To My Best Friend on His Birthday

This was supposed to post on Friday but for some reason it didn’t.  Friday was Andrew’s birthday but we were camping, I have a lot to catch up on including all the pictures from our camping trip but for now I’m just going to finally post his birthday post!  We’re going to a friends graduation party right now, so I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to post our camping trip!

 

 

Today is Andrew’s 24th Birthday!  Andrew and I met Freshmen year of High School, and I had a crush on him right away.  We became pretty good friends and then Junior year of high school we went out for about 5 months before I broke up with him.  I wish I could find the pictures of us from way back then but I did a quick search around the house and couldn’t find any.

The summer between Freshmen and Sophomore year of college we ran into each other and started hanging out again.  That whole summer Andrew, his twin brother Matt, his cousin George, my best friend Michelle, and I were inseparable.  We did everything together whether it be just going to the diner for coffee, or watching movies at Michelle’s house.  After that summer,  we both went back to our colleges, mine in Pennsylvania, and him up to Montclair.  We continued to hang out on weekends and then when we came home for Christmas, I realized just how much I really did like him.  I went back to school and one night we were talking on line I mentioned how much I liked him and how I wasn’t going to look for anyone else while I was away.  He agreed and a couple nights later we started going out again.  That was nearly 5 years ago now and I have to say I am so extremely thankful that I ran into him that summer night.  Otherwise who knows if we ever would have gotten back together.  We’ve had so much fun together and I’m so excited to spend the rest of my life with him.

He always knows how to make me laugh.

Halloween this past year, we were McCain and Palin.

 

Happy 24th Birthday Baby!

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Sweet Summer Cravings

I am feeling so much better today!  It’s amazing what a difference 24 hours can make.  I ate all my meals today and felt more like myself again.  I’m a pretty easy person to get along with but I can get pretty ugly when I’m mad.  I’m just happy that it’s all over and we’ll see what happens from here on out.  Once again I got some great advice and support from you gals!  You are the best!

I can’t tell you how happy I am that tomorrow is Thursday!  As usual I have off on Friday and then have the next week off!  After all the stress from yesterday I’m ready to have some relaxing fun times with my 2 best girlfriends and their boyfriends on the camping trip this weekend.  I just hope tomorrow goes by quickly, it kinda feels like the last day of school or something which is stupid because it’s only 10 days off not a whole summer.

So we need to do some serious food shopping, we don’t even have the staples of milk, bread, or eggs, but it seems stupid to do it before the we go away for the weekend.  So I was kind of scrounging in the kitchen for meals.  Once again I totally forgot my camera, I used my Blackberry though while I was at work, not the best pictures, sorry!

For breakfast I had a chocolate chip clif z bar with pb and then an orange on the side.

 

Oranges are so good right now, I can’t get over how juicy and delicious the last few I ate have been.

Lunch was exactly what I said it would be last night.  Leftover Chicken parm.  I meant to bring a side salad but forgot this morning.  So I guess the tomato sauce is going to have to count as my vegetable for lunch.

I definitely made up for my lack of veggies with dinner though, ever since I mixed the rice pilaf with broccoli and green beans last week I’ve been wanting it again.  It’s just way too good.

Just to prove there is rice under there, here’s a shot with some peaking out.

I definitely went back for the last spoonful of rice with another piece of broccoli and a whole mess of green beans.  Such a simple meal but it’s so darn good,  I can not get enough.

After dinner Andrew and I decided we wanted dessert.  So unlike us!  We decided to go to a local Italian Ice place which also serves Ice Cream and Cream Ices.  I got a small pb cookie dough cream ice.

So delicious, I’m going to pretend it’s summer even if it doesn’t feel like it at all!

Well I’m off to start packing things up for the weekend.  Tomorrow night Michelle, Jessica, and I are going shopping for the camping food, anyone have any suggestions of healthy foods to eat while out in the woods? 

