Keeping up with Kate

An Old App becomes a FAV

Posted on July 22, 2013 by keepingupwithkate91

I rediscovered an app I’ve had on my phone for quite awhile on vacation due to my Mom and Aunt having the app on their i-Phones. Can you guess what app it was???

It was PANDORA!! I have a great waterproof, wireless speaker that I wanted to use and my Aunt wanted to listen to her tunes from her iPhone. Although we think one of her granddaughter’s added some other favs onto her stations – so then we used my Mom’s phone for her stations. It was great listening to some oldies but goodies while on vacation. We had fun trying to figure out who was singing some of the songs. And I’m happy to report that I did pretty good with some of the oldies!

They didn’t completely show me up either – I was able to add new stations for them quickly and had to turn off the blue tooth so they could answer the phone – phew – thought I was going to have to retire as the family techno guru!

The only station I had on my Pandora was U2. Now I have a great mixture of music (some nice influences from my Mom and Aunt)- great for vacation and in the car. Here are the stations I have now:

Summer Hits of the 90s Radio
Summer Oldies Radio
Abba
O.A.R.
Justin Timberlake Radio (I really like the newly invented JT)
Michael Buble
Maroon 5
Madonna
Mumford and Sons
Bruce Springsteen
Bon Jovi
Tony Bennett
Frank Sinatra
U2

I’m sure I’ll add more when I get a chance. Are there any apps that you’ve re-discovered or new ones that you just love? Please share!

A gentle reminder…

Posted on July 21, 2013 by keepingupwithkate91

It was a great weekend spending time with friends – hanging by the pool and grilling. However, when I got home I had a nice, gentle reminder that not only do I need to wear sunscreen but I need to use bug spray! I found a tick crawling on the underside of my arm!!

For those who don’t know (or recall), I was diagnosed (tested positive) with Lyme Disease back in November 2012. I completed my antibiotic treatment and finally felt back to normal this spring.

In the spring and June (before vacation), I was vigilant with my bug spray. I think I was spoiled down at the beach for two weeks – no trees – no high grass.

Today was a gentle reminder that Lyme Disease is all about prevention! I need to wear bug repellant (I’m trying to find a good combo sunscreen / repellent) when I’m out and about at any pool – friend’s, family or a complex. I’m sure I didn’t get bit as the tick was crawling around and it pretty darn flat – so I caught him or her before I became dinner. He is still crawling around in a zip locked baggie. 🙂 By the looks of it – it isn’t a deer tick, but still freaked me completely out. Now I’m off to Amazon to find a bug repellent / sunscreen I can use!

The creepy crawly tick – BAGGED!

I’m Back…

Posted on July 17, 2013 by keepingupwithkate91

I’m back from my 2 week summer vacation. One of the perks of being with a company for 20 years – I have lots of vacation. I’m a big fan of the 2 week vacation. I highly recommend it!

A one week vacation you are just getting into the groove of everything and it is time to go home. My Mom and I both mentioned that on our Anna Maria Island over Spring Break – we were just figuring out where to go and what to do and it was time to go home.

I’ve done the two weeks in a row and the two weeks in the same month – both are good. But I’m partial to the 2 weeks in a row. For the past 3 summers my Mom and I have been renting a house in Ocean City, NJ (OCNJ) on the odd side of Asbury Avenue. If you don’t have beach from on Central – the odd side of Asbury is the next best thing – a quick walk back and forth from the beach!

We had a great time (as always) – weather could’ve been a little better and the ocean could’ve been a lot warmer. The water was 55 degrees due to what they call upwelling – current/wind from the SW moving the warm water out into the ocean replacing with colder water from the bottom (see you even learned something while reading this blog today). That current is gone now so it is much warmer now so those down this week can get in the ocean to get out of this crazy heatwave.

I have lots of things I plan on sharing about my vacation – just need to get my act together!

Stay cool!

Still a Kid at Heart

Posted on June 23, 2013 by keepingupwithkate91

Since 2009 (I’m pretty sure that is when we started), my niece and I have been going to my church carnival. It is something we both look forward to every year. I don’t know which one of us gets more excited?!

