Category Archives: Uncategorized

Hot Hot Heat

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Summer is here; I’ve been feeling hot hot hot!  Last night we moved back into our bed from the couch and it was uncomfortably warm.  We sleep in the living room in the winter because the bedroom has no heat but apparently it’s not so great in the hot months either.  Adam and I both said some form of “touch me and die” to each other as we settled in last night.  We’re going to try to stick it out and hope that it gets better when we do finally turn on the AC.

After a long night of ripping off the covers I woke up late and dehydrated this morning.  I had a 9am appointment to hurry to and I drank a guava Rockstar on my walk to school.

I had to get a physical and PPD test before I’m in the hospital for summer school.  I have a follow-up on Wednesday but I’m not exactly sweating the results.

I did get my sweat on though.  After the health center I made a nice long visit to the gym.  10 minutes on the elliptical at level 6 random.  40 minutes on the stationary bike at level 6 random.  And a quick session of strength and stretch moves.  Now that the gym has cleared out for summer I actually had a chance to get on some of the weight machines.

I walked home, walked the dog, and sat on the phone setting up various appointments.  By the time I showered and changed I was hun-grr-ee!  It was time for lunch.

I sautéed half a chopped poblano pepper in 1/2 Tbsp of butter and a bit of salt and tossed in ~1 cup of (thawed, frozen) corn and a pinch of brown sugar when the pepper started to char.  Then I scrambled in 2 large eggs and a few dashes of Green Tabasco.

They were delicious.  And if they look a little burnt it’s because I stepped away for a second to put on my shoes and had a spider jump on my foot.  I’m still shaking!

Alongside my eggs I drank the last of the Lifeway Low-fat Birthday Cake Kefir.

I’m still a little bit hungry and I might try to grab a snack while I’m out running errands.

See you for dinner!

Sunday Disposition

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Welcome, weekend warriors!

No Saturday post because I spent most of the day moping around the house.  Little was accomplished, though I did get the laundry done.

I got so sick of myself that I made damn sure to have fun today.  And I’ve been thinking positive thoughts about the upcoming week as well.  I want to make sure my last 8 days before summer school are as productive/relaxing/fun/healthy as possible.

We got this morning off to a tasty/healthy start with sludge smoothies to go.

Enjoyed out of repurposed jars instead of fancy stemware because we were on a family walk.

In the blend were unmeasured amounts of frozen banana, frozen blackberries, frozen spinach, and oj.

Plus a piece of rye bread with strawberry jam and Smart Balance Light when we got home.

Our new jam is the store-brand version of Crofter’s (ie organic and with no added sugar) and sadly it’s not very good.

Lunch was consumed out of hand.  A slice of pizza (now you see what we did on Saturday!),

a Cara Cara orange,

and half of this package of mint m&m’s.

I’ve never been a huge m&m person but these mint ones are fantasmic.  Perhaps because they are dark chocolate?  They are one of the few (the only?!) desserts that actually tastes better to me in small quantities.

We walked to dinner and surreptitiously enjoyed Black Jack Colas along the way.

We went on a sushi date.

Kunis has been on our “Buffalo: Go To” list for months and I’m glad we finally gave it a shot because it was great and we’ll definitely be back.

I ordered three small plates to make up my meal.  First, Wakame Salad.

Seasoned and dressed seaweed, with sesame and chili flakes.  I’ve been trying to get Adam to taste seaweed salad for years and now that he finally did he’s officially obsessed (we stopped at the co-op on the way home because he was hoping to find more!).  I will say that Kuni’s version was one of the best I’ve ever had.  But – the photo isn’t deceiving you, it was a ridiculously small portion.

My soup course was a bowl of Udon.

Thick white flour noodles in a light broth, topped with sweetened tofu, wakame and scallions.  At $3.75 this huge bowl was a steal.  The sweet tofu wasn’t my favorite but the slightly sweet and sour broth was great.

Finally, a veggie roll.

It had asparagus, mushroom, and some pickled vegetable that I’m not remembering.  Be forewarned – the wasabi at Kunis is fresh!  I gobbed it on the way I usually do and my first bite almost killed me.  It wasn’t necessarily spicy – in fact we both noticed that this wasabi put no spice on your tongue and was strangely sour – but a bunch of it stuck to the roof of my mouth and I started choking and breaking out in a cold sweat.  Adam said my face was BRIGHT red!

We had a great walk home; Kuni’s is just far enough away to be fun.  My dinner was good but on the smaller side and my mouth didn’t feel done so I ate a mug of cereal when we got home.

1 cup of Honey Nut Shredded Wheat with skim milk.  Aaaaand, scene.

