An Alarming Morning

So… My alarm didn’t go off this morning.  I woke up naturally, 5 minutes after I was supposed to have been taking my coat off at the hospital.

Eeeeek!  It was a stressful morning.  And I may not have brushed my teeth yet today (don’t worry, I chugged mouthwash!) but I did have a good shift at the hospital.  I worked on some really interesting patients and managed to get all of my work done on time, in spite of my late start.  <– real talk though, I was only a little bit late; I’m basically a master at speedy dressing.  I even looked sort of cute!

I clearly didn’t eat breakfast, but I did manage to grab my packed lunch out of the fridge.  More black-eyed pea salad.

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A new variety of apple.

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And a half serving of dark chocolate.

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I had a little more chocolate after work too, in the form of a caramel marshmallow egg.

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The Cadbury eggs have nothing on this guy.

Dinner ended up being a slice of buffalo chicken pizza (that’s actually a half slice, I split with Adam) with baby carrots and blue cheese.

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So good.  This was actually just supposed to be a snack but I never could motivate myself back up off the couch again.  I guess that means today’s workout will have to be a Friday affair.

When was the last time your alarm let you down?

Loaded

I’ve made it halfway through the first week of this rotation and I only sort of want to nap for a million years.  The teachers have warned us for years that this is the placement that makes everyone get in bed at 9 pm.  I’m crazy, so I’m still staying up ’til midnight, but I’m definitely tired!

I’ve been eating breakfast at the hospital but I need to figure out a new system because the cost of bars is going to add up.  This one was a free sample at least.

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And tasty too.  Cascadian Farm Crunchy Peanut Butter Granola Bar.

Lunch was more black-eyed pea salad (beans, green pepper, cheese, smoked almonds).

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The Talenti gelato pint made an awesome leftovers container; gotta love that screw-on lid.

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Plus a pear.

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I skipped the dark chocolate today because I knew we were planning a big dinner.

Of course, then I decided to get a milkshake on the way home.

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You have to do a yearly Shamrock Shake!  This was so good.

I also had a bagel thin with smoked salmon cream cheese when I got home.

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I’ve been so hungry today, I want to say it was yesterday’s workout but let’s be real, I only did 4 miles.

Dinner was fantastic; loaded baked potatoes for the win.

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Toppings included turkey bacon, mushrooms cooked in turkey bacon drippings, Smart Balance Light, shredded cheese, and green onions.

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We were both practically licking our plates.

And I had a Toasted Onion Sea Snax while we watched The Nanny.

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Love that show!  We’ve got two more episodes to go and then I’ve got to get to bed.  Good night!

Cider House Run

Let me apologize in advance for what is sure to be a post riddled with typos.  I’ll do my best, but I can’t make any promises.  I’m two days in and I’m going to have to agree with my friends who were in the previous rotation – this placement is exhausting.

Breakfast was a Pirouette Cinnamon Pecan Barre.

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This bar was in my Yumvelope shipment.  The ingredient list is great – dates, walnuts, pecans, agave nectar, hemp seed, rolled oats, hemp protein, ground flax-seed,brown rice protein, vanilla, cinnamon, sea salt, peanuts – but I wasn’t a big fan of the final flavor; too much date.

Plus hospital coffee with 2% milk.

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We get free soda and coffee at this hospital so expect to see a lot of caffeine breaks!

Lunch was an easy assortment.  A Pear Chobani.

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A Honeycrisp apple.

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And 70% dark chocolate.

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I also packed this blue algae nut butter packet but I threw it out one lick in.

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Much too gaggy.

At the end of the day, Adam texted me that he and a friend were at a bar near our house so I met them for a quick drink.

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The McKenzie’s Seasonal Reserve Hard Cider was great.  It had notes of cinnamon that were quite tasty.

I headed straight from Cole’s to meet my friend for a gym visit.  I’m back to the Couch to 10k plan, right where I left off, though obviously I’ve got to stick with it this time.  2 minutes of running/3 minutes of walking, x 10.  I am fat, I am out of shape, I was still a little drunk – my workout was so flipping hard!

In spite of my extreme tiredness and Adam’s messing up our meal plan by eating while I was at the gym, I managed to cobble together a good dinner.  I was worried about not having enough to eat, but I think I ultimately went a bit overboard!

My favorite black-eyed pea salad,

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green beans with shredded parmesan,

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and 1.5 servings of Wegman’s vegan “chicken” nuggets with sweet and sour sauce.

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Everything was delicious.  Those nuggets are awesome.

Have you ever done the inebriated workout?

Coconut Chocolate Lavender

Howdy!  I have not been following my sleep schedule – – at all – – but I can say that today was quite productive.  Every item on my list is now to-done!

