Catching Up

First off don’t forget about My First Giveaway you still have 2 days to enter!

Sorry I disappeared yesterday, I’ve been trying to enjoy vacation now that I’ve only got 4 days left.  This week is just flying by!  It’s been a lot of fun though and we’ve pretty much done everything we wanted to do while here except for one more thing that we’re planning on doing tomorrow night.  Other then that it’s going to be a lot more relaxing on the beach, by the pool, and some bike riding thrown in.

After posting the other day we had dinner of spaghetti and meatballs.  It was a cold rainy afternoon so it worked out perfectly.

I also had a side salad of romaine and cucs.

With some of that light balsamic that’s peaking over the bowl.

Later on Geoffrey came out to play.  I had no idea hermit crabs were nocturnal but they definitely are once the sun goes down they come out to play.  For the past 2 nights we’ll go to bed and hear Geoffrey moving around, in the morning we’ll see that rearranged all his things in his cage.

 

Later on while watching TV Andrew, my parents, and I all split a 100 calorie bag of popcorn.

The next morning we woke up and I had a smoothie that contained skim milk, pom juice, high fiber cereal, raspberries, blueberries, banana, and pb.

After breakfast Andrew and I went on a quick 6 mile bike ride to the neighboring town of Duck, NC.

 

It was a windy day but bike riding was a good option for something to do outside.

Once we got back we ate a quick lunch.  I had a random mix of things I found in the fridge.

I had  1/2 an Arnold Sandwich thin with a string cheese to make a piece of super cheesy bread.

I also had left over rice from the other night.

And for some crunch I had 1/2 a green pepper.

All together:

Later on we did a little more shopping (I actually bought nothing!)  But Andrew did buy some local made fudge and I of course helped him eat some of it.

Absolutely delicious!

For dinner last night we had some home made burgers.

On the side I had some Food Should Taste Good Tortilla chips.

We also had some corn we picked up from a local stand.

I of course had another apple cider on the side.

We went to bed pretty early last night and I was excited to wake up and see the sun shining bright.  It was still a little windy but it was a good day to lay out in the sun and go in the hot tub.  I had some cereal and yogurt for breakfast.

We spent the morning out in the sun before we decided to take a short drive to Manteo for lunch and to walk around.

We ate lunch at a 50’s style diner, it was so cute.

There wasn’t many choices unless I wanted something fried or another burger, so I played it safe with a grilled chicken sandwich.

Then we walked around the very scenic town of Manteo.

I’m a rebel and climbed to the top even though it was blocked off.

We came back to the house and the wind had died down enough to swim and I stayed in the pool for an hour or so before we had to get ready to go to dinner.  We went to a restaurant we really enjoyed last year and decided to visit again.

I decided to get the St. Lucia Chicken because I had that last year and loved it, and even though I had a chicken for lunch I decided to have it again because it was something really really good.

After ordering some really delicious bread came out.

And not long after our dinners came out.

I ate one piece of chicken, most of the beans and about 1/2 the rice.  I brought the one piece of chicken home to eat for lunch tomorrow or Friday. 

Well that’s everything up till now!  I’m going to try to update tomorrow so I don’t have to do a marathon post like this again!  Hope you are all having a fabulous week, see you tomorrow!

Fun In The Sun

Yesterday it got up to 79 degrees, I spent almost the whole day outside enjoying the warm weather, I didn’t blog because I tried to just spend the day outside and we wound up going out last night with some friends and I didn’t get home until late.  So I have a lot to catch up on.

After I posted on Friday Andrew and I took a ride to a school for Andrew to drop off his resume.  Once we returned we hung out on the deck for a little and then we started to bbq up some turkey burgers.

I put some mozzarella cheese on mine.

It was cooked perfectly.  It was 4 ounces of very lean ground turkey, I of course had a pickle and ketchup on it.  On the side I also had some corn.

I opened a bag of pop chips but only had like 4 of them because by the time I finished my burger and my 2 helpings of corn I was no longer hungry, they were put away for another day.

I had some great company while eating.

After dinner some of our friends came over to hang out on the deck, unfortunately once the sun went down the wind picked up and it got pretty chilly.  It was a pretty fun night for the most part.

