Daily Archives: July 27, 2011

Explore: Santa Barbara

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And we are now officially closer to the upcoming weekend than we are to last weekend.

Progress, my friends.

Workout

Today’s came in the form of a Mat Pilates class and then ~40 minutes on the Elliptical (Incline 20, Resistance 9), which happened while I was engrossed in my Kindle reading. (I’ll review it when I’m finished but thus far, Stories I Only Tell my Friends by Rob Lowe is excellent. Who knew the guy could write?)

Explore

You may have noticed on the main page, there’s a little tab called “Explore” where I highlight excursions, destinations, etc about life in Northern California. It’s been seriously lacking as of late but we’re about the change that!

Explore Part 1: Santa Barbara

Living in San Francisco, we have a lot at our disposal – the snow is 3 hours away, the beach (with water warm enough to go in) about 2 hours away, and about 6 hours from LA.

One of my favorite spots to road trip to is Santa Barbara!

Where It Is: About 5 hours South of San Francisco (via the 101, the scenic route, Highway 1 takes about 7 hours) and about 1.5 hours north of LA. The city sits between the Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean and is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been to

What To Do: Hike, relax the beach (a perfect strip for a barefoot beach run too!), stroll and shop along State Street, check out the boutiques of El Paseo Shopping Mall (California’s First Shopping Mall!), check out the SB Botanical Gardens, eat to your heart’s content, drive up to Montecito and gaze at all the mansions, explore UCSB, relax and as Mindy brilliantly pointed out, wine tasting! (I get spoiled with Napa Valley so close and forget about all of the amazing wineries and vineyards down south! Just be sure you have a DD to get you back!)

Botanical Gardens

State St.

Where To Eat: Acai Bowls at Epic Bowl (amazing and fresh!), Carlitos (huge portions, outdoor seating, live music), Brophy Brothers (right on the water, my favorite clam chowdah), Pascucci for Italian (outdoor patio, well-priced, great food) and taste test about 5 different frozen yogurt places! You can also bet we frequent the Chipotle on State Street for burrito bowls and people watching!

Carlitos Patio

State St.

Brophy Bros!

Where To Stay: We’ve stayed at 2 different places, the Castillo Inn, which is almost right on the water, and Hotel Santa Barbara, right on State Street (a main drag in SB). Hotel SB is pricier, with smaller rooms, but you’re right in the middle of the action. Castillo has huge, brand new rooms, and you’re right on the water but a 10-15 minute walk to all the action of State Street.

Santa Barbara is hands down, my favorite spot to go for a weekend in California. It’s beautiful, has a laid back beachy vibe, amazing weather, great restaurants, and is so relaxing! I can’t wait for our next trip! :-)

Are there any Explore posts you want to see? Let me know!

What’s your favorite weekend get-away spot?

Gym Bag Must-Haves

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And just when I think I’m getting good at Pilates, it rears it’s ugly, toned head and knocks me down a peg or 2.

Thank you Pilates, I needed that today.

Whenever I think about my lunchtime workouts, the thing that stresses me out the most is without a doubt, the gym shower that follows and getting ready in the dreaded locker room.

I find that when I come prepared, things go a lot smoother, and there’s a lot less “even though I showered, I still feel disgusting” moments. (Although they still happen daily for me and the first thing I do when I get home after work is take a shower from my shower!) ;-)

Must-Haves? (For a germo-phobe like me!)

  • Shower Shoes. Hello Freshman year in college! I will not set foot in a locker room unless my I’m wearing sandals. I have intense fears of what is lurking on the floor in there. I use Havianas Slims – they’re easy to transport, comfortable, and easy to dry before they get packed up in my gym bag again! (Obviously in a separate plastic bag!)

(And they're frequently on Gilt, Rue La La, etc at 50% off!) Or you know, Costco carries them too!

  • Body Cream (Lotion)

Nothing says dry-skin faster than a post-workout shower. I always keep a travel-sized bottle of lotion in my gym bag for moments like this. My skin for some reason always feels super dry post workout and then post shower. At home I use Trader Joe’s Moisturing lotion (I was skeptical too, but it works!) but my gym stocks Kiehls Creme de Corps body lotion and I’m obsessed with it when I’m there. It’s thick without being greasy, doesn’t require much to slather on, and makes your skin feel soft, for hours on end.

A lot of department stores will give you samples for free!

  • Face Lotion

I swear by Cetaphil Daily Facial Moisturizer with SPF 15. It goes on light, isn’t greasy, and has some SPF protection (for those rare occasions the sun decides to come out in SF).

Drugstore staple.

  • Gym Bag

I’m the first to admit for the last few mos I was guilty of throwing all my gym stuff into my Longchamp tote and schleppin’ it to the gym every day. Then I wisened up. I found this little bad boy on Zappos for $35 and it’s PERFECT. The strap can be lengthened to cross-body length, it has just enough room for all my gym stuff, and then a huge front pocket for toiletries, hairbrush, lotions, make-up, etc.

  • Headbands (and the occasional bobby pin)!

I was not blessed to have hair that dries straight and beautiful naturally so I am forced to give in to the ballet bun. Nothing helps accomplish this (and the awkward grow-out phase my bangs are currently in) better than elastic headbands!

Subtle enough to not look like you just came from the gym, and does the trick!

What are your gym bag staples?

Peanut Butter Breakfast

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While visions of cookie dough rolls danced in my head, I slept like a solid rock last night.

Which didn’t make getting up to my alarm (I hit snooze 3 times) any easier this morning!

What did brighten my 60 degree, foggy, cloudy, and slightly misty (really SF? really?) morning?

Oats In A Jar

Step 1: Eat a jar of Peanut Butter (over time… or all at once. There are no judgements here).

Step 2: Save said empty jar of PB.

Step 3: Cook oats like you normally would (we used SteelCut oats and made a huge batch, the long and slow way (boiling/simmering for 25 minutes) and added some brown sugar, honey and a bit of butter to flavor.

Step 4: Put oats in empty PB jar – let sit overnight in refrigerator (I waited for them to cool down since I have an intense phobia to putting hot things in plastic… (all kinds of thoughts of it melting the plastic and me eating it happen)

Step 5: Top with fruit and/or granola, etc(I topped mine with a Banana) and enjoy!

Step 6: Scrape the PB jar clean until nothing remains. (Optional step that I obviously took full advantage of. The picture below is before I really got creative in getting every single morsel of PB out of that darn jar. Multiple utensils were involved.)

 

A (free!) sugar-free vanilla (1 pump) nonfat latte from Peet’s went alongside the oats.

 

Somehow my mom gets hooked up with these little beauties every time she goes into Peets… and then passes them on to her loving, living-on-a-budget daughter. Thanks Mom! :)

 

Now that all of that caffeine and peanut butter has been consumed, it’s time to get some work done!

Hope you have a great Wednesday! (We’re half-way there!) :-)