Hi friends!
Hope you all had a glorious weekend and made it through your Monday well. The weekend here in the Bay Area was a dark, rainy one. We barely have gotten rain at all in the past year, and now it has been gloomy and rainy probably 6 out of the past 10 days. Crazy mother nature!
Some notable eats of my weekend include this butternut squash enchilada casserole, recipe a la Sarah at Making Thyme for Health:
A “quick run” into Whole Foods turned into me walking around for longer than expected, spending way more money than expected – but when does this not happen when I go to Whole Foods? I get a little too excited there, especially with my February gluten free diet. It’s like the gluten free food mecca! My favorite find was Kind Healthy Grains Cinnamon Oat Clusters with Flax Seeds: 
A fruit and almond butter bowl with Kind clusters sprinkled in
Since I was hungry at Whole Foods and needed to come up with a quick dinner idea, I decided to nab a gluten free pizza from Against the Grain Gourmet. My verdict? Not bad, not amazing. I’ll probably attempt to make gluten free pizza dough sometime soon, but this was an okay quick fix for my pizza urge.
(Notice a certain puppy’s ears in the photo?)
Since I really beat up my muscles with tough workouts all of last week, I took the weekend off of any serious exercise for some R&R. The most activity I did was partake in long walks with my pup and a morning yoga session in my living room. Sometimes just taking 2 days off of working out can do wonders. I feel so much better today and had a great workout this evening at the gym.
Speaking of rest, I also got another massage at the National Holistic Institute to help loosen up some tight and achy spots. My student masseuse last time was better, but it was definitely worth the cheap price again.
On Saturday afternoon I got the chance to meet some of my classmates at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. One thing I love about IIN is that there are people of all different backgrounds and experience in the health industry, yet the constant commonality is that we’re all interested in health and wellness. All of these women live in Northern Cali and it was nice connecting with them. Group photo:
One of the women, named Madeline, is from Switzerland and now lives in Sonoma. At the very end of our meeting, I asked her how she wound up moving to the U.S., and she said that she first moved here to be a nanny in Montclair, N.J. I went to Montclair State University and lived in that town, which is 2,500 miles away from here, for 4 years! [Funny coincidence #1 of the weekend.]
Yesterday Clos LaChance winery had a pick-up party for its wine club members, so we headed down the street in the gloominess for a glass of wine.
Usually we like to enjoy these parties by having a picnic outside, so since the weather was crappy, we didn’t stay long. It was crowded inside, so we sat outside while it spritzed and sipped our wine. I then had a brilliant idea that we should go wine tasting somewhere else local – preferably indoors.
This handsome man and I wound up at a winery in our town that we had never even heard of before yesterday called Castillo’s Hillside Shire Winery.
Tucked away in a backroad was this beautiful little winery. The tasting room was this cute room in a cottage across from their mansion of a home. Inside the tasting room, we met some new friends: the owner, who literally stopped what she was doing in the tasting room to sing Italian opera to me as I sipped my malbec (I kid you not!); and a group of friends, 2 of whom currently live in San Diego in the complex that my hubby and I lived in there [funny coincidence #2!].
We didn’t love the wine, but did enjoy 2 of the varietals we tasted. We went home with a bottle of red and smiles on our faces. I love quirky boutique wineries!
“Wine makes daily living easier, less hurried, with fewer tensions and more tolerance.”
– Benjamin Franklin
Questions: Has anyone ever sang opera to you? Anyone else have a problem with spending way too much $$ at Whole Foods?
I think it’s called whole paycheck for a reason 😉 I have yet to figure out how to exert will-power there…I’ll keep you posed when I do!
Yes, do keep me posted on that because I need some help! haha
I can’t say that anyone has sang opera personally to me. Sounds pretty cool! Also, I really need to try out that butternut squash enchilada recipe.
It was very random but definitely an interesting few minutes of my life!
There are so many great things in this post! Butternut squash enchiladas! Yes! Wine tasting! Double yes! Massages! This is pretty much my perfect weekend!
Ha, yes it was definitely a good weekend!!
That is so crazy about the lady from Switzerland and you having so much in common. How cool though! Life truly is much smaller than we think sometimes. I’ve never had anyone sign opera to me.. guess I’ll have to add it to my bucket list of things to be done before I die. Ha!
Love your boots btw. You look beautiful.
You’re so right… it’s a small world! Thanks so much, you’re too kind! 🙂
That winery is beautiful! And yes, I always spend too much at Whole Foods.
That’s so cool that you got to meet up with some of the other students at IIN. I’m not sure if you follow Hillary at Nutrition Nut on the Run but she just started the program there too and she lives somewhere near Chico.
The program sounds so interesting. I’m hoping once things calm down and I pay off wedding debt that I can look into it. You’ll have to give a review once all is said and done!
Yes! I do read her blog and I know that her and I are classmates. Oh yea, I’ll definitely be doing some posts about IIIN… I might do one next week actually!