We’ve had rain and storms (the first year we had to cut the rides short due to a T-storm – thank goodness we were in walking distance to a Friendly’s). This year the weather was perfect.

We have a set routine – face painting is our first stop. This year’s choice was a heart on one side and a whale on another. Then off to the rides. I love rides (I still remember when the SuperDooperLooper was the scariest ride out there!)! Our first ride this year was the Scrambler (when I was my niece’s age I found $5 at my grandparent’s church carnival – no such luck this year – I think we were the first ones on the ride). The next ride was the Tornado – it is a flying ride and you turn so your car spins. I will tell you it is the first time I’ve ever thought sick on a ride – ugh – a sign of getting old – hopefully maybe just a one time thing I hope. I hit a total of 5 rides (and luckily the Tornado was the only one with an issue – whew)!

Off to get some carnival food – we were pretty basic – burger and fries. While eating we got to watch the dunk tank – we even took some shots at it. I’ve completely lost my ability to throw a softball – quite embarassing since I played for probably 10 years (need to work on that)! Neither one of us knock him in. But it was fun.

It is interesting to see how my nieces interests have changed – she wanted to try out a game this year. She did really well – she didn’t win – but what annoyed me a bit is these were teen games and there were parents winning for their toddler kids (and there are games for the younger kids). My niece didn’t seem to mind – it was me who minded. She is a much better sport than me!

We both LOVE ice cream so we were off to get our annual softserve cone – we keep it simple – vanilla softserve – YUM!

We had time for one more ride – we usually ride the Pirate Ship or the Swings (and they have two swings) – to my surprise the pick was the bumper cars. It was fun – and I had an excellent driver – I was very impressed.

View of bumper cars – waiting in line.

I just love the fond memories this brings back to me growing up and going to my grandparent’s church carnival and the Holy Spirit Street Fair. I love that I’m creating great memories (I hope) for my niece! I cherish this time and hope we keep this annual tradition going for a very long time!

Love this shot – we never made it on the double swing.

A little something sweet…

Posted on June 18, 2013 by keepingupwithkate91

I love dessert. There are times where I’d rather skip dinner and go right to dessert. I know I’ve had ice cream for dinner at least once or twice (especially Creamery Ice Cream) in my life. 🙂

I wanted something sweet after dinner tonight and I went for a South Beach (probably the only recipe from that diet I remember) staple, Ricotta Creme. I love chocolate so of course mine has chocolate in it.

Here is my version:

1/4 cup of ricotta cheese
5 drops of liquid stevia
capful of vanilla extract
Ghiradelli choc chips – to taste
Pecans – to taste

A bit of a ‘turtle’ type dessert minus the caramel. It really hit the spot!

“Elaine Salad”

Posted on June 16, 2013 by keepingupwithkate91

I had planned on grilling two filet mignons tonight – one for dinner and one for leftovers later this week. The filets weren’t quite thawed and honestly I just wasn’t feeling it tonight.

I knew I wanted an Elaine Salad – aka a big salad – ‘its a salad, only bigger – with lots of stuff’ (although I’m not sure mine would be considered it lots of stuff – but it had enough). I also had some fresh lettuce – picked from my neighbor’s garden yesterday. So off to the fridge to see what protein I had and low and behold I had some Halloumi Cheese (purchased from Wegman’s). This is cheese you can GRILL – yes I said GRILL.

Here is a view of it first on the grill:

Halloumi just placed on the grill (~300 degrees)

You want it to get grill marks and you want it to look a bit like chicken when your grill it. Something like this:

Halloumi Cheese with grill marks – looks a bit like chicken.

The rest of my salad included: fresh lettuce, organic cranberries, pistachios and roasted peppers. I also made homemade dressing – fig balsamic vinegar, EVOO, Dijon Mustard, Mediterranean oregano, fresh ground pepper and fresh ground himalyan pink salt. I shook it up in a cruet (it has a line for vinegar, water and oil – I ignored the water line and just filled the vinegar up to the water line). Making fresh, homemade dressing for you salad is so easy and good for you since you decide what goes in it.

