No Labor Day

Arrgh, I feel like a zombie!  I didn’t even get to go to volunteering today 😦  I didn’t get in bed on time, which is my fault, but I also realized last night that our pillows are partially contributing to the laying awake for hours issue.  I looked at the clock at 4:56 last night and was still awake!  Needless to say, I didn’t get up to study, but when I did get up for volunteering I had such a bad migraine that I called in and went back to bed.  I feel really guilty not going in, but I would have been pretty useless.

Once I did get up, breakfast was an adventure.  I wanted to use this awesome looking egg-cooker my grandmother got me for my wedding shower.

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The plan was poached eggs.  The name of the product is “Henrietta Hen,” but 4 eggs in the trash later I was referring to Henrietta as more of a female dog than a bird!

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I think the cooker will work great for hard/soft boiled eggs, but poached will have to be gotten from restaurants.  My last ditch, 3rd effort at lunch ended up pretty big.

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Tuna salad sandwich on a hamburger bun,

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with the leftover salad in the bowl it was mixed in.  I used –

  • 1can tuna, rinsed and drained
  • 1.5T Miracle Whip
  • 2T + pickle relish
  • 1 chopped celery stalk
  • healthy shake paprika

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I also had a bowl of chopped pineapple and plumcot (a plum/apricot hybrid that rocked my socks).

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Adam and I have been cuddling and watching Bones and I ate two sugar cookies.

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MK sent these home with us from the bbq and they are pretty good, very soft (it’s possible that in between round 1 and 2 of the egg making I snatched one of these without photographing!).

Once Adam and I get sick of each other (just kidding!) I’m going to do some school work.  See you for dinner.

Did you get the day off for Labor Day?  Have any big plans?

Sunday Joes

This afternoon Adam I decided that ice-cream was in order so we headed off in search.  We found a local spot on Elmwood that had Cioa Bella gelato, so you know I was all over that.

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I had a small cup of key lime pie, yums!  I said at least 4x whilst eating how good it was.  The store was super-cute, I’m glad we found it.

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On his way home, Adam dropped me off at The Spot to do some studying.  I ate lunch #2 while I was there.

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Iced Americano with skim milk (they call it “skinny moo” on the dispenser which makes me smile),

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and a whole wheat black bean and cheese quesadilla.

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I liked the ww tortillas and the insides included some sort of spicy tomato so it ended up being pretty great.  I ate all of the salad, none of the toppings, and half of the quesadilla.

I studied from 2:45 – 5:15, so I ended up also getting an iced tea.

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Cinnamon Plum, might be my new favorite!

Once I got home I continued my Chemistry organization. 

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I already created a GoogleCalendar, but now that I have this todoist  list of due dates I feel fully ready.  When I was in undergrad I wasn’t aware of these online organization applications, but now I am planning on taking full advantage of them.  Seeing everything in black and white in front of me is the only way for me to truly feel comfortable.

Work finished, we got started on dinner.  I did a Rachael Ray recipe, from “The Big Orange Book,” Hot Wing Sloppy Joes.

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Apparently 30minutes only applies if your stove isn’t half broken!!! 😦  It was still good though.

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On the side I got to cook my new original eggplants!

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These white ones seemed so odd to me, but they are the original item, and the reason why the veggie is called an eggplant.  I sliced, sprayed with evoo, sprinkled with nutmeg and chili powder, and roasted them for 30minutes at 450*.

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And since I ate a bun for brunch I ate my ‘joes with a serving of Scoops tortilla chips.

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Delish.

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We drove to Target to pick up a few supplies for Adam, and now we are finishing up a Bones episode.  My goal is bedtime before 11 because I am hope hope hoping I actually get up early to study.  I have volunteering in the middle of the day tomorrow and if I don’t study first I feel like I’ll run out of time.  G’night.

Do you like sloppy joes?  One time when I was a kid, before I stopped eating red meat, I tasted them and fell in love!  My mom makes them pretty well with turkey meat and Rachael Ray has several ‘joe adaptation recipes that I’m excited about.

When In Rome

My fabulous day continued to be great!  We were kept busy with lots of (foodie) fun.  Our first stop was the Buffalo Wings Festival.

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I don’t actually love wings (I get a little skeeved out so I leave a ton of meat on the bones), but I adore Buffalo sauce so I end up eating them fairly often.  The festival today was set up for tasting, using food tickets you got 3wings for $2 from several different tents.  Adam and I tasted from 2 locations.

