I’m blogging a two-day recap from a blanket nest with a killer migraine, so please excuse any typos. I was hoping to be back on a “normal” blog schedule by now, but I’m not sure that’ll ever happen this semester!
Going back to yesterday… Wonder of wonders, I made it to the gym! 20 minutes on the elliptical; random level 6. The machine was out of water so I drank a fruit punch g2 while I worked.
It was embarrassing to have so much fuel for such a short workout but I ended up being very thankful that I had it. I guzzled most of it during my workout, then refilled the bottle with water and drank all of that on the drive home. I guess I came back from Philly a little dehydrated.
From my trip to the gym, I came back short on time. Thank goodness Adam had the day off yesterday; he drove me to school and packed my breakfast. FNCE expo samples were heavily featured. An iced coffee with skim milk.
A mini apple pie Larabar.
An apple it its true form.
And a serving of Cheddar Cheese Beanitos.
I was a big fan of the (pinto bean and flax-seed) chips. They were nice and crunchy with just a touch of spice.
I’m also a big fan of things working out in the lab. Look at what I made in Microbiology – spread plates and pour plates!
Adam’s undergrad degree was in Microbiology Immunology and sometimes it is downright embarrassing to show him my class-work!
I had several to-do’s after lab, but I made it home in time to make dinner before work. My mid-day meal was pretty lame. 2 small corn tortillas microwaved with ~1/4 cup shredded cheese.
Plus a 2% Fage with Peach.
And the last two Buttered Rum Raisin Cookies from the batch I brought my friend.
We are getting in all of our Christmas stock now and work was more like a workout; I carried boxes up and down the stairs for my most my shift. I was very glad to have dinner already finished when I got home.
Green Tuna Enchiladas; serves 4-6
Dinner did not fill me up like I was hoping. I ate a huge spoonful of Skippy Natural Super Chunk with Honey; aka the very best peanut butter ever.
And I had dessert. I am working on a hot chocolate recipe so I’m not going to share the ingredients now, but I will tell you that this batch included a serving of Caramel Apple Milky Ways for funsies.
It was ridiculous good. Ridiculous.
Moving on to Tuesday… Today had a productive start but has steadily gone downhill. I had a difficult time getting out of my warm bed and ended up eating breakfast on the walk from my car to the hospital. A Sweet Tango apple,
and a Full Moon Brownie Z-Bar, which I actually hated.
I couldn’t put my finger on what the problem was specifically, but the taste of the bar was not good to me.
Today was my busiest day at clinic yet. I had a patient on my own in the morning, then worked on another in a group later in the afternoon. We had our first practice with tube-feeds today and it was both fascinating and frustrating. We’ve learned a lot in school but it’s all been in isolation; in the real world conditions overlap. For example*, you might have a patient in End Stage Renal Disease that has increased protein needs for wound healing and is also a Diabetic. *just an example, this wasn’t a specific patient that we worked with today
Also, my friend Janessa and I offered to turn-key some of what we learned at FNCE, so we did a short presentation on ketogenic diets for epilepsy. The group had to stay late so that we could present and I love them all for still being interested in what we had to say.
I ate a late lunch during my afternoon errands. Vegan pecan cornbread stuffing from the co-op.
Buffalo peeps – run to the co-op to get some of this stuffing, it had the perfect blend of flavors and textures.
Then hot bar at Wegman’s while I ran through my notes before shopping.
I did three types of vegetable stir-fry.
I am glad that I got in veggies and time studying, because both were in short supply when I got home. Minutes after walking in the door, I got an immense migraine. It came on much more quickly than they usually do and made me unbelievably nauseous.
Adam brought home pizza for dinner and I ate a big plate once I was able to get out of bed.
Now I have to go try to study for tomorrow’s giant exam. <– so screwed
What is your favorite store-bought peanut butter?
Crazy-cakes is one of my favorite expressions and for the post title I’m using it both figuratively and literally. It is crazy stupid that I’m blogging at 1:30 a.m. on a Sunday. Things have been crazy busy and the next two weeks are only going to get crazier. Finally, I fulfilled a birthday list goal and made a crazy good cake.
The past few days have been crazy on the healthy living front but I want to blog them because I don’t live a healthy living blog, I live my life. And in my life 90% of what I’ve consumed in the past week has been pizza. I’ve decided that attempting to work out over the next week would actually be unhealthy because I’m already getting so little sleep (my planner is workout-free until October 10th). I’m super stressed and not doing the best job of balancing school work with too many hours at my job. But again, this is my life.
As I prewrote these posts in my head I had a lot to say, but now that it’s been 4 days since I last blogged I think we shall go WIAW-style for the recaps. Note – there is no recap from Thursday because I took the day off from everything, took no pictures, caught up on “Awkward” and “Covert Affairs,” and ate pizza and Chinese food for dinner. It was both necessary and delightful.
