The Never-ending Winter Break

I was supposed to have nine total days off of work, but I got two bonus days because of the extremely cold temperatures here in Wisconsin! I don't think my workplace has ever closed down for two days like this! Hooray for a three day work week ahead of me!!

I have really enjoyed my "winter break." I normally don't take vacation days around the holidays, but with the way New Years fell this year, I just felt like being off for a whole week. 

I started out my vacation using a new sleep app, Sleepbot. I placed my phone under my pillow to keep it in place. I found it fascinating to see that I moved around a lot in my sleep all night long. The 6 a.m. movement and sounds are us yelling at Tanzi to be quiet and then me getting up to chase him!

I picked up a few new snacks at the store and found these ridiculously good pita chips.

They were perfect to dip into the new spicy hummus I bought.

I read a lot all week, but mostly got through a lot of magazines and didn't focus a lot of time on books. I did finish David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell and I started The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert and Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline. I resolve to try to read only one book at a time in 2014, but I think I will fail at that attempt! I sign up for books I want to borrow from the library and they always come in when I'm reading something else I own or have borrowed.

Craig downloaded the new Dr. Luigi game and I finally found a video game I can beat him at! I was pretty addicted to Dr. Mario on my Gameboy when I was about 10-13 years old. The game just came back to me and I managed to kick Craig's butt! 

The refrigerator really needed to be cleaned out, so I threw out old items and took out all the shelving to wash it by hand. The result was this, which makes it so much easier to see what we have and finish up food! Craig was amazed at the transformation.

I was thankful that I got to spend so much time with the kittens and Tanzi. Shiva loves to plop on his side and get belly rubs.

My gym was holding a blood drive, so I signed up the week prior and was happy to see that my iron levels were high enough to donate. I was actually credited with "higher than normal" iron levels for a woman. Hooray for all of the spinach, garbanzo beans and eggs that I eat doing their job!

I consumed this Riesling wine most nights and it was really tasty.

I also used the immersion blender to make protein smoothies a couple of times, which kept me full post-workouts. By the way, immersion blenders rule!

Craig and I went to the library mid-week and I finally glanced through an edible Milwaukee magazine. There were some great articles to read through and the pictures were gorgeous!

Other than that, I wrote some blog posts, went shopping with my mom and read lots of blogs!