A Caramel Macchiato + Cocktails at MELT

Tuesday started early with a 5:30 am "strength" class. The tuesday teacher is great and she always seems to come up with a different class layout and different exercises to prevent the "regulars" from getting bored in her class every week. This week had a lot of moves using the stability ball, which Rainie and I both decided adds an extra level of difficulty to any move simply because of the added core strength and balance required to do the moves. Her class is called Strength but she does add some cardio moves mixed in which is nice to keep your heart rate up and really makes you feel like you achieved a total body workout at the end. This morning the frequent cardio move was burpeees which no matter how many times I do them I don't think they ever get any easier! Lets just say I think I will be sore tomorrow!

After class I showered at the Y and enjoyed breakfast on the way to work. My breakfast is just the usual overnight oats (yogurt + walnuts + oats + raisins) enjoyed with an adorable spoon Rainie gave me for a gift a while back :) However my coffee this morning was exceptional! I am a fan of 8-o'clock coffee in general but they have a flavored kind I have just discovered, caramel macchiato, and its AWESOME! I opened the bag to make a cup of coffee and it smelled like a Starbucks coffee shop. I added my caramel creamer with it and it was quite delicious! I drank about 12oz. on my way to the gym! I would highly recommend trying it!

Midmorning Snack: Homemade granola bar

Lunch was my usual salad: spinach, bell pepper, bleu cheese, hemp hearts and my favorite addition today... caramelized onions! I also had a handful of peanuts and a bite sized Twix for dessert!

I ate an apple mid afternoon but I was saving my appetite for dinner!

After work a few of the nurses from work and I headed to MELT for happy hour and dinner. They have awesome happy hour specials from 3p-6pm, half off all alcohol (beer, wine and mixed drinks) and $5.00 apps! Our server was nice and she let me try a few beers on tap to see if I liked them but she could tell I didn't love any that I tried, so she suggested a new one they just got in served in a can, called "Summer Love". I figured I couldn't go wrong with a name like that so I went for it, and I liked it, its always fun to try a new beer!

We all chatted and enjoyed happy hour before ordering dinner. I opted for the summer tomato sandwich which is made on Birmingham Breadworks sourdough bread (http://www.birminghambreadworks.com)  pesto, tomato and mozzarella cheese. It was delicious! It comes with fries, pasta salad or fruit salad; I opted for fruit salad just simply because fruit is delicious this time of year!

Robyn ordered the original grilled cheese sandwich which is served on Texas Toast, so clearly that is going to be delicious. The tomato salad looked pretty fancy too and some of the girls had the BBQ nachos which were awesome (they came with fried jalapeños!) so I might have helped myself to some of theirs  too:) -- and as tough as it was I did resist their fried oreos for dessert.

Im so grateful to work with such awesome people! They are definitely the best perk of my job! They make work seem not like work everyday :)

After dinner I headed home and chatted with the family for a little while, packed my lunch for the next day and hit the sack because Rainie and I had a early morning run planned Wednesday!