With the whirlwind of the holidays among us, I am doing my best to remember these stress reliever techniques so that I am able to enjoy this busy beautiful time. I really truly am trying to relish every second of the holidays because to me this really is the most wonderful time of the year and it comes and goes so quickly, but I’m only human, and I’m pretty darn exhausted. My two cups of coffee in the mornings have been very helpful though. 🙂

Monday

I had the majority of my Christmas shopping done but still needed a few things so I set out to finish it up.

For lunch I refueled with a deli chicken wrapped pickle and havarti cheese as well as carrots and hummus. There was no time to waste, it had to be quick!

I made myself a batch of homemade trail mix for the road and headed out again.

Want to know one of the great benefits of having a birthday in November? I still have birthday gift cards, which means when I go Christmas shopping for others, I also get to go shopping for myself and I don’t have to feel guilty one bit because I am not spending a penny on myself!

I found this workout tank at Macy’s on sale, plus I had a coupon…so the grand total was $9. I thrive off finding good deals like these!

For dinner I had a very tasty salad made of mixed greens, broccoli, black beans, olives, sunflower seeds, avocado, and ranch dressing.

Mom, dad, and Abbie stopped over after dinner to hang out for a bit.

Tuesday

Tuesday was a doozy of a day. I ran 3 miles on the treadmill before work, went to work, ran some errands, then came home to a leaking fridge which was flooding the basement. It was a stressful day to say the least. Again, I need to remember the stress reliever techniques!

My evening meal was extraordinarily simple yet very delicious. Lettuce cups with hummus, deli chicken slices and avocado. I rolled them up and really enjoyed the cute little concoction.

Wednesday

I took the day off from any type of workout on Wednesday. My body was needing a day to just chill.

On Tuesday evening I got a batch of butternut squash soup ready in the crock pot. The recipe is very similar to this carrot pumpkin soup recipe, except I used butternut squash puree instead of pumpkin or carrot. At noon on Wednesday, we covered the crock pot and set it to low for 6 hours.

The result:

A dish you can feel real good about eating. Healthy, delicious and ready for me when I get home from work. Perfecto!