Stress Non-Eater

<rant>I know there are people out there who eat when they are stressed.  I am the exact opposite.  When something is really bothering me I let it manifest itself in ways that prevent me from wanting to eat.  It’s probably just as unhealthy as someone who binges on a stressful occasion.  I will admit that sometimes when I’m just a little bit stressed and eat I make poor choices, I don’t overeat though.  I might just say screw it I’m eating that cookie(s).  But when I let myself get so worked up eating is the last thing I want to do.  Today was one of those days.  For the past year Andrew’s twin brother’s girlfriend and I haven’t gotten along.  Today I finally let everything build up and when I got angry with something she did today,  I let it eat me from the inside out.  We sent some not-so-nice emails back and forth, and finally spoke on the phone a little while ago.  I’m a people pleaser, I get upset when people don’t like me, it bothers me so much, that this really stung.  I should have just went about my day but unfortunately I wound up leaving work early, and stewing in my anger.  Nothing has been completely resolved she apologized for somethings and I accepted her apology and for Andrew and his brother’s sake we have decided to start over.  Is it the best option?  Probably not.  Will it make Andrew happy?  Absolutely.  Besides that his brother is now going to be my brother-in-law in a couple years, and who knows one day she might be my sister-in-law so I have to bite the bullet and work on this relationship no matter how badly I just want to hide my head in the sand.  I’m more of an “ignore it and it will go away” type of person, not a strong characteristic.  Maybe it’s time I grew up and just worked on things. </rant>

Wow okay sorry for all that, it feels good to vent though.  And I’m sure at least one of you will have a similar story, or be able to share advice.

Enough about that, this is a food blog after all.  For breakfast I once again had a sandwich thin with pb.  I actually have pictures though!  And Homegirl, the key to the perfect pb spreading is to spread it on thick in the middle and then work it towards the outside.  No I’m kidding, there is no secret,.  I do admit I have a little more then a serving perhaps 2.5-3 tablespoons I’m willing to get the extra calories though.  I’m still losing weight so perhaps I’m doing something right. 

Then the trouble began.  Andrew came to take me out to lunch since I was so upset.  We wound up going to my favorite salad bar.

I ate some but not all of this salad.  If i had to guess I would say between 1/3 and a 1/2. It was:

• mixed greens
• carrots
• onions
• chicken
• cucumbers
• and light balsamic vinaigrette.

And this is where my pictures from the day end.  I came home early and began screaming about the whole thing to poor Andrew.  I was so worked up!  I give myself this nauseous feeling when I get upset, and eating seems impossible.  I feel better now but not well enough to eat something, I did stop by my mom’s house though and picked up her left over chicken parm, so get ready to see it for lunch tomorrow!

I’m off to watch the New Jersey Housewives reunion, and then get some much needed rest. 

Italian Food Overload

Monday is over! Thank goodness!  I have a lot to look forward to so it’s making this week drag.  I’m just ready for it to be over already!  Starting Thursday at 5 I’m on vacation for 10 days!  Unfortunately it’s a mandatory furlough where I won’t be getting paid for the 4 working days but hopefully I’ll be able to claim unemployment.  As luck would have it Andrew has all those days off except 2 with me.  He’s on vacation from school for 2 weeks and the summer program starts next Wednesday so he’ll work Wednesday and Thursday and then have off for one of my favorite holidays, the 4th of July.  Let’s just hope it feels like summer!  This weekend I also have a very exciting camping trip planned with my 2 girlfriends and their boyfriends.  It should be a great time!

This weekend flew by, and I had a lot of family things to do for Father’s Day, plus looking at more wedding locations.  I think we found one that we both absolutely love and we’re taking our moms there on Friday for their opinion.  I have a feeling they are going to love it, once we make our final decision I’ll be sure to share it with you.

So if you’ve been reading my blog for a while you’ll know I’m not a fan of sweets, you’ll hardly see chocolate or cake, but I’m a big fan of Italian food.  It’s my weakness, a nice big dish of pasta, or a slice of pizza are my weaknesses.  And in today’s post your going to see a lot of Italian food.

First off let me start with last night’s fabulous Father’s Day dinner that my dad selected and my mother cooked.  She was a little upset I hadn’t posted it last night so here you go Mom.  Happy now?

My mother makes THE best chicken parm.  It was so tender you didn’t even need a knife and it was overall perfect. 

With Andrew’s favorite pasta on the side.

Wagon Wheels!

This was absolutely perfect, thank God it’s not Father’s Day everyday though because I would seriously gain all the weight I’ve lost this year plus some, if this was an everyday option.

Now on to today.  My breakfast of choice lately has been pb on a sandwich thin.  I have no idea why, I’ve just been craving that peanut butter a lot lately.  It seems to be the only thing I want in the morning.  Unfortunately I didn’t take have my camera today, but here’s the same picture from last week. 

