Time to Break the Cycle

by Emily

I’m back! Hell Week part deux is over!

This past week wasn’t a total fail, but I wouldn’t call it a success either. You see, there’s this cycle I’m trying to break. I’m really ready to change, but right now it’s basically a schedule that goes like clockwork. Here’s what goes down on weeks with multiple tests –

I get really excited about all the studying I’m going to do. I write up an intricate schedule of all the things I’m going to accomplish.
I look at the schedule and get really overwhelmed.
I get so overwhelmed that instead of studying for any of my tests, I stick my head in the sand like an Ostrich and watch Grey’s Anatomy.
I stop going to the gym and I eat a bunch of crap, because I’m “busy.” Except I’m not busy, because I’m not actually studying.
I feel like crap physically (probably from eating crap) and mentally because I’m disappointed with myself.

This happens every time! When I was a kid my dad used to tell me that the worst part of procrastinating when doing an unpleasant task is that in addition to doing the task you have to spend a lot of time thinking about it. I know not to do this, but somehow it hasn’t quite clicked 😉

I didn’t have time for breakfast because I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off (not studying for my tests sadly, I had 4 papers to read for my Nutrition class this morning). I did manage to warm up with a mug of honey vanilla chamomile,

and to do this –

That’s a good use of time people!

The papers presented in Nutrition today were actually fascinating – the impact of obesity on pregnancy, the benefits of breastfeeding, nutrition intervention in people with developmental disabilities – but I was too wound up to really focus.

We had a block of time before Orgo and I ended up buying a veggie sandwich while I studied.

Meh. Too much bread, not enough veggie; I ate half.

Then it was time to face the music. I think the hardest part was that I had the two tests back to back – I literally had to sprint from my Orgo exam to my Anatomy exam. In the end things went better than they could have gone. I’m guessing a B/C on the Orgo exam and a C/D (ugh!) on Anatomy. Moving on…..

I’ve got a weekend of freedom!

Actually, we’ve got some excitement on the agenda tomorrow; Adam, Katie and I are going to run in a 5k! I’m not even close to being ready for this race (when will I run something I’ve actually trained for?!?), but it will be fun to see if anyone comes in costume.

When I got home this afternoon I decided to dig deep, roll up my sleeves, and start working on breaking that cycle! I reorganized my binder and got started on Orgo reading. (go me!) While I read I ate a crunchy snack.

A sliced cucumber,

and a serving of Sing Buri Cashews that Sahale Snacks sent me.

The nuts were soooo good.

The mix of cashews, peanuts, sesame seeds and dried pineapple was sweet and savory with just a perfect bit of spice. I never like cashews when they are by their lonesome, but in mixes like this they are divine.

Plus a small vegan pecan pumpkin blondie.

And then it was time for a quick dinner.

(That’s on the small plate from my blondie) I reheated some leftover roasted broccoli in 1/2 Tbsp of butter, then scrambled in two Eggland’s Best eggs, and topped with a dollop of chunky salsa.

Yum, I love eggs with broccoli! When I cook eggs I let the yolk and white set separately for a while before I scramble; it gives them the best texture.

Dinner had to be quick because we were meeting a group of friends for a movie. I packed my own snack, a small assortment of candy from the bulk bins.

Sidenote – when I get candy from the bulk bin I pick and choose the exact pieces I want. I generally take 1-2 pieces of each candy (that’s 1 jordan almond or 1 gummy bear), it takes at least 10minutes, and I drive the husband crazy.

Anyhoo, we saw “Red” and it was hysterical! Everyone in the group agreed that it was one of John Malkovich’s best movies. Two thumbs up.

What is your favorite action comedy?

25Oct2010

Going on Walkabout

by Emily

Walk to The Spot

Katie and I were supposed to meet this morning for breakfast and a study session,

but we spent most of our time talking, whoops!

We did manage the breakfast part though. A grande iced (it was so warm here today!) coffee with skim milk,

and a thing of artichoke and spinach humus.

I know that humus is a strange breakfast but it sounded so good I just couldn’t pass it up!

Unfortunately the flavor was too garlicy for my taste buds, but it was nice to get some veggies into my morning. I finished about half each of the humus and the bread sticks.

Walk to school

I had a busy time on campus today – a meeting, two classes, and another meeting, all back to back. I snacked on a small vegan pumpkin pecan blondie before my first meeting.

And during Anatomy I ate this Balance Pure Cherry Pecan Bar.

