Can I just say that I wish every week is a 3 day work week?!  It will be Thanksgiving before we know it.  I had a wonderful weekend, the weather was amazeballs – temps in the 50’s?  Yes please!

Tony made me two delicious breakfasts, I am being spoiled by his weekend breakfasts, and I love it. Open-mouthed smile

Saturday morning?  Spicy French toast.  Sounds weird, but it was the perfect balance of sweet and heat, which is amazing because he can never taste the spicy food he gives me.

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Then Sunday morning, an egg and pepperoni sandwich.  Both days this ended up being my breakfast and lunch.

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Saturday Tony and I deep cleaned our living room.  Now, I vacuum on a pretty regular basis, but I don’t always move the furniture.  We moved just about everything out – you would have thought I had another dog living with us with the amount of dog hair we pulled up!

Then it was off to Hannah’s house for the afternoon.  It was so good to see her!  She’ll be spending Thanksgiving with her boyfriends family, but we are getting together with my sister and her kids on Saturday at my Mom’s house. 

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I love her tiny dog – I can’t remember what kind of dog it is, but she gets cold and likes to wear sweaters – so cute!  I am still trying to get our 80 pound black lab to be a lap dog!

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I picked up Chinese food on the way home – spicy beef and broccoli for me!

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As the holidays are approaching, I am trying to think of some food gifts that I can make for family and co-workers.  One iconic Chicago snack is the Chicago Mix popcorn – half cheese popcorn, half caramel corn mixed together.  Garrett’s popcorn in Chicago has the best mix if you ask me.

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I didn’t have any cheese powder, but I had a leftover box of macaroni and cheese that Hannah bought a long time ago.  I popped 15 cups of popcorn and divided it in half.

For the cheese popcorn, I melted half a stick of butter and tossed the popcorn with the whole package of cheese powder.  It wasn’t as cheezy as I wanted it, but it was pretty good.

For the caramel part, I followed this recipe.  I did leave out the bacon though.  You don’t really need a candy thermometer either – just keep an eye on the sugar/water mix – once it hits that dark amber, you want to move quick because it can go from perfect to burnt in a matter of seconds.

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Tony was my taste tester.  After a few minutes he said “get this away from me!”  He could have eaten the whole bowl. Open-mouthed smile

Saturday ended up being my rest day, so yesterday I had to get my 5k in.  I decided to run outside since it was so nice.  Only one problem, so many people were burning leaves it was really hard to breath!  And I went down the road that’s really hilly, so it took me 41 minutes to do it.  I almost didn’t do it, but I am glad I did!  I’ve run 12 5ks in the last two weeks for a total mileage of 37.2!  I am in the last week of my 21 day challenge and will WI next Monday.

I did a simple pot roast last night – here is a great recipe, except my roast was only 2 pounds so it was done in 90 minutes in a dutch oven.  The gravy was amazeballs!

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So here’s to a short work week!  Off to put my food/workout clothes together – hope you have a great Monday!