Breakfast on the walk to school. Zico Chocolate Coconut Water.
Muller Blueberry Bliss Frut Up.
China Breakfast Tea with skim milk and a pb-chocolate magic straw while at work.
A See’s candy that my bosses brought us back from their trip to California. (I had never tried See’s before and now I am a fast fan; soooo creamy!)
A caramel apple non-fat latte as I geared up for a late night. (Cafe Aroma, Buffalo peeps.)
Wegman’s frozen cheese pizza and a sad salad of romaine and 1000 island dressing.
One of my goals for my 27th year was to bake a cake from scratch. I figured I’d only do this once, so I wanted a recipe that was delicious but didn’t call for cake flour. After much pondering and Googling, I settled on this Hummingbird Cake recipe from Serious Eats.
If you’ve never had Hummingbird Cake before (I hadn’t!), it is a yellow cake with chopped pecans, crushed pineapple, and mashed banana in the batter that is frosted with cream cheese icing. This combination of ingredients ends up being amazing.
I made the following changes to the recipe and they all worked out –
I baked the three cakes when I got home from work on Friday night. This activity, of course, included a sprint to purchase more eggs at the co-op 10 minutes before it closed.
Then Saturday morning I layered and frosted helped Adam frost the cake.
His surgeon’s hands came in very handy.
It ended up being a big success!
I brought the cake to book club and it got two-thumbs up all around. If I ever have to make another cake in the future I will definitely think of hummingbirds.
Both of my book club offers were pineapple-based, because I also made my Tropical Fruit White Sangria.
This batch was made with –
Eaten before my 10 am shift at work because I had been up since 5:00 frosting and studying. Leftover bbq chicken pizza and sliced apple.
Popcorn with Smart Balance Light.
A Zevia Cola at work.
A pizza bagel on my break. (The Spot uses the very best tasting marinara sauce; it is super zesty.)
My friend picked me up from work and I immediately guzzled two giant glasses of sangria instead of helping her set up.
Book club food, a slice of cheese quesadilla with guacamole and mango salsa, plus two toasts with shrimp dip.
A slice of cake.
Drunkenly eaten at midnight, my 3rd serving of pizza for the day and carrots with french onion yogurt dip.
Homemade cole slaw.
A slice of cake.
A See’s candy at work.
Dinner while grocery shopping. Sweet and sour chicken plus wok-seared veggies. (This was randomly really tasty and the best hot bar meal I’ve had in a while.)
A medium, non-fat (no whipped cream) Apple Steamer during our class study-session at The Spot.
Baby carrots and french onion yogurt dip while I wrote this post.
Don’t you think that the dog sort of likes like Oprah when he sits with his arms crossed like this?
So I did, in fact, sleep through yoga. I suck. I have two weeks until school and then I’ve got class at 8 am five days a week so I need to seriously work on my getting out of bed skills!
Breakfast was a big pink smoothie.
Into the blender went 1.5 cups Silk Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk, a heaping 1/2 cup frozen strawberries, a heaping Tbsp pb, and 2 scoops of Tera’s Whey Organic Bourbon Vanilla Whey Protein Powder.
My smoothie tasted like a vanilla pb & j!
I also had 2 oz of the wasabi snack mix my parents brought.
I spent what was left of my late morning cooking dinner. This quart of heirloom tomatoes played a big role.
I also finally used this Kelapo Coconut Oil sample that I got last summer at HLS.
And tri-color quinoa from last summer’s trip to Trader Joes.
The dog is afraid of the oven and this meal kept the oven and stove-top on for a solid hour and scared him deep into the back of the closet.
What a scaredy cat dog!
The end result was worth it.
Here are the general specs if you want to recreate it, for 4 servings –
The photos are actually of Adam’s bowl since my dinner looked like this –
I ate to-go because the husband picked me up from work and we walked straight to Shakespeare in Delaware Park.
We only caught half of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (I got out of work late and Adam has a strict bedtime) but we enjoyed what we saw.
We shared these cola gummis for dessert while we watched.
Buffalonians, have you seen any Shakespeare in the park this summer?
Please note – if you were my dog you would read that title as “chick-ON chick-ON,” since that is what we say whenever we feed him chicken.
Not a lot has gone down in the two days since I left Ohio, but there were a few highlights. I did get to eat lots of chips and several large diet sodas.
Our drive back to Buffalo and my parents’ flight home went off without a hitch.
My dad drove the whole way home for me and I finished knitting my scarf!!!
The fine people at Honest Tea noticed that I can’t help but buy a beverage whenever I walk past the co-op and sent me a few new flavors to try.
I got a new retainer, hopefully my last new retainer ever. *fingers crossed*
We had to take the dog to the vet to get a cyst on his tail lanced and it was the grossest/coolest thing ever.