We woke up nice and early Saturday morning because Andrew had to go to work at the pharmacy.  I made a smoothie and enjoyed it out in the sun with the Self Magazine I got last week and finally got around to reading.

This smoothie contained:

• skim milk
• 1 banana
• blueberries
• peach slices
• 1 scoop protein powder
• 1/2 a cup of oats

I had a chiropractors appointment which I went to with my mom and then came home around 1 and decided to eat one of the  leftover turkey burgers from the night before.  The sun was so bright that I couldn’t see the screen on my camera so I kinda hoped for the best when snapping pictures.

Obviously I didn’t get a good one because of my shadow.

On the side I had 4 sweet peppers.

After spending the rest of the day outside we decided to go out to dinner to Chili’s.  We ordered the tostatdo chips and salsa to start, and between the 2 of us we didn’t even finish them.  (And I forgot to take a picture so here’s a picture from the Chili’s website).

For my dinner I ordered off the guiltless grill menu.  I got a grilled chicken buffalo sandwich without the ranch dressing, and with steamed veggies on the side.

It was delicious and the website has it listed at 386 calories but that includes the ranch so I’m guessing it was less then that.  In the background you can see Andrew’s fries, I took about 5 of them.

Dinner was great but the chips were so salty I felt dehydrated all night!

After dinner we went bowling ( I didn’t bowl but I went with everyone) and then we went to a little cafe that sells gelato, Andrew got a mint chocolate chip gelato which I gladly took a small spoonful of it was so good.

This morning for breakfast I cooked up some whole wheat pancakes, and used a little syrup on them.

Now we’re off to run some errands and then go to my parents house to spend some time with them.  I’ll be back after dinner, tonight is warm but overcast and a little windy so we’ll still be spending some time outdoors just not in shorts like we were the past couple days!

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday see you after dinner!

70 Degrees and Loving It!

I am 10,000X happier then I’ve been in so long!  I can’t tell you just how much I love the warm weather better!

I’m excited to get back out there and enjoy the day so quick 2 day recap!

Yesterday for breakfast I made the most beautiful smoothie, it was so purple!

This smoothie contained:

• 1 scoop protein powder
• blueberries
• peaches
• a banana
• skim milk

I took 2 or 3 sips then put it in a to-go cup for work.  I got ready for work and left.  And forgot the damn smoothie!  So remember what this smoothie looks like.

So when I got to work I snacked on 3 prunes, while pouting about my forgotten smoothie.

Lunch time couldn’t come fast enough, I was holding off until a reasonable hour for lunch and when I decided to dig in, it was gone in 2 minutes flat.

Inside this WW wrap is pb and raspberry preserves.  Yum yum yum.

Around 3 my stomach started growling so I had 4 sweet peppers:

And a string cheese:

Yum yum yum.

Andrew had the week off for spring break from school and he made me the best dinner again!  What a sweet guy.  Crockpot Chicken Parm!  So excited to eat that again!  But first I forced us to go for a walk along the trail, I burned about 250 calories because I was in a hurry to get back and eat some chicken parm.

He used chicken tenders so I had 3 and a serving of ww penne.

I might have licked the plate.

After dinner we went to pick up my little sister for our sleep over.  She came over and we passed out around midnight.

I woke up at 6 this morning and went for a little walk/jog around the neighborhood by myself.  I burned 217 calories.

Then came home and drank my smoothie (that Andrew so kindly put in the fridge for me yesterday after I forgot it.)  It wasn’t nearly as pretty today but still tasted awesome.

After the 2 lazy bones in the house woke up we hung around the house and watched tv.  My mom called and asked us if we’d like to go out to breakfast, I actually was hungry again so we went to our favorite breakfast plate in the junction.  I’m predictable and had a scramble with potato, pepper, onion and egg, with dry ww toast on the side.

I also stole some of my sister’s home fries because she doesn’t like them.  If it looks like a huge portion it is definitely decent but I love that they use smaller plates there then a standard restaurant, I hate when they have those huuuuge plates and fill them up with food.  These are just the right size.

After breakfast Andrew and I went for a walk on the trail together.  We walked for over an hour and I burned 466 calories.  Which puts me at 683 for the day, not bad for just walking and jogging.

