Author Archives: Emily

A Lunch Post?!

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I knew this would be a busy week, but now it feels like things are just dropping out of the sky!  Last night’s late night issue was the power to our fridge randomly being shut off.  Fun times 😦

I planned on getting up to eat breakfast before lab but my pushed back bedtime meant I just wanted to sleep in.  I packed a (peeled) minneola to eat in class,

and bought a small package of peanuts from a vending machine as well.

Lab went well, but I’m incredibly worried about how difficult the post-lab calcuations are going to be, the minute my test is done on Friday I’m going to have to start working on that.  First I have to get through tomorrow’s Anthropology test though.

Lunch was a semi-Asian affair.  I had a serving of mini chicken egg rolls,

and a Thai-Style chicken Lean Cuisine.

I also randomly had a forkful of peanut butter,

and a (too) big bowl of cereal.

Now I am about to head to the Spot for a quickie study session with Caroline.  I’ll be back for dinner.

Do you have vending machines nearby at your job or school?  Do they tempt you to make unhealthy choices or are there any quality options available. 

New and Exciting

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Just before 2am last night I got completely caught up with all of my reading.  The sad thing is that I love the reading and find it really interesting so there is zero reason why I should have been behind in the first place!

In spite of sleep-deprevation I was pretty proud of my wardrobe choices, my outfit was actually inspired by a magazine article, something I never do (new).

I couldn’t get a good picture,

but you can see what I was going for.

My layers might have been a bit thick though, by the time I got my coat on I felt like the kid from A Christmas Story.

For breakfast I grabbed a biscuit with a little honey.

And I realized I was getting nothing done quickly at home so I grabbed some snacks and headed to school an hour early to study there.

I ate the Kind Bar during Chem at 5 and it was great but sadly the grapes when straight into the trash.  I’ve been hearing for years how amazing frozen grapes taste but they made me gag.

To make up for my (overall) lack of produce I snagged lunch from the cafeteria.

A garlic wrap with lettuce, tomato, cucumber, alfalfa sprouts, banana peppers, black olives, and a little bit of sesame dressing.

I saved the banana for Anthro, alongside a large skim latte.

I was planning on attending a review session for the exam after class but I was the only loser who showed up so I told them to cancel it, boo.  I got lots of work done on my own but the large coffee might have been a bad idea, I was literally shaking!  I grabbed a snack from the vending machine to eat in the car in the hopes of evening out.

Soooo glad I tried this, this was a new brand to me and these are literally the best chips I’ve ever tasted!  They were so tangy, and ridged like Ruffles but super thick.  Plus, the bag had less than 200calories (comparable sizes seem to be 300+).

After classes I came home, picked up the husband, and headed straight to the gym.  My new playlist helped me power through my workout; it was a great mix of old and new music with a good range of tempos.

40 minute playlist

  1. Wavin’ Flag – K’naan
  2. I Know You Want Me – Pitbull
  3. Whine Up – Kat DeLuna feat. Elephant Man
  4. Promiscuous – Nelly Furtado and Timberland
  5. What’s in the Middle – The Bird and the Bee
  6. This is Why I’m Hot – Mims
  7. Into the Ocean – Blue October
  8. Sugar, We’re Going Down – Fallout Boy
  9. Semi-Charmed Life – Third Eye Blind
  10. TiK ToK – Ke$ha
  11. Swing – Savage and Soulja Boy

The plan was treadmill time but both my shins were killing me so I took several long walks to loosen them up.  In the end I did 52minutes, 4.5miles follwed by pt and some abs work.

Running killed my appettite, but I was hungry for ice-cream.  I tried a new product – Cyclops Strawberry Greek Style Frozen Yogurt,

in a (new) ice-cream bowl from my grandma.

I had a half cup (plus a little) serving.

This was delicious!  I loved the flavor although I wish it had been creamier, this was more like ice-cream than froyo.

In addition to taking a shower I also have to do my lab flow-chart for tomorrow morning before bed, gotta run!