First was Hurricane Grill & Wing (West Palm Beach, FL), I tried Gold Rush, which was basically hot sauce.

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Yummy!  Adam had salt and vinegar wings there that he adored.

Then we split some Barefoot White Zinfindel.

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And finally we hit up Arooga’s Grille House & Sports Bar (Harrisburg, PA), where I got 1 Buffalo Blue wing and 2 Instant Death.

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Buffalo Blue was the best fricking thing ever, Adam got it too and we were in love.  I was a little worried about Instant Death, here’s my apprehensive face –

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And the wings?  Were deathly!  It wasn’t just spicy, it had a great flavor, but man was it spicy!  I only ate one of the two and then sweat was pouring down my face.  I made a run for the blue cheese table to cool down.

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Drinks were $3.50 so I toughed it out and waited until we got to Wegmans to get a diet coke.  We did our grocery shopping quickly because we had to hurry home to shower to make it to our next event in time.

A med. school friend was having a BBQ!  Several couples who I really enjoy were there and we had a great time.  We talked and played games and ate some good food.  I had a small plate – pasta salad, raw veggies, chips with bean dip, grilled chicken.

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And I had two Black Cherry Cruzan Rum and Cokes.

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Plus a small Oreo bite,

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and a jello shot!

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On the way home I ate two bites of Adam’s brownie (Mary-Kate sent him home with a baggie of them and she’s his new best friend) before I realized that I hate brownies and I was actually hungry.  I made Adam pull into Wendy’s so I could get a broccoli and cheese baked potato.

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Which I ate about 4bites of before I promptly dropped it – sticky side down – on the rug.

Adam saved the day and cleaned it up, and even shared some of his fancy chicken nuggets with me.

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I ate 5, along with some homemade honey mustard.

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And now we are watching “My So-Called Life” and cuddling, peace!

What food is your town famous for?  I’m pretty thrilled to be in the birthplace of Buffalo wings.

back 2 skool, yayz!

School has officially started!  There was something very satisfying about being a student today and not a teacher like the last two years.  Of course I’m sad that I can only take one course this semester, but I’m very happy to start chipping away at my long list of prerequisite requirements; I’m on my way!

I woke up around 7:30 today when Adam left for school and got to work creating my half marathon training schedule.  Then I had to actually implement it – I did 2miles on the treadmilll.  With warm up/cool down it was ultimately 2.3miles in 24minutes.  Afterwards I did abs (100reps) and stretching, bringing my total to 34minutes, 330calories.

I got a little behind schedule, so after a shower I had to rush to my hospital volunteering shift.  I’ll be doing 10-2 every Monday.  I walked to the bank on my way home, and at 2:40 I had yet to eat anything for the day.  I knew my first meal had to be something special.

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I hated the flavor, but liked the texture of this PB Gnu Bar, so I knew it was the perfect way to add fiber to this bowl.

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  • Oikos Fat Free Plain Greek Yogurt
  • 1.5t Crofter’s Organic Superfruit Asia Spread
  • 1.5t TJ’s Sunbutter
  • Peanut Butter Gnu Bar

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The only problem now is that I want to eat this for every meal for the rest of my life!  The mix of sunbutter and greek yogurt truly might be the best thing on earth!

While I drooled over my bowl I got myself ready for the new school year – I printed out all the online materials, organized them and my Chemistry for Dummiesnotes into a binder, and made a google calendar of important assignment dates.  I finished up my work with a small plate of crackers and the last of the homemade french onion dip.

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Adam was a sweetheart and drove me to my first class.  Mondays and Wednesdays class will be from 6:30-7:50, and on Thursday it’s 5:00-8:50.  The class seems ok so far, but I know it will be challenging for me.  The professor said that in order to achieve success most students study at least 7-10hours a week.

When we got home we took a walk to the post office and stopped at the gas station because my hormones have made me very angry that there’s been no candy in the house.  I stalked up and Adam bought an ice-cream Snickers.

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He must be the nicest bear in the world, because he gave me a big bite!

For dinner I did leftovers and a quick salad.

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I prefer noodles cold so I ate my portion straight from the container.  Note: I also ate 4big bites before I could manage to take a picture.

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My salad was organic spring mix lettuce, Newman’s Own Asian Sesame Salad Spritzer, Newman’s Own Organic Dried Apples, and chunks of leftover party cheese.

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To drink I had my plain Ooba sample.

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We watched Bones while I ate and for dessert I tucked into my new candy stash – Sprees.

