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March 30, 2015

Jamaican Blues

Good morning, blog friends! How was your weekend? Mine was excellent, it was a perfect weekend in Starkville spending time with Nick. He’ll be back home next weekend and we have a wedding to attend, then Easter, then we’re headed to Orlando for a work conference I have. It’s going to be a great birthday week – I’ll get to learn some new stuff that will hopefully advance me at work, I’ll get to spend quality time with Nick and his brother’s family, and to top it all off…. I’ll be at Disney, on my birthday, crossing my fingers that I get selected for the Festival of the Lion King show. There will be birthday signs, people. Surely they’ll notice me!

The past few weeks have been back to reality since Jamaica and I’m not going to lie… it’s been ROUGH! I love my life, I love my job, I love the people I get to share this time with, but who wouldn’t want to do all of that in beautiful Jamaica? Yep, I’m having the Jamaican blues. I miss my cousin, we were tremendously spoiled with all that personal time together – we have never had that before! I miss the relaxing on the beach without a care in the world, reading a good book. I miss the free food. I miss our favorite little spots and our favorite little people. A few times a week I find myself daydreaming about what it would be like to just stay. Stay there and never leave. Of course, that would never actually happen, but I mean… what if? Am I Right?

So today in honor of my memories and the fun I had in Jamaica, I figured I’d give you a little peek into what my week was like. It’s not everything, that’s for sure, and I have a lot more pictures and adventures to share, but here is what I witnessed through my iPhone. Karla still has our Dunn’s River Falls pics, plus more, so once I get those from her I’ll go through that. I also have pictures on my camera, but I’ll share those in another post. This will probably be the most unorganized vacation recap you have ever experienced, but we’re going to run with it!

For me, the adventure started at the airport. I’ve never flown international and I had to get my passport specifically for this trip. We flew from Jackson to Charlotte to Jamaica. When we arrived in Jamaica, we had expedited customs which made our arrival a breeze! It wasn’t too long before I was hugging my cousin and we were headed to the resort. Our resort was about an hour and a half away from the airport, so we had a fun bus ride there. It really wasn’t as bad as I expected. They let us stop for a potty break and our driver gave us information as we passed by various areas along the island. When we arrived to the resort, they greeted us with champagne as we waited for our room.

We had daily cleaning service and they always had a special towel display on our bed. They were very impressive too. Our typical schedule was to wake up at a reasonable time, around 8 or 9, then head to breakfast. We usually ate at Kelly’s Dockside because the variety was phenomenal, but we did choose a fancier breakfast one morning.

I got french toast and eggs Benedict without ham. It was absolutely delicious! They had excellent coffee while we were there too, so we always enjoyed a fresh cup with our breakfast each morning. After breakfast, we would head over to the scuba area and see if they’d let us dive that day. Unfortunately we weren’t able to dive the entire week because the water was too choppy. Then we would head back to the room and pack up our beach bag for the day, heading out to the beach on our side of the property – sometimes to the pool, but usually to the beach.

The weather honestly wasn’t too hot, but it wasn’t too cold either. We wore shorts and tank tops every day, but sometimes at night it felt good to have a light sweater or regular clothes on. You could feel the warm sun beating down, but it was never miserably hot. The water was absolutely gorgeous, very blue. After laying out for a bit, we would then figure out what we wanted for lunch. The options were endless and sometimes we would do a light lunch in one place and a light lunch an hour or two later somewhere else. After lunch, we’d go back to the beach and maybe even get in one of the floats out on the water. Around 4 or 5, we would head back to our room and shower for dinner. We would always go to the Sushi bar for appetizers and drinks then meet up with some of my co-workers for dinner. If we weren’t meeting up with them, then we may just stay for dinner at the sushi bar. The sushi bar was our favorite restaurant at the resort. After dinner, it was dancing! We loved the entertainers they had to keep the party alive. They were literally hired to dance with the guests and keep things going throughout the night.

There were a few days when this wasn’t our exact schedule. On Monday we had our scuba diving certification, just in case we were able to scuba dive at any point during the week. On Tuesday we did Dunn’s River Falls and on Wednesday or Thursday we went sailing.

I will say that 7 days was perfect. I could have stayed longer, but I certainly wouldn’t want to stay any less than that.

On Monday night we had a group cocktail hour and dinner. We took group pictures beforehand and each got a free picture to take home with us. It was fun to get everyone dressed up and mingling together. The dinner was beautiful and they offered me mashed potatoes with veggies. The potatoes were delicious, but I love mashed potatoes!

I could not have asked for a better week, a longer week maybe… but not better! It was absolutely perfect and spending that quality time with my cousin was priceless. She had such a blast too and she really got along well with my co-workers who were there. We laughed, we talked about serious matters, we stayed active, we layed out on the beach, we ate and ate, we drank and drank, we did everything we wanted to except scuba dive. I’m so thankful that this opportunity was provided to me!

I’ll be back with more pictures and fun times as soon as I can! Hope you all have a wonderful week and maybe you’ll get a shorter week with Good Friday. I know we have a half-day, so I’m looking forward to that! The next week I will be in Orlando, so I’m hoping to have some good stuff scheduled for y’all by the end of the weekend! Cheers!

March 26, 2015

An Active Desk Job

Good Morning! We have all made it to Thursday and that just leaves one more day until Casual Friday & the weekend, woo hoo!

