Highlights From OBX

Hey there!  Long time no see!  It has been, and is going to be, a crazy summer.

Among other things, I went to the Outer Banks last week (whee!).

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My in-laws took Adam and me for a couple of days and we had a glorious time.  We beached,

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climbed the sand dunes,

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got a large chocolate-strawberry diet coke from Sonic that rocked my face off,

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and met a Flutter Pony.

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You don’t even want to know how excited I was about that damn horse statue.

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We went to climb the sand dunes in between my spotting the pony and taking my picture with it and I muttered to Adam about The Smooze the whole time.  <– if you got that reference I will kiss you on the mouth

I know I’m behind the times, but I want to post some of our trip eats highlights anyway, mostly so I have a record of them for the next time we visit OBX.  This was a trip where sharing meant caring; the only meals Adam and I didn’t split were dessert!

Lunch at Mulligan’s.

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Coastal Carolina She-Crab soup.

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This was basically a giant bowl of crab meat; ah-maze-ing!  We also swooned over the sherry floater.

California style fish tacos.

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Soft tortillas with local fried fish, cilantro-lime slaw, pico de gallo, and Cajun tartar sauce.  This was our first meal in NC and it set a great tone for the rest of the trip.

BBQ at Sooey’s.

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Pulled chicken platter with cole slaw, hush puppies, and fried okra.

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This stop was a repeat from my first OBX visit and I’m so glad we went back.  Those were the best fried okra I’ve ever had, I was shoving them into my mouth by the handful!

Breakfast at The Dunes Restaurant.

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We got the Greek omelet (spinach, tomato, and feta) with asparagus.  It came with hash-browns and a side and since we were splitting they let us do one hotcake and one biscuit.  Even with two of us eating we couldn’t finish that giant plate of food.

Froyo at The Surfin’ Spoon.

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Such good topping options! I got a little bit of yogurt with marshmallow fluff, peanut butter topping, bananas, and reese’s peanut butter cups.

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Like a fluffernutter in froyo form!

Also, froyo at Wild Berry.

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The yogurt flavors weren’t anything new, but the toppings bar boasted sweetened condensed milk!!!  I was definitely in heaven.

All in all, it was a tasty, terrific trip.

Today

Some of the things I thought today –

Man, it has been a looooong time since I last blogged.

I made the right decision.  Part of the reason I’ve been blogging AWOL is because I was making a giant, life-changing decision and I’m pretty sure positive I made the right one.

The end of this semester is going to be insane.  We have two business plans to create in the next month and we were told to expect 40 plus hours of work each week on top of our clinical hours.

Some of the things I did today – 

Went to my first day of clinical practice in long-term care.

Took a glorious, 70* walk on Elmwood with my husband.

Attended night class.  With the curve I scored a 100% on the first exam!

What I ate today – 

A mealy apple.

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A packet of Artisana Cacao Bliss.

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Chocolate Almond Coconut Clif Mojo Bar.

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A low-fat strawberry milk.

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A (salted caramel chocolate nougat) candy from the latest Yumvelope.

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Veggies from Globe Market, ~.25 lb each.

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Thai carrot salad,

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and Greek vegetable salad.

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Lays Chicken and Waffles potato chips.

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Dinner.

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Amy’s Alphabet Soup,

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and a soft pretzel with yellow mustard.

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I also thought a lot about the tragedies at the Boston Marathon today.  If you or anyone you are close to were effected, please know that you are in my thoughts.

Weekend Welcome Back

Hello again!  I know I kind of dropped off the face of the earth.  This semester has been busy.  I don’t have a lot to say tonight, and my pictures are poorly lit and blurry, but it was a good day so I wanted to share.

I slept in this morning; we’ve got a serious stayed-up-too-late-watching-Battlestar-Galactica-every-night-this-week sleep deficit going.  I ended up eating “breakfast” during the afternoon at work.  Chobani Vanilla Golden Crunch Flip.

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I love most of Chobani’s flavors but I have really disliked the Flip line*.  This  was my 2nd try with this flavor and both times the vanilla yogurt was so tangy I was actually a little afraid it had gone bad.  *the Honey BeeNana one was really freaking good

I also drank a Dr. Pepper 10.

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The first in a fun line-up of beverages today.

After work I met up with a friend for bubble tea; strawberry green tea with both kinds of boba.

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We hung out for the rest of the evening and had a fun night.  Next was drinks at a bar in Allentown.  I enjoyed this Genesee Cream Ale more than I was expecting to.

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It was basically water, but at least it was quite refreshing.  Plus it is locally made.

Finally we headed to Seabar for a late dinner.

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I was very disappointed that they were out of the (the) lobster ramen bowl, but I rallied with three small plates.

Seaweed salad.

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Pickle cucumber salad over sushi rice.

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Udon noodle bowl served with tempura shrimp.

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All three were quite tasty but the cucumber salad was my favorite.

I brushed my teeth the minute I got home and now I’m actually blogging from the bed!  Sweet dreams!

