We Are Here!

I’m finally in California!  I’ve been waiting for this since I was a kid!  I need to finish getting ready so I’ll keep it quick, but I wanted to check in. 

My flights went well, things were nice and uneventful.  Because of the challenge (I’m not gonna lie, I love airport food, it is totally worth the money to me usually) I tried to pack all of my own snacks for this travel day.  I’m not quite sure how things will work on my return flights, but I do have some bars stashed in my suitcase.

I ate breakfast before I got on my first flight, a crumpet(!) topped with Crofter’s Superfruit Spread and an egg.

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I cooked the egg in the microwave – small bowl, crack, stir, salt & pepper, 45second nuke – and it worked out very well.  I was worried about how well this would keep as ‘leftovers’ but it was pretty tasty.  I’ll be doing the micro method more often.

I ate a sandwich on my second flight.  For my sandwich I packed 3slices of turkey on 2slices of bread, with a packet of horsey sauce from Arby’s to squeeze on in flight.

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My long flight (5+hours) went well.  I watched “Why I Wore Lipstick to My Masectemy” on my laptop and bought a “Real Simple” and “Bon Appetit” that kept me very occupied.

Camile and I met up in the airport and headed to our hotel via the BART.  We are sharing a room and the receptionist was totally sweet and upgraded us to a king bed.

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I think the room is gorgeous, it is tiny, but well decorated.  Plus the front desk has awesome candy.

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As soon as our bags were dropped off we headed out to explore the area around our hotel – Market Street.  I munched on an apple from home to hold me over.

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Now we are finishing getting ready for the first Foodbuzz event, a cocktail party!  I am so excited to meet all the bloggers!  I’ll be back with a recap this evening.

What eats do you pack for travel?

Happy 80th Nana!

Hello, hello, hello!  Sorry to skip out for the weekend but I had a fabulous time.  I flew to Ohio (with a bunch of other family members) to celebrate my grandmother’s 80th birthday.  We did party/family time all weekend, which meant TONS of cake!  I missed the husband a lot but I had a great time, my family is so funny!  This post won’t be as detailed, due to length, and if you get too bored skip to the bottom to find the winners of the Zevia contest.

Friday we had to get up nice and early to make it to the airport for my 6:35am flight.  I was hungry when I got to the airport but it seemed early and I knew I would sleep my first flight so I decided to wait.

On my layover I got egg and cheese on a cheddar jalopeno bagel.

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It was very tasty but I dropped half on the floor so I only ate half of it.

I was so excited when I finally got in to the Dayton airport!

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My mom and grandma picked me up and we drove over to Tipp City to do some shopping (also the location of my grandmother’s surprise party!).  We saw all sorts of fun things.

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Nana (grandma)  was impossible to get to her surprise party, she kept insisting the chosen restaurant was too nice, too slow, etc.  I finally had to pretend I was going to pee my pants if we didn’t at least go in to the restroom!  When she saw all of her friends she was so surprised she cried!

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My mom and my aunt (who flew up with my mom a few days earlier than me) did such a good job planning and decorating!

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We did a party lunch at Coldwater Cafe and it was very nice.  I got a bloody mary to drink.

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And for lunch I split – more halfs! – a turkey pannini (with artichoke spread and cheese) with my mom.

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I ignored the chips but the sandwich was great.

My grandmother cried when she opened her presents and again when they brought in the cake!

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I am not really a chocolate cake fan so I took a small bite and then packed up the rest to bring home to Paps (grandpa).  I also packed up all the bread from the table baskets.  My family teased me but they are either going to use it again, ewww, or throw it out, wasteful.

We got to go home long enough to pick up my grandpa and then we – me, my mom, my aunt, my grandparents, and the dog – squeezed into the car for a long drive to Toledo where my uncle lives.  I seriously can not handle how funny my family is, we had such a good time!!

We were running late when we got there so we had a quick dinner from Wendy’s.  I got a baked potato with broccoli and cheese.

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I also ate one of my pumpkin cheesecake cupcake/muffins, so good!

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My uncle is a high school football coach so we went to watch his team.  It was their last game of the season, against their biggest rival, and they whooped them, so it was a lot of fun.  My uncle had the marching band play happy birthday to Nana and she cried again!

After the game we went to a ‘end of season’ party my uncle was throwing for the other coaches.  I had a small vodka and coke,

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and a small slice of pizza.

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And then there was more cake and more tears!

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Quite a night was had by all 🙂

For Saturday breakfast I had an English muffin with homemade strawberry jam and scrambled eggs.

