88 Degrees

It was 88 degrees here today!  I couldn’t believe how hot it got but could not have been happier!  I love that smell that summer has, I love the feeling of the sun beating down on me, I love the way the ocean shimmers, the way the sea breeze comes through my windows in the morning.  Summer is my favorite time of year by far.  When other people complain it’s hot I’m usually enjoying it and relishing in the heat.  Of course some days when it’s 90% humidity I’m uncomfortable but for the most part I can’t get enough.  I’m the kind of person who can lay out in the sun all day long while everyone around me is hiding in the shade or staying cool in the AC.  I’m a whole different person in the summer then in the winter, I’m just genuinely happier.  So I hope my posts continue to reflect my good mood.  I know there were quite a few posts in the winter where I was such a complainer. 

This morning I had a Luna bar before heading out for a walk.

What took me so long to try these?  They are fantastic, I still prefer clif bars but these are a very close second. 

Remember those flowers I was going to plant?  Yeah Andrew did it while I farted around on the internet.

Parlsey and sweet basil, can’t wait to use these.  I also have some spinach to plant.

And here are some flowers before they were planted.

Snap dragons, the spinach, and some other annuals, I forget what we got, they were a 1.88 at Lowes last night and that’s really the only reason we got them.

By the time we got out on the trail it was already hot, I think it was almost 10.  Andrew kindly took some more pictures of the trail this morning for me.

Someone informed me these are called Sea Geese, they look like ducks to me, but I have absolutely no clue if he was correct or not.  Okay, he didn’t inform me, he told his kid and I overheard.

I swear Andrew would make an awesome paparazzi he always takes pictures of me walking for no reason what-so-ever and I never even notice until I look at the camera.

By the time we were done walking it was almost 12 so we decided to count our bars for breakfast and get deli bagel sandwiches.

I got grilled chicken breast with fresh mozzarella and balsamic vinegar on a whole grain bagel.

 

I can’t describe how good this was, I expected deli sliced chicken not a big juicy grilled piece.  It really was amazing and I ate 3/4’s of it.  Afterwards we went shopping for a birthday present for Andrew’s grandma, (we’re very last minute), we grabbed a beautiful hanging flower arrangement and I also got an Iced D&D coffee.

Andrew is clearly a creep.  And his arms aren’t that white anymore, they are bright red.  He’s my lobster. (Friends anyone?)

We hung out with his family for a few hours and then were headed back to my parents to spray paint our table.  It wasn’t dry when we left so I don’t have an after shot but I have plenty of pictures of it in process.

I’m a graffiti artist!

I’ll make sure to take some pictures when I go to get it tomorrow.  Oh and do you see that pink thing on the garbage can in the background?  That’s my cell phone, it now has brown spots on it because I’m an idiot.

So we once again ate dinner at my parents tonight (and spoiler alert I will be tomorrow too!)  We had turkey burgers and kettle chips!  Perfect summer food!

Mine was about 4 ounces (we got a one lb package and split it into 4 but didn’t have a scale at my parents house so I may be a little off.)  With Monterey jack cheese, a pickle, and some onions.

Then I had another pickle:

And then a bite of an extra hot dog.

Well I’m off to try to catch up on my blog reading!  Hope you all had a great weekend and I can’t wait to read what you have all been up to!

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Free Pizza and Extra Zzz’s

What a crummy day.  It’s been raining since I woke up this morning, and it’s been cold and windy, definitely the kind of day you just want to stay in bed and read or watch some trashy tv.  But I hear it’s going to be a gorgeous weekend here (in the 70s!) so let’s get this rain out of the way before the weekend!

For breakfast this morning I continued with the bagel/pb combo, today though I had a cinnamon raisin bagel.

Delicious it reminded me that I have a jar of PB&Co cinnamon raisin in my cabinet, so I’ll definitely be breaking that out again soon!

For lunch today I had the other 1/2 of my Chicken Fajita wrap.