Here is the final picture of the salad (note I did leave the cheese on a little longer – I burnt the one side – still very tasty). The salad my not look like an Elaine Salad – it was – that salad was in a big salad bowl!

Yummy Halloumi Salad

1000 Rep Challenge

Posted on June 16, 2013 by keepingupwithkate91

Last Monday night our workout was a 1000 rep challenge. It is a timed workout (not quite sure how much time). You compete against yourself to complete. I completed 7 rounds or 700 exercises. Not too bad since I couldn’t do the jumping jacks (my knee is bothering me) – so I did butt kicks (instead of 10 I did 20 to make sure it was even). I know that cost me some time. 🙂

The workout is below – it is one you can do when traveling – just need weights from the hotel gym (and if you don’t have access to weights you can substitute other other exercises). Enjoy!

10 each Mountain Climbers
10 Plie with Calf Raise
10 Jumping Jacks
5 each Supermans
10 Deadlifts
5 each small band tricep (make sure tight to your arm or you could end up launching it like a rubber band – that is what I did). 🙂
10 rocking plank
10 chest flyes
10 glute bridges
10 bent over rows

Experimenting with Protein Powder

Posted on June 12, 2013 by keepingupwithkate91

For the past few years, I’ve been using Prograde Protein Powder (Vanilla) for my pre workout snack. I rarely use it as a meal repleacement. Imagine my surprise and disappointment to find they are using soy lecithin – I try to steer clear of soy – so I now have two containers of this protein mix that are moved to th ‘back shelf’. Part of my disapointment in finding this out has to to do with the fact that it tastes pretty good and really doesn’t have any other ‘crap or fillers’ in their protein mix. I just sent them an email asking how much soy is truly in it, why and do they plan to remove (sent over the weekend and haven’t heard back yet). This protein mix is gluten and GMO free – two important things to me.

Since my go to Protein powder is taking a backseat – now off to find some others to try. I decided to try a plant-based protein mix to see if I could tolerate the taste and if it would help me with my workouts (in the past I’ve not been a fan of plant-based protein mixes). The one that was recommended to me as being very good – both for my body and great tasting was Sun Warrior – Warrior Blend – Raw Protein – I opted for the chocolate. This mix is gluten, soy and dairy free and non-GMO. My standard pre workout shake is really easy – 4 ozs Trader Joe’s Unsweetened Almond Milk, 4 ozs of water and a scoop of protein mix – put all in a shaker bottle and mix it up. Well to say I didn’t like it is an understatement – blah. However, I found a fix – adding a tablespoon of Trader Joe’s Organic Peanut Butter – throwing it all in my vitamx and I’m able to drink it. I’ve been given a sample of the vanilla to try and I will get around to it to see if that makes a difference (as I do believe sometimes the chocolate is what I’m having an issue with). I feel pretty good during my workouts too.

Since I wasn’t satisfied with the plant-based protein, I really wanted to find an organic whey protein powder to see if I could find something that works for me. You really have to do your research – the first one I found (and was planning to order) – the company was sued in a class action lawsuit becauce some of their labeling (aka marketing wasn’t true). Here are the two I ended up buying since they both received very favorable reviews – both are organic, soy and gluten free – one is raw (meaning the whey isn’t cooked at high temperatures.) Raw Orgnic Whey has 20 grams of protein and The Organic Whey only has 15 grams of protein. These protein mixes require other ingredients though which is a bit of a let-down.

I started with the Raw Organic Whey with 4 tbsps of protein, 1 tbsp peanut butter, 2 tbsp raw cacao powder (mayan superfood), 4 ozs almond milk and 4 ozs of water – put it all in the vitamix – blend it all up – tasted it – wasn’t sweet enough so I added 5 drops of sweet leaf stevia. It tasted pretty good and I had good energy with my workout (still a bit of blah – again I think it might be the cacao).