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We spent the morning having family time before we headed to another birthday party, this one for my cousin’s baby!  Lunch was buffet style at the party.

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Cheesy potatoes,

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fruit,

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and veggies.

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And of course more cake – I just ate the icing off this piece. 

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Over the course of the party I sipped a beer

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and had a good time hanging with my mommy and grandma.

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My mom, aunt, and I (all Virgin Islanders) walked to and from the party because it was so exciting to be cold!  It was sad saying goodbye to my cousins but then the six of us packed back into the car and headed back to my grandparents’ house.  More uproarious fun was had, including the hilarious/horrifying realization that my grandmother – who was driving – talks with her hands a lot!

It was Halloween, so I broke out some fancy chocolate I bought for the occasion.

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We all had a small piece.

When we got home we had to rush to get dressed before meeting my grandparents’ best friends for dinner.  It was  a great last meal.  I had a bloody mary again, to which I added a ton of Siracha and sizzled my mouth off!

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My grandmother shared her side salad with me,

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and she and Rose gave me their martini olives.

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They are both amazing and both happen to read the blog, hi guys!

I also had a small piece of bread.

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I was torn on ordering but when the waitress said unlimited toppings on the flat bread pizza I was sold!  I asked for roasted red pepper, green peppers, red onions, caramelized onions, tomato, spinach, and mushrooms.

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Mmmn.  I ate 3/5 pieces.

It was another late night and I think we left my grandparents thoroughly exhausted!

This morning my mom and I both had 6:50 flights so it was another early trip to the airport.  Goodbyes were easy; I see my grandparents for Turkey Day and my mommy and aunt for Christmas!

For reasons explained in the next post, I packed my own breakfast.  A banana from my grandmother’s house,

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and a seasonal Pumpkin Spice Cliff Bar from home.

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My flights were all blissfully uneventful.  I was very excited to see the husband at the airport.  Apparently he went to a Halloween party last night so I’ll have to track down some pictures of his costume.  He made himself spaghetti this weekend so I had a big bowl of that (doctored with mozarella and red pepper flakes) while I wrote this monster post.

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My fingers are exhausted, it is definitely time to say Goodbye!  I will “see” you all this evening, hope everyone else had a good weekend!

Zevia Winners

I used a random integer generator to choose the winners.

Runners Up who receive a mixed six pack

  1. (#18) Annalene – i actually have tried Zevia before & I have to say that while they may take some time to getting used to the flavor after the initial drink or 2 these are actually quite good! my favorite is the lemon lime
  2. (#5) Jenny – I would love to try the all-natural diet sodas. I work the night shift, and am obsessed with my diet Pepsi….but always feel guilty about the weird ingredients and colorings.
  3. (#17) Erin – I really want to try this stuff since I love the occasional diet coke.
  4. (#2) Holly – I’d love to win – this soda has been all over blogs and I’ve never tried it!
  5. (#14) ErinZevia sounds great!

Grand Prize Winner who receives a mixed case

  1. (#9) Molly – Sounds good!

Winners – shoot me an e-mail (emilyhwaxATgmail.com) by Tuesday morning to claim your prize!

Ice Ice Baby

It’s been a busy, but random.  I had plans of getting up early but the husband felt like studying until 1am last night which totally threw me off.  When we were in the city and my job was crazy he was always mad at me for staying up until 4am while he tried to sleep (especially difficult in our one room apartment!).  Here, where he is in medical school and I do nothing am not, the situation is reversed.  We have multiple rooms now but I’ve found I have a hard time falling asleep without him around – cheesy relationship moment alert!!!

When I did get up at 10 this morning I went straight to the phone for the next 3 hours!  I don’t know if I actually accomplished that much, but at least I got the ball rolling!  My hunger was totally off and I ended up eating the last serving of pretzels for breakfast!

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Unhealthiness aside, here is a healthy tip: buy a food scale!  I’m not saying you need to be obsessive and measure everything you put in your mouth, but things like pretzel nuggets add up faster than you think – a serving of those bad boys is ONE ounce.  Once you are eating pretzels straight out of the bag for breakfast, there is no way you are going to pull out a measuring cup.  But plopping the bag on the food scale?  Easy.  (P.S. My scale read 1 and 1/4 oz, so with the weight of the bag I had a perfect serving left)

At 1pm – once I had at very least left a message with every single number on my list – I set out for the gym sat on the couch and kissed Adam and stole some slices of his turkey pepperoni.  I ended up pushing the gym back to the end of the evening in favor of going to the post-office and being dropped off at the Spot.  I worked on Chemistry by myself for a while before Caroline met me for some group studying.  By myself I got a late lunch.