As I took my first bite I realized this side had a ton of cheese and whatever it was I wasn’t a fan so I deconstructed this into a bowl and left the cheese to the side.  It was still a great lunch but next time I ordered it (which I totally will) I would get it without the cheese.  They already had to make it special for me because it had a sour cream (yuck) based dressing so removing one more item shouldn’t be too much to ask.

Around 3 I started to get super hungry.  I don’t know why I don’t bring snacks for the days I need them but for real I knew I wasn’t going to make it until I got home so I ran to the vending machine and got some peanuts.  The only decent choice from the vending machine in my office.

Yum and I still have 1/2 the bag left for the next time my hunger strikes. 

Do any of you keep any snacks at your desk at work?  What do you keep in your snack stash, I need some ideas!

As I’ve mentioned Andrew had given up pizza for lent and I knew he had been craving it for a while now, so we decided to meet at a local pizzeria when I got out of work.  I got 2 slices, 1 white, and 1 sausage and pepper.

Right after I took a few bites the guy who worked behind the counter brought me another slice because he felt bad that there were some burnt spots (I actually enjoyed the crispy parts) and he insisted on giving me another slice to take home.  Who is going to turn down a free slice of pizza?  Not this girl!  You’ll see it for my lunch tomorrow.

Clearly I started eating this slice before I realized I forgot to take a picture, it was super thin sausage slices and there were only about 4 on the whole slice but it gave the slice such a great flavor.  I think I’m getting a little burnt out on eating so much meat already though and I’m ready to relax and eat it more infrequently like I used to.

As soon as we got home I got into bed and watched some Real Housewives of NYC and tried to get warm. I am so ready to feel 70 degrees this weekend, it’s like I forget what it feels like to be warm.

Well I have some emails to respond to and I’m hoping to fall asleep by 10.  Melissa at Run, Eat, Repeat is trying to get 8 hours of sleep every night for the next 30 nights.  I know I could the extra Zzz’s so I’ll be following in her footsteps.  Wish me luck!

Disappearing Act

Sorry for disappearing for a few days.  I’ve been pretty busy at night and have crashed out as soon as my head has hit the pillow.  I have a ton of catching up to do and a to-do list a mile long, so let’s get into it.

On Wednesday morning I had brought oatmeal again but completely forgot my training started right at 8 so I wound having a clif bar while sitting in training for breakfast.  This photo is from last weekend because I ate this in class I didn’t want to snap a picture.

Training went really well and made the first 4 hours of work fly by.  I kind of assumed we were going to get treated to lunch like last time so didn’t bring anything.  I wound up going to the Subway nearby.  While I was in line waiting to order there 5 very annoying people in front of me singing the 5 dollar foot long song.  It was so irratating but they did convince me to get a Veggie Delight Foot long.

He may have put a little too much vinegar on it but I loved it anyway.  I ate this half and then on the other half just ate the green peppers and cucumbers, a foot long is a lot of food!  On the side I also had a bag of baked lays.

Dinner that night was actually a brinner.  I had 3 whole wheat pancakes, one with blueberries, one with chocolate chips, and one plain.  I couldn’t decide how I wanted it so I had one of each.  Perfect in my opinion.

Blueberry.

Chocolate Chip.

Plain.

All together.

Later that night my sister called asking us to come over so we went over there, by the time we left and got back I was exhausted so I put myself right to bed.

The next morning I had the oatmeal I had brought to work with me on Wednesday.

This was over-two-night oatmeal and it did not disappoint.

This is when I became a bad food blogger I had completely forgotten lunch and wasn’t hungry enough to want anything so I didn’t eat lunch.  I believe this is the first time I’ve skipped a meal since starting the blog.  It was something I used to do all the time and of course by 5 I was famished.

My Uncle Bobby was stopping by my parents house on his way down to my Aunt’s house in Virginia where he will be celebrating Easter, so Andrew and I headed over there to visit with him for the night.  For dinner my mom made a great baked ziti!  Yummy, the first time this year I’ve had any, it of course was delicious.

I definitely had a little more.

And I had 2 pieces of sourdough.

Hanging out with my family last night was a ton of fun and we didn’t wind up getting home until almost midnight, so I wrote out my to-do-list read for about 10 minutes and then fell right to sleep. 

