Short Hiatus

Hello all.  As you may have noticed from the lack of posting for the past couple of weeks….I have taken a break from posting.  I still take pictures and will come back with a few of my favorites when I have a breather.  It’s the end of my last semester before graduating, so it has become very crazy.

Blogging, while I love it, is rather time consuming (at least on wordpress).  Maybe that’s because I upload the pictures directly on the blog.  Hmmm, I’ll have to look into that, but until graduation in May, I may not have time to post.  But, this blog is NOT closed, so please stay tuned.

<3

Susan

Springtime Walks

Today was a beautiful day here in South Texas.

buttercups (pic by Kim Linh Phan)

The thing is, spring doesn’t last  It was a little warm today, but the breeze was lovely.  I come from a mild climate, so I totally dig the mild weather.  Spring is definitely one of those times…why hadn’t I realized that before??

So, I apologize again for the lack of posting the past couple of weeks.  It’s winding down in the semester and I had to take time to get things done.  Technically, I should be working on my story (creative writing) rather than writing this, but sometimes you’ve gotta do one thing to help yourself move on with something else, if that makes any sense.

Let me begin with a quick recap of some the highlights of eats for the past several days (not everything, or I’d be here all day):

Starbucks Perfect Oatmeal

I got this last week after my chiropractor appointment and before a class.  It was really delicious.  I would have preferred if the guy hadn’t mixed it for me, but I know he did it to make it easier on me.  I just didn’t care for the dried fruit as much.  I needed a quick breakfast to go along with my Earl Grey Tea Latte.

the chaos that is my desk

That is my desk while I was working on some homework.  I think it was for my senior capstone class, judging from the book of poems there.  This is how my desk looked a lot last week (and the week before).  I saved myself some embarrassment and refrained from any more pictures of the disheveled mess of my apartment.  During the week I barely have enough time to get the necessary things done and out of the house, let alone keeping it spotless and so tidy that it looks like no human ever stepped foot in the place.  What do they call that look?  Lived in?  Yeah, I’ll go with that.

pure heaven from my freezer and pantry

Now, that is just as the caption says.  To be technical, it is Haagen Dazs Five vanilla ice cream with some Marantha Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter drizzled on top.  Pure heaven.  I limited myself to a couple spread out over the week.

Beef (flank steak), feta, and spinach

Delicious.  James did good by buying these lovely things.  It made for a tasty Friday dinner.

Lunch on Friday was:

Sausages!

Amazing that he kept a running theme for the day!  He had gone to the store to make a ceviche (didn’t have the fish he wanted) and was supposed to bring back my Pirate’s Booty (aka, my crack)…..he forgot the booty.  These two goodies made up for it, though.

Barely

Lunch is Served

We stopped at Sun Harvest for my Pirate’s Booty and some other things and he got some Potato and Cheese Perogis and some asparagus that we roasted in a pan with olive oil.

I could only eat three perogi, but devoured ALL the asparagus and wished for more.  They were delicious.  I discovered that I like my asparagus tender (and the thinner, the better).

Now, I had my fair share of smoothies, random sandwiches and whatnot, but since my camera had temporarily died, I didn’t photograph a lot of them.

I did, however take one of a smoothie I made that was served in my new glass from Leave No Trace:

Green Monster

That’s a little picture of Bigfoot  Isn’t he cute?

As far as workouts go, last week and the week before had one or two days of workouts.  That is including last Tuesday when I did a short (very short) leg exercise workout in between homework assignments and reading.  It literally was only 4 moves:

• plie squats – 2 sets of 12
• hip abduction – 2 sets of 12
• squat – ONE, because my legs were DYING.
• some sort of kicks (not sure of the name) – a few at the end

Yesterday I decided in the evening to go for a walk.  I decided it would be a two miler.  Now, that may not seem like much, but I have never walked two miles on a walk before.  I didn’t have a pedometer other times, but I know it wasn’t that far.  I walked with my boyfriend, my best friend and her boyfriend.  I was dragging.  I thought I was going to die during the last leg of the walk.  My foot began to hurt about halfway through (the bones on the top of the foot – not sure what that is that is causing pain, maybe a stress fracture of some kind, though it goes away) and I was limping sometimes.

But, I finished it.  I stretched.  I showered, and then we went to dinner  I felt glorious.

Now, I need to get back to work on my writing, but I will leave you with a picture of the enormous tree that hovers over the sidewalk on the way to my front door.  I love watching it change from barren to full and ready for trimming.  Spring is here

the walkway leading to my apt - and a HUGE tree

Apologies

Many apologies for my lack of posting this past week.  I’ve been really busy with school and I opted for sleep rather than spend the time to upload pics.  Also…my camera broke.  I need to fix it to get the pics off and maybe salvage it.   I should be back to normal posting in a day or so.

Thanks for reading!

Sleepy, Sleepy, and KIND

Hello  How was your Wednesday?  Mine was pretty good considering I had less than six hours of sleep.  And total of ten hours the previous two nights.  Ick.  I am a person who needs more than seven hours of sleep and this little pattern is NOT my style.

My lack of sleep and immense amount of work I’ve had to do is insane.  My spring break ended WAY too early.  I had a HUGE project due Tuesday and took up most of my time, in addition to a ton of reading for two other classes.  I was going insane!

Luckily I don’t have class tomorrow like I normally would (many thanks to Robb and Vanessa for having a reading scheduled out of town <– two of my professors).  That means I am technically on my weekend!

Hmmm, I have a million things to do (I’ll get to that at the end of the post).  Let’s get on to the FOOOOOOD.

Short recap.  It’s been a little crazy, so things are all mixed up.  I’ll give the highlights:

Saturday morning I made a potato soup in the crockpot.

Dinner:

all chopped and heating up

dinner is served

Sunday Dinner:

We had planned on salmon croquettes but instead decided on this delicious option:

salmon burger YUM YUM

sorry little corn on the cobs

This is what my night Sunday consisted a lot of:

TEA (in my lovely handle-less mug from Starbucks) and poetics

After a lot of studying and reading I suddenly realized I was starving!

Late night study snack

Dinner yesterday:

leftover soup and some sammies

Snacks:

When I got hungry later in the evening (since I didn’t actually have a lunch – my weird sleep schedule this week has my breakfast happening at lunch time, then my lunch at dinner time….you get the picture):

Cherry Chocolate Shake

I think it had cherries, chocolate powder, some banana, some spinach, almond milk, and ice.  Yup.  Not sweet enough, but still yummy.

broccoli, hummus, and string cheese

oh, and there is cottage cheese there too  I didn’t eat all of it…it doesn’t taste the same without my nectarines  I NEED to go on a produce run BAD…

KIND bar that has quickly become my new favorite bar

New POM flavor (at least to me) - