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All About Ambiance

When we went to bed on Friday night the plan was to get up and drive to the mountains on Saturday morning to spend the day shopping and hanging out. Well, Saturday rolled around and I procrastinated working out/getting ready and sat around in my PJs and Brandon didn’t wake up until 10 so we scratched that plan.

It was so cold and gray out and I just couldn’t motivate myself to run outside. I let Brandon talk me into going to the Y where I proceeded to run 5 miles on the treadmill while staring at a concrete wall and nearly killing myself with varying the speed because I was so bored. I think I would have rather frozen outside! 😕 A plus of running at the Y was that I was able to get a good abs + foam rolling session in after my run.

– 50 bosu bicycles
– 50 bosu crunches
– 50 stability ball knee tucks
– stability ball plank

I was starving when we finally got home around 1:30 and made another cranberry panini. This one with leftover baked tofu, spinach and a cheddar/mozz mix. Apples, pretzels and a ginger cookie on the side.

You would think that since we skipped the mountains that we’d have started on our Christmas shopping here in Charlotte. Nope. Spent the afternoon cleaning and grocery shopping and then I went to a 5 p.m. hot vinyasa because my hips were so angry at me for running so much this week.

I put together a cheese plate when I got home so that we could snack while I prepared dinner. When we stay in on the weekends we try to make the evenings more special by cooking a “nicer/more time intensive” dinner than normal and upping the ambiance.

Candles + holiday decor in the dining area.

Fire in the living room (which was a great addition to holiday movie watching – Home Alone…the original!).

Christmas tree! 🙂

Dinner started with a salad with mixed greens, pears, almonds, blue cheese, dried cranberries and honey dijon balsamic vinaigrette.

Dinner was AMAZING. I made Chicken in Riesling from Gourmet and it was one of the best chicken dishes that I’ve ever done. I made a few changes to the recipe by doubling the wine (and using chard instead of riesling), adding mushrooms and roasting instead of boiling the potatoes (which I did not peel). I couldn’t even believe how flavorful and delicious this dish was. I love that it’s a “one pot” meal. It was just right with a salad and a side of bread to soak up the wine sauce.

Did you cook anything extra tasty this weekend? I think I’m about to bake a chocolate whiskey bundt cake…just because I’ve had the recipe on my radar for a couple of years and have never gotten around to making it. ‘Tis the season!

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