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I realize this isn’t exactly a health food, but I do love that a whole package has less than 200calories.

Now it is a late late bedtime, clearly I have to skip tv time on class nights!  See you in the am.

Did you ever take chemistry?  How did you do?  I was a 4.0 student in high school until I took chemistry, so I am understandably a little freaked out!

Last Day of Summer

Tomorrow I start class (and half marathon training) so this is technically the last day of summer.  It was a good end, very relaxing.

This afternoon Adam made a big bowl of Purely Decadent Nondairy Frozen Dessert Peanut Butter Zig Zag and I ate his melties.

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So tasty.  I love the melted part on ice-cream, especially Frostys, which I happened to also have!

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We did a test-drive out to my campus this afternoon so I could feel comfortable tomorrow.  We found my parking lot, and even walked into my classroom.  On the way home I was so hungry I could barely see straight so we pulled into Wendy’s for a last summer hurrah.  We might have also watched Bones while we ate 🙂

During tv time (technically online time as we don’t have cable and only watch shows on the internet) I also ate a few pieces of my new candy.

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We saw this “milk” candy at the store and we’re too intrigued not to buy it.  It was chewy but creamy, and quite good.

For dinner I went a little more grown-up.

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That’s Shallota Flavor Spaghetti, a recipe from Rachael Ray’s Big Orange Book.

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A bug-free salad.

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The salad had organic spring mix lettuce, Newman’s Own Asian Sesame Natural Salad Mist, walnuts, caraway seed cheese, and Chili Oloves.  My mom sent me the olives from San Francisco and they added a nice kick.

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It’s 10pm now and I’m hoping to do a little reading in bed so I’ve got to get going.  I’m excited but nervous about LIFE starting tomorrow.  Sweet dreams.

Do you like Rachael Ray?  I adore watching her on tv, I think she’s so cute, but I don’t cook her recipes that often.  They take longer than 30minutes (minus), but are very creative and tasty (plus).  Plus they are easy to healthify – use less/lower fat cheese, sub in ww pasta, cut the olive oil/butter…..

Errands to Ecstasy

 I found time for a mid-day post!  We’ve been busy, but having fun.  I ❤ errand Saturday with my husband.  We got up around 8:20 and got straight to work; there’s been a lot of movement today.  After loading up the car with stuff for Goodwill (including a heavy mattress that gave me an arm work out) we headed out to our car inspection.  The car took about an hour so Adam and I walked to the post office and back while we waited.  Afterwards we dropped off our donations.  During the drive I ate this Balance Bar I found at Target yesterday for 78cents.

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Gah, too good!  I ate the cookie dough flavor and it was literally like cookie dough.  I try not to eat them that often because they have much more saturated fat (3-4g) than I prefer, but they are a really great occasional treat.  I gave Adam a bite and he fell in love too.

Next we took our coupons to Wegmans.

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I’m sure you’re all shocked that Adam insisted on salad bar again 🙂

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I knew I would eat some snacky food tonight at the party so I skipped my usual buffet philosophy (90/10 healthy food to splurges) and went all healthy.  I had Bourbon grilled chicken, Asian baked tofu, and steamed veggies (that is a small container).

We got a ton at the grocery store (I got another arm workout carrying purchases up the stairs) and then came home to do some cleaning.  I stopped to paint my toenails and figured drying time was a good time for dessert.  I don’t know if you guys remember my super sample sundae?  Forget that.  This is the new hottness –

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Purely Decadent Dairy Free Coconut and Crofter’s Asia Superfruit Spread.  Ridiculous.

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This is hands-down my favorite ice-creamand the jam addition was out of this world.  I was in ecstasy.

We have a few more to-do’s this afternoon, and then tonight people are coming over for wine/cheese.  I’ll do a recap but I’m not sure how many pictures I’ll take.  See you later for some drogging!

  1. Do you use coupons when you food shop?  I don’t comparison shop or anything like that, but I do clip coupons.  I keep them in a mini file folder, organized by category and expiration date.
  2. Do you bring your own bags to the grocery store?  I sometimes slip, but 90% of the time we bring cloth bags from home.  It’s good for the environment, and I find it way easier to carry heavy bags over my shoulder.
  3. What was your most exciting grocery purchase this week?  We got some organic, dairy free chocolate syrup with a bear on the front that I am pretty eager to open up!