This is my first Friday off and I’ve decided to most of the time use Friday’s to be my big day to run errands and do things around the house, that way I still have 2 days of the weekend to enjoy.  After watching the weather last night I saw that today and tomorrow are going to be rainy so when I woke up and saw sun at 6:30 I jumped out of bed, waking Andrew up, and asked him if he wanted to walk on the trail.  He also wanted to before the weather turned crappy so we got up, got dressed, and got out the door.  On our way out the door I snacked on a new bar.

I got this from Melissa at the blogger brunch back in March.  Thank you Melissa this was delicious.  The texture was a lot like a larabar and the flavor of the cranberries were perfectly sweet and tart, it was a really great bar!

Andrew was nice enough to snap some pictures for the blog of the trail for me today.  The sun was still coming up as we were walking and we only ran into 3 other people on the trail, going that early in the morning was so nice!

Here’s the ramp at the marina for loading the boats into the water and taking them out.

In the back that big boat is the SeaStreak ferry that takes you right into NYC.

The rest of these shots are from on the trail.

There are some boardwalks to cross.

But most of it is gravel.

Most of it goes right along the beach.

Right across the bay is Brooklyn, I waved to all you Brooklyn Bloggers, did you see me?

I can’t wait till all those trees are green, we’re getting there.

Our walk lasted 1 hour and 21 minutes and I burned 599 calories, can we round up to 600?  It sounds so much better.

After our walk we headed right out to grocery shopping the store was empty!  Once again I rushed to put everything away and didn’t get a picture.  Once everything was in it’s place we ate breakfast, I had a smoothie.

This smoothie contained:

• Spinach
• POM juice
• Skim Milk
• 1 scoop soy protein powder
• frozen sliced peaches
• blueberries
• 1 banana

Yummy!

So it’s time for me to start to-doing.  Our list is very very long, want to see?

1. Grocery Shopping
2. Blog
3. Vacuum
4. Dust
5. Put laundry away
6. Wash windows
7. dishes
8. organize office
9. clean bathroom
10. wash floors
11. scrub counters and cabinets.
12. clean closet in bedroom
13. gym
14. comment and read blogs
15. Bake/and mail Banana bread for blogger bake sale.

These are in no particular order, it’s just how I thought of things as I laid in bed last night. 

So I’m off to get to work, I’ll be back after lunch!

Danielle Runs on Dunkin’

Sorry I didn’t post yesterday or comment on all of your blogs.  But thank you for all your kind comments.  I have so much on my mind but unfortunately I can’t share it here just yet.  This weekend was a tough one, I kept busy yesterday morning but then towards of the end of the day all the stress just hit me at once and I was crying on and off for a while.  It feels weird that I can’t discuss anything on here just yet, it’s like I’m keeping a secret from my best friend or something, because so far this year I’ve shared almost everything with you guys, and I know that if I could tell you all what was going on you’d be able to offer some advice and kind words, which I really need right now. 

Since that’s really all I can say, I’ll just move on to this weekends eats.

Yesterday morning I had to go to the chiropractor with my mom so I stopped on my way to Dunkin Donuts I was craving Ice Coffee.

I also picked up a multigrain bagel and took it back to my mom’s house to quickly eat before we had to leave.  I used a small amount of butter on the bagel.

 

I ate a little more then half and then we were on our to the chiropractor.  After our appointment we were on our way to check out an assisted living community for my grandparents.  It was a really nice place and after seeing the menu I was really hoping we’d get to have some lunch there.  Unfortunately we’d only get lunch if my grandparents came.  The place was really nice and I’m hoping my grandparents decide to come here because it’s right down the street from where I work and I’d definitely get to see them a lot more often, as they live in the Poconos right now, and I don’t get to see them as often as I’d like.

Once I returned to my parents I had the unfortunate chore of laundry (way too much laundry, it’s been a while oops.)  I had a piece of bread with pb since I was a little hungry.