Funtastic Friday

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Today has been the best day ever!  I mean, not running my half marathon good or getting married good, but pretty damn good.  Exploring, delicious food (seriously, seriously delicious), time with a friend, surprises for the husband…

I spent my afternoon exploring East Aurora with Holly.  It was great but getting there was a trip.  <– that’s a pun.  10 minutes into a 30 minute drive my phone (and gps) shut off.  Apparently my hour at the Sprint Store was not well spent.  The rest of the drive was like a scene from the 90’s, except I didn’t have the prerequisite skills of phone number recall and map reading.  Somehow, and I seriously don’t know how, I ended up exactly where I needed to be.  Phew!

And I was rewarded for my navigation magic with lunch at the festive Arriba Tortilla.

They had fancy lights and they let me order from the kids’ menu so they were 2-for-2.  I got a kids’ taco platter with two fish tacos.

My fish tacos had mahi mahi, corn salsa, black beans, and zesty cole slaw.

I ate 1.5 and was covered in sauce and grinning from ear to ear when I was through.

After lunch we spent a couple of hours strolling around the adorable town.  When Holly told me that EA was awesome I didn’t think that she was lying, but I didn’t actually expect it to be quite so amazing!  Tons and tons of cute local shops and great walkability.

I grabbed an iced coffee with skim milk from Taste, the local coffee institution.

And we ended our travels at Firefly, a gorgeous cupcake shop.

It was a difficult choice but I ended up ordering a key lime pie cupcake.

Yellow cake with a graham cracker crust, key lime buttercream and key lime curd filling.

Ridiculous good.  The frosting may have been the best I’ve ever had.  I definitely closed my eyes and swooned at the first bite.  I ate 90% of the cake and every last lick of the frosting and filling.

I’m glad we did lots of walking because the day’s dessert consumption wasn’t over yet.  Holly told me something very exciting about our mall.  Something very exciting that I managed to keep to myself long enough to surprise a very happy husband…

Buffalo now has self-serve froyo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’m so embarrassing; when Holly told me this morning I got so excited I could actually feel my heart speed up.

I got plain tart and coconut froyo topped with some fruit and sprinkles and tons of popping bobba.

Now that I can have it every day more often I’ll need to watch the portion sizes, but I wanted to enjoy the bobba just in case it didn’t make it on the long-term menu.

Adam and I ran errands into the early evening and then settled on the couch to cry hysterically watch the “Grey’s” finale.  Dinner was pretty much identical to lunch but I had a coupon to Moe’s so I just went with it.

Two fish tacos, one hard and one soft for variety’s sake.

Plus chips with queso.

I thought the crunching would stop the crying but that was a lost cause.  If anything, screaming at the screen helped me to eat less chips.

Which show finales have you been freaking out about this season?

Buried Treasure

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For breakfast I made myself a big bowl of cereal.

You couldn’t really tell.

I topped 1 serving of Cheerios and 1 serving of All Bran Bran Buds with blueberries and 1 cup of Lifeway Low-fat Birthday Cake Kefir.

I expected the kefir to sink and fill in the cracks.

Instead it took a little coaxing to get it to give up the booty.

There it is!

Like buried treasure.

But for breakfast.

Mungry

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I don’t know what my deal is but lately I’ve been so freaking hungry.  Yesterday I was uncomfortable with hunger all day long.  And I wasn’t in a dessert mood at all but we don’t have much food in the house and I ended up eating sweets all afternoon.  Ugh.

I did do my best to make a healthy, filling lunch.

I sautéed ~ 1 cup of sliced okra in 1/2 Tbsp butter and a pinch of salt.  Meanwhile I whisked together 2 large eggs, 1/2 cup 2% cottage cheese, and 2 oz of Cabot’s 50% reduced-fat sharp cheddar.  Then I scrambled my mixture in with the okra.

I didn’t know how the cottage cheese would turn out in the eggs but I ended up loving it.  The end result wasn’t watery at all, just super creamy and cheesy.  I now know that cottage cheese is a tasty way to add more volume and protein to my eggs.

But sadly my filling lunch wasn’t filling at all.  Nothing is filling when your stomach is being a beast.  I also had …

A spoonful of cookie butter, x2.

A packet of Gushers.

A Magnum Double Caramel Ice Cream Bar.

And the last ~1/2 serving of Butterfingers Bites.

Not gonna lie, I was still hungry after all that too.  It was funny because I watched “Kitchen Nightmares” all afternoon and that show is a total appetite killer!

I ended up not even eating dinner because I left the house on a last-minute invite and didn’t get home until past Adam’s bedtime.  A classmate’s restaurant was running a booth at a local wine event and I volunteered to help out.

