Cold and Not So Hot

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My volunteering meeting went well – I completed orientation and once my TB test gets cleared on Friday I will be ready to start.  I am trying to get in as many hours as possible before school starts so I will be going pretty much full-time for the next three weeks – Monday through Thursday from 8am to 4pm.

After volunteering I came home and met up with the husband for more local exploration.  We drove out to Erie and walked around the waterfront a little bit.

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We spotted a cute ice-cream stand and I bought a lemon ice.

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I ate about half before handing it off to Adam.

We did more house-fixing when we got home and then headed out for our first Buffalo run!  I ate a Stoneyfield YoKids Banilla yogurt to refuel first.

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We did 2miles around the neighborhood in 20minutes.  I am painfully out of shape, I can’t wait until 2miles don’t kick my butt any more!  I kept my heart rate monitor on through 10minutes of floor work (stretching, 100 abs reps, and 50 arms reps with my 5lb weights) and all total I burnt 344 calories.

When we were done we cooked our first Buffalo dinner!  We made cold avocado soup and sandwiches.

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We used our George Foreman to make the grilled cheese sandwiches, I used 2 slices of reduced fat colby-jack on mine.

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And the soup was a Rachael Ray magazine recipe which I will include for those of you who enjoy cold soup, but it didn’t really float our boats.

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No-Cook Avocado Bisque, serves 4

  • 2 large avocados (we ended up accidentally buying “Slimcados” which have 35% less fat and calories but tasted the same)
  • 2C buttermilk
  • 4 scallions, green and white parts sliced separately
  • grated peel and juice of one lime
  • 16 ice cubes
  • salt
  • 1lb tomatoes, coursely chopped (we used three plum tomatoes)
  1. Put 1 avocado, buttermilk, scallion whites, lime peel and 3/4 of lime juice in the blender.  Blend on low speed and then blend in ice cubes one by one until smooth.
  2. Meanwhile coarsely chop the remaining avocado and then combine with tomatoes, scallion greens, and the rest of the lime juice.
  3. Divide soup among 4 bowls and top with with guac.

We were excited to have leftovers for lunch but after tasting it we are less excited!  I ate about half of my bowl (but my grilled cheese was great!).

Now I’ve got to go because we are watching old episodes of “My So Called Life” that we Netflixed, night!

Do you like cold soup?  I had some kind of cold fruit soup a few years ago that I loved but now I’m not sure if I enjoy it.

The Migration

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I’m back!  It’s been very strange to go almost a week without blogging, I’m glad to get back to it 🙂

Physically, the move went very well.  We stayed on schedule, nobody got lost or in an accident, and we had a nice stay in a hotel room between our old and new homes.

Emotionally, not so much.  Y’all, when I saw our new apartment I sobbed.  We had to move in blind (we only saw pictures of another apartment in the building) and our apartment was not at all the floor plan we were promised.  Plus it was filthy.  Moving in/setting up took 4x longer than planned because we had to spend so much time cleaning.  Several things are broken and we heard from another tenant that the landlord doesn’t ever fix things.  We had to buy heavy duty cleaner and clean the oven twice but now it should finally be ready to use.

Bad first impressions or not, however, this is where we are going to be living for the next year so we are making the best of it.  Our last apartment was so small that it was pretty easy to find a way to make storage work.  Once things were cleaned up and we started to decorate things looked a whole lot nicer.  Dare I say I practically love the apartment now!  I’ll be posting pictures later this week.  Plus we love our neighborhood – right on our street there are several restaurants and bars, plus a fun hippie-ish coffee shop.  And the closest grocery store is Wegmans, which beyond rocked my socks when we went there last night.

During the move I did manage to register for school.  I only was able to get one class (Gen Chem I) but that is better than nothing.  And today I have a meeting to get set up for volunteering.

I don’t know whether it has been the stress, the busyness, or what but my appetite is gone.  I did the photo montage in my last post but realistically I ate about half of each of the dishes shown.  We’ve been doing hard work moving (my thighs hurt so bad from the stairs I hobbled for two days straight!) but hopefully once I get back to traditional exercise my hunger will return.

I’ll be back this evening with a normal post, later!

What was your worst moving/living experience?  How did you make the best of it?

See You in a Week

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I will not be posting until next Wednesday.  Over the next week we will be moving out of our apartment in nyc, driving to Buffalo, NY and setting up our new apartment.

Please keep your fingers crossed for us and don’t forget to check back in a week.

Alliteration, Always Awesome

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Ick, ack, yetch!  My plan for last night was snack, mini-workout, early bed time and the heat put a crimp in all three.  I was too hot for food or movement (and I guess those two sort of cancel out) and I ended up not falling asleep until after 3:30am!  Not only do we not have AC but it is actually hotter in our apartment than it is outside.  I don’t even want to think about what moving day will feel like!  My late night pushed everything back this morning but the day is starting to turn around.

I enjoyed my breakfast bowl yesterday and when I saw bbbbbBlack Cherry yogurt in the fridge I knew I’d have to make it again!