Nutritional Information (using 4 oz water and 4 oz unsweetened almond milk):

Prograde (vanilla) (I’ve only ever used 1 scoop – it calls for two) Protein Shake: Total Calories: 87.5 Protein: 12.5g Sugar: .5. If you use the 2 full scoops: Total Calories: 152.5 Protein: 24.5g Sugar: 1g. Note: Protein Powder Calories Only: 130 (2 scoops)

SunWarrior (Chocolate) Protein Shake: Total Calories: 201.5 Protein: 20.5 Sugar: 1.4 g Note: Protein Powder Calories Only: 84 (1 scoop)

Organic Whey (with ingredients mentioned above) Protein Shake: Total Calories: 275 Protein: 27.5g Sugar: 2.5 (this probably could be a meal replacement with a salad) – you can cut about 30 calories by only using 1 TBSP of the Cacao. This is high to me for a pre workout snack so I’m going to have to work at modifying – maybe use a vanilla stevia and remove the cacao and peanut butter. Note: Protein Powder Calories Only: 97.5 (5 TBSPs)

The Organic Whey (with same ingredients as Organic Whey) Protein Shake: Total Calories: 259.5; Protein: 20.5g; Sugar: 1.5 g (this probably could be a meal replacement with a salad) – you can cut about 30 calories by only using 1 TBSP of the Cacao. This is high to me for a pre workout snack so I’m going to have to work at modifying – maybe use a vanilla stevia and remove the cacao and peanut butter. NOTE: I haven’t tried this one yet. Protein Powder Calorie only: 82 (4 TBSPs)

I hadn’t really done the calorie count on this pre workout shakes until this post – imagine my surprise how high the calories were on the organic whey shakes (one I’ve made; one I’ve not). Like I mentioned – I need to look into stevia flavors to cut about 155 calories.

I think for my pre workout protein shake I will be sticking with the Sun Warrior protein since I’m not looking for a meal replacement (until I can perfect the organic whey to be lower in calories – I’m not giving up on it). I will definately be using the organic whey when I need to make a protein shake for breakfast – Cinnamon Roll Smoothier – YUM!

And I’m not giving up on Prograde either – It is great for travel as I don’t need to have any additives – plus it is GMO free – which means even if it has soy – it is GMO free (I will make my final decision once I hear back from them).

Looks like I’ll have another post about protein powder / shakes very soon as I continue my experiments.

PS: I do have to say I love the fact that with the Organic Whey protein powders – I know the name of all the ingredients – both ‘Organic Whey Protein – 80% concentrate’ And I’m in control of all the ingredients for those shakes so again that makes me happy!

FIG – Vodka, Sauce, Salad, App…

Posted on June 11, 2013 by keepingupwithkate91

So what made you click on this post today? Was it the thought of Fig Vodka, a Sauce, Salad or an App?

I really enjoy figs – my Dad has some really great recipes – one is an appetizer with a balsamic reduction – note to self – get recipe. I have FIG(s) on the brain today.

A friend shared with me a new vodka – it is Figenza Vodka – I’m looking forward to trying the Fig Mojito – 3 ozs of Fig Vodka, 2 ozs of Club Soda, muddled mint and lime (this is their June cocktail). I could also try the Sunkiss – 3 ozs of Fig Vodka, 1 oz of Club Soda and muddled oranges (this is their July cocktail) – this is definately on the list for vacation. I’ll let you know what I think of it.

In December, I hosted Christmas and due to the size of my house (and the age of my oven), we normally celebrate ‘Easter’ at Christmas – which means Ham. I get an awesome Spiral Cut Ham from Kansas City Steaks. I decided this year to try a different sauce. At first I was going to make a fig sauce but found on Pinterest a sauce I could purchase that was just a good. It was Stonewall Kitchen’s Vidalia Onion Fig Sauce – it was a hit. I think it would great on a nice pork loin or chicken too – I have one bottle left and I see this as a grilling option real soon.

Since I don’t have my Dad’s recipe for the appetizers – thought I would try this recipe – Roasted Balsami Fig Salad – Blue Cheese. Looks easy and delicious.