When we got to almost the end of the trail I saw a bunch of people up ahead with orange jumpsuits on.  CHAIN GANG!  The back of their jumpsuits said NJDOC (NJ department of corrections)  there was a cop with them but there were at least 20 of them.  Nothing too weird right?  There was a cop so we should have felt safe.  But about 1/2 of the prisoners had freaking CHAINSAWS!  For real?  One Cop with a gun and 10 prisoners waving Chain Saws around?  I whispered to Andrew “turn around real slowly, and let’s get the hell out of here”.  Only a little while later when we passed 2 more cops walking along the front of the trail,  did we realize Andrew had an orange sweat shirt on I was convinced Andrew was going to get shot at because the cops would think he was a member of the Chain Gang.  I walked a good 10 paces behind him just in case.  I also thought the cops at the front of the trail were there because a prisoner had escaped and we were going to be part of a hostage situation.  I have a very active imagination obviously.  I also told Andrew that it was the “closest I’ve ever been to being murdered.” He told me that I was no where near being murdered but prisoners with Chain Saws is never a good combination.

Brinner Makes It Better

Well I successfully got 8 hours of sleep last night but as you can see it’s already after 10, I don’t actually have to be asleep until 10:45 for it to be a full 8 hours but I know how long it takes me to wind down and get to sleep.  I’m hoping I can rush it along and still get my 8 hours!

This morning I woke up refreshed and ready for the day I decided to make a smoothie for breakfast.  It was delicious.  I ran out of POM juice and I really think that’s what was giving my smoothies the bright colors and really enhanced the taste.  I will certainly be picking up more of it soon if only for my smoothies!

Looks like cement doesn’t it?  This smoothie contained:

• a couple cups of spinach
• skim milk
• 1 scoop soy protein powder
• blueberries
• peaches
• 1 banana

Really delicious but definitely missed the POM and the color was a little unappetizing.

For lunch today I had the slice of free white pizza from last night.

Is it possible this tasted better because it was free?  I ate all of it except the crust.

For a snack later on I ate the other 1/2 of the peanuts from yesterday but totally forgot to take a picture.

I had some errands to run today after work so I decided to have a quick and easy brinner.

3 pieces of turkey sausage, a bagel (the bagels I have been eating are from Costco, 2 sleeves of 6 for 5 bucks!)  and 1 egg scrambled.

Yummy, a few times during Lent Andrew had turkey sausage and I was craving it badly today once again I gave in to the cravings for meat.  There’s one more thing on my list of things I want to eat now that Lent is over, turkey burgers!  I plan on having one on Friday when the temperature is going to be 70!  Perfect night for a bbq!  Also that night we’re having our friends over for our first night out on our deck this season!  So exciting!

Tomorrow is my new Friday so my sister is coming to sleep over since she’s on spring break.  Then Friday I plan on spending as much time outside as I can.  What are your plans for this weekend?

As always have a fabulous night!!!!!!

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!

Weekend Wrap Up

What a fun weekend I had!  If every weekend had weather this nice, and as many good times I would be a very happy and lucky lady.  I got to spend a lot of time with my grandparents which is why I didn’t blog yesterday also got to spend a few more hours with them this morning before they left to go back to the Poconos.  I hope you all had a fabulous weekend as well!

After such a fun weekend I’m exhausted so I’m going to try to make this a quick post.

Yesterday I was running late because we had a small problem with the faucet in the bathroom not turning off that I was trying to take care of.  I grabbed a clif bar as I was running out of the house for my Doctors appointment.

Delicious as usual.

After the doctor’s and visiting the assisted living with my grandparents I got a smoothie.

I got one with Mango, pineapple, non-fat yogurt, and protein powder.  Luckily there was no allergic reaction to it yesterday and it was delicious.

For dinner we ate at my parents we ordered chinese food and I decided to get vegeterian chow mein.  It was disgusting.

I wound up eating some broccoli with garlic sauce mostly, but didn’t eat much of that either.  Disappointing.

Later after leaving my parents house we came home to the apartment and met our friend Mike here to hang out.  We spent the night looking up houses in Florida, watching YouTube videos, and talking.  Have I mentioned I want to move somewhere warmer?  I know the weather is getting nice but I just realize how much the winters affect my mood and I need to get to somewhere warm. 