Are you tired of the long, lame-o posts?  Here’s what’s coming up soon on Eatventures –

  • Wedding recap posts, complete with pictures
  • a 2week vegan challenge
  • a road trip to visit my in-laws
  • my first, untrained for, half marathon…
  • …and a trip to FL
  • as well as a trip home to St. Thomas

F Words

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Last night was ridiculous; we have to submit our Chem assignment online and the homework site had a major glitch that made the assignment take literally 4x longer than it should have.  Ack, lots of f words were said.  And my very delayed bedtime meant I took a loooong unplanned nap (drooling all over my Anthro book!) this afternoon.

I got hungry while I was working on my insane Chem assignment last night so I made a small snack –

Banana yogurt + grapes + 1T toasted walnuts + 1t cinnamon chips.

Which was similar to what I had for breakfast.

My eats for the rest of the day were all about the big “Fs” – freebies and fatties.  This (BIG) bowl of cereal was technically free because it stole it from the husband’s stash.

And this Kid’s Cuisine was on sale for <$2!

Dinner was much healthier 😉  The jalopeno poppers were sort of a freebie, Adam had a coupon, but mostly a fattie-choice.

And the potato chips were definitely a fat move.  P.S. I also definitely had my hand in a bag of unphotographed tortilla chips for most of the afternoon.

I’m actually glad I didn’t have time for the gym all day because this evening the husband accidentally kneed me in the shin and it hurt so badly I thought I was going to throw up.  Who thinks I increased my mileage too quickly and that my 5mile run this weekend did more harm than good?  Me!

***Edited to Add*** I’m pretty sure I will be having more insomnia tonight so rather than laying awake in bed I decided to stay up a bit longer and study.  Sadly, I find munching really does help me focus so the husband is out at Wendy’s getting me some chicken nuggets.  No pictures because I will be too busy hitting the books.

Saturated Sunday

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Sadly, I think this will be an entire week of one-a-day, quick and dirty posts.  I have to cut back somewhere and it can’t be at the gym (I did NOT go to the gym today, but that was more about my weak ankle than time) because I’ve only got three weeks left to train!  I’m going to try to keep eating healthy too and I’ve got a plenty of leftovers meal on the schedule for tomorrow.  It sucks that I let myself get so behind but hopefully I’ll keep on top of things after these two tests.

Breakfast was eaten in parts.  Dannon Coconut Pineapple Lite and Fit Yogurt.

A stolen 1/2 cup of the hubby’s cereal, with skim milk.

And a packet of hot chocolate.

Lunch was a replay of last night’s feast. 

Two biscuits spread with clover honey.

Chicken salad (+ 4 big bites from the container).

Sautéed okra, with paprika.  This was the best combo on earth, out of this world tangy and delicious.

3-8pm were spent doing a coffee shop study meet up with Caroline.  Everything bagel with veggie cream cheese.

Skim milk iced chai latte.

And when I got home I had baby carrots with Cedar’s Spinach and Artichoke Hummus.

Now I’ve actually got to go do a Chem homework assignment that’s due tomorrow, see ya!

What is your favorite spice?  I feel a lot of the bloggers on the cinnamon love but to me nothing beats paprika.  It adds spice and tang and goes with almost anything.

A Southern Feast

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I’m trying to experiment with different mid-race fuels so I downed this Lemon Sublime Goo right before we headed to the gym.

Unfortunately I ended up having a frustrating, pathetic work-out.  I wanted to do the same treadmill interval set as yesterday but my legs were not having it.  My left ankle was killing me and my whole leg just felt week.  I ended up stopping at 24minutes (2miles).  Then I moved to the elliptical for 16minutes at level 6, hills.  Lame.

In spite of its patheticness my workout did leave me starving, I ate a spoonful of pb as soon as I got home.

After icing my legs and a quick shower I made a dinner that was so not lame!

Yummy chicken salad (recipe below),

buttermilk biscuits from this Cooking Light recipe, split with honey and Smart Balance Light,

and a side of sautéed okra.

It was my own healthy Southern feast!

I knew the okra and chicken would rock but I was seriously so impressed with how well the biscuits turned out; I’m a baker!  They were perfectly biscuit-y and healthy!

awesome chicken salad, serves 3

  • 12oz cooked chicken breast, shredded
  • 2T lemon juice
  • 1/3 cup plus 2T Miracle Whip
  • 1/3 cup toasted walnuts
  • 1 cup grapes, halved

What is your favorite chicken salad recipe?  I like this one a lot but I’m also partial to curried chicken salad.

