The Ultimate Beginner’s Running Guide is a very straightforward book which shares what you need to get started with running (very little) and even provides running plans you can follow and ways to track your mileage. It also goes through the proper running for and gives tips about how prevent common injuries which keep beginners from sticking to it.

The New Rules of Lifting for Women is an amazing book which dispells all the myths surrounding lifting weights for women. Most women stray away from weights out of fear that they will get “bulky” and women’s magazines are full of workouts for “long and lean” muscles, but there is no way to lengthen your muscles and using light weight only builds endurance, but doesn’t build muscle so you won’t see any real results. I’m only on the second chapter of this book, but I already feel that I’ve learned a ton!

Eat Food. Not too Much. Mostly Plants…and food doesn’t mean something that came out of a package either. This book shows how our diets have changed, mostly for the worst, over hundreds of years and how we can dispel all the myths surrounding nutrition to create a healthy diet for ourselves.

My mom read this book while she was on vacation and when she came back she told me and Tommy that we both have to read it. The book basically states that it sill teach you secrets of how to make your money work for you. Tommy is reading it first, and he says that he is finding it really interesting so far.

Last but not least is the 50 Shades of Grey Trilogy. I am honestly a little scared to read these book after all the reviews that I’ve heard of them, but at the same time I feel like I need to read them to see what all the hype is about.

What’s on your summer reading list?

The post Summer Reading appeared first on Frolic Through Life.

Even though he came as a surprise and I didn’t know if I was ready to be a mommy, he has brought out the best in me, taught me what matters in life and showed me that anything is possible with the help of true friends and family.

Happy Birthday little Munchkin! I love you!

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On Saturday, we celebrated Munchkin’s second birthday with our best friends and family. It was a great time and Munchkin had a blast.

We played silly games.

Had some yummy CAKE!

Blew out the candles like a champ!

And tried to sneak a taste when no one was looking.

We opened our gifts.

And when it was all over, Munchkin was all tuckered out and went straight to sleep. Or maybe he just didn’t want to help with the clean up.

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Since Munchkin’s birthday is one of the most important days of the year, I wanted to include everyone who couldn’t make it to the party in the celebration. I’m sure you remember the Red

Velvet cupcakes I showed the other day.

Turns out, they were a big hit.

Now you can make your own because I am giving away the Cake Mix Doctor’s Cupcake book, and since most of the recipes start with cake mix as the base, I’m throwing in 5 coupons for free cake mix to get you started on the baking.

How To Enter:

1. (Mandatory): Leave a comment on this post telling me what your favorite cupcake flavor is.
2. (Optional): Follow Frolic Through Life on Twitter! @Frolic_Life_Syl
3. (Optional): Tweet about the giveaway and leave a separate comment telling me that you did – “Get your bake on! I want to win @Frolic_Life_Syl’s Cake Mix Dr. Cookbook Giveaway! http://wp.me/p1Ukf9-iL”
   
4. (Optional): Like Frolic Through Life on Facebook and leave a separate comment telling me that you did.

I will select a winner bright and early Monday (Jan. 23) morning. Fingers crossed!

Have a great Monday!

The post A Special Birthday + Giveaway appeared first on Frolic Through Life.

Anyway, I made something really good for dinner yesterday. Really good and good for you, what more could you ask for? I tried my hand at quinoa for the first time and it turned out great. Before I share my recipe, I wanted to share some quinoa fun facts that I found while looking up what quinoa is, to explain to my dad what he was eating.

1. Quinoa is pronounced keen-wah.  I don’t know where they got the fancy spelling from either.
2. Even though it looks like rice and barley, quinoa is not a grain. It is a chenopod most closely related to beets, spinach and tumbleweeds. I also learned that a tumbleweed was a type of plant and not just random plant parts tumbling around the desert.
3. The Conquistadors forbade the Incas to cultivate quinoa because it was considered a sacred grain and that didn’t fly with their mission to Christianize the world. They obviously didn’t try it before putting this ban in place.
4. Quinoa is a complete protein source, which means it has adequate proportions of all nine amino acids necessary for the dietary needs of humans.  This is very uncommon among plants.
5. It’s delicious!

I’ve seen a lot of recipes floating around the internet for quinoa ‘fried rice,’ which is basically like a fried rice dish but uses quinoa in place of the rice. So, I put my own spin on it and this is what I got.