On Andrew’s way home from work he stopped at Tropical Smoothie Cafe and got me the same smoothie I got a couple weeks ago.  After a few sips I started to feel really itchy, and my leg was breaking out in hives.  That’s the reaction I get to strawberries (which sucks because I love them), but the smoothie shouldn’t have strawberries in it, it didn’t taste like strawberries but I’m wondering if maybe the blender wasn’t properly cleaned between making mine and somebody else’s.  Once I stopped drinking it within 30 minutes I felt fine.  I only drank about a 1/4 of this gigantic smoothie but I figured I’d share a picture anyway.

Once I felt better we headed out to the gym. I was using the Lat Raise machine and an older guy just stood there watching me after one set he very rudely and loudly said “Are you going to be done with that soon?!”  Dude the gym is empty move on to another machine for a few minutes.  I told him I had more sets and he continued to stand there and watch me.  Creep.  Once I moved on I was setting the weights on another machine and someone asked me if I was using it, he said it a lot nicer so I let him use it first, but for real, the place was empty why was everyone trying to use whatever I wanted to?  Then we were in the movie theater and I was using a treadmill, as I said before my heart rate monitor transmits and displays on treadmills next to me, after running for a few minutes, the guy next to me yelled in front of everyone there, “Do you have a heart thing on or something!?”  Ugh so embarrassing I apolgizied and he said it was okay but he was only walking so of course my heart rate was higher and I guess it freaked him out a little.  What a day.

For dinner last night I had my leftover pizza from Friday.  I was literally craving it.

After dinner and moping around the house I got dressed and headed out to meet up with my friends, it was just what I needed to get my mind off of everything.  I drank some vodka and diet cokes, which probably helped as well, we got home around 12:30 and I read and went to bed.  I felt much better today then I did yesterday and got up and enjoyed a smoothie for breakfast.  After my incident yesterday I was craving a smoothie and was happy to finally have one.  It was a little overcast this morning but really warm so I enjoyed this out on the deck with Andrew.

This smoothie included:

• 1 Scoop protein powder
• 1 banana
• 1/2 a cup skim milk
• blueberries
• pineapples
• 4 ounces POM juice
• and 1tbsp pb

So yummy and just what I needed.  I love smoothies for breakfast!  After my smoothie we got dressed and ran some errands.  I was feeling extrememly tired so we stopped to get coffee and some food.  We decided to once again hit up Dunkin Donuts.  I got a medium coffee with skim milk and splenda, and a veggie flatbread sandwich.

The flatbread sandwich was just okay, a little bland, I wish I had some hot sauce for it, if I got it again I definitely would spice it up a little, it’s a good option if your out and about though.

After visiting with Andrew’s parents, sister, and grandma we headed home.  The sun had come out and it was beautiful I actually threw on some shorts and a t-shirt and sat outside on the deck reading, until a squirrel tried to join us and scared the crap out of me and sent me running back inside.  I’m a baby I know.   The sun went away as quickly as it had come out but we had already decided to have a bbq.

I had a veggie burger with a string cheese melted on top, with romaine lettuce, and pickles.

And also threw some sliced garnet yam on the grill for “chips”.

I think I liked them better grilled then baked, can’t wait to do this some more in the summer.

Now I’m going to spend some time catching up on my blog reading and then head off to bed.  Hope you all had a fabulous weekend!

T.G.I.F

I am so incredibly thankful that this week is over.  It’s been a tough one, it went by fast but I’m a little stressed out over something.  Unfortunately I can’t go into detail until next week.   So please excuse me, but this post is going to be a quickie.

For breakfast today I had a peach Chobani with my peak protein granola.

By the end of the week my desk is covered in those little post-it notes. 

My lunch today came from Andrew’s boss at the pharmacy.  They ordered sandwiches and they were gigantic so she wrapped up 1/2 and sent it home with Andrew for me.  It was eggplant parm!  Didn’t I just have that like Monday?  Well I am not one to turn down free food so I brought it into today to lunch.  This is actually only a quarter of it I did my good deed for the day and passed the other 1/2 on to one of the guys at work who forgot to bring something for lunch.  Pay it Forward.

