Christmas Feast

Hi friends!

Happy Tuesday!! Hope you are all loving the sunny skies if you are in the Ottawa region!

I had an awesome low-key night with a friend of mine, who has currently set-up camp in my living room. Loaf her. We spent the night chatting away over a bottle of red wine and ended curled-up watching episodes of 'The Good Wife', our current female powerhouse lawyer inspiration :)

Workout

I did a Bodyrock workout yesterday after work [find it here]. I followed along with the video - for some reason the workout breakdown and the video don't match up...? It was an awesome workout, but it did involve burpees. 50 of them. Consider yourself warned ;)

I finally sucked it up today and went for a run at lunchtime. Loved it! It was nice and sunny outside, a balmy -6C, and the sidewalks were cleared.

Unfortunately my old running trails aren't cleared - I have to stick to the road now

Its amazing how a little movement in the middle of the day can brighten my mood for the rest of the workday - I feel nice and refreshed and ready to get back to work! I am in the middle of reviewing funding proposals, which can be a bit tiring on the mind, so I can appreciate any boost of energy that I can get ;)

Christmas Feast

Kind of poor-quality pics, but bear (bare?) with me. 

My second - yes, second - pre-Christmas feast of the weekend on Sunday night was an amazing 3 course meal prepared by my Step Dad's roomies, who moved in when my Momster and little sister headed off to Egypt.

We started off with a mushroom soup with cretons, followed by a green salad with seared scallops (not pictured - I inhaled it too quickly).

The grand finale was duck confit with sautéed spinach and goat cheese on a potato rosti from Les Fougères in Chelsea, asparagus, turnip and red cabbage.

Seriously, they outdid themselves. It was a taste explosion.

We did an awesome game of present stealing - where each person takes their turn to either open a new present or steal one from someone else who has already opened one. We do 2 rounds, and a present is 'out' after it has been stolen three times. The hot items of the night were: a bacon wallet (not actually made of bacon, but with a bacon pattern); a teddy bear that says lines from the movie 'Ted' (rated R, as in not for children); and TNA leggings (my purchase - you're welcome ladies ;)

After the game, where we worked off a bit of the meal by running around stealing people's gifts (in the nicest way possible, obvi) we had some home-made rice pudding and special coffee. It is the roomie's family tradition to sneak an almond into one of the bowls and whoever finds it in their bowl gets a special present. 

I was the lucky gal, and got a huge box of chocolates. Thank goodness for my own rommates, who have been helping me out to eat them all ;)

Hope this is getting you all in the 'oh-em-gee-I-can't-wait-til-I-can-stuff-my-face-and-get-presents-and-drink-copiuous-amounts-of-wine-with-my-fam' frame of mind. I'll (hopefully) be back tomorrow with a little guide to surviving the holiday feasts without having to buy a bigger pair of pants by the end of it.

Have a great night!