Poor baby!
The vet trip actually happened today and it’s a good thing that went well because it was pretty much all I accomplished today. I didn’t get much sleep at my grandma’s house (I was on the couch and there was cable) and I stayed up too late again last night and crashed hard today.
I did manage a good, late breakfast.
Oh, Green Monster, I love you so. My original recipe is still my favorite. 1 frozen banana + 1 cup frozen spinach + 1 cup oj.
So green good.
I also ate half (aka 1 serving) of this Honey Noosa Yoghurt.
I got lunch from the hot bar while I was grocery shopping (hey, that’s an accomplishment!).
Two types of chicken,
plus roasted veggies.
I tried to get a skinny caramel macchiato as an afternoon snack but I ended up throwing it out after a few sips.
This drink was one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever tasted. It was super sour, but like there was something wrong with the coffee, not the milk. And I used part of a birthday gift card so it was extra sad.
Dinner was more chick-ON.
Baby carrots,
honey mustard for dipping (Ken’s Lite and it was very good, if you’re wondering),
and two servings of Wegman’s chicken nuggets.
I’ve been wanting nuggets for days and these hit the spot.
Tomorrow’s plans include not sleeping through yoga, medicating the dog, a shift at work, and a fun nighttime event with the husband.
What is your favorite sauce for nugget dipping?
…all over the place! Figuratively speaking. I don’t know where my head is but my meals have been less than impressive; lots of junk food, not a lot of veggies, and I keep forgetting to eat breakfast. Adam was preparing for an important exam and between that, getting used to working, and obsessing over some new books, I’ve felt a little crazy. It is what it is.
This was a no breakfast day. And I didn’t manage to pack lunch before work either. I ended up grabbing a mix of co-op salad bar.
Cucumber salad, farro salad, vegan pasta salad, and a few dolmas.
Plus a Sweet Leaf Sweet Tea.
When I got home I had chip and dip leftovers.
Plain low-fat yogurt with banana slices and a drizzle of sweetened condensed milk.
And a giant bowl of frosted flakes with skim milk.
I guess I didn’t have it together for dinner either.
I ate breakfast! Cottage cheese stirred into a Liberte Coconut Yogurt.
But I packed the stupidest lunch of all time.
A Plum Kids Strawberry Lemonade Yogurt Mashup,
and a Fiber One cookie.
Supplemented with an iced Earl Grey with skim milk.
And the last of my chips and dip when I got home.
Saturday morning Adam took the biggest, 8+ hour, most important exam he’ll take in his entire life (seriously, he’s done nothing but study the past month) so we went out for a celebratory dinner with another couple that night.
I made a small plate from the communal cheese board.
And drank a (giant?!) glass of riesling.
For dinner I ordered the pesto spatzle.
I loved the idea of the innovative pesto (romaine! pistachio! mint!) but sadly didn’t enjoy the execution. You know that I can throw down with some heavy food but this dish was missing some desperately needed acid to cut through the richness. I ate a few bites and figured that my chip appetizer would keep me from starving 😉
I started my morning with Harvest Bay Coconut Water,
and chicken salad.
Plus a shake shared with the husband.
(Thank you birthday freebie coupons!)
Mid-day I headed to yoga. 60 minute hot yoga class. Love love loved it. This was definitely the high point of the last few days.
Then we had more ice cream; I can’t resist the allure of birthday freebies.
That’s a kid’s size vanilla frozen yogurt with reeses pb cup and cookie dough.
Veggies, chicken, and macaroni were consumed on a shopping trip.
Plus a mug of cocoa at home.
It was delicious but unnecessary. As I wrote up this recap I was fairly disgusted by the amount of sugar (and chips!) I ate over the past three days.
Around 7:00 we hunkered down in the kitchen for a mega cooking session. Three dishes were on the agenda – tonight’s dinner, tomorrow’s dinner, and tuna casserole to freeze for Adam for the week I’m in Ohio. Two out of three worked out. After spending a lot of time making Janetha’s cauliflower crust pizza I covered it in marinara that turned out to be covered in mold.
Uggggh! Adam threw out our dinner and I threw a fit on the floor. I took a giant bite of marinara sauce before I spotted the mold so a lot of histrionic gagging went down.
Then a bunch of other shit happened and many hours later I ate nachos for dinner.
The end.
I hate #yolo. Every time I see those four letters my brain screams “do you mean ‘carpe diem,’ asshat?” And you say it when you are doing something dumb. People who get “carpe diem” tattoos usually do so with purpose and intend to live with purpose. When people post “YOLO” facebook status updates it generally means they’re an idiot. Also, this is the funniest thing ever –
Ok, rant’s over, I promise. I actually had a really good day 🙂
I got to go to yoga! Adam bought me a 2-month unlimited hot yoga Groupon for Valentine’s Day and I’m finally cashing in. My goal (my intention) is to go three times a week for the next two months, minus the week I’m in Ohio with my parents. Today I did a 75 minute flow class. I’ve never tried flow before, and I wasn’t very good, but I loved it.