Because I got this a few days ago the roll was a little soggy so I removed that and just ate the eggplant, it was good, and much thicker then the ones I got for dinner on my birthday.  Also less breading.  But the sauce was just okay.

For dinner I had every intention of having a veggie burger.  Well, that’s not entirely true.  I wanted a veggie burger because I wanted pickles, and what goes better with pickles then a burger.  Since I kindly gave away my last pickle on Saturday I stopped at the store to grab another jar but none of them were as bright green as I like so I sulked and grabbed a pizza crust instead.  I decided to make a “meatball” and pineapple pizza, again.

I used 2 “meatballs” crumbled up, and a handful of pineapples, and mozzarella cheese, on a whole wheat crust, just I needed after such a bad day.

After digesting and watching TV, Andrew and I headed out to the gym.  We were riding along talking when all of a sudden the street and traffic lights went out, we saw sparks flying, and the car in front of me slammed on their breaks. A telephone pole had fallen on a car just 2 cars in front of us.  Andrew immediately called 911 but apparently others had already done the same because they already knew about the accident we were stuck there on the highway with live wires dangling just above our car.   I was trying to look into the car to see if anyone was moving, it didn’t appear like there was.   I was freaking out, if that had happened a second later that would have been us. It was a terrifying thought, and although I’ve said today was a bad day it put it all into perspective.  We saw the driver on a stretcher leaving the scene in an ambulance but they were completely covered by a blanket,  I just hope whoever that person was is okay.  What a horrible thing to happen.

We wound up getting to the gym around 9:30 and that’s just too late for me, I worked out for a quick 40 minutes,  and my stats were:

• Calories burned: 358 (40% Fat)
• Max Heart Rate: 170
• Avg Heart Rate 146

Not too shabby for a quick workout (mostly strength training).  I’ll definitely be working out a lot harder tomorrow.

So my plans tomorrow are to go to the chiropractor, go take a tour of an assisted living facility with my mom (for my grandparents), which may or may not include a free lunch, and then later on go out with some friends that weren’t able to come out last Saturday when I celebrated my birthday.  Should be another fun filled weekend!  Hope you all had a great  Friday night.

The weekend is in sight…

I can’t believe today is already almost over, this week is flying by!  And the fact that a week from now it’ll be April is nuts!  2009 sure is moving quickly!  Anyone else think this year is going fast?

For breakfast today my old love is back.  Chobani!  Oh how I’ve missed my Chobani, especially my vanilla.  I had that with a peak protein granola sprinkled on top.

 

This is a heavenly combination!

Lunch today was a pb and banana sandwich with some green grapes on the side.

Some of my grapes were very tart, I didn’t enjoy those few, but the rest were perfectly sweet!

Around 3 I was ready to gnaw my arm off, I didn’t think I had any snacks with me because I really haven’t been snacking in the afternoons.  I was about to hit up the vending machine when I remembered that I did, in fact, have a snack courtesy of Missy.  She sweetly handed out some clif z bars on Sunday at the brunch, and I luckily still had it in my bag.  So thank you so much Missy for keeping me away from the vending machine! 

Once I got home from work I was once again hungry, I don’t know what is with my appetite today.  I knew exactly what I wanted I was inspired by this meal.  I had some meatless meatballs and was craving tacos so I made a taco wrap.  I used 4 meatless meatballs broken up and cooked in taco seasoning, romaine lettuce, spinach, mexican cheese blend, and salsa, on whole wheat tortilla.

This was so good! 

After resting and watching some of last night’s Biggest Loser it was time to go to the gym.  I did strength training first and then jumped on the treadmill, I didn’t feel like running today so I walked at a steep incline for a while.  According to my HRM my stats are:

• 450 calories burned
• Avg HR 153
• Max HR 181

Have I said how much I love this HRM already?  One thing I did notice on the treadmill is since they’ve got Polar HRM built in my stats show up on not only my treadmill but the one next to me.  I don’t know if that’s normal or not.

Once returning back home I snacked on 2 Tagalongs.

