My Gym

As you may have inferred from my previous posts (or if you live here), the weather has not been great in Boston. A solid week of rainy, gray, overcast weather. My body was craving sunshine, so this morning I decided to make the most of the warm weather and get outside for a workout. My favorite place to run is the East Boston Harborwalk, which is conveniently located about 1 minute from my front door. Lucky me! I snapped some photos so you could check it out! 

 The tall building (A Hyatt hotel) marks the end of the Harborwalk. 

 What a view! We have a yacht club, too. Fancy!

 Logan Airport is located directly behind these buildings. You can't tell at all! 

 The landscaping is so gorgeous. 

There are two tennis courts and a basketball court at the beginning of the Harborwalk. Super convenient, with a great view to boot! 

What do you love most about your neighborhood? 

Leftover Salad

One of my favorite lunches is a big salad made with a bunch of odds and ends from the fridge. It generally ends up tasting pretty excellent, despite the odd couple ingredients. Here's what I've got going on today: 

The end of a salad mix, some leftover chicken breast (with yummy cajun seasoning), some feta cheese, a half of a Granny Smith apple that I had in my breakfast oatmeal and the end of a cucumber. Oh and some leftover salad dressing that I made a few nights ago. 


Nommy nom. This was a good salad because it hit all of my tastebuds and tasted very springy. Some dried cranberries tackled my sweet tooth without breaking open the chocolate stash. 


What are your favorite salad toppings? Leave us a comment to share! 

Tiny Improvements Check In- Month 1

Hi darling readers! How was your Easter weekend? Ours was full of family, food and a great service at the Church I grew up in! Oh, and an absolutely gorgeous Sunday! The flowers are in full bloom at my folks' house, the lilac bushes are budding and the birds are chirping. Spring is finally here! 

Also here is the one month mark since I decided to start making some changes in our eating/living.  How's it going so far? Not bad. Still a loo-ooo-ooong way to go, but we're headed in the right direction. So far, I've lost about a pound. 

To refresh your memory, here are my goals: 

• I’m starting out with a high-protein/low-carb/tons of fresh veggies approach and seeing how my body responds. So far, so good! I'm also eating steel cut oats for breakfast, yum!
• Mike and I are scheduling in cardio workouts 3x a week and yoga twice a week. We’re going to add in bike rides, walks and hiking once the weather gets nice. Not going so well- Mike's work schedule is making it tough for us to get to the gym, but I've been walking the mile to and from the train station instead of taking the bus!
• I’m challenging myself to drink 8+glasses of water a day. I’ll do this by bringing my 24 oz. water bottle to work- I’ll be more likely to guzzle it if I have it with me! This is going well! It helps that I've been putting hot sauce/sriracha on everything! 
• I’ll start taking a multi-vitamin and a probiotic regularly. I’m hoping this will also help boost my immune system (thanks to the kids I work with, I get tons of colds). I've been slacking on this one. Woops! 
• Switch my eating style to mini-meals- a good breakfast followed by little, protein-packed meals throughout the day (5 total meals). Yes! I've noticed my sugar cravings are being less intense, which (hopefully!) means my metabolism/blood sugar is evening out. 

So there you have it, lovely readers. Month 1 is in the books. The weather is finally nice, so we have no excuses to not get outside and burn some calories. Mike and I are thinking about starting a neighborhood sports team of some kind...

Let The Sun Shine!

Oh my word, what a glorious Sunday we had. Mike and I decided to spend as much time outside in the sun and I'm so glad we did. Oh, and we totally did it Tiny Wallet Style!

We woke up super early and decided to skip the gym in favor of some outside booty-shaping. There is this amazing park/walking trail in our neighboring city (about a 10 minute drive) called Deer Island.

(Doesn't it look like that plane is coming from my ear?)

It's actually the site of the municipal waste water treatment plant, but don't let that scare ya! The trails are very well-maintained and the view from the top is amazing.

You can scope out the city skyline, peep some planes flying into Logan and even see out to the harbor courtesy of some sweet binoculars!!

After the walk, we headed back to 02128 for some serious garden time. Lucky for us, our neighbors had the same idea so we were able to hang with them while we were raking and digging.

I wish I took a before- our yard was in tough shape. Leaves and leaves and dead plants from last year and more leaves and sticks and more leaves. We filled 5 (five!!!) lawn and leaf bags. Holy cow! Our muscles are sore and our backs a little achy, but we can say that our gardens are ready for planting. Woohoo!

We are SO looking forward to gardening. The sunshine, the smell of dirt, the satisfaction of growing something from a tiny seed into a plant. It's good for the soul.

Feeling Snacky

Oh hello. You might remember a few posts back when I talked all about getting healthy, eating right, etc. Let me let you in on a little secret: it's horrible. I'm going through some serious sugar withdrawals as I cut out processed foods and high fructose corn syrup from my diet. 

Deep fried oreo photo via

I've been making a huge green salad with tons of veggies and a few slices of lean turkey breast for lunch. This, itself, is a great thing but I'm still feeling really snacky throughout the day. My nutrition plan suggests that I eat a small snack between breakfast and lunch and between lunch and dinner. Basically, the eating plan of a toddler. 


Here's what's keeping my belly happy these days: 

1. Clementines! I eat way too many of these bad boys per day. So yummy + Vitamin C!
2. Annie's Lite Gingerly dressing- it has 40 calories/2 tbsp. which is way less than most. I dip raw veggies in it.
3. Laughing Cow Lite Garlic & Herb cheese. I put this on celery or Multigrain Wasa crisps. 
4. Cedar's Original Hummus- it gives me some good protein and is awesome to dip veggies!


What are your favorite healthy snacks? Do you snack during the day or are you a three-squares per day kind of person?? 


*Note: none of these companies are sponsoring this post, just my own opinions of some good eats!

Tiny Improvements

*This is one part in a series of posts about what I’m doing to improve our lives this year. Not New Year’s Resolutions, just a few Tiny Improvements!


Hey there! Hope this finds you well- I can't believe it's already Thursday! We had a dusting of SNOW last night here in New England. Guess Mama Nature missed the memo that it's spring time. I'm cool with it, for another week or so. Still time to sneak in some hearty, winter stews and such.


It is, however, already three (nearly four!) months into this lovely year. I realized that I didn't really share with you some of the things I decided to try and accomplish this year. So, in the interest of keeping myself accountable, here goes!


1) Take care of my body

I've never been super concerned with how I look in the mirror. Of course, I like to look nice but I've never been obsessed. This all changed for me this year at a recent doctor's appointment. She mentioned that my weight has been nudging up and that losing a few pounds would do wonders for regulating my PCOS (poly cystic ovarian syndrome). 


So, dear and darling friends and readers, it is ON. It’s time that I took control of my body and not the other way around. I’m doing lots of reading, and if any of you have suggestions on how to go about doing this let me know!

• I’m starting out with a high-protein/low-carb/tons of fresh veggies approach and seeing how my body responds.
• Mike and I are scheduling in cardio workouts 3x a week and yoga twice a week. We’re going to add in bike rides, walks and hiking once the weather gets nice.
• I’m challenging myself to drink 8+glasses of water a day. I’ll do this by bringing my 24 oz. water bottle to work- I’ll be more likely to guzzle it if I have it with me!
• I’ll start taking a multi-vitamin and a probiotic regularly. I’m hoping this will also help boost my immune system (thanks to the kids I work with, I get tons of colds).
• Switch my eating style to mini-meals- a good breakfast followed by little, protein-packed meals throughout the day (5 total meals).

What do you do to stay healthy? Comment and let us know!!!