I was a little unsure about the flavor – I got it on super sale at Wegmans – but I ended up being a fan. It wasn’t as amazing as the cookie dough variety, but it also wasn’t as caloric and had fewer grams of saturated fat.

School fun facts – 1. They recently discovered taste buds in our lungs. 2. I did such a good job on my Orgo homework (rewriting the class notes) that he gave me extra-credit points!

Walk to Wegmans

I knew I needed to get in a couple hours of solid concentration with my Orgo notes, so I headed to the Wegmans’ Cafe to study. And to get a tasty dinner.

Veggies, veggies, everywhere,

and green beans and chicken and eggplant in garlic sauce.

Since I was alone, and therefore wasn’t sharing a drink with the husband, I decided to try this fun looking drink.

I don’t know if it tasted exactly like chai OR cola, but the flavor had a nice spice and wasn’t too sweet.

Walk Get picked up and drive home

I covered more than 2 miles just in transit today, but canceling my run was Adam this evening wasn’t an option. We ran one mile out and walked one mile back, with a very exciting destination in the middle –

One morning few weeks ago, I was taking a walk and talking on the phone with my mom when I spotted that window display…..and I made such a loud exclamation of glee that the owner (who was in his car outside) asked me if I’d like him to open up the shop specially for me! Excited much? I told him I could contain myself, but my mom told me that for my ‘fall gift’ (yes, she’s crazy) I could go charge a couple of pumpkin brews.

Nice! We are very excited about our selection.

A sampling of pumpkin/seasonal beers,

a Root beer from Abita (one of my top 3 favorite beer companies),

and a few Tuskers, our new favorite beer that is almost impossible to find in Buffalo!

The Village Beer Merchant is awesome about having a great selection of things that are absent elsewhere in Buffalo, and the employees are all super nice and helpful.

Adam had to crack open a Tusker the minute we got home, and he saved a few swigs in the bottle for me.

Ahhhh.

What is your favorite type of beer? I actually don’t like beer that much, but I have three obsessions – 21st Amendment, Hell or High Watermelon; Abita, particularly the strawberry and winter brews; and Tusker.

24Oct2010

Facts of Fall

by Emily

There is nothing pumpkin can’t do.

The weather in Buffalo today was beautiful! In lieu of a formal workout, Adam and I took a long walk to soak it in.

Today included too much snacking and not enough studying.

The words in this post are lacking (just wrote “snacking,” whoops!), but I will at least show you everything I ate today; plus some “Fall” photos for funsies.

Arnold’s WW Sandwich Thin, Laughing Cow Blue Cheese, 3 slices of turkey.

Mini Vanilla Tootsie Roll, x2.

Baby carrots and ranch.

Small slice of pizza from the school food court where we were studying.

Leftover Loaded Potato Soup (make it, seriously!).

Waffle fries (more potatoes?!) doused in salt and vinegar.

Allie’s Vegan Pumpkin Pecan Blondies. Note – I halved the oil, substituted the spices (little bit of pumpkin pie spice, lotta bit cinnamon and nutmeg), and used light brown sugar and these still came out fabulously!

What signs of fall are popping up in your area? What’s been your favorite pumpkin goodie so far this season?

23Oct2010

Hot Bar Makes the World Go ‘Round

by Emily

Today was Study Saturday, sort of. We were up waaaaaaay too late last night, and it shifted the whole day back. At this point I am at least all caught up and ready to begin studying for my two tests next week.

We puttered around the house a bit in the morning and I made myself a Pumpkin Pie Through a Straw.

We didn’t have a lot of pumpkin leftover so I ended up having to add some ice for filler, which made it less tasty than usual but still pretty fricking tasty!

Around 11 we packed up our stuff and headed to Wegmans cafe for a study session. Between our hot bar obsession and the fact the booths are perfect study session size, Wegmans is the perfect spot. And we were jazzed to see that they had Halloween decorations up and employees dressed in costume!

Not gonna lie, lunch was still the most exciting part.

I got a random mish-mash of little bites. Steamed broccoli and brussels sprouts,

wok seared veggies, bbq tofu, and sesame chicken and shrimp.

Full-bellied, we got a lot of studying done. Except for the two hours we wasted on an intense conversation about the social construct of gender roles/child care/alimony. <– dorks!

We got our weekly grocery trip in before we came home. I had to spend a certain amount of $ in the bulk bins to use a coupon so I filled a baggie with assorted chocolates.