Last year when I got my 2 boxes of Tagalongs they were gone in about a week, I’ve had these for a week now and this is my second helping of them.  Just goes to show me how much I’ve improved since the beginning of the year.

Well lovelies I’m off to bed, I hope you all have a great night!

Restocked

I have another day of boring eats for you guys, but I was able to get to the store tonight to restock so tomorrow will be back to normal.

Unfortunately I needed to have another Clif bar for breakfast, thank god I got to the store today these keep me satisfied until lunch but they are so boring to eat.

I’m pretty sure this is my first time having the Blueberry crisp and I thought it was really good.

For lunch I had my leftovers from dinner last night. 

Not pretty in the least but soooo good, I removed all the cheese off because there were no plates available at work and with the container I couldn’t put it in the microwave and the cheese just looked gross cold, the rest was fine though.

Around 3 I snacked on an orange.

See my sweet safety glasses in the background?  Yeah I have to wear those whenever I go out to the factory at my work.  I hate those things.

After work I hit up Whole  Foods, I didn’t take a picture of all my purchases I completely forgot.  I pulled a Meghann and as soon as I got home I put everything away, got changed and put on the Burn Fat and Boost Metabolism Jillian Michael’s DVD, so I wouldn’t have time to make up excuses.  Since I just got my HRM I was dying to try it.  I only made it 35 minutes in and kinda skipped the cool down, before I quit, I was too hungry to keep going by this time it was 7:30 and needed something to eat.  But in those 35 minutes I wound up burning 350 calories I did modify some things and added weights just to make it a little more difficult.  I really enjoyed the DVD though and it’s something I will definitely do on days I don’t usually go to the gym.

For dinner I wanted something fast and did not feel like cooking anything.  I decided to have a massive smoothie.

This smoothie contained:

• 1/2 a cup of oats
• 1/2 a cup skim milk
• 1 scoop soy protein powder
• A gigantic handful of spinach
• 4 ounces POM juice
• pineapple
• and blueberries

This was super filling.  This was my first time adding spinach to a smoothie, and although everyone swears you can’t taste it, I never believed them.  Well it’s true!  I put a crazy amount of spinach in there and did not taste it at all.  I’ve never had a smoothie for dinner before but I assume it’s okay to substitute that meal with a smoothie, since there was so much going on in there I feel just as satisfied with that as I would a huge meal.

Well I’m off to pack/prepare my lunch for tomorrow, enjoy the rest of your Monday night!

Drained

Thanks for being so understanding about last night’s crappy post.  I don’t know what’s wrong with me lately, I just feel physically drained, I’d love to blame it on Daylight Savings Time but I’m getting the same amount of sleep most nights, the other night I had a restless night but surely I must have made that up by now.  I just feel like from the moment I get up to the moment I lay down I’m constantly going.  This Saturday I will make the time to go to the gym at some point but other then that I am having a me day, I have some of ideas of what it will include, but suggestions are welcome.  When you want to treat yourself what’s your favorite thing to do?

I’m going to make this post quick as well so I can get into bed and get another full nights sleep.

For breakfast today I had a 2% Plain Fage yogurt with peak protein granola.

I’ve loved all the Fage yogurt I’ve received but for plain I definitely prefer the 0%. Flavored 2%’s are fine but I really like the 0% better.

A little before lunch I got hungry so I snacked on what was supposed to be a part of lunch.  Some grapes that were on their way out, I had toss quite a few of them.

For lunch I had a pb and raspberry preserve sandwich on an Arnold Thin.

Looks like my sandwich is sticking his tongue out at me.

Around 3:30 I got hungry again, and I wanted popcorn, so I took a single serving size 100 calorie bag to one of the microwaves, within in a minute it smelled like burning so I took it out, more then half of those little kernels didn’t pop, and about 1/2 of the ones that did pop were burnt, disappointing to say the least.

Such was my day.

For dinner I made tacos with the MorningStar Veggie crumbles, the texture took some getting used to but it was really good, I put the taco “meat” over a bed of romaine, 4 mini sweet peppers, taco cheese, and some onion, for dressing I used taco sauce.  