Quinoa ‘Fried Rice’

• 2 chicken breasts, cubed
• 1/3 cup oyster sauce
• 1/3 cup soy sauce
• 2 1/2 cups vegetable stock
• 2 cups quinoa
• 1 8 oz package mushrooms
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 8 oz frozen organic corn
• 8 oz frozen organic peas and carrots
• 1 bunch scallions

Marinate the chicken breast in equal parts soy sauce and oyster sauce. In a large pot,bring the vegetable stock to boil, reduce heat, add quinoa and let simmer for 15 minutes.* Heat wok, spray with cooking spray and add chicken.  Cook chicken thoroughly adding mushrooms and garlic to it,about halfway through. Add corn, peas and carrot and cook until warmed all the way through.  Add quinoa to the wok and combine well with veggies and chicken. Top with finely chopped scallions.

*Follow the package direction for cooking your quinoa because they may differ by brand.

This tasted amazing and is great, healthy alternative to Chinese takeout. Speaking of Chinese takeout, I am reading The End of Overeating and read that many Chinese restaurants give different menus to Americans and to Asians because Americans prefer higher fat dishes with more sugar. Has anyone heard this before? I want in on the Asian menu! The book, so far, is very interesting and I’m planning on doing a post about it when I finish it to share some of the info I learned.

I’m firing up the crock pot for a spicy dinner, so stay tuned for more yumminess!

Have a great weekend y’all!

What are your thoughts about quinoa? What are your plans for the weekend?

The post A Quinoa Kind of Night appeared first on Frolic Through Life.

Friday started off with a trip to the supermarket where I made an incredible discovery. I was looking for Pumpkin Spice waffles when I ran into these bad boys.

With the Pumpkin Spice bagels in my cart, I walked over to the dairy section of the supermarket hoping to find cinnamon cream cheese, but I’m pretty sure that doesn’t exist.  So, I decided to take matters into my own hands. In the spice aisle I found a cinnamon sugar grinder and I knew this would make my bagels amazing.

When I got home, I toasted up a bagel, spread on some cream cheese and topped it off with some cinnamon sugar.  It tasted amazing! If you can find these bagels in your supermarket I highly recommend em!

I also took my first stab at Spaghetti Squash on Friday and was pleasantly surprised with the results. I made it with a pesto Parmesan sauce. Recipe will follow soon.

Pun intended

Even though the weathermen kept yelling about how the weekend was going to be a washout, that didn’t happen. We woke up on Saturday morning and headed over to the farm stand for some fresh produce.

Munchkin had a ball checking out the pumpkins.

Munchkin and I spent most of Saturday outside playing on our swing set. His favorite part is the steering wheel, he could play with the thing for hours on end.

I also nearly had a heart attack when I found a salamander slithering up my leg.  Even though they are virtually harmless, looking down and finding a lizard on my leg was not a pleasant experience.

After working up an appetite outdoors, we enjoyed some of the fresh fruit we got at the farm stand.

After Munchkin was fast asleep, Tommy and I headed out for a night on the town.  Unfortunately, the towns in the Poconos are lacking in the night life department so we ended up at the bowling alley.  Neither of us had been bowling in years, but it was a lot of fun. The bowling alley does cosmic bowling at night, so the whole place was lit up in black lights.

We also made a bet that whoever lost would get dinner that night. So of course I had to lose.  Notice that I did get two strikes, but that wasn’t enough to win.

Since it was getting late, it was almost impossible to find a place that was open, but not fast food. Luckily, this place had crazy neon lights which we saw through the crazy fog.

Luna Rossa is a sit down restaurant, but by the time we got there only the bar section was open and we were limited to the bar menu, which included brick oven pizza.

We got two pizzas to share and enjoyed them along side some Yuengling. For a complete hole in the wall place in the middle of nowhere, the pizza was surprisingly good, and that’s coming from two native New Yorkers who know their pizza.

Sunday was spent relaxing around the house.  Munchkin decided to bake an imaginary cake.

Cake is Munchkin’s newest word and he points at the oven repeating cake.  Maybe I have a future baker on my hands?

I also finished up reading Room last night.  It is really an amazing story about a five year old boy and his mother who have been held captive since the mother was kidnapped at age 19.  I don’t want to give any of it away, but its one of those books you cannot put down.

Now I need to finish up my reading for school! Have a great Monday everyone!

What’s the last good book you’ve read?
Have you ever discovered a really good hole in the wall restaurant? 

The post A Cosmically Good Weekend appeared first on Frolic Through Life.