Missy Maintains » veggie burger

LUON. The Musical!

MissyMaintains — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 01:39:49 +0000

Hello! Hope everyone had a nice Tuesday! About a month or two ago, I mentioned that I was going to be filmed doing intenSati for a Lululemon promotional video called Luon. The Musical! My amazing intenSati teacher, Natalia, is a Lululemon ambassador and got to be the star of the musical. I was invited to the release party at the Lululemon in Union Square on Sunday night!

A few other girls that always take intenSati were at the party. I found my friend Jill who is the writer of a great blog called Glamamom!

They had chocolate covered pretzels and strawberries!!

I skipped the treats because I knew I was having dinner right after but I did enjoy some champagne!

So classy in my plastic cup…I know.

Eventually, we all gathered around and watched the video!

Here it is!! I am doing intenSati at the 3 minute mark! I am wearing a black top and gray and yellow pants! I am only on for 3 seconds but still exciting!!

luon. the musical from Andrew Michael Dolgin on Vimeo.

Here is a screen shot of me doing the punches!

The video will be shown in Lululemon stores, online, and at several conferences!

Of course I did not leave without taking a picture with the star! I plan to take class with Natalia tomorrow morning (as long as I wake up!!!)

I have to show you my dinner too because it was that good. A few of us went to Heartland Brewery after. I got an Apricot Ale. My new favorite beer!

Okay…the picture above is my friend’s beer. My glass had nothing on it!

I loved seeing that they really do brew their own beer inside the restaurant!

I got the veggie burger on a whole wheat bun with sweet potato fries!

Perfect dinner! I am off to go get ready for 6:30am intenSati! Let me know if you can see me in the video!! Have a good one!!!!

Blogger Housewarming Meetup!

MissyMaintains — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 14:39:33 +0000

Happy Thursday! It is really Friday for me because I am leaving for Connecticut tomorrow morning! It is my mom’s birthday and we are going to the Gathering of the Vibes festival! My dad sells Jerry Garcia artwork there every year and his band played there last year. It will be a nice little get away! It is always fun to play with hippies for the weekend!

I am currently chugging lots of espresso because I did not get home till 1:00 in the morning last night! Angela from Miss Chubby Hubby invited me along with a few other bloggers over to her new apartment for a housewarming party! She moved into a gorgeous apartment near Union Square. I met Mari by my work and we headed over to Starbucks before the party. We had to refuel since we both had been up since 4:30 in the morning! I got a sugar-free vanilla latte with soy milk. Best drink ever.

Her apartment is a mansion!!! This picture does not do it justice! I want to live there!!

She even has her own little patio! Yesterday I mentioned how we should be inspired by each other instead of getting jealous. Well in this case, I AM JEALOUS!!!!

Hi Dori! We were all talking about how we could have yoga classes up there! I would lay out up there every single weekend! So nice!

Angela made us her famous sangria. This stuff is dangerous!

We snacked on some chips and salsa while chatting away.

One more picture of her apartment. I am a little obsessed!

Angela was nice enough to make us all dinner! I had one of her homemade veggie burgers! She was worried that we would not like it but it was delicious! I also had some salad on the side. It was so nice having a home cooked meal!

She also made us lots of cookies! They are hidden behind the empty wine bottle and salsa bowl! You can tell I had a a ton of sangria at this point!

The chocolate chip cookie was wonderful of course.

Angela!

Dori, Me, Mari, Angela

It was a great night! Of course the night did not end there! I left and realized 20 minutes later that I forgot my gym bag! I am losing everything these days! Mari and I walked all the way back to Angela’s apartment to get it. At least it was more exercise right? An hour later we got to the subway and it took FOREVER to come! It was also 100 degrees underground. Not fun when tired and buzzed! Eventually I got out of the subway and some guy tried to walk me home! He begged for my phone number but I was not giving it to him. Finally I got away and made it home safe and sound. Always some kind of adventure! I have pepper spray, don’t worry! I am off to go chug some more caffeine! I’ve got some more intenSati tonight and tomorrow morning! Excited!

I am choosing the winner of the Tropical Traditions Coconut Oil giveaway tomorrow!

Birthday Celebrations, Lost Phones, Cop Cars, Graduations!

MissyMaintains — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 15:18:28 +0000

Hello! Where do I even begin about the weekend I had? It all started with one of these…..

Friday night was Mari’s birthday dinner at 5 Burro… of course! There were 5 of us there. It was Mari, Me, Mo, Carol, and Gigi. Carol was visiting from California so it was nice to finally meet her! There was about a 45 minute wait to be seated so we all got pretty buzzed from the margaritas before dinner. I actually had to send my first one back…tragedy! I ordered an Apricot margarita but it was all ice on top and syrup on the bottom. The ice and syrup would not mix! It looked a mess! Not a typical 5 Burro margarita. I went with the Strawberry instead since it was premade and could not be messed up.

Gigi, Mari, Me

I decided to stick with something healthy for dinner since those frozen margaritas are the complete opposite of healthy! I got the Grilled Shrimp salad.

I have to give credit to Mari for all of these pictures. Mine are gone forever. More on that later.