A little while after dinner we got ready to go to the gym but stopped by my parents house to see their new couch, very nice and comfortable, I see many naps on that couch in my future.  As we were leaving Andrew found some soft pretzel he had left from school, I gladly took a piece from him.

The gym sucked, I just don’t have the energy, I did as much as I could on the treadmill, and then accidentally punched it, I pushed the emergency stop button, and waited for the pain to go away, then restarted it, then I realized how crappy I felt and how I did not want to be there, and instead of pushing through I freaking gave up.  I feel like I’m getting upset ofverstupid stuff lately and I need to calm the heck down.  I should have stuck it out, but I got too upset over something stupid and decided to leave.  Tomorrow WILL be a better day at the gym.

So after we came home I decided to crack open a container of fro yo that’s been in my freezer for over a month, just haven’t been in the mood for it lately.  But tonight the craving was there and I gave into it.  I had a serving of the frozen yogurt and some chocolate chips on top.  Heavenly.

Well I’m off to read and go to bed, I’m reading A Thousand Years Of Solitude and so far it’s pretty good.  Hope you all have a really good night!!!  See you tomorrow, and by then it will be Thursday!  We’re almost there!!!!

An Extra Hour of Light

I love Daylight Savings time.  I love that it’s after 6 out and although it’s overcast it’s still light out there.  Although we lost an hour the day feels longer, and I really don’t mind losing an hour of sleep when in return you get an extra hour of light.  Nothing depresses me more then getting out of work and it’s already dark out, so this is a welcome change.

I had a terrible eating day.  I didn’t eat junk, I didn’t eat fast food, and I didn’t eat too much of anything.  In fact the problem is I didn’t eat enough.  I had NO hunger.  And instead of eating balanced meals regardless I barely ate at all.  Not a good thing at all. 

I started out this morning with a cup of coffee and a 1/2 a clif bar.

I finally found them in my Whole Foods.  And they totally taste like a glazed donut!  I enjoyed this outside with my morning coffee on the deck.  The deck is the best part of the apartment and I’m sure as it gets warmer you’ll see that we eat out there every night and most weekend meals, it’s also where our friends all come to hang out during the summer, I know for a fact that as the months get warmer you will be seeing a ton of pictures of my friends enjoying the deck with us, for meals and drinks. 

My legs felt so tight this morning I was afraid that I was going to struggle with running today.  So I downloaded Yoga for Runners from yogadownload.com. I’m not saying I consider myself a runner, I don’t.  But I assumed it was going to focus on stretching the muscles that were giving me trouble.  I’ve done yoga one other time before and so was not prepared for a podcast, I didn’t know some of the poses so Andrew made a slideshow to go along with the podcast.  He decided to join me in doing the podcast.  I know yoga is relaxing, but not with the 2 of us.  There was way to much joking around, and way to much “get the f*** outta here I can’t do that, let’s just do child’s pose.”  And whenever they mentioned energy from your fingertips Andrew made buzzing electric noises.  Although we totally sucked at it we laughed a lot and I felt my muscles unwind.  What should have taken 20 minutes took us over 40, we had to keep referring to the slideshow.

After this we went to the gym where I did some more of the first week of training from the Couch to 5k.  I felt great afterwards!  After the gym I wanted to eat but I wasn’t hungry I decided to go to Tropical Smoothie Cafe for a smoothie.  I got their Sunny Day smoothie which is, banana, mango, orange, and kiwi.  I also added soy protein to it.   They were also offering free samples of a new product they’ll be selling, they are going to start carrying flatbread sandwiches, and one of them was a pb, banana, and granola flatbread.  Okay I love pb and banana, but never in a million years would I have though to put granola on it, but I certainly will be now.  It was so delicious and such a simple idea, how did I not think of that before!?

These pictures are from Andrew’s phone, amazing, my phone looks no where near this good, it always looks so washed out.  I’m still amazed by these photos.

My smoothie was ginormous.  It literally took me 2.5 hours to drink 3/4 of it, it was really yummy though.