I got to chat with all sorts of people and it was a lot of fun.  Plus, I got a small plate of cookies and two tastes of wine out of the deal.

And my friend and I got our picture on a big local website.

I need to make some uglier friends!

My plans for today do include lunch with Holly this afternoon, should include cleaning, and must include catching up on the “Grey’s” and “Private Practice” finales.

Do you ever have insatiable bouts of hunger?  And more importantly – do you say “hungry mungry?”

Sandwiches

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Yesterday I was two things – hungry and tired.  So I ate a bunch of food and then passed out face-down, fully dressed, in the middle of the unmade bed.  The husband was unimpressed.

The dog was tired too.

Early in the afternoon I made myself a little snack plate.

3 oz of bread and butter pickles with a serving of pretzels and tons of yellow mustard.

I didn’t realize how hungry I was until I took Webster out for a walk.  Halfway home my wallet was glad the dog was there or I totally would have bought food out.  Instead I made myself a sandwich thin with Smart Balance Light and ~1.5 oz of sharp cheddar when I got home.

Dinner was another cheese sandwich, but this one was fancy.

I put hot & sweet mustard, thin sliced turkey, and Brie on rye bread.

This would have been better as a panini but Adam wasn’t home to get down the press for me.

With roasted green beans on the side.

It was a good meal but not as filling as I would have liked.

I attempted to make s’mores for dessert but I walked away from the oven for too long and ended up with burnt soup.  I salvaged what I could in a bowl of s’mores.

And when the husband got home he served me a plate of mango.

Then five minutes later I was asleep.

When I got up this morning I made another effort to get rid of that damn milk.

2 cups of skim milk with 1 scoop of chocolate protein power, all shook up.  I’ll need something else too but it was a good breakfast start.

And I’m off!

Banana Coffee Buzz

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I needed to start chipping away at my to-do list so I made sure that my breakfast included caffeine.

Into my smoothie went 1 packet of Starbucks Via, 1 frozen banana, lots of ice, and 2 cups of skim milk.

I doubled my milk because our carton is close to going bad but my smoothie ended up being so big that I threw some of that out instead.

At least I tried.  And breakfast gave me a big kick out the door to run errands.

  • I paid for my text-book for summer school
  • I purchased a summer parking pass
  • I scheduled multiple doctors’ appointments
  • I took two items to the tailor for alterations
  • I got a new battery and charger for my cell phone

My Sprint Store errand took almost an hour but it was totally worth it; thanks to phone insurance and a really nice worker, the visit cost me nothing!  And now I’ve finally got a working cell phone again.

“New” phone in hand, I went next door to Panera to set up my settings, calendar, etc.

I ate an Asiago cheese bagel with honey walnut cream cheese while I fiddled.

And I ate a sliced cucumber with salt when I got home.

I sort of forgot about cucumbers the last few months but they are one of my favorite snacks.

Adam’s on call tonight so I’m on my lonesome and I’m hoping to keep whittling down my to-do list.  See you for dinner.

Window Shopping Wednesday

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I am not much of a shopper, much to my mother’s chagrin. The woman can spend days at the mall, while I start to feel itchy after just a few hours. It’s not that I’m not materialistic, I totally am, it’s just that the thought of adding more stuff to my life makes it hard to breathe. But I like the idea of things. So I’m an avid window shopper. I browse catalogs I’ll never buy from and hold my breathe when I pass the window at J.Crew. So while I’m stuck at school on Wednesdays, I thought we could have some fun via blog. Let’s window shop!

Here’s what I’m pining for this week –

1.  OPI Nail Lacquer in My Pointe Exactly.

I am I more or less girly seeming if I decide grey’s my new favorite color?  This sheer grey polish would look nice with pink ruffles or black leather (not that I wear much of either!).  The color is part of OPI’s New York City Ballet line and I’m basically coveting the entire thing.

2.  The Spicy Bloody Mary Mix from McClure’s Pickles.

The bloody mary is hands down my favorite boozy beverage.  But in spite of my adoration I’ve never made one at home.  I like them extra spicy and I’m not confident that I would get the blend of flavors right on my own.  Other mixes seem tame and tomato juicy but this one looks like it would be interesting.

3.  The Crissy Bra Top from Prana.

I highly doubt that this would support my girls on a run, but it could be a cute yoga bra.  Is criss-cross the new ruching?

4.  The flower candles from Elenis.

Pause a second and reconnect with your inner nerd.  Ready?  How cute would these look on a Super Mario cake?!??

5.  The Mojito Soap Set from Malin and Goetz.

If Bloody Marys are my favorite drink then Mojitos are a close second.  The rum-mint-lime combo is perfection and those are the exact flavors in this soap set.

What’s your favorite alcoholic beverage?