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A big diet coke and a turkey cajun  wrap (turkey, lettuce, tomato, pepperjack cheese, cajun sauce, ww wrap).

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The salad looked over-dressed so I didn’t even taste it, but I demolished the sandwich.

During my social studying I also had a medium pumpkin pie latte (pumpkin, vanilla, cinnamon; 1pump syrup, skim milk).

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Yums.

Caroline dropped me off at home at 9 and after so very brief glancing at the magazines I got in the mail we set out for the gym.  It was about time too, I’d been rocking this look since 10am!

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I always work out in baggy t-shirts but I went ahead and bought some running tank tops last weekend.  Somehow I feel more “official,” not that I look too fine in that picture!!  I’ll show you all of my new finds as I wear them; this one was $4 at Target.

On the treadmill I did 10minute warm up – 20minute run – 5 minute cool down.  In the end the totals were 3.25miles and 361 calories.  My legs are still crazy bothering me (my knees, hips, ankles often hurt but lately it is an intense pain in my calves!).  I did a lot of stretching when I got home and now I am trying icing them.

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We’ll see how it goes.

I can’t believe I’m doing such a late recap post but considering that dinner just kind of never happened I guess it’s not that surprising!  I got a lot done today, but tomorrow is still going to be jam-packed.  We just found out our in-laws are visiting this weekend which makes this week even busier.  I’ve got to go deal with my ice bags and take a shower, see you in the am!

Do you ice?  Any tips for me?

Savory Instead of Sweet

Hello, lunch-eaters!  My morning has gone well; it looks like the notecards won’t be finished until tomorrow but my labs are totally up to date.  My pumpkin pudding smoothie held me over well but I did snack on a bowl of red grapes while I worked.

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By noon it was time for lunch.  When I received a Nature’s Pride sample as part of the Foodbuzz Tastemakers program I actually was sent two loaves.  I seem to hardly ever eat bread and I was worried that Adam would move too slowly and we’d develop a mold problem, so into the freezer one loaf went.  Once we were ready for more bread we simply moved the loaf down to the fridge and gave it a few hours to defrost.  This is a good solution if you find a bread(product) sale at your grocery store too.

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With 12 Grain I made a yummy french toast, so I knew that would be good for 100% Whole Wheat as well.  But I was feeling adventurous.  Which led to…….

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savory french toast!  I sanwiched sliced turkey, Crofter’s North American Superfruit Spread and dijon mustard between two slices of Nature’s Pride Whole Wheat.  Then I dipped the ‘wich in a mixture of egg/.5C chicken broth.  I cooked it for ~3minutes on each side in a pan with .5T Smart Balance Light.  Finally it got topped off with maple syrup, Chipotle Tabasco, and squeeze cheese.

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Mmmn.  I loved this mess mix of flavors!  Next time I would leave off the sqeeze cheese (which I mostly ate around anyway), but we had it and it looked fun.  I doused it with hot sauce the the spice/egginess combo was perfection.

I am watching an episode of “Mercy” while I eat my lunch and then it’s back to work.  I think I will cook dinner before I leave for class, but I’ll post it this evening.  All that really matters is that I remember my lab goggles!

Have you ever tried savory french toast?  What’d you think?  {I realize this is similar to a Monte Cristo}

Random

I have not gotten near enough done today (unless you count the huge stack of magazines I powered through as an accomplishment) so this post needs to be quick.  All of my food choices have been unbelievably random today.

“Breakfast” was the last serving of Food Should Taste Good Lime Chips.

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For lunch I followed last night’s theme and did some more using up.  The last Flat Out wrapped around the last Boca Spicy Chik’n Patty, with lettuce, carrots, cheese, and buffalo sauce.

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For fruit I made a smoothie – 1C passionfruit pulp, 1 fat free plain Oikos, big splash oj, drizzle honey.

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And I snacked on a Healthy Hazel Boomi Bar sample.

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I’ll be back after class this evening.

Tell me one random thing about yourself.  I’ll go first – My middle name is Helen.

Pizza Party Part Deux

I haven’t gotten much work done but the rain was the perfect atmosphere for watching some “tv.”  In the hours after breakfast I was starving so I ate a Cookie Dough Balance Bar.

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These are seriously the best things on Earth!

Lunch was inspired by leftover pizza ingredients and these guys.

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I was excited about these Boca Spicy Chik’n Meatless Patties, but a little concerned by this warning –

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I read through all the ingredients and have no idea what this is about.  Does anyone else know?  I combined spice + pizza for one super sandwich.