Mari and I split the guacamole to top over our salads. It was perfect!

Enjoying margarita number 2….

The table next to us definitely started to get annoyed because there were a million cameras going off at once! That’s what happens when you bring 4 bloggers to a restaurant together. The other table behind us did not mind and offered to take some pictures for us!

We decided to continue the celebration so we headed next door to another bar. We ordered some birthday shots. 1 birthday shot turned into 8 or 9 birthday shots.

They were all girly shots and seemed weak so we kept ordering more! Probably not that best idea! It was really fun though! Eventually we drank enough and headed our separate ways. The next part of the night went from amazing to awful….

The bar was only 2 subway stops away from my apartment. I went to get on the train and asked some guy if it was going local or express. You never know at that time of night. The guy told me it was local so I believed him and got on. Of course, the train went express and went 4 stops past mine! Once the train finally stopped, I got off to turn around and go back towards my apartment. It was 100 degrees underground and I was tired and pretty tipsy. I needed a local train again but an express train came. I did not feel like waiting for the local so I decided to take it back to where I started and just get in a cab or walk home. I got back to where the bar was and saw one of those black town car cabs. I got in. He asked me how much I wanted to pay. I said $5.00. He said $7.00. I said fine. He drove me the 5 minutes to my apartment. He asked for a $6.00 tip on top of the $7.00!!. I think he was trying to trick me. Whatever. I did not fall for it. Anyway, that part is not too important! I just dislike cabs.

I finally got home and dumped out my purse to find my Droid. I was supposed to call Mari and Mo to tell them I got home okay. The phone was not in my purse. I dumped it out about 5 more times and looked everywhere but there was no phone. I started hysterically crying and ran outside to find the cab but he was long gone. I think I left it on his seat or it fell out of my purse. I walked down the street to find a pay phone and saw some cops. I cried to them about how my phone was gone and asked if I could borrow theirs. Instead, they put me in the back of their cop car to see if we could find the cab. I knew I would never find him since he was in a black car but we drove back to where I got in the cab anyway. No luck. Luckily that was my first time in the back of a cop car…and hopefully the last! They drove me around for a little until they got a call about an assault. They told me I had to get out so they left me a block or two away from my apartment. I really don’t think that was too smart of them to leave a drunk crying girl on the street! I still wanted to at least call someone so I decided to walk towards CVS since I knew it was open 24 hours. The guy let me borrow his cell phone and I left a few voice mails to let everyone know I was alive. I tried calling my phone but it was dead of course. I walked back home with no phone but luckily still had my apartment keys!! I felt lost with no form of communication. I don’t even have a working laptop right now! I realized I could get online through my iPod touch so I was able to email Mari to let her know I was okay! What a night!!

The next morning I was supposed to be at school at 9:00. I decided I needed to just sleep and then go to Verizon in the morning. There was no way I was sitting in school all day feeling sick and worrying about my phone. I felt kind of guilty missing my 2nd to last day of school but I had already completed all of the graduation requirements so it was not a huge deal. I went to Verizon and ordered a new Droid but they are on back order. Luckily I have insurance but still had to pay $90! Ugh. I activated an old phone for now. This will be Droid #3 in one month. So sad. I dropped my first one after 2 weeks of owning it and cracked the screen. I am horrible with technology! I will NOT lose or break the third one!!!

I stayed in on Saturday because I did not want to risk missing my last day of school on Sunday! Yes, I celebrated National Tequila Day a bit too early!! Luckily I did not miss much on Saturday. Class on Sunday was a lot of fun. We did not have an official graduation ceremony or anything but received diplomas and danced a lot!

It is official!

It is kind of embarrassing to talk about how I graduated as a certified health coach in the same post as the story above!! Oh well, I am human and it was a very special occasion. Accidents happen!

After class, I celebrated with Dori and Kristine at a bar called Banc. We split a pitcher of the Cucumber Splash: Fresh Lime Juice, Simple Syrup, Fresh Cucumber House Infused Absolut Vodka, Mint Garnish, On the Rocks.

It was so refreshing! Next we headed over to a cute restaurant called Penelope for some dinner. Kristine goes there all the time and raved about the Veggie Burger! I had to get it!

She was right! It was delicious! There was this amazing pesto mayo on the English muffin! Loved it!

Dori got the FBLT (fakin’ bacon, avocado, lettuce, tomato with black pepper balsamic mayo on sourdough).

We loved it there! Now that I am done with school, we are going to make it a Sunday tradition to go to Core Fusion followed by drinks and dinner! Besides my phone drama, it was a really fun weekend!

1) Have you ever lost your phone? I want to hear stories!

Outdoor Bar Hopping

MissyMaintains — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 14:50:07 +0000

Happy June! Hope everyone had a nice Memorial day in the sun! I will start from where I left off yesterday! I knew I wanted to lay out somewhere but had no idea where to go. My roomy and I decided it would be fun to take the Water Taxi around. Why not get a nice tan on a boat?

We stopped at a cafe near the apartment first for some breakfast. I got a mushroom and feta omelet with whole wheat toast.