“I had to run errands at school after yoga so I decided to make it a cardio day as well” …I breezily say as if I work out all of the time! I did today though. 40 minutes on the stationary bike at level 10 random.
On my walk to school between yoga and the gym I refueled with a Vanilla Stinger Waffle.
Oh my goodness was it good! I thought it was going to be some sort of chew and it ended up being a cookie!
And I did feel great during my 2nd workout. I totally bought more of these at the store today.
When I got home I made this strange but genius drink.
1 cup of cold (double bagged) red velvet cake tea with 1 cup of fat-free chocolate milk. Adam and I both were big fans of this combo.
I did a couple of errands at school and I kept the productivity going all afternoon. My most exciting to-done was signing up for malpractice insurance. We are going to have our very own patients this year so we need to cover ourselves legally. Thankfully student insurance is pretty cheap and it is fun to start to feel official.
My final errand was grocery shopping. I got lunch from Wegman’s hot bar.
A jalapeño popper and a bit of macaroni,
and veggies.
We haven’t gotten hot bar in a while and sadly this didn’t thrill me the way it used it.
Along with the essentials, I bought a box of Fiber One Chocolate Chip Cookies on sale.
Super meh, but they were very cheap so I’m glad I tried. The texture was way to cakey. They will be good for throwing into my purse before work or class, but I’m pretty sure I won’t be buying more when I finish the six that came with this box.
I also bought chips at the store.
Buffalo and blue cheese ruffled chips. I took one bite and knew that they were going to be dinner. So I pushed back our planned meal and bought some dip.
Too much fun. Adam randomly ate a ton of food at 5 pm so he didn’t need dinner anyway.
I did try to feel healthy by eating two plums for dessert though.
And I probably won’t do leftovers for dinner tomorrow!
What are your thoughts on #yolo?
The last three days have been great. Summer school is over! I’m a senior! (again!) We went to Ohio! Yep, I wasn’t blogging because the summer of weekend fun has officially begun. Let’s back up to Friday morning first.
I stayed up late on Thursday (Adam was studying and I was doing nothing) so waking up was rough. Somehow I did manage to get out of bed and make it to the gym. And then I did strength training! I walked on the treadmill for 7 minutes to warm up and then spent 30 minutes rotating though a cycle of strength machines plus stretch moves on the mat.
Since I actually did weights work it seemed like the perfect time for the Honey Core Power protein drink I bought on sale.
It was fine, not great, but 26 grams of protein in a few minutes is nothing to sneeze at.
To celebrate our last day, our teacher brought in garden chili.
I had a bowl topped with cheddar,
and another glass of lemon sweet tea.
When the day was over a few friends and I celebrated on our own. First we grabbed the dog,
and then we walked to Dolci,
for bourbon cinnamon gelato.
Eeeeee, this tasted so good! The cinnamon was pretty subdued and it had the best texture, almost airy.
Then Adam and I were in the car for weekend #1 of summer fun.
I packed us leftovers for dinner.
Buffalo Chicken Baked Pasta.
We both agreed that this dish is one of best things I make.
Saturday morning I managed to sleep until 11:30 …on the living room floor …while people screamed at the top of their lungs playing Battleship! Tired much?
For lunch I did my best to pick and choose a meal from McDonald’s.
Two packs of apple slices,
and a fruit and yogurt parfait.
Plus a (mini) S’more Monster Cookie for dessert.
I thing I like these cookies even better when they are regular sized.
We spent the afternoon at our niece’s dance recital. There were kids of all ages, including a class of three-year olds twirling around in giant tutus. And now my ovaries hurt!
Dinner was re-dic-u-lous.
Salad with honey mustard dressing.
French fries. With butter for the …
Crab legs!
All you could eat. Apparently I could eat five clusters. And then I was very, very full.
Though not too full for candy at the movies a few hours later.
We saw Prometheus and I do not recommend it. The “Alien” nerds on all of the forums were right, the characters are dumb and I didn’t care what happened to them.
The parents made us all breakfast this morning before we had to hit the road. I had a glass of skim milk,
and a pancake (with butter and syrup) and fresh fruit.
The opposite of fresh, Adam and I snacked on this cookies and cream Chex Mix on the road.
I ate ~2 serving’s worth.
We had to stop at the mall on the way home to get the husband new sandals so we got froyo too.
I got a tiny bit of tart yogurt with tons of fruit and popping boba.
We we’ve been home about an hour and I’ve already eaten two of the Hawaiian rolls that Adam brought home.
Clearly it’s time to rustle up dinner! See ya tomorrow.
Eating Chalk 