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I rolled a patty in a Flat Out with ~2T each pizza sauce, shredded carrots, 2% colby jack cheese, and Anchor Bar Buffalo Sauce.

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I ate some leftover peppers from last night alongside.

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Quite a good lunch.

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Dessert was pretty good too.

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Purely Decadent Non-Dairy Blueberry Cheesecake ice cream with Crofter’s Superfruit North America Spread.

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The skies are looking a little less foreboding so I might make it to the gym today after all.  My other focus of the day is chemistry.  See you for dinner.

For Funsies – What is your favorite animal?  In no particular order, I love duckbilled platypuses, spiny echidnas, otters, and pigs.

Rain Check

The intense torrential downpour all day mucked up my plans, but I did find some fun substitutes!  I had so many crazy dreams last night that I ended up pressing snooze on the alarm this morning until after 9.  I ate a Cashew Almond Boomi Bar on the way to volunteering today.

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I liked the flavorbut I was running late so I only ate 3/4 of it.

For lunch at the hospital I used my voucher to get a sandwich from the cafeteria.

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Chicken salad in a jalopeno wrap with spring mix lettuce, bell peppers, banana peppers, sundried tomato and pesto sauce.  I ate 85% or so.

Adam had the day off from school (Yom Kippur) so he picked me up at the hospital to save me from the rain.  I had planned on going to the gym but once I saw the sky it didn’t take much convincing to get me to see a movie with him!  We went to a 3o’clock showing of “Surrogates,” which we both enjoyed.  We hit up Dairy Queen at the mall.

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I ordered a small oreo cookie dough blizzard.

I was very glad that Adam drove me to class because the rain was so bad you could barely see.  We ended up taking the (slow) main road home instead of the highway because it was so bad.

When we got home we made the perfect rainy day dinner – pizza!  I would say it was super veggie, but by the time the husband got done with it it was super cheesey!

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On a store bought crust we piled

  • 12oz pizza sauce
  • 2C reduced fat mozzarella cheese
  • 1 chopped red bell pepper
  • 1 chopped yellow bell pepper
  • 3/4pint mushrooms
  • 1/2 sliced yellow onion

We precooked the veggies for 15minutes at 475* before we put them on the pizza.  Look at how sweet our pizza sauce was –

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It was very tasty, but we definitely bought it because I fell in love with the can!

After it came out of the oven I ate 1/4 of the finished product.

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Yums.  We watched the new episode of “Bones” while we ate and towards the end I had a half serving of Lindt Sea Salt Dark Chocolate.

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Yums x2.

I’m disappointed that the gym didn’t happen because I have to go back to the doctor on Thursday, but such is life.  I always appreciate hang out time with the husband.  Have a great night everybody!

What do you like to put on pizza?  My favorite toppings are green olives and broccoli.  I also really like cheeseless pesto pizza.

Put Up Your Dukes

I’m doing good work of my to-do list, but there is still much to do so this will be quick.

1st things 1st.  My gorgeous amazing perfect friend just went through a break-up and I am sending her love.  Just the other day, this friend and I discussed how silly it is that bloggers pretend to have *the perfect* marriage.  If you truly never argue more power to you, but I’m kind of a b**ch so I just don’t see that happening for me.  That said; the first few years of marriage suck.  The first few years of medical school suck.  Being unsure about what to do with my life sucks.  And my fabulous husband and I are angry bitter people, we can’t just do yoga and mentally picture the suckiness floating away in a bubble, we fight.  A lot.  In fact, the reason I got such a late start this morning is because we screamed at each other instead of going to bed.  But you know what?  I love my husband.  I love my marriage.  As life calms down and we grow up we will fight less.  But for now we fight, and that’s really ok.

Anywhoo, said fight meant I didn’t leave for coffee/studying until 10:30 this morning.  A PSA to my younger readers – When you are 24, and unemployed, and late, and low on laundry, you too will put on this for drinking coffee.

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Snazzy sparkles aside, I didn’t actually drink coffee, I went with my craving and got a diet coke.

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And it was gooood.  I was at The Spot again, so you know I got another Mike’s sandwich.

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This was not so gooood.  I think I’ve finally kicked my Mike’s craving, this one had too much cheese and turned me off.  Not to say I didn’t finish it 🙂

This afternoon/tonight I need to finish my reading, work on homework, do some housecleaning, pre-make dinner for tomorrow and go to the gym.  Back to the grindstone!

Do you fight or are you a robot?  **totally kidding, I really am happy for people who are that mature