The dog has been getting in and out of bed all night long recently and between that and my usually fitful sleep, mornings have felt very difficult this week.  I barely had time to make it to work today so I had to take breakfast with me on the walk.  This Wegman’s Bean and Cheese Burrito was good but not great.

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Something about the flavor and texture made me long for a beverage, and I ended up exploding pinto beans all down the front of my winter coat.

I ate a Honeycrisp apple mid-morning.

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Then I spent the rest of my day holed up in the basement like a retail hermit.  We got in tons of tons of shipments on Monday and I opened and priced 99% of them today.

I never did have time for lunch at work (I kept my packed food in the fridge for an easy lunch tomorrow!) and I ended up doing double dinners.  First was Wegman’s hot bar on a mini-date with the husband.

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Wok-seared veggies,

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and chicken dumplings and chicken salad.

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Adam and I are obsessed with the dumplings’ dipping sauce and the combination of the sauce stirred into my chicken salad was the bomb.com.  <– legit, it tasted so good that was the first expression that popped into my head!

I also ate a big bag of Easter candies from the bulk bins and gave myself a stomach-ache.

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A little pain was worth it, the sugar rush totally helped me through the remainder of my internship journaling.  Minus breaks for making food and eating food, I chugged away for the remainder of the evening.

Our home dinner was vegetable fried rice.

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In the wok (for 2) –

  • 1/2 Tbsp sesame oil
  • ~1 heaping cup peas
  • ~1 heaping cup roasted broccoli
  • ~1.5 cups leftover brown rice
  • 1 Tbsp tamari
  • 1 Tbsp rice vinegar
  • 1.5 Tbsp fish sauce
  • 1 Tbsp Sriracha
  • 3 large eggs

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The dish had the potential to be great, but it was way too salty.  It’s been awhile since I’ve used fish sauce and I forgot what a sodium-punch it packs.  I ate a little less than 2/3 of my plate.

Dessert was a giant, delicious cookie.

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Coconut Chocolate Lavender Cookies = this recipe for single serve cookies plus 1 tsp minced culinary lavender and chopped Sweetriot 70% dark kickin’ coconut chocolate subbed in for chocolate chips.

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We were both big fans of the big cookies and big taste.

The winner of my Hey Shuga! giveaway is:

contest winner

(#1) Jenny, shoot me an e-mail with your mailing address.

Asian Carbs

The title describes every single thing I ate today!  At least I managed to cover a good spread of the continent – Thailand, Japan, and India.

Adam wasn’t excited enough about my Pad Kee Mao leftovers, so I ate them myself for breakfast.

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Amazing.  Broad rice noodles (when cooked in a Thai dish and super spicy) are my favorite food.

I rounded out the meal with a spoon of peanut butter.

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I left a little bit behind for the dog and he was on Cloud 9.

Lunch was spicy avocado Inari.

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Yes, contrary to popular Adam’s belief, that orange stuff in mayonnaise-based.  But when you husband sweetly delivers you lunch at work you don’t turn it down just because you’re doing a silly challenge.

We used a groupon at India Gate for dinner.

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I got Chana Bhatura.

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I ate half of my chickpeas, with rice.  And 1.5+ of my fried dough.  I tried to eat less but half the times Adam went to take a bite I ended up snatching it away from him!

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The flavor was very similar to the Johnny Cake I grew up eating and I was having a total taste memory.

Adam is in bed (he got under the covers at 8:45!) and I should be there too but I have a mental problem that keeps me from making healthy sleep decisions so instead I’ll probably get some dessert and watch Law and Order: SVU.

P.S. I picked a winner for my Slow Cooker Desserts giveaway – (#1)

winner

Cori, e-mail me with your mailing address so I can get your prize sent out!

The Sunday Scurry

I’m in a quandary: I want to blog because yesterday I started my “30 days of blogging” challenge again, but I want to get off the computer so I can hang out with my boys.  I didn’t say it was a large quandary.  I’ll just keep this quick.

Leftover pineapple crisp (from my Slow Cooker Desserts cookbook).

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Ritz crackers with white bean truffle dip.

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A lunchtime snack plate.

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Honeycrisp.

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Crunchy peanut butter.

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1 serving of Sweetriot 70% Dark Chocolate with Kickin’ Coconut*.

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Co-op hot bar after work.  Fried seitan, cucumber salad, and peanut noodles.

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Homemade Thai curry for dinner.

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Green curry and light coconut milk with a bit of tamari and rice vinegar.  Nasoya Black Soybean Tofu Plus** fried in coconut oil.  Tons of broccoli and a can of straw mushrooms.  Cashews.  Tasty Bite Thai Lime Rice.