Charleston, Day 1 And 2

Hello from the South!  I’m blogging in a spring-ish 50-something degrees (it’s better than Buffalo!).  Actually, I’m blogging from Adam’s computer this trip, so I’ve got to keep things quick.  We are having a terrific, delicious time.

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Breakfast day 1 – brunch at the famous Hominy Grill.

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I got a(n extra spicy) bloody mary.

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And a bowl of she crab soup.

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Charleston is famous for its she crab soup; this bowl was super creamy and loaded with pieces of crab.  I adore anything with sherry.

We ordered a piece of buttermilk pie for the table.

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But it was much drier and less custard-y than we were hoping so we all just took a small taste.

It was a rainy first day so we did lots of inside and driving activities.  We got in some good sight-seeing and scoped out a few spots to hit up during the rest of our trip.

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One of our stops was Whole Foods for stocking up on goodies.  <– chocolate coconut butter packets, it’s good to have you back in my life!

There was froyo next door.

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I didn’t really love any of the flavor offerings so I got a small cup of cheesecake yogurt with tons of popping boba.

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Can’t go wrong with boba.

We went to Hyman’s Seafood for dinner and they brought us complimentary hush puppies.

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Best hush puppies ever; they had the perfect amount of sweetness.

We also started with fried pickles.

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Lots of fried food in that dinner.  I got french fries as my side,

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with steamed shrimp.

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Every component of my meal ended up smothered in tartar and cocktail sauce.  I’m a girl who loves her condiments.

I was exhausted by the end of the day and crashed into bed hard.  Let’s pretend it was the 20 minute stationary bike ride I started the day with, and not the heavy dinner!

Day 2 we skipped the gym and slept in.  Instead I made it a healthy morning by starting my day with an apple.

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Then we headed to Bakehouse for breakfast.

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The offerings were as delicious as the space was adorable.  The cookies and bars looks amazing but the closest we came to them was splitting a caramel marshmallow.

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I also did a toasted marshmallow cappuccino.

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Adam and I shared breakfast.

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We had a mixed berry scone.

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And a piece of Greek turkey strata.

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It was a great breakfast.

We spent our second day exploring on foot.  King Street and Meeting Street provided lots to look at.

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We even got to see dolphins!

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I couldn’t get a picture to save my life, but we saw lots of waving flippers and even a mama/baby combo.

Tastes from the day included…. Praline,

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a drop of the spiciest hot sauce available (I stuck a toothpick in it and touched it to my tongue; I honestly didn’t think it was that hot!),

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honey,

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an Earl Grey macaron (<– squeeee!),

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a KIND bar,

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and some watermelon Zots from one of the many old-time candy stores.

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All good, but I am definitely a lunch eater; when we got back to the hotel to change for dinner I was starving.  Enter the perfect snack –

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Diet coke and Cacao Bliss?  Yes please!

But I sure was glad I saved room for dinner.  We had an incredible Southern meal at Magnolias.

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Bread with ridiculous cream cheese herb butter came when we sat down.

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And we ordered a pimento cheese plate to start.

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Sadly, the cheese wasn’t quite as sharp as I was hoping for, but everyone else at the table loved it.  Pimento cheese was at the top of my to-do list for the Southern vacation though, so I hope to try again tomorrow.

I ordered a Bellini to drink (champagne/peach nectar/and a touch of grenadine),

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but ended up swapping with Adam halfway through for his vodka/creme de cassis/pineapple juice martini.

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For dinner I went with the “Fresh, Local, and Vegetarian.”  You can’t go wrong with a name like that!

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Sautéed spinach, fresh corn salad, roasted carrots, fried green tomatoes with jalopeño pimento cheese, and mashed potatoes.

We were too stuffed for dessert, though the menu listed a cream cheese pecan brownie with white chocolate ice cream that I’ll probably be dreaming about!

In fact, I’d like to be dreaming now; goodnight!

Have you ever been to Charleston?  Is there anything we just can’t miss on our last day?

And We’re Off!

Today was officially my first day off (from both school and work) since January 20th!  42 days straight!!!  I didn’t even work full shifts for most of those days but it was still nice to have 24 hours all to myself for a change.

We didn’t do anything all that exciting with our newfound free-time but it still felt pretty damn nice.  We did a major grocery trip, started watching Battlestar Galactica (please tell me that the episodes are faster paced than the movie?!), and Adam currently has the guys over for poker.

Breakfast was a bowl of peanut butter and bananas, squared.

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2% Banana Chobani Greek Yogurt topped with a sliced banana, 1 tsp of melted peanut butter and 1 crumbled Cascadian Farm Crunchy Peanut Butter Granola Bar.

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So flipping good.

Lunch was even better.

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I took enough Pho home last night for Adam and I to both have lunch with the leftovers.  I beefed mine up with some roasted broccoli and a soft-boiled egg.  Plus more Sriracha, of course.

