fall things i'm loving

Happy Friday!!

I've been at Chrysler training most of this week, so I've been able to take advantage of some "weird" work hours, get in some extra (morning!) workouts, and feeling overall pretty great.  Not to mention I started out the week by getting to spend two days with my college bestie and I'm getting ready to head up to Toronto next weekend - life is pretty great, and here are a few reasons why!

• Hockey's back!  My Detroit Red Wings are looking much improved over last year to start off the season, and there's really nothing like coming home from the gym, flopping over on the couch and watching an evening full of hockey games.  I remember when I was in college and I could stay up all night long I used to get NHL Center Ice every year and literally watch games from 7 pm until about 1 am every night.  I knew every player in the league and then some.  Now of course, I'm focusing a little more just on my beloved Wings (and my latent Toronto Maple Leafs soft spot) and cursing when the game goes to OT cause I just want to sleep, but I'm still pretty stoked to see the season kick off.  It also means much more time spent with my absolute best friend in the entire world going to games, making road trips to other cities and arenas, and coming up with an unreal number of stupid inside jokes.

Opening Night pretty tickets thanks to a pretty great coworker!

The BFF and I - home sweet home at last~

• Kitchen sink spaghetti squash bowls. My new go-to dinner of choice is a big bowl of roasted spaghetti squash with the entire contents of my fridge emptied into it and then heated up with a wedge of Laughing Cow cheese.  My favorite lately has been chunks of chicken thigh, sun-dried tomatoes, fresh oregano, French onion cheese and a handful of mushrooms and broccoli sprouts, but I've also been making them with chopped up pepperoni, and today I had one with swiss cheese, a bunch of cajun spices and some jumbo creole shrimp that was to dieeeeee for.

Pepperoni, mushrooms, chopped up haricots vert, sun-dried tomatoes & broccoli sprouts in this bowl! 

• Family style chicken dinners.  Two weeks ago it was the Dam Site & Legs Inn, this week I had the pleasure of introducing my Western Michigan friends to the glory that is Frankenmuth.  There is absolutely nothing like a good Frankenmuth family style chicken dinner & eating stollen, salads, cranberry relish, stuffing, and chicken until you're so full it hurts.  Plus walking around the quaint little towns that house places like the Bavarian Inn (by far my favorite, but next time I want to hit up Zehnder's - haven't been in years!!) is a joy in itself. 

My very favorite <3  I can't believe people live in Michigan and have never been to this delight!

Of course I had to also introduce the boys to the Christmas insanity that is Bronners - how cute are these science-themed ornaments??

Just lounging in the World's Largest Christmas Chair...what??

• Blue Hubbard squash.  The menu at Frankenmuth always involves one rotating seasonal vegetable - when we went it was clearly some sort of squash mash, but when I asked our (adorable!) waiter what type it was, he said blue hubbard, which I had never even heard of!!  I took one bite of it and I was IN LOVE.  It was sweet and buttery and nutty and a thousand percent perfect.  Luckily for me, the Bavarian Inn grows them out back & had a ton for sale at only 39 cents per pound!!  I ended up picking up the SMALLEST one I could find, which was 12 lbs (!!!!) and taking it home, where I conquered it, roasted it, mashed some with butter, froze some puree (with which I plan to eventually make "pumpkin" butter), and used some to make these Ooey Gooey Pumpkin Bars from Paleomg (just subbing blue hubbard for pumpkin, obviously - THE BEST EVER).  If you have never had this, you need it in your life. Right now. Go.

12 lbs of rock hard blue glory.

Gooey, squashy, chocolate chipp-y delights.

Frankenmuth chicken dinner also always comes with soft serve ice cream dessert - I usually go with the vanilla/orange sherbert swirl, but when I heard they had a pumpkin seasonal, and then that the pumpkin seasonal was made WITH THAT GLORIOUS SQUASH, I was done for. I didn't think I'd ever eat again after that meal, but I could have ate twenty of these.

• Barre classes.  My new workout du jour.  I've been interested in barre for a long time, trying out some classes here and there both at Nafas and at Xtend Barre Rochester (which I enjoyed!), but my home gym (Life Time Fitness) introduced a new format, LifeBarre, recently, and I am OBSESSED.  For the first time I love a "strength" class almost as much as my beloved dance fitness cardio.  I've found two instructors I absolutely love and I've been doing barre just about every other day - plus my little home studio is coming along quite nicely to where I'll be able to do these workouts at home very soon!!

• Lions football.  Every year I try to get into football (I'm a sports girl, but I lean hockey/baseball), and every year I kind of fail.  I LOVE live football, but I have a hard time getting into it on TV.  This year, though, I've been turning the Lions on as background noise on Sundays, and after going to last weekends epic come from behind victory that we had NO right to make, I think I'm becoming a football girl at last.  I can't wait to go again!!

My very first piece of Lions gear and a seriously incredible game was a great way to end last weekend - and to lose my voice.

We instagrammed this one and ended up featuring on the #onepride screen at the game. Famous!!

Tom paid like $25 for this horse head. Everyone around us LOVED it.  What....???

Not bad seats - although we were at the wrong end for the exciting finale.

• Siggi's yogurt. I cannot get enough of this stuff.  It's the perfect thickness, creaminess, it's not gross and overly sweet, but it's a little smoother than super tart Greek yogurt - I love taking a carton of this, mixing in my body weight in blueberries and homemade granola & topping it all off with a big scoop of my other favorite (guilty) obsession - seasonal Jif Whips.

• Podcasts.  I never used to care for podcasts in general & I never really got the appeal, but once I got a desk job that initially involved a lot of data entry (not...so much anymore). Obviously I couldn't get away with watching movies (although I DID used to "watch," aka listen to with my phone's screen upside down so you couldn't tell it was playing video, documentaries at my desk), so I started getting deep into the world of podcasts.  My current favorites are: Girls Gone WOD, Strange Brews, Balanced Bites, Serial, and Welcome to Night Vale, among a huge list of others.

• Stillwater Artisanal Ales Gose Gone Wild.  AKA a remix of Westbrooks Gose, AKA the beer that introduced me to, and got me obsessed with, Gose.  I got lucky enough to stumble on this mega rare bottle yesterday at 8 Degrees Plato while I was picking up some Michigan beer treats for my Canadian friends, and of course I had to snatch it up.  Can't WAIT to experience this one all over again.

 

• My new studio mirrors.  At last!!  Hardwood floors complete, mirrors up, now I only need my TV mounted to truly have the mini-home studio I've been dreaming off.  And they were only $60 each from Home Depot!!

Now I'm going to go eat another "pumpkin" bar, catch the rest of the Red Wings game, and get myself ready to head up to Toronto for Cask Days with my pops and my Ottawa besties tomorrow!!