My wine was in a very special Secret Service glass from my Aunt Suzy for Christmas last year.  It was a raspberry wine and it was so good.  I definitely drank more then this amount, a lot more.  After the week I had, I decided to relax a little and enjoy the wine though. 

Mike was hungry so I offered some Popchips to him as long as he would allow me to put his pictures trying them on the blog.

Here’s Mike admiring the bag:

Now here’s Mike tasting it:

But did he like it?

Thumbs up!  He tried the orginal and I had a few as well, we wound up dipping them in salsa which was really good.

See Andrew in the background carrying a bowl?  He so lovingly shared his leftovers from Friday night’s dinner with me.  I gladly ate up some of his Rigatoni Pomadora, I was starving since dinner was a such a mess earlier on.  I didn’t take a picture of the rigatoni I completely forgot (too much wine).  I really didn’t have that much, but for the 13 dollar dinner to get 3 meals out of it was really good.

This morning I got up and got dressed to make it back to my parents to say goodbye to my grandparents they wound up sticking around for a few hours so I actually got to spend a good amount of time with them.  I had a cinnamon raisin bagel toasted with a little butter.

Sorry for the crappy cellphone picture.

After my grandparents left Andrew and I went to the gym, it was such a nice day we decided to just do some weights there and take advantage of the nice weather and do our cardio outside.  While doing the weights I burned 225 calories in the half hour we were there.  Then we headed back towards the apartment, my dad had told us they built a new trail in our town that went right along the water.  We decided to give that a try.  I wish I had my camera with me because it was a beautiful walk.  We walked and jogged for an hour, and wound up burning 434 calories, so 659 total with our 2 workouts.

After our walk we  hung out in the marina and walked around a little more then decided to go out for lunch at a little restaurant in the marina.  I got a potato pepper onion and egg sandwich on whole wheat toast.  I wound up deconstructing the sandwich and eating it just like normal scrambled eggs and eating the toast on the side.

On the side you can also see the pickle Andrew so kindly gave to me from his burger.  1 more week until I can eat meat again and until today I haven’t really craved much red meat, chicken yes, red meat not usually.  His burger just looked so damn good I wanted it so badly!  I’ll definitely be having a burger sometime soon after next Sunday when Lent is over!

For dinner we decided to try spaghetti squash for the first time, with meatless meatballs on the side.  I’m so glad we tried the spaghetti squash it was delicious and we have so much left over.

I’ll definitely make this again!

Well before I head off to dreamland don’t forget tomorrow Meghann is having her 2nd Blogger bake sale!  I’ll be donating a loaf of this PB Banana bread with chocolate chips, I have modified the original recipe a little and am so excited to be able to donate this for her bake sale!  If you don’t know, Meghann is training to run the Rock n Roll San Diego Marathon in an effort to raise $3900 for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. What an inspiration this girl is!   Tomorrow at 11am the bake sale begins, for all the rules and logistics visit her site here.

Good night everyone and have a great Monday!

If you want the Rainbow you gotta put up with the Rain

Sorry I didn’t post last night we didn’t get home until 11 and I was asleep within 5 minutes of getting home.  We used to go out some nights at 11 o’clock, now I can’t stay up for anything!  Oh well I guess that’s what happens as you get older.

Yesterday I switched it up a little and had a smoothie first thing in the morning for breakfast. I had the time before work so instead of bringing my usual yogurt I blended up some purpley goodness.

This smoothie contained:

• blueberries
• pineapples
• spinach
• 1 scoop protein powder
• skim milk
• POM juice

Delicious as always but I’m all out of bananas so I definitely missed that flavor!

Well you can’t expect me to stay away from Chobani for a whole day so that was my lunch!

I added granola and pb on top.  What a difference the pb makes in the staying power of this yogurt.  I had an apple on the side but didn’t wind up eating it until 3:30.

Here’s a closeup:

I began craving pizza around 4 so I was texting Andrew non-stop asking him if we could go out tonight to Harborside again.  He of course said we could.  On the ride home we spotted a rainbow!

Can you see it?  It just made me think how all week I’ve been upset and worried about my job situation and reminded me that after a rainstorm there’s a rainbow, it may sound silly but that rainbow gave me a little bit of hope for the coming months.

“Life is like a rainbow. You need both the sun and the rain to make its colors appear.”

