SiscoVanilla Hits The Bricks

So its Tuesday...Who said you can't have some adventure on a Tuesday. You are only limited by your imagination and the resources that you would like to allocate to said adventure.  Just go out there and live a little before there is no longer a life to live. Until Then Keep Stepping, #SiscoVanilla #SiscoVanillaIsStepping #SiscoVanillaHitsTheBricks

Just a few choice and wise words from Warren Buffett...well actually I'm not sure if Warren Buffett actually said these quotes but I'll be damned if they don't sound good. Anywho, here goes: Follow these wise words to find your path to financial and personal health. Until Then Keep Stepping, #SiscoVanilla #SiscoVanillaIsStepping #SiscoVanillaHitsTheBricks

This past Tuesday before heading in to work, I took advantage of a train delay by deciding to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. It was a beautiful day for a walk...apparently the same thought crossed the minds of the throngs of people 👨‍👩‍👦‍👦👨‍👦‍👦👨‍👧‍👧👩‍👦‍👦👩‍👧‍👦 who were also on the bridge. Walking the Brooklyn Bridge takes some skill if you are walking with a purpose, such as trying to get somewhere. The walk is like navigating an obstacle course, especially on the Manhattan side between the tourists and vendors. Nonetheless, I was able to enjoy the weather and made it across in roughly 28 minutes. Here is the route with time and pace tracked via the Fitbit App: If you've never had the chance to walk the Brooklyn Bridge, I recommend you do so...even with the tourist dodging 😊. Let me know how it goes for you. Until Then Keep Stepping, #SiscoVanilla #SiscoVanillaIsStepping #SiscoVanillaHitsTheBricks

Once again folks, here's the weekly recap for my steps from July 16 to July 22 via the Fitbit app. The steps were fairly consistent with the steps from the week before. I had 2,846 less steps which translates to 1.32 miles less. There was no drama which required any extra walking. So I'll on to next week folks. How's your stepping treating you these days. Please let me know in the comments box. Would love to trade tips and tidbits with you. Until Then Keep Stepping, #SiscoVanilla #SiscoVanillaIsStepping #SiscoVanillaHitsTheBricks

That's right folks. Monday is just another weekday on the calendar. Don't expend your energy negatively 😪😫😖😡🤬 whining and complaining about Monday's arrival. Use that same energy in a POSITIVE 😍🤩😆🤪 fashion to get your shit done. It really is that simple. It all rides on how you look at it and act upon it. Until Then Keep Stepping, #SiscoVanilla #SiscoVanillaIsStepping #SiscoVanillaHitsTheBricks

Once again it's time for the weekly review of steps and other metrics tracked by the Fitbit Blaze tracker and accompanying app. The week of July 8 to July 14 was marked by a by number of days of having to run around trying to find packages that were undelivered by UPS.  Without further ado, here's the review: While it seemed to me that I was fairly active, especially with the UPS "adventures" the app tells me that I went down in active minutes. For those of you who don't know, active minutes are categorized as: "when the activity you're doing is more strenuous than regular walking, which includes everything from a brisk walk to a cardio workout or run." This is interesting since on Wednesday I walked close to three miles since there were no buses in sight. Thursday I walked at least two miles trying to get to the UPS facility on Brush Avenue from the train station at Zerega Avenue. I guess those two examples of constant walking wasn't enou...

Just some Fitbit funnies for this Friday morning.  Right up there with Instagram This is me while at the computer Uh-oh 🤯🤯🤯 Don't I know that feeling Well, it is exercise after all 😆 Have a great weekend folks, Until Then Keep Stepping, #SiscoVanilla #SiscoVanillaIsStepping #SiscoVanillaHitsTheBricks

Welcome to today's Walking Tracks post. This one is purely a guilty pleasure of a song. Gangnam Style by Psy took the world by storm a few years ago, first via YouTube then the Internet in form of memes and viral videos. While the video is over the top in terms of imagery that comes across as silly to some. But the song is awesome to walk to. What other guilty pleasure songs do you gals and guys have. Drop me a line and let me know. Until Then Keep Stepping, #SiscoVanilla #SiscoVanillaIsStepping #SiscoVanillaHitsTheBricks

One of the big reasons why many of us are not doing as well as we should in terms of physical and mental well being has to do with our money situations. I've personally made it a goal to be debt free by the age of 50. What exactly does that mean to me? That means that aside from my large nut of a student loan, I want to be debt free of any credit cards, loans and other lines of credit that don't involve something like a mortgage. Like many of you out there, I'm choked by debt. Let's be frank, I have more debt now at the age of 45 than I did when I turned 40. Now, I have no one to blame but myself for doing so. Situations in life called for increasing credit and thereby debt in order to survive. Now that I find myself in a better place these days, I can try and focus on killing that debt. What people don't realize is that owing money can be a tremendous strain on your health and wellbeing. The constant reminders in the form of monthly bills, minimum payments and ...