Better than Bonobo’s

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Today has been another mish-mash day.  I feel like this whole week is going to be crazy until I take my tests next Thursday and Friday.  It doesn’t help that my insomnia is back in full-force: going to bed at 10:30 meant falling asleep past 2am and waking up after 10.   Unfortunately, I actually haven’t even really started studying yet because the whole day has been swamped with errands. 

Thankfully we did have time for a bit of fun during those errands.  Like getting a Valentine’s gift from my parents when we went to the post office.

And enjoying lunch from Wegman’s salad bar.

Veggies = steamed broccoli, squash, and mushroom.

Protein = a tiny bit each tofu, tandori chicken, and general tso’s chicken.

We enjoyed a treat post shopping, Green and Black Milk Chocolate Peanut Bar.

My parents have been raving about this ever since we gave my dad one for Christmas, it has carmelized peanuts and sea salt!  My portion-

My lunch was pretty small, especially since I didn’t have breakfast so I knew I needed a snack as well.  We turned this,

into this.

The world’s best smoothie contained the flesh and water from 1 young coconut, with 6oz of lowfat plain yogurt, half a tray of ice, a drizzle of honey, and a huge shake of cinnamon.

Mmmmn.  Seriously, people who want to try the coconut chai from Bonobo’s, make this!

The rest of the day is going to be some sort of mix of studying, cleaning, dinner and gym.  See ya later.

Coconut, love it or hate it?  I LOVE it!  I can’t think of a single application I don’t adore it in.

Fancy Friday

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It’s officially the weekend!  My laptop recycling went well, they even gave me back the hard drive which I thought was pretty cool.

I had a coupon to Aunt Annie’s so while we were at the mall we enjoyed some pretzels.

I had 2/3, with mustard.

When we got home we got right now work on dinner which ended up being a pretty fancy affair.

Salad with homemade dressing and oven “fried” brie.

And the husband made salmon patties.

It all came together to make quite the meal.

Oven “Fried” Brie

  • President Brie Logs
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • 1/2 cup seasoned bread crumbs
  1. Cut brie log into 1/2inch slices.
  2. Dip slices in egg and then dredge in bread crumbs.
  3. Place breaded brie on a foiled, sprayed cooking sheet and bake at 450* for 10minutes.

The dressing was inspired by our “finished” container of Jack Daniels mustard.

To the remains of the mustard I added 2t clementine oil, 2t red wine vinegar and shook.  I also pulled out the last of the 1000island dressing from last week for salmon patty dipping.

Adam and I are watching the latest episode of “Bones” and then the plan is to be in bed before 10:30.  Tomorrow is a busy day.

Do you ever make your own salad dressing.  Any combos you’d like to recommend.

Mish-Mash Day

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Today has been a strange kind of mish-mash, backwards schedule day.  Apparently what we learned last night is that Buffy the Vampire Slayer reruns are a bad idea right before bedtime: I had the strangest dreams all night and I woke up very late, completely cocooned!  However, once I extracted myself from the bed sheets I got right down to business.

While I was organizing some school files (I have two tests this week!) I drank this Sugar Free Rockstar.

Actually, I stretched that baby out for a couple hours because I was still drinking it while I did house stuff with the husband.

We had a 3pm tax meeting with H&R Block, and when we got home I headed to the gym.  I have 30 days to get in cardiovascular shape for the half marathon while hopefully not hurting any of my various leg problems.  I’ve decided the best plan is to do several long workouts a week while very slowly upping my running-walking ratio.  Plus strength training will be key.

Backing up, pre-gym I snacked on some grapes and a KIND bar on the way to tax-dealings.

At the gym I did some running on the treadmill.  2/1 run/walk intervals x18.  With warm up and cool down my totals were 63minutes / 640calories / and 5+ miles (the treadmil shuts off at 60minutes).

Now, post-shower, we are heading to the mall to deal with buyer’s insurance and donate my old laptop to charity.  Speaking of good causes, are you wearing red today?

What do you do with your defunct tech stuff?  I try to donate or recycle everything I can.  Staples will even give you a gift certificate in exchange for used up printer cartridges.