We decided to pick up the taxi at Pier 84. We had a half hour before the boat was scheduled to come so we walked around and saw all the battle ships for Fleet Week. We also stopped at an outdoor bar for a quick drink.

I got a vodka soda with a splash of cranberry.

We waited for a while but the boat never came. We figured it was because of the Fleet Week events. It was packed around there. We decided to walk to the next pier. We walked along the water on the West Side Highway.

We checked out the helicopter tours but it was $200 for a 15 minute ride over the city! No thanks!

We continued walking and decided to stop and get a drink every time we saw a bar! We made it to Pier 66 which has an outside bar on a boat. I went one time last year and it was really fun.

I got a glass of sangria. They just ran out of fruit….so sad.

The first boat was the actual bar. We left with our drinks and continued walking. Probably not allowed? Oh well!

Hello.

Eventually we made it all the way to the World Financial Center. At this point we decided to skip the boat idea and continue with the bar hopping. We stopped at a Mexican place for some margaritas. I got a Passion Fruit margarita on the rocks.

I also had half of this Blood Orange margarita. This one did the trick if you know what I mean!

We continued walking and saw Battery Park and the Statue of Liberty! It started to rain for about 10 minutes which kind of sucked.

Our last stop was South Street Seaport. Here is a map just to show you exactly how far we went!

We wanted to go around the whole loop up to the Midtown stop but we got pretty tired by the time we made it to South Street Seaport. We got to see another Water Taxi Beach! This one had a mini golf course and ping pong tables!

We thought about walking across the Brooklyn Bridge but we decided to save that for another time.

We were starving after our 4 hour walk so we stopped at the Seaport Grill for some dinner. I got another margarita.

Pretty view from the table!

I got the Garden Burger on whole wheat bread.

Once again, I needed the fries!

The burger was topped with sprouts, lettuce, tomato, and guacamole.Very good!

We ended up ordering more margaritas but I could only handle one sip. It was time to go home! I looked it up and the walk was about 4.5 miles in total. It seemed like much longer but that’s what happens when you stop and drink every mile! At least I got some exercise in between drinks right? No better way to do it! Time to go grab some coffee now! Have a good one!

The First Low-Carbon Restaurant!

MissyMaintains — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 13:00:44 +0000

Last night I had the opportunity to try the “planet’s first low-carbon, vegetarian restaurant” called Otarian. I won a gift certificate from Foodbuzz to visit the restaurant during it’s opening week. A few things that make Otarian different:

Locally sourced ingredients with a no-air freight policy.
All-vegetarian menu to reduce CO2 emissions.
Used oil is turned into bio-fuel.
All packaging is recyclable or compostable.
Everything in the restaurant, down to the floor and seating, is made from reclaimed materials.

I went with Monique since I remembered that she told me she entered the contest and few weeks ago and was dying to try it out for herself! We went around 5:00 on a Sunday night so the restaurant was pretty empty. The decor was really modern and unique.

Before we walked in, we got to try samples of the Potato Onion O Dill (filled with potatoes, cheese, onions and dill). It was delicious! I thought about taking a 2nd sample but Mo reminded me not to be greedy

We checked out the menu and wanted pretty much everything! We decided to order a few things to share.

We were wondering why they didn’t use dishes and silverware but then saw that all of the containers were compostable. I guess running a dishwasher all day would be worse for the environment!

We chose 3 items:

The Avocado Tomato Mozzarella Salad with Pesto Dressing:

The Roasted Vegetable Lasagna:

And the Portobello Mushroom Burger:

I started with half of the salad and half of the lasagna.

They were both delicious! The salad was especially amazing because of the pesto dressing. Mo and I both wanted to buy a big bottle to take home! I love that the menu tells you what items are vegan, gluten-free, kid-friendly! The menu also tells you the Otarian Carbon Saving, the amount of Otarian carbon, and a meat comparison. For example, beef lasagna uses 5.21 kg carbon, the veggie lasagna uses 2.58 kg, so the saving is 2.63 kg. Definitely makes you feel good about eating there!

The star of the dinner was the Portobello Mushroom burger. Check this out:

It was layered in the delicious pesto and mayo, and topped with lettuce, tomato, onions, and cheese. Amazing! We found out later that we could have requested vegan mayo! I would come back anytime just for this burger.

We finished everything and threw out our containers in the special compost bin

We were both very impressed with Otarian. The food came out super quick, the prices were reasonable, and the food was delicious. I love what they are doing to help the environment. Hopefully many more restaurants will follow their model. They have one location in London and two in New York. Hopefully I can make it there every now and then during my lunch break!

After dinner we decided to find a Lite Choice for some dessert! Luckily there was one a few blocks away. I got a mix of Dark Chocolate Truffle and French Vanilla with crunchies.

I always get very excited to see my sign in the stores! I post a “Weekly Wellness Tip” at the start of every week.

Mo told the girl behind the counter that I was Missy from the sign and she got all excited! She asked if she could have her picture with me. I felt all special lol.

We used the special “TLC Twitter code” and got a free water bottle too! Little things like that are exciting! P.S- Don’t forget to take the TLC Survey for a chance to win a $20.00 gift certificate!

Stay tuned for a Greenworks Cleaners giveaway tomorrow!