If any of you truly know we, you know that ice cream is my krypronite. I can kill a container in a sit down. Especially it is partially melted. 😍😍😍 For a while now I've been recommended to try the Halo Top line of ice creams. But until now I wasn't able to find them in my area. A few weeks a new Shop Rite opened in my neighborhood and they had the good old Halo Top on sale. Guess who picked some up: This guy right here. Actually, I bought some twice. I know, you must think I'm such an oinker 🐷🐷🐷, but in my defense, they gave me a $1.50 off of five coupon plus iBotta had a $.75 rebate for up to five Halo Top ice creams purchased. Never heard of iBotta ? I recommend that you read the posts Three Apps to Help Save Money Through Shopping from September 26, 2016  and Update on the Three Apps to Help Save Money Through Shopping from October 15, 2016  from an older blog of mine entitled Observations and Rants of a Native New Yorker . It's been a while since I'...

Sorry for the delay in posts folks. Things have been very hectic as of late. But the steps keep on coming and here are my steps for the week of July 1 to July 7 through the Fitbit App: As you can tell from looking at the different metrics, this past week showed an increase in almost every category from the week before. In terms of steps, the total amount of steps for the week also went up. I logged 109,641 steps which was 9,318 more steps than the week before with a week best 23,817 on Saturday the 6th. Here are the steps broken down by day of the week: July 1: 15,032 July 2: 16,128 July 3: 10,495 July 4: 16,222 July 5: 17,082 July 6: 23,817 July 7: 10,865 Not bad considering it was a short work week, having taken off Sunday to Thursday from the café. As my sore feet and tired legs can attest, I think the next week's worth of steps will top these numbers. We'll have to wait and see. Hope everyone has a great weekend. See you all soon. Until Then Kee...

One of the nice things about using the FitBit app is the information that is collected about your journey and the way the information is displayed to you. One such way comes in the form of a weekly digest that is emailed to you. Here is my weekly digest for the week of June 25 - July 1, 2018: As you can see each category gets its own box with and increase or decrease in each state from the week before. I only have one small issue with the digest. You are only shown the amount of steps for the nest day of the week. I think it would be helpful if you saw the amount of steps for each day, not just the best day and the total amount of steps for the seven day period. Speaking of the steps, here were my steps for that week: June 25: 2,050 June 26: 17,360 June 27: 21,448 June 28: 17,251 June 29: 18,076 June 30: 14,016 July 1: 10,122 You can tell which are the rest days and which are the work days from the list. I took a full day of rest on Monday the 25th, while the oppressiv...

I hope everyone had a safe and festive Fourth of July. I know I did. Sat back with some friends, had some food and drinks. It was a very nice way to enjoy the birthday of the good old U.S.A. My other website, SiscoVanilla Serves and Drinks will profile the libations that I made for the festivities in the following post: SiscoVanilla Makes The Libations for the 4th July 5, 2018 . As part of one of the drinks, I used a premade Arnold Palmer that I made a couple of days ago. For those of you who don't know who or what an Arnold Palmer is, the drink is named after legendary golfer Arnold Palmer and is basically half iced tea and half lemonade. Salud to you Mr. Palmer. While the classic recipe is Iced Tea and Lemonade, mine was made slightly different. Making it is a two step process. First comes the iced tea. I used Earl Grey Lavender organic black tea made by the Choice Organic Tea Company . I steeped three bags in 20oz of hot water and set it aside to cool. After tasting it, i...

People tend to think that the Bronx is all an urban jungle. While that's partially true, the Bronx has the most parkland of all the five boroughs. Pelham Bay Park alone has 2,765 acres, which is roughly three times bigger than Central Park. On the list of the top 10 ten largest parks of NYC, the Bronx has three of them (Pelham Bay Park, Van Cortlandt Park and Bronx Park.) While I have a future walk in Pelham Bay Park in mind, today I've walked a smaller set of parks in my neighborhood: Pugsley Creek and Castle Hill Parks. Situated in the Soundview and Castle Hill neighborhoods of the Bronx, both parks are a marvel of wetlands and marshes. Very often you can see cranes and egrets on the muddy shorelines, in addition to a number of birds, snakes and the occasional stray cat: All I saw today was the stray cat. But no matter, there are always sights to see in the parks. The walk along the path and near the marshes came out to a total of  2.9 miles along the length of...

Well, July 1st is here and I guess that based on the meal I'm going to profile, I'm not only Meatless in June, but also Meatless in July. Last night I went to the new Shop Rite supermarket by me and saw that they had a pair of Maple Salmon Burgers at the Fishmonger stand. Now I'm not one to eat salmon very often. To be honest, I think I can count on a couple of fingers the times that I have had salmon. But how bad could the two burgers be. Right? And for $4.50 it wouldn't be a big dent on the wallet. I threw them on a grill plate sprayed with non-stick spray and after a few minutes on each side, I came out with the following: My experience with salmon is that the meat tastes "fishy." Yes I know I sound like a little kid when I say that but it can be a bit off-putting. I put a little salsa on top of the burger: I paired with a Blue Moon Belgian Wheat Beer and have to say that that I was pleasantly surprised. The salmon had a nice crispy top fro...