So now for the true reason for this post – the FIG Wellness App – available on iOS and Android. I had a work/life balance lunch and learn for my team with my trainer, Lindsay Vastola. The feedback from my team was fabulous. And the interesting thing was a lot of the feedback was that they had the work/life balance, but didn’t have the life/life balance. I wanted to figure out a way to reinforce what we learned, but I also wanted to help my team have overall balance. I’m a true believer that a well balance employee – is a productive employee. I rolled out a little voluntary incentive for my team – 21 Day Challenge (pre-vacation for my team) – the objective of the incentive – set a goal, track results and share your findings. The incentive is all about participation – each week they participate the get a ‘ticket’ for a drawing and if they particpate all 3 weeks – they get another ‘ticket’. There will be two winners of some fabulous prizes. I wanted to find something to help us track results, keep each other accountable and I wanted us to be mobile.

It was easy to search for some wellness apps – I found FIG to have the best ratings. We started yesterday – I like it so far – you can create goals and activities. Some of the activity categories are related to eating, exercise, refresh (sleep, relaxation), connect (family, friendship, community), feel (awareness, gratitude) and go further (faith, longevity). I thought this was perfect because it wasn’t just focusing on eating and exercise – it focuses on the entire being. You can invite participants to be your ‘friends’ so you can see how everyone is doing – lend a ‘cheer’, ‘assist’ or ‘rally’ your friends with words of encouragement. You can track your items very quickly. My week 1 goals are drink 10 glasses of water per day and do my Hard Body workouts 3xs per week. I made my water goal yesterday and got a nice YELLOW Star!! The only thing I don’t like is that everyone has to invite each other vs. a one time invite from me. I think I can get over that. So far so good and I think I will use this post our 21 Day Challenge.

I’m off to drink a glass of water!

Take Me Out to the Ball Game…

Posted on June 7, 2013 by keepingupwithkate91

You know how the rest of the song goes (you are singing it right?)…

Monday night I took my nephew to the Phillies vs. Marlins game as part of his baseball association’s night out at the ballpark. I had gone last year with my brother and nephew and it was a lot of fun. My brother was traveling for work and asked if I could take him. Of course, the answer was YES!

We had to get to the ballpark early because part of the evening included a walk around the stadium. Last year, my nephew walked with the team and one of the coaches. This year he was on a new team and I was a little nervous as I didn’t know any of the parents or the coaches. I befriended one of the Mom’s and she encouraged me to go on the field – which is exactly what I did. I don’t know who enjoyed walking on the field more – the kids or the adults? We were all walking around use our cellphones – snapping pictures.

Here are some of the fun shots I got on the field:

Local group playing the theme to Rocky as we walked around the Ballpark

Getting the infield ready

The Home Team’s helmets

Approaching the left field wall.

On Deck Circle

I asked my nephew if he wanted to get a photo of the two of us on the field together – the answer was NO – but he did allow me to take a photo of him on the field (I won’t be sharing though since his parents aren’t on social media – so his photos won’t be either).

So after some ballpark grub – hot dogs, a few fries, water and our bag of peanuts – off we went to our seats in the upper deck behind home plate. Here are a few shots from our seats:

Thougtht this was a cool shote with the Phillies sign and the city in the background.

Zoomed in view from our seats via my iPhone.

View from our seats.

The start of the game wasn’t great – it didn’t get interesting until late in the game – just right before we had to leave – the fun started with a home run by catcher. The little boy next to me got so excited he spilled a nice portion of his Phillie red italian ice on my side – good thing it matched my shirt! It was great to see the team hit the ball and get some runs – it was 5-2 when we left and 7-2 by the time we got to our car – it was great hearing the roar of the crowd as we walked to the car – we knew our team was doing great. It was an awesome ending to a fantastic day at the ballpark.

I wanted to share this story because I think sometimes we are always so busy in our daily lives we don’t take the time and really enjoy some of the simple things in life. I hope I created a fond memory for my nephew – I know I created one for myself.

PS: I did get him to agree on a self-portrait of the two of us in our seats!