We came home and took advantage of the nice weather and went for a walk/jog (mostly walk) around the neighborhood. 

Once we got back we decided to make dinner, again I wasn’t hungry so I just went with what Andrew was having.  He wanted pasta so he cooked some penne, I had mine with a small amount of butter, garlic powder, and parmesan cheese.  On the side we also had meatless meatballs.  Holy crap they were good, even Andrew enjoyed them and he’s a meat-eater through and through, and typically terrifed of eating vegetables/fake meat products.  When he was younger and his mom made him and his twin brother broccoli one night, Andrew’s brother picked some up with his fork and attempted to eat it, and Andrew screamed “No DO NOT EAT THAT!!!”  He acted like it was poison.  My mom makes him eat broccoli when we go to her house for dinner, he’s getting a lot better with trying new things, but he’s a meat and potatoes kinda guy for the most part.

I put some spicy spaghetti sauce on the “meatballs”  AMAZING!

So I guess that’s it for today!  I hope you all had a fun weekend, I definitely did.  We’re off to my parents house so Andrew can move a couch or something with my dad, poor Andrew he’s always recruited to help my dad with the heavy lifting since he’s surrounded by all girls day in and day out.  Andrew doesn’t mind though, he’s a good guy.

23 Hours…

Good Morning!  Hope you’re enjoying your weekend.  Today is an hour shorter then every other day of this year so make sure to make the most of it!  I love springing ahead because it will be lighter longer now but it looks like it’s going to be cloudy today and for the next couple days, we may not even get to enjoy the extra light.  It has been so warm this weekend, all 14 inches of the snow are gone, in less the 6 days since the big snow fall it disappeared!  It was close to 70 yesterday and I thoroughly enjoyed the weather.

Friday night was a ton of fun we went out to a bar down the street, I have such a great group of friends!  I had a mozzarella stick but no picture of it, the rest of the night I enjoyed water and the company of my friends.  So different from a few months ago where everytime we’d go out I’d spend 40 bucks on drinks, and feel sick Saturday morning.  I’d really rather no have a drink at all or just enjoy one drink, just another change I made this year that I’m happy about.  We came home kinda early and went to bed since Andrew had work Saturday morning.  BUT I had a great conversation with my 2 best girlfriends and we have decided to run the Fear The Pier 5k in May!  I’m so excited! It’ll be my first 5k and I couldn’t be happier about running it with them. Time to start training!

Yesterday morning I had personal training so I had a protein packed breakfast of a 0% plain Chobani with a piece of the banana bread mixed in.  I hate it outside on our deck in the sunshine!

My trainer kicked my ass yesterday! I was so tired after training I didn’t wind up doing any cardio at the gym.  I am so sore today and plan on doing some yoga to loosen up before I hit up the gym.

After personal training yesterday I went to my parents house to hang out with my sister while my parents went to buy new couches, after Andrew got out of work he stopped by Tropical Smoothie Cafe and grabbed me the same Veggie Veggie wrap as last time, and I went a little crazy and had a serving sized bag of baked lays with it.

After lunch Andrew and I took turns using my parents elliptical, I had to get my cardio in somewhere and it was slightly raining so I was a baby and didn’t want to go outside..

After that we came back to the apartment to clean and eat dinner.  I had an eggplant I had to use up so I made my version of eggplant parm.  Just sliced the eggplant, roasted it in the oven with a small amount of EVOO brushed onto the eggplant with garlic powder sprinkled on top and popped it in the oven for 20 minutes flipping once half way through.  I then put it in a casserole dish covered it with sauce and a small amount of cheese.  After the cheese is melted it’s done!  Oh my gosh this is sooo good.

Once dinner was over,  MsInformed and her fiancé came over to celebrate her birthday!!!!  We had pomegranate and vodka drinks with the POM Wonderful juice.  She also agreed it was really good.  This is a photo from last time because I didn’t get a chance to take a picture last night.

Well I’m going to have some coffee and find something to eat before I run to the gym.  Have a great Sunday!  I’ll be back after dinner tonight!