And downed them the minute we walked in the house 🙂 Think chocolate covered peanuts, pretzels, sponge candy…

On the agenda for tonight is a tasty, saucy (<–puns) dinner that’s my entry into a certain fun contest…..

21Oct2010

Alternative Night

by Emily

It’s been a strange sort of day ’round these parts. Very glad it’s almost Friday!

Things started off quite well, with a shockingly good bowl of oats for breakfast.

Cooked: 1/3 cup oatmeal, 1/3 cup each skim milk and water, 1 medium banana, ~1/3 cup canned pumpkin, and a pinch of salt.

Topped: 1 Tbsp each chunky peanut butter and butterscotch chips.

This was ah-MAZE-ing! I don’t know if it’s the stove top cooking, the banana, the extended cooking time, or what, but my recent attempts at oatmeal have been my best yet.

The texture of this bowl reminded me of tapioca pudding (creamy with bits of chew) and the banana turned into banana clouds of awesomeness.

Awesome as it was, I could not finish this bowl. Even with only 1/3 of a cup of oats, the banana, and the pumpkin, plus the decadent toppings were just too much. I ended up leaving a couple of bites behind.

You can be sure I picked all of the banana clouds out first though 😀

And from breakfast things went downhill….. My Anatomy quiz went ok, and lab was no more frustrating than usual, but halfway through class I was unbelievably nauseous. I felt like I was going to throw up and I was light-headed and queasy. The sick feeling continued all throughout the day, at one point in my food lab I actually had to go sit down.

I’m not sure what exactly caused it, because I’m feeling ok now. Too much sugar for breakfast? Hunger? Residual effects from my flu shot?

Call my crazy, but in spite of my quease-factor I pushed through between classes and made a visit to the gym. What?! I went to school dressed in gym clothes and I wasn’t about to “waste” a day without a cute outfit! I did 30 (difficult) minutes on the elliptical, random, level 6. Those 30minutes were the best I felt all day!

I did feel significantly worse once the gym-high wore off though. Extra bad news for me, a group in food lab made cheesecake today and I was too sick to eat it 😦 I did have to take a few bites of my group’s experiments, but nothing photoworthy – 3 bites of grilled cheese with different processed cheeses and small bites of puddings made from a mix and whole/2%/1%/skim milk.

I dragged myself home after lab and parked myself on the couch. Sidenote – I have a deeply ingrained habit of rocking myself back and forth when I’m sick I and it drives the husband crazy! Around 5, when he was fully ready to throttle me, I redeemed myself by pulling out a coupon for this –

ColdStone has debuted fall flavors! I got a “small” cup of cookie batter and caramel apple ice cream (swoon!) with some caramel Ghirardelli mixed in.

I know it sounds insane but I felt so much better after I ate this! I think my nausea at that point was just hunger.

Revived, I decided to do an “alternative” sandwich for tonight’s dinner.

The Wafflewich!

I used a serving of Van’s Berry Boost Waffles as my base, and sandwiched chicken salad (stewed chicken from Tuesday, mayo, pickle relish), a slice of melty Colby cheese, and a drizzle of maple syrup in between.

The waffles got a bit mushy when I microwaved them to melt the cheese, but other than that this was delicious.

Tomorrow? The final night of Sandwich Week, a ton of school work to make up in the early morning, and some vegetables!

What “alternative” sandwiches have you created?

20Oct2010

Jump in De Line, Rock Your Body in Time

by Emily

Ugh-dates –

1. The Wegman’s blueberry coffee is just not good 😦 It has a super burnt bitter taste. I even added sugar (and skim milk) to my second cup and I still didn’t like it.

However, Adam says I can’t buy more until this is gone and there are some holiday flavors I’m excited about so I’ll be slugging this down.

2. The Orgo notes assignment that was due today took up my entire morning. I was so slammed for time I couldn’t even eat! Must work on the weekends, must work on the weekends, must work on the weekends….

UP-dates –

1. The husband has been bringing chocolate chip pumpkin squares to school and his classmates like them so much someone even requested the recipe! It’s not actually my personal recipe (thanks, Martha), but it’s nice to feel like a good wife.

2. I lit a cinnamon pumpkin candle this morning and it brought my Halloween corner of the mantle to life.

Anyway, I didn’t have time to eat so I packed myself 2 servings of Sahale Snacks to munch during Orgo.

After my first set of classes I spent yet more time dealing with transfer credits and my class schedule. The good news is that I’ve had two victories; the bad is that I call BS on the fact that they won’t accept my writing credits.

