Hi there and happy Monday. I’m just winding down from a really fun and relaxing long weekend. Here’s a little recap for you before the work week starts all over again.

I usually do BodyPump at 6:15 on Friday mornings but since I took the day off, I was able to sleep in and go to a later class.

We did BodyPump 76 and, I don’t know why, but this workout killed me. You know that feeling you get when you try a tough workout for the very first time and your body is like “WTF did you just do to me?”

That’s how my legs felt all weekend. I have no idea why that happened – I used my regular weights and it’s not like I’ve taken time off or anything.

After Pump, I went out for lunch with my mom and did some Christmas shopping (I’m about halfway done, which is a new record for me).

In the evening, I met up with my girlfriends in Toronto for what was possibly the best girls’ night out I’ve had in a long time. We went to a jewelry store in Kensington market and learned to make necklaces. It was just the four of us and the store owner, plus two bottles of wine and pizza.

After we finished our necklaces (mine is the green one), we went back to my friend’s apartment, drank some more and gossiped. Josh was nice enough to pick me up and drive me home, earning some major good boyfriend points.

On Saturday morning, several things conspired against my plan to go to the gym. One, I was super sore from Friday. Two, I was hungover and tired. Three, I left my car at the train station the night before.

So, yeah, the workout wasn’t happening. Instead Josh and I went out for all you can eat Thai, where I literally ate all I could eat (I sampled a little bit of everything).

In the evening, Josh and I had a chill night – we ate in and watched Breaking Bad and I went to bed at 10 p.m. while Josh went out with his boys to watch UFC. So we both got a chance to hang out with our friends this weekend, which was nice.

On Sunday, my sister and I went to RPM. I’ve done enough freestyle spin classes now to say with absolute certainty that I much prefer the RPM format. It’s more fun and a way better workout than any of the freestyle classes I’ve been to.

Later in the afternoon, I made a test batch of chocolate chip blondies for a bake exchange we’re doing at work tomorrow. This was my first attempt at baking at baking and I clearly need more practice – I was mixing together the flour, baking powder and salt when Josh walked into the kitchen and said, “Wow, you’re using a lot of corn starch.”

That’s when I realized I had taken the wrong box from the cupboard and was using corn starch instead of flour.

Luckily, I hadn’t added it to the other bowl with the sugar, eggs, vanilla and butter, otherwise I would have had to throw the whole thing out. Thanks to Josh’s intervention, the blondies turned out well.

Today, I started my day with a BodyAttack class followed by CXWORX. I then met up with a girlfriend for lunch, visited my sister and nephew and went home to make another batch of blondies for tomorrow’s bake exchange (I used Christmas coloured M&Ms for the second batch).

So that’s my weekend in a nutshell. This week will hopefully fly by as we have the bake exchange tomorrow and our holiday lunch on Thursday. I love this time of year!

For anyone who bakes, were you always good at it or did it take a few “face palm” moments for you to perfect it? 

Any fun holiday stuff coming up?