For lunch today I leftovers from the weekend.  I had gotten an eggplant, fresh mozzarella, and roasted red pepper sandwich.  I had a 1/4 left and brought that in for lunch today.  These pictures are from the first time I ate it over the weekend.

So delicious.  A perfect combination of flavors.

Later on I snacked on an orange.

So juicy!

Dinner tonight carried on my theme of Italian food.  I had made a very lean meat sauce over the weekend and had some leftovers for dinner.  I’ll be posting the recipe for the sauce this weekend, so stay tuned, it’s really very good and actually super simple.

I actually had dessert tonight as well.  I had a container of Fro Yo in the freezer that was about to expire.  Never one to waste food I happily ate  a small serving with some chocolate syrup.

It’s hard to tell the size but that’s just a small ramekin. 

Well I’m off to get ready for bed.  Good night everyone, hope you are having a great night!

The Luckiest

Seriously how lucky am I?  Andrew blogged for me yesterday and made me a fabulous dinner!  Andrew now walks around saying he’s a Super Star because of his guest post.  He loved reading through the comments!  Thanks so much for welcoming him!

I think he did a great job blogging, but unfortunately not so good guessing what I ate.   For breakfast yesterday I had a sandwich thin with pb.  Kinda close to what he guessed I would have for lunch though.

Before lunch I ate a peach.  The juiciest peach of the season so far!

We had a pot luck lunch yesterday at work.  I forgot to bring anything in though so I felt really bad eating the food others had brought in.  I’m weird that way.  I was planning on having that in the morning though but then chickened out.  Although I’m sure no one would have noticed or cared that I hadn’t.  Instead I ran out and got what I was really craving.  A multigrain bagel toasted with butter (lightly) from Dunkin Donuts.

Such great texture!

As I was walking through the area of the pot luck later on I saw a lone piece of watermelon.  I had a feeling if I didn’t rescue it, it would just get thrown out, so I snatched it up.  Aren’t you proud Sarah?

I was so excited to come home to my dinner.  Andrew loves making things in the crockpot and he did an awesome job.  You can read how he made the salsa chicken here.

Just look at that cheesy goodness!

On the side he made Near East Rice Pilaf.  I had that bulked up with some left over veggies.  I had 1 piece of broccoli and a bunch of green beans.

This morning I woke up later then I wanted to, we had big plans to go see 3 prospective wedding venues.  I quickly showered, got Andrew up, got ready, and had to run out the door.  Totally forgetting breakfast!  I hate skipping meals!  After we were done at the first venue we had an hour before our appointment at the next, they were only about 10 minutes apart so we stopped at my favorite pizzeria on the beach.  I haven’t been there since the summer between freshmen and sophomore year in high school, that was 9 years ago (oh my God I’m getting old).  The slices are GIGANTIC (bigger then my head) and so good.  Andrew had never had it before so I was excited to show him the biggest pizza I had ever seen.

On 2 paper plates!  A plain slice with Andrew’s hand as reference.

Andrew got a Chicken Parm slice.  He loved it!

So good!

And you can’t have a slice of this pizza without Diet Dr. Pepper.

After our second venue we had a while before we went to the next so we stopped by my mom’s house to visit.   We visited the last venue and then came home for dinner. I had no clue what I wanted so I decided to have a smoothie.  Easy, fast, and filling, perfect meal for me tonight.

This smoothie contained a lot:

• skim milk
• POM juice
• raspberries
• a banana
• soy protein powder
• 1/2 a cup oats
• and pineapple chunks

Well my 2 girlfriends just got here to enjoy some cocktails on the deck (no wine for me this week, just liquid poison (vodka and diet coke).  Have a great night bloggies!

Special Guest Post!

Hello everyone!

This is Andrew, Danielle’s fiancé. (Danielle is right, its still feels weird to say/ type it). Danielle is at work right now and I’m home, (on vacation!) so I thought I would take the reins and keep you all updated. Seeing as I have no idea what Danielle ate/ will be eating today I’ll try to make a few educated guesses.

I’m thinking for breakfast Danielle had a Chobani.

My guess is it looked something like this:
Yummo!

I was not awake early enough to see Danielle pack her lunch. I was, in fact, asleep until about 9:30. Hey I’m on vacation…  Anyways, after careful consideration I have decided that for lunch Danielle feasted on this:

An Arnold’s sandwich thin with peanut butter and maybe bananas.

