So technically it’s the 4th now but it’s only been 11 minutes so I wanted to get this posted. My mom’s birthday was the 3rd.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!
EBB & flow.
July 2, 2009Good Evening All!
It’s Thursday. I have to WORK tomorrow. How ridiculously lame. Oh well. So today was pretty typical for me. There weren’t so many problems. Yesterday EVERYTHING went wrong and I was on edge already. Luckily, I accomplished a lot today and feel much better.
Andy pointed out that I spelled EBB wrong in this morning’s post. That’s funny because I googled it to make sure. HA. So there you go Andy. And yes, it was obnoxious!
So the thing that gets the most questions on the blog would be what I eat for breakfast every morning. It’s pretty funny. “What is that orange mush you eat?” “Are those mini churros in the bowl?” (referring to the Twigs) “Why is it ORANGE?”
In case I haven’t already explained this to you, I eat 1/2 cup dry rolled oats mixed with about 1/4 cup canned pumpkin in the morning.
Here it is with just oats and pumpkin:
Then I add LOTS of cinnamon and some kind of cereal to make it chewy and add volume and …staying power I guess. You know, so I’m not hungry an hour later.
Today I added Kashi Heart to Heart:
So there you go. That’s the daily breakfast. I also wanted to note that I finished 4 and 1/2 pounds of oatmeal since my mother visited and bought me 9 pounds of it at Costco. That’s quite a feat I think.
My appetite came back with a VENGENCE last night. I ate a ton last night and was hungry pretty much all day today.
I had strawberries and blueberries for a snack this morning:
I also had 3 giant carrots.
I didn’t take a picture of lunch!
In the afternoon, I had a big bowl of nonfat Chobani with cereal plus some more dry cereal (no picture).
I stopped at the farmer’s market on the way home and got the biggest bunch of kale EVER for $2! I also got 3 zucchini. I plan on trying to roast them anddd maybe making some zucchini muffins.
The kale:
After I got home, I decided to go to the gym since I really didn’t have much to do and haven’t run for a few days. I ran 4 miles in about 37 minutes! Wooo! I had lots of energy and my legs felt good today. Probably because they’ve been resting. Ah yes, tapering makes sense before a race…
Oh I also had a green smoothie before the gym. As soon as I got home, I had a bunch of microwaved egg whites with mozzarella on top and then made dinner.
Roasted Brussels sprouts, asparagus, broccoli and onion plus leftover pizza:
Alright I guess that’s about it. I’m going to go eat some yogurt or something now. I don’t really have any plans tomorrow night. Anyone….going to be around…and bored?
Saturday, I WILL SEE FIREWORKS!
The Ebs & Flows
July 2, 2009Heyyy…Good Morning.
Well it’s Thursday. I went to bed really early last night because I felt like I might be getting a cold or something. Stupid stress tends to kill the immune system. So I slept for a good 8 hours and I’m feeling better this morning. A couple people in the office are sick so hopefully I don’t catch it.
I haven’t run since Monday which is weeeird. I normally run every other day but I haven’t been eating well and I think I need to be eating good foods in order to run. So…I just skipped it but I think I’m going to tonight.
Otherwise, I HAVE TO WORK TOMORROW. Whaaaat? How weird. I’m pretty sure we’re the only company in my building that is actually open. The BUILDING isn’t even open. We may not have air conditioning. I’m on the 20th floor. This will be no fun. Ah well.
I’m still undecided about my plans for the weekend. West Virginia or not? I’M SO INDECISIVE. I’m going to start making decisions. No more wavering.
Alright have a lovely day. For most of you, this would be your Friday I’m guessing. I’m jealous of you kids.
byeee
Key Lime Pie!
June 30, 2009There may be a bit of a blogging hiatus while I try not to kill people. OH MY. That’s all I have to say. Actually, I do want to post the pie that I just made because it’s so pretty. Yeah, the blogging hiatus probably isn’t going to happen. I like it too much.
So on with the pie. I agreed to bake a gluten-free key lime pie for my coworker’s dinner party tomorrow evening. Gluten-free you say? Yeah I had absolutely no experience in the gluten-free department. As it happens, key lime pie only has one gluteny ingredient — the graham cracker crumb crust.
Easy solution = gluten-free cookies food processed into crumbs:
The lime juice:
So the pie making and crust making went really smoothly and then I decided to candy some lime slices for garnish.
I used this recipe which is an Emeril recipe for the actual pie (but subbing gluten-free cookies for graham crackers). I didn’t use his recipe for the meringue or the candied lime peel.
In process (like my apron?) (You can see the pie in the background there too):
And cooling:
The recipe that I used called for creating a meringue topping, piping it onto the pie and then singeing it with a kitchen torch. Well, I don’t have a kitchen torch and no one is a fan of raw egg so we went with Swiss meringue buttercream instead. This involves whisking egg whites with sugar in a double boiler for a good period of time.
