5 Things I’m Grateful for This Friday
Happy Friday!
Have you all seen the 30 Days of Gratitude Photography Challenge? No? Well let me clue you in. Each day this month there’s a theme and your challenge is to interpret the theme and take a picture to represent it. You can read about it here.
But you won’t be seeing in here. Because I’m a rule breaker.
But I do like the idea of November being a month for sharing what you’re grateful/thankful for. I plan on keeping this series up through the rest of the month.
Join me, won’t you?
5 Things I’m Grateful for This Friday:
1. I’m really grateful for froyo, but mostly I’m grateful to be able to share it with a good friend 🙂
Jenn and I like animal crackers. And peanut butter sauce.
And pink spoons, apparently.
2. Fur friends.
3. A boyfriend who fills my tires with air, surprises me with bags of oatmeal, humors me when I say “let’s dance to Christmas music in the living room!!” and is an endless source of positivity.
And mostly for encouraging me to post this picture.
4. For good books.
5. For two strong healthy legs that let me run 17 miles so far this week.
That’s just 5 of many many things I’m grateful for this week.
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What are you grateful for this week?
Chocolate Chip Peppermint Pancakes
Is it really only November 10th?
I’m only asking because I’ve been hit full on by the holiday bug and while I’m busy checking my local radio station 5 times a day to see if they started playing Christmas music yet, everyone else is telling me it’s too early and that they’re “not ready for Christmas.”
I’m so ready.
Ready to run my 5K Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning. Ready to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Ready to stuff myself silly on both Thanksgiving and Christmas. Ready to watch holiday movies and go Christmas light seeing. And ready to fully embrace winter time flavors.
You know, eggnog, chocolate, peppermint. Anything decadent and probably not good for you.
These pancakes fit the bill, except they’re not bad for you. Win-win in my opinion.
Chocolate Chip Peppermint Pancakes
Makes 4 delicious pancakes.
“The best pancakes ever” as stated by a holiday-obsessed Tweeter.
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 tablespoon chocolate chips
- 1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract
- 1/2 cup milk
Method:
- In a bowl, mix flour, powder and chips.
- Spray a pan with cooking spray and allow to heat over medium-low.
- Add peppermint and milk to the dry mixture and mix until combined.
- Drop batter onto pan, wait until pancakes puff up, then flip and cook fully on the other side.
Does anyone else feel like weird writing the actual pancake cooking and flipping process down? That’s common knowledge right?
Feel free to decorate your pancake stack like it’s a Christmas tree.
Then add eggnog, Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride tea and fresh cranberries to your grocery list.
You’re ready.
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Are you ready for the holiday season?
Is it too early to want to listen to Christmas music?
What is your favorite holiday tradition?
WIAW: Oompa Loompa Style
Hi, my name is Lauren and I’m addicted to peppermint and chocolate.
Help me.
Actually, don’t help me, just join me.
Okay, so I really do have a new obsession with the peppermint chocolate combination, but I haven’t turned my back on my orange squash friends. Not yet, anyways. But I might have to after my skin turns orange. Let me show you what overdoing it means.
Pre-Yoga Snack:
Maybe the only non-orange meal I had yesterday.
An hour of some wonderfully relaxing vinyasa flow later…
Breakfast:
Pumpkin overnight oats in a jar.
Topped with a drizzle of maple, granola and raisins.
I try to leave what seems like barely any PB in the jar because it always turns out to be more and I feel like I’ve OD’ed on PB. And not in a good way.
Cold breakfast in November = hot tea on the side.
Lunch:
Butternut squash, 1/2 a Chipotle Field Grain Roast sausage, quinoa & salsa burrito.
Leftover steamed broccoli on the side.
Um, this left me so full.
For so long.
And I sailed right through snack time.
Dinner:
Roasted Pumpkin Quiche with Caramelized Onions, Gorgonzola and Sage
Fall Kale Salad on the side.
I made the quiche during the day (hence the nice lighting), so come dinnertime all we had to do was reheat it.
We loved the salad, but made it after the sun had set and I didn’t have the heart to ruin this post with a bad picture.
Fact: Fillo dough is hard to use without tearing it.
Then I had some candy corn, an orange and Cheetos for dessert. And my oompa loompa transformation was complete.
Okay in actuality, I had some roasted pumpkin seeds.
Either way, maybe I should lay off the orange-colored foods for a while. And by “a while,” I mean until I get sick of peppermint and chocolate.
As always, thanks to Jenn of Peas and Crayons for hosting the WIAW party 🙂 I suggest you hop on over to her page, leave her some love and get your WIAW inspirational read on.
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What food are you stuck on right now?
What is your favorite orange-colored food?
Lauren Loves Good Food 