Oh Baby Please Don’t Snow

by Emily

Hello, again. I didn’t blog the two days after Christmas because I got hit with a winter cold. I’m still feeling badly but I’m definitely on the mend. And yesterday was our 10th/5th anniversary! 10 years of being together and 5 of being married; they line up exactly because we made a point of getting married on our previous anniversary.

We spent yesterday doing our favorite things (sushi, froyo, a movie…) and just enjoying each other’s company. I don’t talk about it a lot on the blog, but I am so fortunate to have Adam in my life and I could not be happier. We both feel unbelievably lucky to get to be together. We watched our wedding video this morning and had a great time reminiscing. I’m going to try to get it up on YouTube if I can because it’s also hilarious! And there’s great footage of my grandpa giving a toast (a poem he wrote for the event) that made me cry. It is so amazing that we have his voice on record, it makes our wedding video all the more special to me.

Breakfast today was a big bowl of cereals.

All Bran Bran Buds, the last serving of Cascadian Farms Dark Chocolate Almond Granola (Adam ate through this stuff in a hurry!), toasted coconut, and skim milk.

I also had the rest of the dip (4-5 Tbsp?) with some kettle chips.

And this cookie butter candy bar that I found in the back of the pantry while putting away Christmas gifts.

Score!

The afternoon brought nachos (with black beans and salsa).

We need “tv watching food” for our “How I Met Your Mother Marathon.” <– it’s good, but no “Scrubs”

To drink, I had the organic aloe vera drink from Aloic.

I have missed aloe drinks like crazy since we moved away from Brooklyn (where you find find them in every bodega, in fabulous combinations with tasty tropical fruits) so when Aloic offered to send me two bottles to try I happily accepted. Here are the stats –

The drink’s taste was crisp and clean; it went down easy! And the pieces of aloe were fun to chew. If you’ve never tried an aloe drink with pulp, the closest comparison I can think of is the jelly that often comes with bubble tea. Delicious.

And I ate the last of the tree pasta with salt and evoo.

I really need to consume some veggies but my cold is making everything healthy sound terrible. Also, I have yet to go back to hot yoga and I can feel my wallet weeping with every missed class during my unlimited Groupon period.

I’m not going to post dinner, because I’m not sure yet what we’re having. Instead two updates –

1. The weather – it is freaking snowing!

That was the view from inside the car before Adam dug us out yesterday so we could go on our anniversary date.

2. My hair – it’s freaking purple!

I continue to lose dye with each shower (that’s clearly not right) and as the color gets lighter it becomes much more noticeable.

I love it!

26Dec2012

My Elfits

by Emily

You know how sometimes something is so lame that it goes full circle and becomes awesome? That is what I like to think happens with this particular activity. Every year I pull out all of my red and green stops in the week leading up to Christmas. Since I was working in a children’s toy store the week before Christmas, this year I really tried to go all out. Here we go…

P.S. I coined the term “elfit” while describing this tradition to my coworker the other day. It may have been my proudest moment to date.

What lame things did you do to get in the holiday spirit this year?

12Dec2012

#26 – Do Something Crazy With My Hair

by Emily

At first I was all like –

But then I was like –

The streaks are purple, not blue, but I couldn’t get an accurate picture.

27 things, ~~do something crazy with my hair~~.

Have you ever done something crazy with your hair? How long have you had your current hair-style?

30Nov2012

The Best Thing Ever

by Emily

Howdy! It ~~was bedtime hours ago~~ is bedtime but I’m bubbling over with good cheer so I wanted to blog. Spread the love and all that.

Note 1 relates to note 2. Note 1 – Please ignore my crazy hair and old lady scarf and focus in on how fabulous my giant puffy sleeves are.

Love them! I bought this top back in my teacher days and it always made me feel like a professional city lady.

Note 2 – I got to Google Video Chat with Adam tonight and it was the best thing ever.

My husband is the most handsome man on the planet! And me…. well, I’ve got my great sleeves.

