life lately | 1.31.15.

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Happy Saturday!

Before I go on - I’ve been meaning to say thank you so much for your responses to my acupuncture post. It’s not easy for me to be so open like that, so it meant a lot to read all of your support + learn that I helped shed some light on acupuncture for you.

Anyway, it’s been quite a good week over in this life I’ve met. Here are some highlights of life lately.

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1) I joined ClassPass! ClassPass is basically an “open relationship” with exercise (ha), which is really great for my schedule/lifestyle. For $99/month you get unlimited classes at a ton of top NYC fitness studios and gyms without having to get a full membership.

I’ve taken three classes so far - Pilates, Cyc, and a yoga class at Y7 this morning.

My favorite so far has been New York Pilates. I absolutely LOVED it. It was my first Pilates class using a reformer, and I enjoyed it so much. I must admit that I don’t love strength training (no matter how much I try to lift weights, I just…hate it), but I genuinely loved using the reformer. It worked muscles I didn’t even know I had! And it was just so chill - I didn’t even break a sweat. We’ll save that for the spin classes ;)

2) You probably heard that the supposed record-breaking blizzard Juno fell flat. What was supposed to be 20-30 inches was a measly 8 in NYC. It was awkward.

Still made for a pretty city, though.

NYC winter

3) I FINALLY got around to trying the new Quest S’mores bar. I hadn’t been eating Quest bars for a few months because I just got really sick of them, but…you guys. The S’mores one is ridiculously good.

Quest bar S'mores

4) You may have seen me share this piece of artwork on Instagram. My friend Andrea made it - how beautiful is this?! You can’t really tell from the photo, but the texture/paint actually comes off the canvas 3D-style (ha, I clearly don’t know art terms). If you’re interested in seeing more of her work, you can check it out here.

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5) Last night Sydney and I had a nice little dinner date at Hudson Clearwater (one of my favorite spots - definitely recommend it!) followed by some bar hopping in the West Village. It was ridiculously freezing out, but we ended up having such a fun night!

6) After yoga class this morning Monica and I had brunch at Two Hands. I had seen it all over Instagram, and it definitely lived up to the hype. It’s a cute little cafe tucked away on Mott Street.

Two Hands NYC

We got almond milk lattes and split the acai bowl and avocado toast.

Yes, us girls love splitting meals. It’s a scientific fact.

Avocado Toast, Acai Bowl, Almond Milk Latte from Two Hands NYC

And now I’m here relaxing for a bit + catching up on some work! Gotta love that balance of a fun/productive weekend, right? ;)

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What’s been a highlight of your week?

 

eats: 2 ingredient sweet potato & white bean veggie burgers {video}.

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2 Ingredient Sweet Potato & White Bean Veggie Burgers

When snowed in and bored at home = make a vlog of your lunch. Naturally.

I’m actually pretty excited about how these turned out, especially considering how simple they are to make. I recently had a similar veggie burger at The Squeeze here in New York, so I tried to recreate it. These are vegan and gluten free, and they take under 20 minutes to make.

ingredients:
* 1 small can white (cannellini) beans, drained
* 1 medium to large sweet potato, cooked and peeled
* spices of your choice (I used black pepper, salt, ground mustard and paprika)
* coconut oil for frying
* OPTIONAL: use a flax egg to bind it better
* bread and toppings of choice - I used a gluten free english muffin, avocado, and baby kale

directions:
* mash the white beans and sweet potato as much as possible with the spices mixed in
* form 4 patties
* fry in a nonstick pan with coconut oil on medium heat for 4-6 minutes per side

This is the Potato Express I used (this thing is seriously awesome, haha).

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Have you ever made your own veggie burgers?

scenes from the weekend.

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It’s been for-ev-er since I did a scenes from the weekend post! A lot of you have been requesting more “daily life” -esque posts, so I’m going to start doing more of them again…starting now :)

Rewind to Friday where I spent the day with Jessi, lunching + working. We spent a few hours doing a photo shoot for Ben Amun jewelry, which I was also able to take home with me to wear later in the weekend (perks).

How gorgeous are these pieces?!

Ben Amun | gracie gordon | girlmeetslife.com

We had lunch at Friend of a Farmer (one of my faves), where we unintentionally celebrated National Pie Day. Shepherd’s Pie for me, Chicken Pot Pie for Jessi.

eats

Also on the EATS agenda for the weekend was:

* mixed berry smoothie bowl topped with shredded coconut, raw oats, cashews, and flax
* thee BEST version of Eggs Benedict I’ve ever had at Saxon + Parole (Virginia Surryano Ham, crispy potato parmesan cakes, poached eggs, yuzu hollandaise)
* sushi on sushi and tons of other deliciousness at Lure Fishbar for Rachel’s birthday dinner

Earlier on Saturday (I’m bouncing all over the place, oh well) we kicked off Rachel’s birthday celebration with a group of us taking SoulCycle together. It was my third class in a week, who am I?!

(BTW - pictured below are my good friends Natalie and Sydney. Not sure if I ever introduced them on GML yet :))

I spent most of today (Sunday) in bed getting caught up on a bunch of work + blog stuff. I wasn’t planning on doing that, but I’m really glad because a productive Sunday = a better Monday.

I fueled through with a healthy lunch from The Squeeze + this INSANELY good “Squeezuccino” of theirs. Definitely a new favorite.

The Squeeze

Then I did the normal Sunday thing - church, errands (stocking up for the big blizzard coming, eek!), and now I’m going to watch a movie and call it a day.

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend! xo

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What was a highlight of your weekend?