I’m just popping in real quick this morning to say hello! I’m about to head out the door to work and we have an out of office event this morning, so I’ll be stopping by real quick to check on things at the office, then heading out to the event at the country club. I love out of office days because it gets me out from behind a desk for a little while. I certainly don’t want them too often because then it’d be hard to get work done, but I enjoy them on occasion. Lately, I’ve been behind the desk a lot. I’m thankful that I get to leave early on Monday & Wednesday to go coach Girls on the Run, but I still find myself getting restless from sitting all.day.long. I need to start combating that. I’ve been thinking this morning about a few ways to do that and here’s what I’ve come up with.

Stand Up Desk

I did this a few months back, but I haven’t been using it lately. I moved out of my big office to a cubicle last December, but recently I’ve moved back into my big office where it’s more convenient to do a stand up desk. I need to bring this back into my life!

Running on my Lunch Break

The other day, a girl in my office invited me to join her for a run during lunch. It was absolutely perfect and just what I need in my life during the week. I tend to pack my lunch anyways so I can eat healthy and save money, so eating at my desk while I work is typically going to happen anyways, but then I still get a small workout and pull myself away from the office for a quick 30 minute run. It was awesome!

Take a lap around the office every hour

I need to be better about getting up and walking around for 5 minutes every half hour or hour throughout the day. I love how fitness gadgets help you do that – vibrating when you’ve been sedentary for too long or something to the effect. I haven’t actually owned one of those yet, but I hope to get one in the near future so I can use that as a way to gauge my activity throughout the day. It’s nice to take a little stroll around the office for a quick 5 minutes just to get my legs moving.

Drink Lots of Water

Not only do I actually need the water throughout the day to stay hydrated and to assist with all the fiber I try to have within my diet, but drinking plenty of water will have me going back and forth to the bathroom throughout the day which is just extra walking and moving around throughout my day.

March 25, 2015

Healthy Mexican Cooking Class

Good Morning!! I love Wednesdays – they’re half way through the week, so you get excited about the weekend coming up, and I get to go to Java Jog! Java Jog has become one of my favorite weekly activities. I love the girls I have the privilege of running with and seriously… WHO DOESN’T LOVE A FREE CUP OF COFFEE?! Anyways, I could go on and on about how much I love a good Wednesday morning run and sipping on this cup of coffee, but I’ll move on with my blog post for today.

On Monday night, I was able to attend the Healthy Mexican Cooking Class at Whole Foods. Mary Lindsey text me the night before about it and told me she had an available spot if I wanted to come, and of course I did!

We started out with an appetizer on the table, chips & guacamole – yum! As I got upstairs, Mary Lindsey mentioned that it was half priced pint night, so I decided to liven up my Mexican with a nice Mississippi brewed beer from Lucky Town Brewery. (water on the side)

I love the cooking classes at Whole Foods, especially the Healthy ones. Mary Lindsey does such a great job going through the recipes as quickly as she can, while also answering each and every question that comes her way. Here is a list of all the recipe’s we went over on Monday night:

First, we made the 2 types of salsa – fire-roasted salsa and roasted tomatillo salsa. While they refrigerated, we made the honey-lime dressing for our salads. We topped our salads with roasted pumpkin seeds and it was a delightful second appetizer of the evening.

Mary Lindsey prepped the rest of the meal in front of us and afterwards we were able to assemble our own tostado. The tostado included black beans, pineapple jicama slaw, guacamole, and both salsa’s. I had never tried or really heard of Jicama before, but I do believe I thought it was pronounced Jicama and not Hicama, until Mary Lindsey pronounced it on Monday night. She passed a bowl of it around for us to try and it was surprisingly delicious. It reminds me of an apple, pear, cucumber, and potato all in one. The outside looks like a potato and it cuts like a potato, but the taste is sweeter like a pear, and it’s crispy like an apple, but watery & light like a cucumber. It’s pretty amazing. My goal is to find a lot of Jicama recipes to share with y’all on a blog post one day. They don’t provide a ton of protein, but they’re very rich in fiber and they taste just fine on their own as a snack if you cut them up into matchsticks. You could also dip them in hummus or a bean dip.

We wrapped up our evening with personalized tostados that turned out delicious!! I may have put too much tomatillo salsa on mine because it was way spicy for me. There were some leftovers so I made a second one to complete my dinner for the evening and put a little less of the spicy salsa this time around.

Lastly, Mary Lindsey already had dessert prepared for us and I was a little skeptical whether or not I would like it, but it turned out delightful and refreshing. I’ll definitely be making these throughout the summer to keep on hand in my freezer – Mango Lime Pops. I love any recipe that is easily adaptable to taste, I guess most recipes go that way, but some are easier to change up than others to ensure you’re still getting decent flavor. I’m not a big Popsicle person and I can’t typically finish one, although I enjoy having them on a hot summer day, so these smaller healthier versions will be right up my alley!

Thanks to Whole Foods for another wonderful healthy cooking class and thanks to Mary Lindsey for all the hard work she puts into each and every class she teaches. She also has a wonderful Sous Chef by her side at each of the cooking classes and he does an excellent job answering questions, providing input when it’s appropriate, and helping Mary Lindsey any way he can!

Do you attend cooking classes at your local Whole Foods? Which one has been your favorite?
Have you ever tried Jicama? What have you cooked with it? Did you like it?

I attended a sushi class that I really enjoyed, we were all able to take home 2 rolls that we personally made! I’m excited to test out some Jicama recipes, let me know if there is one I should definitely try out!

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