Adam has been/will be traveling a lot for interview this year and suggesting that we use the video chat today is the smartest thing he’s ever done. I can’t even tell you how good it was to see and hear him while we said goodnight. And this best thing ever is actually a silver lining on what seemed like a terrible situation. You see, yesterday Adam broke his cell phone. And if he’d had his phone with him on his trip today we wouldn’t have been on Google Chat at all. The money and time we are going to lose fixing it and the hassle of Adam having to navigate a new city tomorrow sans phone all pale in comparison to how wonderful it was to video chat this evening. <–silver lining

Don’t get me wrong, all of the travel has been/will be hard. A lot of his interview dates are right on top of one another and they make our busy schedule even more hectic. For example – he got to the apartment at 2am this morning and was heading to the airport by 6am. This meant I got 3 hours of sleep last night. Ugh.

It was a double pizza day. Making a smoothie meant getting out of bed five minutes earlier so instead I breakfasted on the cheese slice Adam brought me from our favorite pizza place in Brooklyn.

Amazing and also a bit sickening.

Clinic went well today, even though I was tired. In the morning I partnered with another student to chart on a tube feed and in the afternoon I shadowed a RD on the renal transplant floor.

Lunch was a mix of food from home and $2 spent at the salad bar with our great nutrition department discount. A ‘Thanksgiving leftovers’ sandwich of sliced turkey, homemade cranberry sauce, and cream cheese on a Sandwich Thin.

Plus Food Should Taste Good Sweet Potato Chips.

And salad bar with cherry tomato, cucumber, carrot, red onion, and honey mustard dressing.

I always have to really talk myself into salad at home but when I’m out and about it tastes so good!

Dinner was round two of pizza since I was stuck on campus working on a group project.

A buffalo chicken slice that was nowhere near as good as Zetti’s. And I dropped a greasy piece of chicken on my nice pants. I clearly should have gone with another salad instead!

Finally, I ate 2 oz of chocolate covered kettle corn nuts while I puttered around the house this evening.

They are good, but not as good as they were inside cookies.

How do you stay close to your loved ones when you are physically far away?

26Nov2012

Blog – Updated

by Emily

Thanksgiving – Pathetic

Our flight landed at 7:30 pm on Turkey Day and while we were thankful for our dinner it wasn’t exactly traditional. Every single food establishment we called was closed… except for 7-11. So Adam and I split a bag of chips for Thanksgiving dinner.

Work – Exhausting

I’ve worked in retail on and off since I was 15 years old but Black Friday at my current job was nothing like I’d ever seen. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were so exhausting that it’s possible I had a complete breakdown in Wegman’s last night and started weeping in front of the lottery machines because Adam wouldn’t buy me the scratch card with the little bear on the front. It was not a proud moment.

Vegan Challenge – Cancelled

Friday evening, this series of texts was sent –

Yep, I called it quits on the Vegan Challenge a week early. My heart has not been in it for most of November (my friend and I have been making jokes about how we’d have to try again in February since the first week) and by Friday night I just really didn’t want to do it. I think going on multiple trips out-of-town this month made it too hard to go all in; since I’m not actually vegan it would be stupid to skip culinary traveling in Philly and Atlanta and since I was cheating so often it was hard to stay motivated.

Failed vs. Failure – Thoughts

Even though I failed at the challenge, I wouldn’t call the challenge a failure. I reminded myself that I won’t actually die if I don’t eat buffalo chicken pizza every time I’m hungry. I remembered all of the tasty meals that don’t involve cheese. I recommitted myself to, whenever possible, only eating meat that is humanely sourced. And I really am excited for February!

Life – Good

I feel like this post ended up sounding whiney, but that wasn’t my intention. I’m actually quite happy. Balancing an increased work schedule with my upcoming finals will be tricky, but I like staying busy. The weather is getting frightful, but I’m thrilled about eggnog and cocoa. We don’t get to see any family for Christmas this year, but I’m excited to carve out some holiday traditions of our own with Adam and Webster. Life is good.

Have you ever “failed” at a challenge? When was the last time you decided to quit something before it was over?

17Nov2012

Happy Happy Joy Joy

by Emily

Thursday was more crappy than happy. The list of low-lights includes being so freaking tired all day because I still haven’t caught up on sleep, eating pizza for dinner (so stress eating, so not vegan), having my stitches be difficult to remove because the office was asstastic about making a follow-up appointment, and having to work on a group project until bedtime.