Good thing Andy came over to help (and console me):
After lots of whisking on the stove, you switch to mixing in a bowl for a good 10 minutes. This picture is before adding the butter. Basically Swiss meringue buttercream just involves egg whites, granulated sugar, butter and usually vanilla. We skipped the vanilla and I used a tiny bit of lime juice in its place to go with the pie.
And here’s the finished gluten-free pie all decorated and ready to be purchased by coworker:
In case you’re wondering about the plastic pie container in the pictures, I purchased them at Giant Eagle. It came with two aluminum pie tins and a the top and bottom plastic things that attach to each other. Great idea!
Andy also made pizza and salads for dinner.
Artichokes, bell peppers, onions, mozzarella, and romano cheese:
And spinach salads:
Alright I guess that’s about it for tonight. Today sucked but I have a positive attitude about tomorrow. Blogging really does help. Sad? Ehh it’s just like an online journal.
Okay I guess it’s bed time. Also the vagueness ends now. I have nothing to hide.
Goodnight.
WEEKEND!
June 29, 2009This will most definitely be the longest post of all time. There were 36 pictures on my camera! I think I widdled it down to about 20. Apparently widdled is not a word.
So let’s start with Friday…
After work, I went home, changed, stopped at the liquor store and then went to Oakland for the WYEP Summer Festival.
There were lots of people. This was the very beginning but it quickly filled up with people.
Andy stopped by:
And old coworker, Laura:
Bad picture of me:
Laura brought a little picnic! There were some cheeses, nuts, fruit and coconut covered dates. I had a date. It was DELICIOUS. I’m a big fan of dates. They’re like pure sugar.
I brought some picnic wine and Laura brought wine too. We were sort of discreet about it.
The show was lots of fun. Pretty much anything that involves having a picnic is something I will enjoy.
After that, Laura and I decided to go to Howlers for another show. Here’s a poor quality picture for you:
It was a ridiculous night. It was a fun night. It lasted for a LONG time. I didn’t go to bed until around 5 AM. The birds were chirping.
Let the vagueness begin.
Moving on to Saturday
I think I slept until around 10 AM. I kept waking up though so it wasn’t very restful. I was hungry and didn’t have much food so I went and got some groceries and found these:
Oh how I love chocolate Almond Breeze. I’m stocked up.
Thennn I ended up going to Piper’s Pub in the South Side for lunch with a friend.
He got this:
That would be Bangers & Mash. Interesting, huh? Sooo sausage and mashed potatoes. He liked it. I liked taking a picture of it.
I got a grilled vegetables sandwich with french fries. Is that MAYONNAISE on my plate??
I ate half of the sandwich and some of the fries and took the other half home. I ended up having that for dinner later.
Saturday evening was also fun-filled and I will continue to be vague about were I went and who I was with. Don’t you LOVE this? What kind of blog is this? Focusing on food? WHAT?? Sorry, at some point, I will stop being vague and you all will be interested again. Hopefully..
So I didn’t end up going to bed until about 3 AM Saturday night. Two late nights in a row! Who am I?
I got up earlyish Sunday and made some oatmeal with wheat bran and a strawberry on top.
Staged photo here:
After breakfast, I went out and did some things including more grocery shopping… and then came back here to take a nap. Glorious nap.
Around 6, Friend came over and we made some dinner.
WHOSE hands are those??
Black bean burgers being cooked:
With butternut squash and sweet potato fries.
Our plates:
Today — Monday
Back to normal this morning. Pumpkin oats with Kashi Heart to Heart and a banana. I love that cereal. I think it’s the little hearts..
I had a big salad for lunch and a couple of carrots. There was a whole bunch of random stuff in the salad including hummus, artichoke hearts, garbanzo beans, peppers, blackberries, tomatoes, gorgonzola cheese, and probably other stuff that I don’t remember.
I also had yogurt for a snack in the afternoon. I bought the biggest container of Chobani Greek yogurt that you’ve ever seen.
I got home and made a green smoothie. Sorry for the terrible picture. My action shot failed miserably.
After this, I went to the gym to run because it kind of looked like it was going to rain. It did not. I also had to go to the grocery store AGAIN today because I agreed to make a key lime pie for a coworker’s dinner party Wednesday night. I will most assuredly make no profit on this pie but I do love baking and I’ve never baked key lime pie so it’ll be an experiment.
I ran 3.5 miles at the gym varying between 6.5 & 7 mph. I came home STARVING. I ate a Kashi Go Lean Crunchy bar or whatever and then made dinner. I had a black bean burger left over so I made wraps.
One for dinner and one for lunch tomorrow.
I also roasted some kale to go along with the wrap:
ALRIGHT. That didn’t take as long as I expected. Probably because I didn’t put a whole lot of effort into it. My laptop is warm. It’s making my legs warm which is making my whole body warm so I need to finish this. Bowie is chewing on cardboard.
