and hopefully watch some Christmas movies! I'm really looking forward to watching National Lampoons Christmas Vacation. Do you remember how many Christmas lights Clark (Sparky) puts up on the house every year? Well we used to put up a TON growing up. People used to call my dad Mr. Griswold! I get very excited this time of year, and I just can't wait until Christmas!

So, what are your favourite Christmas movies? What about Christmas songs or albums?

Growing up we listened to Boney M, Burl Ives, Some Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton, Elvis and The Judds! However, by FAR this is my favourite song!