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Black, Blue, Berry, Banana Breakfast Bowl

  • Stoneyfield Fat Free Black Cherry Yogurt
  • 1 medium banana
  • ~1/4C blueberries
  • 1T wheatberries

I made today’s bowl a little smaller because I am actually meeting Adam for lunch soon!  He is out doing laundry and I am going to try to get some studying done.  We are planning on packing up our kitchen and bookshelves today and we have to finish all of our business online because we have no internet as of tomorrow morning.  Hopefully we can sneak some fun in too!

Do you prefer blueberries, blackberries, or black cherry?  I am a blackberry fan.

Eat Up the Fridge

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I was very productive on the business-front (although registration for classes does not look promising) but my split study schedule might have been a bad idea.  By the time I got back to Starbucks in the afternoon it was packed.  I roamed all the coffee bars in the area and it took me until 4:45 to find one that wasn’t sardined with Park Slope stay-at-home-mommies.

I drank a Fizzy Lizzy Tangerine while I worked and did manage to get some good studying in until Adam came to meet me at 6.

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This drink was real juice with fizzy water and had 100% daily dose of vitamin C for 100calories.

Our fun plan was to hit up a beer tasting at a place on 5th Avenue but that fell through.  When we got there we learned that 1. the tasting was an hour later than listed online, and 2. they don’t have a full liquor license so we couldn’t sit and drink beers while we waited.  Our make-up plans were much better though 🙂

We took the looong walk (3miles total) to 7-11 for my version of heaven.

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I got a Big Gulp of diet coke and it made me smile the whole walk home.  And, we stopped in at a local playground so I could do what I’ve been dreaming of for the past two years…

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…climb the mini rock wall!  It was everything I had hoped for.  We also tried to do the monkey bars but I was way too weak, children’s game are good workouts.

I was very hungry by the time we got home so I ate 5 of Adam’s Saltines,

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and another kiwi bowl.

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Dinner was a ‘use up the fridge’ effort that ended up being amazing.

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My plate had –

  • 1/3C cooked wheatberries
  • ~2/3C sauteed peas and artichoke hearts
  • 1/2 can of tuna
  • the last jalopeno chicken sausage
  • and tasty sauce (for 2 servings I shook together 2T red wine vinegar, 1T lemon juice, 1T evoo, 1shake oregano and paprika)

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This was so yummy!  It was a great mix of textures and the flavors blended together really nicely.

Tonight I would like to do a mini workout (seriously mini, like 20 sit-ups) and I will probably have a small snack/dessert if fullness doesn’t kick in after 20minutes.  I am also determined to go to bed early!

Have you had any recent ‘eat up the fridge’ successes?

Lunch Break

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I’m making pretty good progress on my to-dos.  After the post office I got to Starbucks at 10:30 and studied until 12:30.  I drank a Grande Iced Americano with bit of skim milk while I worked.

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I decided to split my study session into two because I got distracted by a phone call from my mommy and my coffee was making me pretty jittery.

We decided that lunch out should be forgone in favor of using fridge food because we are packing our kitchen/dishes up tomorrow and that will be the end of that.  I managed to make a pretty exciting meal at home though.

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This spicetastic sandwich is –

  • 2 slices toasted white (cheap) bread
  • 2 TJ’s Spicy Jalopeno Chicken Sausages
  • 1slice provolone cheese
  • smidge Stonewall Kitchen Hot Pepper Peach Preserves

This was hands down the best sandwich I’ve ever eaten!  I think it was the hot pepper peach, which I adore.  On the side I had a chocolate Amazing Grass packet with skim milk.

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I need to get back to business – I have some things to do online and then I’m heading to Starbucks for another 2 hours of studying.  Adam is meeting me around 6 for some fun this evening though!

What is your opinion on spice?  I say the more the better!  I don’t like the chemical taste of Chinese hot sauce but beyond that bring it on.  Jalopenos, chillis, red pepper flakes, buffalo sauce, are all good in my book.

Blue, Berry, Banana, Breakfast Bowl

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My alliteration obsession was the driving force behind this morning’s breakfast.  Brought to you by the letter B –

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led to –

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led to –

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Yum.  This bowl contained

  • 1/2 C blueberries
  • 1/4 C wheatberries
  • Stoneyfield Fat Free Strawberry Yogurt
  • small banana

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Some facts –

*Blueberries seem to be out of season now but I was still able to have fresh ones for this bowl.  A month or so ago, when they were super cheap, I bought a few pints, washed them carefully, put them back in the fridge for a day to dry and then poured them into baggies and put them in the freezer.  Last night I just poured from the baggie into my measuring cup, put the cup in the fridge, and this morning I had thawed fresh blueberries.

*Camile asked a question about wheatberries and they are pretty new to me too so I did some research

  • A wheatberry is a wheat grain stripped of its outer hull to leave just the whole kernel
  • They can be ground up to make wheat flour or you can cook them whole for use in dishes
  • Nutrition is equivalent to that of whole wheat
  • A cup of wheatberries has about 300 calories and is packed with protein, fiber, and iron

I think they are chewy and tasty, here are a few spots you can order them –

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Today is one of the last low-key days before we have to actually start packing for the move.  I am headed down the street to do some studying, I have to mail a box to my parents, we need to update our filing system and file our CPR certification, and we are planning on heading over to the Meat Packing District for lunch.

What is the best thing on your agenda today?