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My boys.

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*the chocolate was out of this world; it had all the healthiness of dark but the creaminess of milk chocolate

**Adam and I both want to buy this tofu again; we didn’t press it but it still stayed firm and got nice and crunchy, plus it had a good, different flavor

Don’t forget to enter my cookbook giveaway.

Ball Of Stress

I’ve been trying to let myself sleep in as late as possible this week and bars help me do that. I ate this White Chocolate Macadamia Clif Bar in the car on the way to the hospital.

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I’m feeling a lot better from Monday but I’m still making a point of not skipping breakfast.

For lunch I veganized my favorite bean salad by swapping out cheese cubes for spicy Nayo.

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Black eyed peas + chopped green pepper + smoked almonds + spicy Nayo.

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Nothing is ever as good sans cheese but this was still pretty damn good.

With a Mango Coconut Sparkling KeVita.

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And cola breeze and sour mix and match gummies for dessert.

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I found these Goody Good Stuff Gummies at 7-11.

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They are vegetarian and pretty good, though they are a little soft for my tastes. The husband loved them though; he had one taste and rest of my bags were gone.

I am having a really great time at the pediatric hospital, but I have to admit that I am really stressed out right now. There are a lot of things happening in my school and personal life at the moment that are freaking me out. I can’t talk about any of it on the blog, but I will say that I am a giant ball of stress. My stomach hurts all of the time.

Thankfully I had the afternoon free to decompress. I did some fun baking (and tasting!).

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Then I brought a friend some of my baked goods and we had a mutual vent session.

And I walked to and from the gym. The icy patches made the trips take forever, but it was a good way to clear my head.

At the gym, I did another Couch to 10k treadmill workout. 4 minutes of walking / 1 minute running, x9.

I ate these Darrell Lea Strawberry Licorice while I cooked dinner.

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I kept it simple.

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Adam and I shared a package of Tasty Bite Channa Masala – bulked up with some frozen veggies – over a package of brown rice.

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Easy peasy.

What do you do to let off steam when you are feeling stressed?

All Over The Place

I’ve been all over the place the past two days, figuratively speaking.  Literally, I’ve been in Buffalo, at work or in my apartment.  Influencing the craziness of my eats?  I started a 20 Day Vegan Challenge on Sunday, I was so hungry yesterday I thought I might actually eat a horse if one happened to gallop near me, and today I woke up far under the weather.  What can you do?

Sunday was fairly ridiculous.  In spite of being vegan and staying home from the Super Bowl party I definitely still managed to match the rest of America’s Super Bowl Sunday caloric intake.

Banana Bread Lara Bar.

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Chips.

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Summer roll from the co-op.

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Fancy bread with olive oil, x2.5.

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Vegan almond joy bar.

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Gummies.

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If my summer roll hadn’t been packed with veggies I probably would have had to turn in my diploma!

Then I got into bed at 9:30 pm Sunday night and barely made it out by 7:15 today.  I don’t seem to be sick with any typical flu-like symptoms {knock on wood} but I am tired beyond reason.  I swear to God I didn’t spend Super Bowl Sunday eating chicken wings and getting wasted, but when I woke up this morning I felt like I was drunk!  It took me 10 minutes to really figure out where I was and I stayed in a haze for most the morning.  And super embarrassingly, I almost passed out in the ICU during rounds!  Hopefully no one else noticed but the RD I was with said I got very pale for a few minutes.

I grabbed a (non-diet) Dr. Pepper during a quick break and that helped get my blood sugar back up.

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Lunch was a simple salad – romaine, raw veggies, pickled beans, and low-fat raspberry vinaigrette.

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And I had a bowl of cereal when I got home.  A serving of Nature’s Path Coconut Chia Granola topped with blackberries and Simpli Vanilla Naked Oat Milk.

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The granola was some of the best I’ve ever had!

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It held up in the milk without being too hard and it was loaded with big pieces of coconut.

I ate half of this Enjoy Life Ricemilk Chocolate bar while I did some history reading.

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And kept dinner simple with an Annie Chun’s Korean Kimchi Soup Bowl.

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I still had some reading to do for class so I needed to keep things quick.

Don’t ask me how I managed to drag myself to the gym after my night class, but I did.  I am hoping to start up with the Couch to 10k program again.  Today was 1 minute running/4 minutes walking, x 8.  Except a great song came on and I ended up just running the last five minutes.

I was starving when I got home so I ate a slice of bread with Smart Balance Light while I packed our lunches.

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All that stands between me and bed is a shower!

Did you watch the Super Bowl?  What’d you snack on during the game?