I hope I got pretty close with these guesses. I think I nailed it.

Now time for dinner. I’ve spent all day standing over the Crockpot to create one of Danielle’s favorite meals, “Crockpot Chicken and Salsa”. Into the Crockpot went one bottle of chi-chi’s original recipe mild salsa. Next I put in the chicken and sprinkled about half a bag of taco seasoning on top.Then I covered it all up with another bottle of chi-chi’s. The plan is to have this with a box of Near East rice pilaf. I must say I’m pretty excited.

Stay tuned for pictures of this meal, and perhaps a correction to my guesses above. I hope you’re all enjoying your day, and if you live anywhere on the east coast, then I hope your staying dry.

Random Foods

Hi Friends!  How was your Monday?   Mine went by super fast I can’t believe it’s almost over already.  I’m hoping the rest of the week goes quickly as well.  I had project management training all day which took me away from my desk, it made the day fly by, and I’m hoping I’ll be so busy tomorrow catching up on things that I should have been doing today that tomorrow is going to be another fast one.

I started off the day with Vanilla Chobani and another Luna bar mixed in, just like last week.  This time however it was the chocolate peppermint stick bar.  What a great combo of flavors.

My camera was acting kind of funny today as you can see, it’s like in soft focus or something.

Lunch was something I’ve been craving for a while.  Every time I open my freezer it was staring me in the face.

So delicious!  Amy’s burritos are awesome and this one was fantastic!

Definitely not an attractive lunch but delicious none the less.  I also had a peach on the side.

I think I have one more peach left, I’m definitely going to have to stock up they are so delicious!

Later I had a Granny Smith Apple for a snack.

Once I got home from work I snacked on a pickle while trying to decide what to make for dinner.

It was actually sunny out!  I’m almost out of pickles too, seems like I need to go shopping again.

For dinner I didn’t really have a clear idea of what I wanted, I knew I wanted broccoli, and definitely green beans, but couldn’t decide what else to have.  So I decided to make a quick box of rice pilaf and just mix the veggies in.

Kind of random but it’s just what I wanted.  And of course all that fiber filled me right up. 

I was still in a snacky mood so I decided to break out the watermelon!  Oh I was so excited to have my first piece of the season!

It was so juicy and delicious, it made me want the hot weather even more.  I hear this weird weather might only last 7-10 more days and then we might actually have  summer weather soon.   On the news they were talking about this June vs. June 2008.  The average temp last year for the first half of June was 85, this year it’s 72!  In 2008 we had 4 days that were over 90, and this year we had 4 days UNDER 60!  Does not sound like summer weather to me!  I’m hoping these weathermen are right, I need to get some beach days in!

I hope you are all having a great night!

Too Fast

This weekend flew right by me!  After I posted Friday night (early Saturday morning really), I went right to bed.  I woke up pretty early and felt the beginnings of a nasty sinus headache.  Apparently my 3 glasses of wine aggravated my allergies.  After doing some research online I realized that there is a pretty good link between wine and sinuses.  I knew that drinking 3 glasses could not have kept me in bed until 4:30 yesterday afternoon but was surprised at how ill I felt.  Luckily I did feel much better around 4:30 and went to a friend’s college graduation party.  It was a lot of fun and I stuck to water (and lots and lots of it, probably 5 or 6 bottles worth) to combat the dehydration from the decongestants I had taken earlier in the day. 

This morning I woke up feeling 100% better and won’t be drinking any wine for a while, just to keep that from happening again.   I had a gigantic bowl of cereal this morning.

365 high fiber and kashi island vanilla mixed with skim milk, what a perfect bowl of cereal!

After breakfast we hung around the house, and then got ready to go to the movies.  We had decided to catch a matinee of The Hangover.  Oh my, I am so happy we went!  It was so funny, I’m kinda considering seeing it again.  Did anyone else see and love this movie as much as I did?

We did get some popcorn to share but it was obviously to dark to snap a picture of it.  After the movies we had some errands to run and then went to my parents house for dinner.  We had my usual Sunday night Favorite.  Roast Beef, with Mashed Potatoes, and Broccoli!

 

All together:

Perfect as usual!

I know I once again skipped a meal, but to be honest I slept kinda late today, and I ate some popcorn so although I should have planned ahead better for lunch, I’m happy I didn’t go hours without eating, although something more nutritious would have been nice. 