Jordan Catalano

It’s been a long day and I am watching Jordan Catalano and Angela Chase decide whether or not to have sex so this will be a quickie (ha) post!

For breakfast I ate a Cliff Mojo Bar on the walk to volunteering.

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Today was my last 6hour shift, next week I do 4hours each Monday.  There was employee appreciation bbq in the cafeteria which meant not a lot of choices for me.

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I ate half of the macaroni and ate the chicken out of the bun with a fork.

When I got home it’s possible I got in a screaming match with my husband.  Just a poss ability though, it’s not like my husband is a first year med student under tons of pressure or I don’t know what to do with my life and am freaking out.  And if we did fight, we might have made up with Arby’s five-for-five and “My So-Called Life,” which is how I ended up with this –

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Jamocha shake and Diet Dr. Pepper.

Fueled by my awesome shake, I tackled tons of to-dos.  Laundry,

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meal planning/coupon organizing/list making,

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recycling our paper,

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While we were being green I drank so chocolate Amazing Grass with So Delicious Unsweetened Coconut Milk,

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and around 9 we finally broke for dinner.

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I know it looks like swamp, but Moo Shu Stoup left-overs rocked my socks.

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I stopped 80% of the way through though, so I could have a threesome (is anyone else as amused as I am by the punny sex references as I am?) with a couple whose child could rule the world.

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Purely Decadent Dairy Free Peanut Butter Zig Zag and South America Crofter’s Superfruit Spread. oh.my.god.

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The ice-cream had chunks of chocolate and peanut butter and the spread had maqui and passionfruit.  They were both samples, and they will both be purchased when I run out!

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Gah!

We are finishing up our 90’s TV marathon, sweet dreams folk.

Did you watch My So-Called Life growing up?  I really liked it as a kid but now I am obsessed!

My Achey Breaky Heart(Burn)

There was no dinner post yesterday because there was none, dinner that is.  In fact, this will be a quick-ish post because there’s been no dinner yet today either 🙂

Yesterday afternoon I picked up Adam and we went to the campus bookstore.

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I spent $292.48 on materials for one class!  I will not even discuss how angry that makes me, and instead will focus on how giddy I am over my new planner.

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While on campus we also went to the library to do some printing.  The husband got a Subway sandwich and I wanted a fountain diet coke so we got a meal with…..

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cookies!  I seriously had been telling Adam at least once a day for the past 1.5weeks how badly I was craving a cookie.  I got a chocolate chip m&m and a white chocolate macadamia and ate them both and was thrilled.  (Tina, I think you need to institute Cookie Mondays!)

Once we finally got home I grabbed a hunk of sourdough and went on a walk with Adam to the bank.

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I’m not sure if the bread was going bad or what, but I felt like I was getting acid reflux and by the time we got home I was beyond ill.  I crawled into bed at 9:30, whimpering.

This morning I slept in as late as possible, but knew I should go to volunteering.  I was late, exhausted, and nauseous, so I pulled out all the stops and got a Rockstar Juiced Energy + Guava from the back of the fridge.

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This was the ticket, I managed to hold it together through lunch!  That purple can brought back so many memories – on breaks in college I used to drink them at work back home.  I waitressed at a very busy bar (Duffy’s) with shifts that we super physical and 9+ hours long.  I loved getting a Rockstar as a reward.

For lunch, solid food seemed to be in order so I got a slice of plain pizza.

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The photo is pre-blotting.  I used 3napkins, so there was a visible difference.  Do you blot?  I don’t just blot, I rub!

After volunteering I walked to the coffee shop and got a small side salad to get in some greens.

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I studied for 2.5hours and I also had a Passionfruit Italian Soda while I worked.

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When I got home I discovered Adam had picked up a package from my parents.  Among other things my mom sent a HUGE stack of books and magazines,

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adorable notecard rings,

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and one of our favorite wedding gifts, a plate made by hand back home in St. Thomas.

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You could probably guess at my to-do’s for this evening –

  1. Fill in my new (pink) planner
  2. Feed my sourdough starter – this week I’d like to try an actual loaf of bread
  3. Eat some damn fruit
  4. Make dinner
  5. Find time to curl up with my new reading material

P.S. While I blogged I ate a Dr. Kracker Cheddar and Pumpkin Seed Crisp with onion dip.

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Do you ever get heart burn/acid reflux?  How do you deal?  I’m not a chronic sufferer, but I do get it more than most people I know.  Not from spicy foods, however.  I’ve yet to try Tums or anything but I think I probably should start.