WIAW #63

First, today is your last chance to enter my giveaway to win 3 taster bars of fair-trade, organic Madecasse Chocolate! You still have a while to enter my Tookies Smores Cookie-in-a-Jar Gift giveaway, but you may as well do that now, too :)

But now it's WIAW time!

And the first one in November, no less!

Yes, I'm super happy that it's November. Yes, it's because that means it's one month closer to December. So I can start going Christmas-crazy soon...

Speaking of which, I have a fun Christmas giveaway for you if you stick with me until the end of this post :)

Okay, onto the food. Here's a quick photo dump of some snacks I've been enjoying lately!

Bread, as usual, with spreads. I usually spread one slice first, then decide what I want on the other after I'm done eating the first. I can be so indecisive!



But Nutella or chocolate nut butter with apricot jam and cacao nibs on toasted almond raisin bread is always a win :)

Granola is a necessity at all times of the day, guys:

It's best eaten out of a big Minnie Mouse mug from a Christmas family vacation to Disney World.

And followed by ice cream, as is usually the case ;)



There's also the usual protein bar awesomeness with cereal, milk (notice how I keep my cereal out of the milk during the picture - sometimes I'm just not feeling the whole soggy cereal thing), and walnut butter. Which I am just about out of.



I love kabocha hard-core (with ginger, peanut butter, and a chocolate bar), especially smack-dab in the middle of an all-nighter. And chocolate is great for when you're burning the midnight fuel thanks to your organismic and evolutionary biology research paper.

And bread again. With assorted toppings.



Random bowls for the win! Especially when they manage to incorporate both apples and chocolate :)

Yes, that's awesome.

Cereal is always involved, even when it's day light hours.

Random bowls for the win.

And bars are as good as necessary to survive all nighters. Caramel doesn't hurt, either!

Also, there have been entirely too many references to all-nighters in this post, especially for a 'healthy living' blog. I so need to work on that sleep thing...

I also discovered a really yummy raw chocolate company recently.

No matter how much work I have and how stressed out I may be, getting mail can always make me smile.

Especially when it's chocolate.

Especially when it's healthy, raw chocolate that energizes me and makes me feel good, from the inside out.

Stirs the Soul is (mostly) raw chocolate made without refined sugars - they're sweetened with dates and have just a few ingredients per bar, all of which are pronounceable without a chemistry degree!

Their artisan chocolates are crafted in Portland, OR and the chocolate comes to you fairly traded, sustainably grown, allergy sensitive, and bean to bar.

Another great plus? They're individual bars, so a whole bar is a serving! And the chocolate is so intensely flavorful and delicious that the bar really feels quite big (they are a nice size) and are plenty to satisfy that sweet/chocoholic tooth ;)

They're wrapped in gold tin foil (these are packaged so adorably that they'd actually make really great gifts, if y'all are already looking for Christmas!) and the chocolate is creamy and smooth. When I saw that these are sweetened with dates, I figured that they wouldn't be true chocolate bars, but rather some fruit-and-nut Jocolat bar situation.

False.

This is creamy, smooth chocolate - you'd never guess that it's raw or good for you. You'd just think that you're indulging in a delicious, high quality chocolate bar!

The flavor that interested me the most was the Lavender bar, as I'd never had Lavender chocolate before. I wasn't quite sure what to expect - I think I kind of thought there might be lavender petals in the bar?

To tell the truth, I was a little concerned. I shouldn't have been!

There aren't any lavender pieces in the bar, just lavender essence - and it really gives that extra dimension to the creamy, smooth, deep dark chocolate. This bar is amazing! Not that the other two aren't, but if you haven't tried lavender chocolate I'd recommend it. Not only is it delicious, but how sophisticated/grown-up does lavender chocolate sound?

The mint chocolate has a lot milder of a mint taste than other bars (it's more of a hint of mint kind of bar) but it's still so chocolatey and creamy that it's delicious all the same.

Stir the Soul also offers a bananas, figs, & currants bar, raw hemp cups (those sound tasty!), blissful dark chocolate, orange goji chocolate, spiced chai & currant chocolate, maca chocolate, espresso chocolate, coconut chocolate, honey dark chocolate, honey rose chocolate, honey forest chocolate, some caramels, and raw cacao butter body butter!

Okay, now that you're craving chocolate - here's that giveaway! Vermont Christmas Company makes a great variety of Advent Calendars and they're generously sending one of you their Village Toy Shop Chocolate Advent Calendar to enjoy this Advent!

Chocolate Advent Calendars have been a part of my family's Christmas celebrations since I was a little kid, but my calendars aren't usually nearly as nice as this!

It's not just a really pretty calendar, but it has higher quality chocolates than what Advent calendars usually offer. And they're individually wrapped like little presents!

Plus, there's a little quote behind each door.

Too cute! You have until November 21 to enter the giveaway and it's open to everyone - even my international readers. Enter below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I also have a few other giveaways going on right now, so check those out too!

What are you looking forward to this week?

What's your favorite kind of bread?

Have you tried lavender or rose chocolate?