I spent so much time that I almost didn’t make it to the gym before lab. I had to rush rush rush and eat food from the vending machine while I hightailed it across campus.

A pre-gym Rice Krispie treat is better than no fuel at all!

And a short work out is better than no gym time at all. I did a quick treadmill session.

Lab went quickly tonight – all we were doing was building models – and I was home in time to make a nice dinner. First though, I made a nice snack.

A Caramel Oikos with canned pumpkin and homemade pb.

I was starving when I got home and I didn’t want to be too hungry to enjoy my dinner.

And dinner was delicious;

I claim the 2nd night of Sandwich Week to be a success!

BLTs. Rather, TBSTs – turkey bacon spinach tomatoes. On sourdough with a smear of homemade mayo.

We ate roasted asparagus on the side.

Yum! And this took all of 10minutes to throw together; dinner really can be healthy, tasty, and quick all at once.

We shelled out a bit of extra cash and bought Applegate Farms bacon; it is so much better than the other varieties we’ve had.

Turkey bacon doesn’t really make ‘bacon grease,’ but it does stick to the pan and make delicious browned bits. There’s no chance I’m letting that go to waste; I scraped up the browned bits with a scrambled egg.

We got in the October spirit by watching “Beetlejuice” while we ate. I love that movie, but I don’t think I’d realized before how sad it is.

I’ve got an Anatomy Lab quiz tomorrow to study for (announced at the last minute, arrrgh!), so I’m off!

What do you like on your BLTs, ya know, beyond the B, L, and T? M (mayo or mustard)? S&P? C(heese)?

19Oct2010

I Like the Other Kind of Shot Better

by Emily

Whoops, guess I do have time for a lunch post! I decided that since I’m staying for lab tomorrow 12 straight hours on campus today was a bit much….so I went home! Plus my arm was sore, but more on that in a minute.

Breakfast was the last of my samples from Zone Perfect,

Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Bar. I’ll say it again, Yuuuuum! I was not expecting to fall in love with these, but I totally did; if I see them at Wegmans more will be purchased. The texture was very pleasing and the pb flavor was perfect. It was just sweet enough.

I had some time after Library (I always get out early because the assignments are pretty basic) and I manged to get the Orgo notes I missed yesterday copied. I hate missing class 😡

110’s lecture today was all about MILK. We learned all about cooking milk, the nutrient properties of milk, and how milk is made into cheese(s), cream, buttermilk, etc. Nothing about ice cream though now that I think about it. The lecture was pretty fascinating; I learned a lot more about homogenization and pasteurization.

Pasteurization – or ultrapasteurization which cooks at the highest temp for the shortest time and has the least impact on flavor – is used to kill pathogenic bacteria. Basically, it takes away all of the bacteria that can make us sick. The bacteria that lead to spoilage are not affected, which is why you have to refrigerate milk. Evaporated milk and dry milk powder are processed in a different way that allows them to be stored for a longer time.

Homogenization doesn’t deal with bacteria – which is why non-homogenized milk is not illegal in most of the US like raw milk is. Milk is ~ 87% water, and homogenization is the process that keeps the milk solids from separating out. In the olden days milk bottles had a thicker layer of fat (cream) at the top due to the separation as they sat. If you are making your own cheese you have to use nonhomogenized milk.

Interesting stuff!

After class I decided to be a responsible adult and get my flu shot for the season.

I think it’s also a responsible adult thing to reward yourself for a sore arm; cinnamon bun latte anyone?

This actually didn’t have a strong flavor (it wasn’t sweet at all), but the scent was delectable! I sat in the coffee shop near my house and sipped while reading Orgo.

Then I came home and ate my final serving of pumpkin pasta leftovers for lunch.

This stuff just gets better and better as it sits!

I have to get back to Orgo, but I’m going to much on this Paula Red apple while I study –

I have my night class from 4:30 to 7:40 tonight, but I’m hoping we get out early so I can kick of Sandwich Week.

Have you gotten your seasonal flu shot yet? Do you get a flu shot each year?

17Oct2010

Why Don’t I Accomplish Things on Sunday?!

by Emily

I’m going to set a blogging speed record today because it’s bedtime. Especially with the amount of school work I did today (cough, cough, none, cough), I want to be well rested for tomorrow.

As we went to get in bed last night the husband and I both realized that we were starving. It was a bit ridiculous. We ended up getting staying up, getting pizza, and watching the Simpsons’ Halloween special.