So tomorrow evening I have to bake the pie and then hopefully do laundry. We’ll see how that goes. Uh oh, That’s not cardboard. I wonder what he has.
Have a nice night!
You know
June 28, 2009Again no post. This weekend was just WAY too busy for me to sit down and blog. Pretty much when I wasn’t doing something, I was trying to nap. I do have lots of interesting pictures to post though so I will most definitely do that tomorrow. I think I’m going to take the laptop into work and blog from the library at lunch.
Okay, that’s about it. My Google reader is so ridiculously full right now.
This post is pretty pointless. I mean, I know most of my posts are very insightful and all…
So anyway.
The weekend is over. Goodnight everyone!
Half-mashed.
June 27, 2009Heyy Everyone!
Just so that you know I’m not dead, here’s a short, short, little post. Yesterday and today have been BUSY and I haven’t had a chance to really blog yet. Last night, I ended up staying up until 5 AM! Intense. So of course, this morning started out slow and then I ended up going to lunch with Friend and then I just took a short nap. Now I’m going to force myself to run for a very brief amount of time and then I have to get ready to go out again. Ohh dear.
I promise I’ll post pictures either late tonight or tomorrow. I’ve got bangers and mash stored on the camera so that’ll be fun…
Have a nice Saturday night!
I had a run-in while running this morning.
June 26, 2009Soo I woke up this morning and decided to go for a run since it wasn’t raining and I plan to skip yoga today. I went (what is becoming) my usual morning route. About 1.5 miles into the run, I ran into a group of teenagers. First of all, what were they doing out at 5:45 AM?? They were not in my direct path but one placed himself right in front of me. I said excuse me as I was nearing him but he wouldn’t move and started running toward me. I stopped and said "that is really rude" and he put his arm around me. I screamed for him to get off of me and pushed him away and then crossed the street and kept running. AHHH. Who raised these kids?? I was upset/annoyed the rest of the way.
I was on a main street with lots of cars (for 5:45 am) and people waiting a bus stop about 10 feet away so I wasn’t really in danger but COME ON.
In conclusion, I’ve decided that I should carry my pepper spray with me during morning runs and possibly runs along the jail trail because there aren’t usually too many people around. Either that or I need a body guard.
Alright, done with my angry rant. It IS Friday and I’m not going to dwell. I’m blogging via email so no Garmin picture this morning but I ran about 3.2 miles in about 27-28 minutes.
Have a good day!
Looks like I’m going to Boston in August!
June 25, 2009It’s almost 9 already! The after work time period always goes so quickly. First of all, here is the rest of the afternoon at work.
I had some dry cereal. Kashi Heart to Heart. There are little heart shaped pieces of cereal! I almost used it for a post-it note message… I also had some yogurt with pumpkin and cinnamon at some point but no picture of that.
Things I should not waste money on:
So I wandered through the farmer’s market on the way home from the bus stop but nothing looked appealing really.
I made a green smoothie when I got home because I was starving and didn’t want to eat dinner yet. I change into AWESOME clothes when I get home from work like this pink tank top…
After wasting time around the house for a while, I cooked dinner around 7:30. I pan-fried the last piece of cod in some olive oil. Prior to cooking, I let it marinate for a bit in a ziploc bag with salt, pepper, ground mustard seed and red pepper flakes.
Cookin’
And I also roasted some butternut squash, asparagus and broccoli.
The finished plate:
And some yogurt with strawberries and an Adora disk for dessert.
Alright that’s about it. I ate kind of late today so I’m kind of ridiculously full. Oh well.
TOMORROW IS FRIDAY!
Oh and about the post title, I’ll tell you more later but I’m so excited!
Yeeeeah. It’s farmer’s market day!
June 25, 2009THURSDAY!
Good Afternoon All!
I started out the morning with a run. I had a fight with the Garmin so add a mile to that. I was already at Whole Foods by the time it locked in a satellite signal.
I had a banana and some iced coffee before the run then got to work STARVING and had oats with pumpkin and twigs:
Hey look! A falcon. There is a falcon nest up near the top of our building and they have a closed-circuit TV on it 24/7 but this was the first one I actually got to see up close. It was sitting outside of a coworker’s office window. It wasn’t even bothered by my getting up close and personal while explaining to my coworkers why I have my camera with my every day. I do this for YOU.
So the morning went along normally. I had another banana and a pretzel rod for a snack. Pretzels are usually lurking in the office somewhere.
By noon I was starving so I had a mug of soup and then went outside to track down more lunch.
It’s 12:51 now so I’m running short on time. I stopped at Pita Pit and got a babaganoush pita for the rest of my lunch and my newest vice — 10 calorie Vitamin Water. It’s evil but I just can’t stop. Bad habits…
So anyway, I’m sitting in the library right now. It’s HOT outside. I don’t know what I have planned for this evening. We will see. Tomorrow is Friday!
ttyl.