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The entire bowl was delicious and the egg yolk melting into the broth was so amazing that it almost made me cry.

For dessert we shared this plate of samples.

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Oh Nuts! offered to send me their Passover Cake & Cookie Sampler and I happily accepted.

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Neither of us liked the brownie piece (too dry) but we thought that the jam in the sandwich cookie and raspberry jelly roll was nice.  By the by, everything was gluten-free and kosher.

I also had an Adora calcium disk.

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I am going to try to remember to take one every day for the next while, but I probably won’t blog about it again.

Dinner ended up being a (giant!) container of hot bar.

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A little bit of mac and cheese and brussels sprouts and a bunch of chicken.  Apparently I was in the mood for protein.

I made the poker players some Mac and Three Cheese Cups but they were gone before I could snag one.  That’s a good sign!

What’s your longest run without a day off?

(Pho)ning It In

I regularly drop off the face of the blogging planet and I haven’t even started my next rotation yet!  It’s rumored to be time-consuming and exhausting, but I’m sure that won’t keep me from hitting my 30-days goal this time.  I mean, I made it an entire day the last round!

You missed – bubble tea with a friend, Adam and I splitting an entire bag of chips and dip for dinner, and other stuff that can’t have been that exciting because I honestly can’t remember any other food item from the past two days.

Also, the end of my purple hair.

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I had to get rid of the streaks before my next rotation so I’m back to brown, albeit a darker, redder brown.  I’ll try to get a picture in good light this weekend.

Today was the end of my winter break make-up and an on-campus meeting before we switch placements (I’ve got five weeks of clinical rotation in a local hospital coming up on Monday).  Coffee was needed.

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I earned a free coffee with a book store punch card so I went big (literally!) with a venti non-fat half-pumps toffee nut latte.  Note – I drank my giant coffee and a diet pop in lieu of water all day and I totally paid the price this afternoon.

I was running late this morning – we ran out of water in the middle of my shower!!! – and I packed a fairly ridiculous trio of foods for my breakfast/lunch.  A green pear.

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A Honeycrisp apple.

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And a package of Annie Chun’s Brown Sugar and Sea Salt Roasted Seaweed.

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I wasn’t exactly full, but at least it all tasted good.

Our meeting got out a smidge early and three friends and I made it over to the mall for some high school-style fun.  We wandered, window shopped, and got froyo.

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A little plain tart with tons of popping boba for me!

Unfortunately, my dehydration kicked in during the fun and I ended up getting hit with a bad migraine.  {Sorry to be such a downer guys!}  I made it home just in time to throw up in my own bathroom; always a plus.  Then I took medicine, and a nap, and managed to feel much better in an hour or so.

My boys joined me for the nap and this scene occurred –

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They are too cute.

Once I rallied, Adam and I headed out for a fun dinner.

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Red Pepper might be my new favorite restaurant.  They gave us free tea and fried wontons,

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and served me the best bowl of vegetarian Pho I’ve ever had.

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Adam and I both thought that the broth was swoon-worthy.

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I took the 2nd half of my trough home with me and we are quite excited for leftovers tomorrow.

‘Night!

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?

David Boreanaz Is A Hottie

I am really trying to stick to my daily blogging goal, BUT I am tired and cranky.  I guess it is serendipitous that I didn’t eat much today and thus can keep this quick.  I shouldn’t have gone to bed so late last night, but we had a new “Bones” to watch!  Hodgins and Booth were both really flipping hot in the last episode.  When David Boreanaz’ character made a certain face after he took a certain shot (I don’t want to spoil it for any readers who haven’t watched yet) I was basically fanning myself!

To be fair, I’ve been tired and cranky since the moment the day begin.  After Adam and I finished hanging out I stayed up past midnight last night doing absolutely nothing).  And I didn’t pack lunch.  Thanks to those bad choices, I headed to the hospital today without breakfast of lunch.

Breakfast I had to skip, but I did find lunch in the cafeteria.

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Pickens were slim, but I came up with a small bowl of chicken gumbo.

When I got home, I made myself this frozen meal.

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Not my favorite, though to be fair, the sauce exploded all over my microwave so maybe I didn’t get the full effect.  It was way too rice \-heavy; even in my hungry state I still left some on my plate.

I also snagged three caramels from a box my parents sent.

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[Mom – yum!  What were those?  Homemade?]

I would have scrounged for more food, but I had evening plans with a friend.  We went to a $3 showing of Vedgucated.  While we both agreed with a lot of the ideals, neither of us were fans of the movie.  The science was really weak.

When I got home I ate a minneola.

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And then I wrote this post.

And that’s all she wrote!

P.S. I also packed lunch.  And I’m planning on going to bed as soon as I get a quick shower.  Tomorrow’s forecast is looking much less cranky.

P.P.S.  Confession: I did also find time this afternoon to watch the last ever episode of Private Practice.

P.P.S.S.  Confession:  I cried.

Have you seen Vedguated yet?  Thoughts?