My Arch Nemesis

O yes, I dread this machine. I hate it. With a passion. I'd even take a run on the treadmill over this!

I was in desperate need of a good sweat session so I listened to a friend's suggestion to do intervals to keep things interesting. Plan was an easy 10 minute warm up followed by 6 sets of 3 minutes hard, 2 minutes recovery and a 10 minute cool down. I ended up only doing 4 sets because I didn't feel like eating a late dinner ;p Followed it up with my toe taps (per PT's instructions to strengthen the achilles), some bended knee calf stretches and foam rolling (to loosen up my freakishly tight soleus muscle). Feeling good!!

I've had this turkey sammich craving for a couple weeks now and I finally grabbed some Boar's Head Low Sodium Turkey Breast and sammich fixins at the Gigante on Sunday. I toasted some Flax & Grain bread with some pepperjack cheese and then smeared it with Spicy Apple Mustard (obsessed!) before piling on some turkey, cucumber and avocado.
I was hoping to get some red in there, but I couldn't find any roasted red peppers in the house. Could have sworn I had a jar stashed somewhere! Grr. On the side, a mix of 'tropical fruit' and pineapple from Whole Foods.
I don't know why, but fresh (not canned - yuck) pineapple always makes me happy...it's up there with watermelon! I think this was also my first papaya experience. Usually I stay away from papaya because I don't really like mushy fruit. This was actually pretty tasty. Not too sweet and not offensively mushy. Yum.

So I'm going to work backwards to Christmas since I've been a terrible blogger :[

I checked the mail as soon as I got home on Saturday and sure enough there was Jamie's package of goodies! He said he was sending over this crazy Korean instant coffee he's been drinking but I didn't expect this:
A giant sack of 100 individual coffee packs! Jeebus!
I must say this definitely came at an appropriate time. We're in temporary office space right now and there's no coffee machine! I brought a couple packets into work today and tested it out. Nuked a mug of water, poured the contents of the packet in and stirred. Poof instant coffee. I mean, it's on the weak side (mostly creamer with a hint of sweet), but I'll take caffeine in any form in the morning. I may save the rest of the bag for Jamie's return.

Christmas brought some fun new things to my home, including this guy:
O yes, a measuring cup man. He's super bendy and has suction cup feet. Cannot wait to use this...or at least prop him up in the kitchen. Hello stress man!

Before there was Christmas, there was Christmas Eve! In my family, we do the big hurrah on Christmas Eve at my uncle's house in Long Island. Usually it's a big gathering (my dad is one of 7 and I have at least 19 first cousins, some who have sprouted a ton of children of their own) with tons of food. This year was a bit tame since a few family members were out of town. That didn't stop the food from flowing! There was a mix of Italian and Filipino food, catered and made by family members. My mom brought some roast beef, I made a fennel and mixed green salad and my sister made a ton of cookies. Unfortunately I once again forgot to bust out the camera :( I did rock the camera phone though ;)
The heaviest cake known to man. I'm still trying to figure out why it was so heavy - we're talking at least 5 pounds...and it wasn't even that big of a cake! Poor brother-in-law had to wait in a line of like 100 people to pick it up! It was yellow and chocolate cake layered with raspberry and chocolate mousse. Maybe it was the layer of chocolate mousse? It was pretty dense...hm...

Every year there's also a huge, gorgeous tree:
Perfect shape, right? Makes me a little sad my tree is dead and shedding needles :( I got a package on Tuesday night from Jamie's uncle filled with ornaments to add to the tree. I was so psyched to make it look less naked, but when I went to put one on the needles just fell to the ground :( I think it's time to take it down *sigh*

More news in the world of plants - Red is dead. Well, not totally dead. The leaves are still green, but the redness has gone brown. Even with water, plant food and sunshine (well, as much sunshine as we've gotten lately)! Eleven whole days...I think that's a bit of an accomplishment for me! Woo!

How was everyone's Christmas? Any fun New Years plans? I'm keeping it low key - something I've come to appreciate as I grow older ;p A certain someone is celebrating NYE/his birthday in Okinawa this year...hopefully we'll get a travel report? *hint, hint*