If you weren’t paying close attention to that list of complaints, you may have missed yesterday’s highlight: I got my stitches removed!

My hand is officially free. And gross. But Adam bought me a bubble tea for being brave.

I got a strawberry bubble tea at Gin Gin and they gave me normal boba with multiple flavors of popping boba as well. Best bubble tea I’ve had in years!

Friday was the happy, happy, joy, joy day. I just woke up happy. Several good things did happen today, but I swear that I was excited to begin with.

The fact that I was dressed in a very “Emily” outfit did put me in a good frame of mind.

And all of my meals were incredibly tasty. Breakfast was a tasting plates of sorts in class. A serving of Angie’s Sweet and Salty kettle corn.

An apple.

And a roasted seaweed snack.

I washed down my snacks with a can of Cherry Coke Zero that was randomly the best soda I’ve ever had. I’m not sure exactly how it was different than usual but I swear the formula must have been “off” for this can’s batch because it was amazing.

A tall soy creme brulee coffee was consumed for warmth and caffeine on my walk home.

I only had time to switch out my bags between school and work which could have put a damper on my mood (especially because I didn’t have time to eat!) but then I came home to this –

A #simplesurvivalkit packed with goodies from some of my favorite brands: Food Should Taste Good, Justin’s, Larabar, Little Ducks Organics, SmartWool, Sprout Wellness Basics, and Teatulia. Not only are my taste buds excited about the goodies, the package itself made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. I am so incredibly grateful and touched!

Work went well; we got an insane shipment of packages and the time flew by. Before I knew it I was home for dinner.

I wasn’t expecting much from this meal but I ended up loving it. I sautéed sliced mushrooms, green peppers, and sweet onions in Earth Balance and salt and served them on top of basmati rice with Sriracha and Nayo stirred in.

I shoveled in my bowl in about a minute and adored every bite!

More group project work went down from 9 -11 (pm!!) and I shared a Pumpkin Shock Top with a friend while we worked.

I planned on getting into the pumpkin Blue Moon too but I’m basically the walking ~~dead~~ asleep at this point so I’m glad I stuck with half a beer.

I hope everyone else had a happy, happy, joy, joy day too! Or if not, please enjoy your weekend!

10Nov2012

And I Say Hey…

by Emily

…what’s going on?

Well, it’s official – I am a terrible blogger this semester. I want to blame my hand (and that really has been the problem this week) but mostly it’s that school is freaking busy right now. Busy, busy, busy, busy, busy <– if you don’t read that in the voice of the magician from “Frosty the Snowman” then you are a communist. j/k

Things are going to get a little easier for the next two weeks though – I front-loaded my semester with assignments by signing up to go first for practically everything – and I hope to blog a bit more regularly. I really do enjoy it!

So, what’s going on?

my hand doesn’t hurt as much but I’m still not allowed to work out until the stitches are out (next Thursday)
Adam has been leaving to go on interviews and I miss him like crazy
my final clinical rotation is our first time at a big hospital and the days have been looooong
we are going to Philly this weekend! Like, now. Adam has an exam to take so we’re going to spend some time with our in-laws and explore the city.
I am planning on blogging this weekend

The vegan challenge? Still on, but there have been a few slips. Like when Adam came home from DC with macaroons.

I want to give this challenge my best but there was no way I was going to turn down a sweet gift of my favorite treat just because of the challenge. So I ate them.

And by “I ate them” I mean right then. At midnight. And got back into bed without rebrushing my teeth. And all was right with the world.

Is there anything absolutely amazing that Adam and I should do in Philly this weekend?

7Nov2012

Feeling Blue

by Emily

My pain pills (which I think I don’t need any more, yay!) have made my appetite all sorts of wonky these past two days. And some life stuff has made me super cranky. I hate feeling like I have to post when I’m in a bad mood, but so many of the things I ate (of the very many things I ate!) have been winners that I want the post for my own memory. This will be detail-light though.

Honeycrisp.

Rockstar Juiced.

Winter outfit.

My downgraded hand bandage.

Organic Rice Divine Mud Pie Ice Cream (1 cup). This stuff was ah-mazing. The texture was reminiscent of Italian Ice and peanut butter-chocolate is always a winning combo. I especially liked the cookie pieces.