I’m off to do a few things before bed time!  Let’s hope Monday flies by!

Uh Oh…

This is my first experience with drogging, is that what we’re calling it? Caitlin? Maybe you can answer, because my hiccups might be preventing me from looking up the proper verbage. That’s not a word? Oh well.

For breakfast today in order to keep myself on schedule I had 2 waffles.  They were good but the syrup was better.  I had whatever I had left of the sugar free syrup on my whole grain Van’s waffles.

Yum yum yum, sideways and all it was fantastic.

For lunch I had a pb and raspberry jam sandwich.  I apparently did not take a picture, although I swore I did.  Here’s what Google Image Search turned up.  Enjoy!

Hiccup Hiccup.  For some reason this picture cracks me up . 

Dinner was a salad from SaladWorks.

It was some kind of Fiesta,   Of that I’m sure, but I’m not sure the name of it.

I ate half of that salad without any of the dressing, I”m saving the rest for tomorrow.  I totally ate the rest of that roll though.

 

And that’s about it, I didn’t eat anything else.  But I did enjoy a finely aged box of wine from my dad.  Yikes.

Andrew totally edited this post, he said it didn’t even make sense to him, at first.  Whoops.

Good Night Everybody, hope you have a great Saturday!

180 Degrees

I don’t know if it was the whole “fake it until you make it” from yesterday, or if  I’m finally back to my normal eating routine, or if it’s the fact that it’s my Friday, but I am in a much better mood today.  I don’t know if I come across this way on the blog, but I am usually a very happy-go-lucky person, especially around friends and families.  It’s kind of impossible to have a serious conversation with me because I’m always joking around, and today I finally feel like I’m getting back to that.  Again I have to credit you guys because of your kind words.  Andrew was reading through my comments from the past few posts today and kept saying how nice everyone was, and how supportive you guys really are.  He didn’t have to tell me that though I’ve known that since day one.

I had another successful eating day!  Planning ahead has definitely helped, tomorrow will be the real test though because I’ll be home all day.  I feel like when I am forced to eat at work on schedule I do much better, it’s definitely something I need to work on for the weekends.  For the most part my choices are healthy but my eating is sporadic, my goal for the weekend is to eat on my normal schedule from during the week and see how that works for me.

For breakfast I relied on my favorite go-to food.  Chobani of course.  I had a vanilla chobani with Kashi Vanilla mini wheats.

Such a delicious combo.  I’m absolutely in love with this cereal.

Lunch was a pretty great, and I was looking forward to one component of it pretty much right after I finished my breakfast.  While shopping the other night I bought some sliced deli chicken, I put 2 slices (it’s pretty thick) and spicy brown mustard on a “Deli Flat”.

See the slight green in the upper right corner.  That was the part I was looking forward to, it was of course another one of my favorite pickles.

I will never get tired of those pickles. Oh and Laura that pen is totally the swag (stuff we all get) from the bridal show last week, new favorite pen, peace out purple advair pen.

Such a simple but perfect lunch.

And for a snack around 3 I had a braeburn apple.  God I missed these, and they were on sale the other day so you know I picked up a few.

Ok for all of you in the Northeast, what is up with this weather?  I’m so sick of fog, rain, and cold.  It’s almost the middle of June where’s my sunshine and 80 degree temps?  Ugh.  This weather is making me crave some serious comfort food, so I decided to have a quick bowl of angel hair pasta. 

I was going to make a salad but really wasn’t feeling it, so instead I just chopped up a green pepper and some cucumber on the side for some crunch and green.

Yum yum yum.

All together:

This looks like I ate around 9:30 because of the lighting but it’s just so dark here, I ate around 6:30 but you’d never guess.

After dinner I drank some unpictured coffee, and watched some trash tv.  I have a lot to catch up on.  Who else watched this week’s Real Housewives of NJ?  Ok for real, how is next week already the finale?  I’m sad but at the same time I’m so looking forward to the episode!  I also watched Kathy Griffin’s Life on the D List, am I the only maniac in blogland who absolutely loves this show?  I laugh until I cry and rewind parts over and over again, that Kathy is a very funny lady.  If I could fly out to LA and be her assistant I’d be the happiest girl in the world. 

What is your guilty pleasure tv show?

Well I’m off to watch other shows I have DVRed and haven’t had time to watch, I hope you all have a great night, and I’m hoping all your Friday’s go by quickly.