the week in review & the one ahead

First, look at this, will you? My husband made this for me for our early Valentine's Day dinner.

5 oz. pan-fried steak topped with 1/4 oz. roquefort butter, 3 oz. homemade whole-grain bread, braised endives with bacon & cream.

Plus (PLUS!): 6 oz. sweet mashed potatoes that needed just a few more minutes to cook, and a slice of cheesecake drizzled with homemade malt syrup and garnished with pear slices.

42 points. But I had them to spend and I was happy to do it.

the things i did
It was a good week. Patrick and I shared a Saturday and Sunday cooking delicious food, riding bikes and being generally productive. We made bread using the spent grain from his beer-making! We ate lots of fruits & veggies (and have already stocked back up on mangoes, pears, apples, avocado ...). We shared happy-hour beers at one of our new favorite spots, Lucky.

I'd set small goals for myself last weekend, when I was celebrating the end of my return the gym. They went something like:

» go to the gym at least four times in the week head. And I did! Now, I'm committed to being easy on myself this go-round, but I have to give credit where it's due: when I headed to the Y this afternoon, I think I was at least 50% motivated by making sure I could say "I reached my goal!"

» do at least 45 minutes on the elliptical each gym visit / wear my heart rate monitor. Ehh. Neither. I mean, today I absolutely rocked 45 minutes *hard* on the elliptical. But other mornings I phoned it in. And I forgot my heart rate monintor every single time. C'est la vie! Next week ...

speaking of next week: goals!
» four gym visits! I could push it to five trips, but four still feels like an accomplishment. And I'll set my sights (again) on doing at least 45 minutes of cardio each visit.

» wake up at 5 a.m., regardless if I go to the gym. I was finishing at the Y one morning when I looked at the clock and realized that if I'd not decided to exercise that morning, I'd still be in bed, not even awake yet. And *then* I thought how much of my day I was giving up to sleep (when I stay in bed on my non-gym mornings, I'm almost always getting "extra" sleep ... somewhere beyond the seven-or-so hours that I need to feel fully rested). And then I thought of all the things I feel like I don't have time for. And *then* I put those two thoughts together and realized I could try to wake up at 5 every morning and get productive one way or another. So there we go. Goal! 5 a.m. wake-up call.

» a week of food photos. One thing I want to improve about this blog is more (and relevant) photos. I can do only so much justice to my adventures through words. Images are priceless, and I want to get in the habit of making' em.