Dinner was at Harborside again, once I had their pizza last time I was in love and had to go back for that cracker thin crust. 

First I ate Andrew’s Salad which came with the dressing on it even though we asked for it to be on the side, I was going to say something but we didn’t see our waiter for quite a while so I just started picking at it.

Sorry for the dark picture, I wound up just flipping most of the salad over and the lettuce and veggies underneath barely had any dressing, I would say I ate about 1/2.

I also had a roll.

Then my pizza came, it was a lot cheesier then last time but it’s so fresh it tastes delicious!

Andrew got my other favorite from here rigatoni pomadora, and I of course and to have a few tastes.

Well I have a busy day ahead of me, with all the stress this week I let the cleaning of the apartment fall way behind so I need to get that done, then go to the chiropractor, then to the gym.  Around 3 my grandparents are coming to visit for the night so I’ll probably be with them for a while since I haven’t seen them in so long!  So enjoy your Saturday I hope it’s warm and sunny wherever you are!

Revealing the Source of My Stress

Now that everything is official I can finally share with you guys what has had me so stressed out.    Before I do though let me just say I know that things could be worse, and they are for a lot of people, but I have a lot of decisions to make that are going to have a large impact on me and Andrew.

Apparently the company I work for isn’t doing so well right now, (who is though really?)  We had another big round of lay offs this morning and although I wasn’t one of them it was so hard sitting around all morning listening to people crying, and saying good bye to people I’ve worked with for over 3 years now.  The people who had been there the longest were unfortunately the people laid off this morning, it was a very rough time at work.  After the layoffs were complete we were called into a company wide meeting, where we were told that we were on a hiring freeze, and also there would be no raises this year.  But then the part that had me worried the most was announced.  They are cutting our hours, I will only be working Monday through Thursday, and each Friday I will have off for the next 6 months.  They are allowing us to use vacation days for 2 of those Fridays a month, but I don’t have a lot of vacations days, and it will unfortunately not last me until the end of 6 months. 

I know how lucky I am that I still have a job, I know that I could have been one of the many of people laid off this morning, but now with the 4 days off a month I’m losing more money then my rent.  I don’t know what’s going to happen yet but I’ve lived in this apartment for almost 2 years now, our lease is up June 1st, and I have to make a decision on whether I can stay here and live tightly money wise for the next 6 months, or if I have to move back home.  Again I know that I’m lucky to have that option, I don’t have a family to support and I can always pack it up and go back to my parents.  But even though it’s not my fault I just feel like a huge failure, that I really can’t make it on my own and have to run back to mom and dad for help.

I have also lived with Andrew for 1 out of the 2 years I’ve been here, and I just can’t imagine not living with him anymore, he’s my best friend and I know we’ll still be together but not living together seems so weird now.  I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure everything out but I don’t know what to do, I love my family but living on my own for 2 years has been great.   A lot of my stress has come from trying to figure out what to do about the living situation, can we continue living together in one of our parent’s houses or are we going to have to move separately?  

The bright side is I will now have long weekends for the whole summer, but when you’re losing 20% of your income a month it’s hard to think of that as a plus.  I’d so much rather work a 5 day week then have to deal with this.

After the meeting we were all told we could leave at 12 since obviously no one was going to be very productive.  My eats today were completely boring.  As you can imagine between being upset to see co-workers leaving, and worrying about everything I haven’t been very hungry. 

For breakfast I had Chobani and granola.

When I was about 1/2 way done with this I found out someone I did not expect to be leaving was laid off, I got really upset and threw most of the rest out.

After coming home and talking to my mom and my friend, michelle on the phone I mixed up a smoothie, I knew I needed to eat but wasn’t hungry so I figured that was an easy thing to have.  I enjoyed this out in the sunshine on my deck while on the phone with my mom.

This smoothie contained:

• spinach
• POM juice
• blueberries
• pineapples
• 1 scoop protein powder
• pb
• and skim milk

So that’s it for now, I’ll be back tonight with my dinner post, I’m about to head out the door to go to my parents house to talk to my mom about everything, and hopefully get to the gym.  I hope you are all having a great day!!  Sorry for such a depressing post, I’m sure once I have everything figured out I’ll be back to posting like normal!

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!

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!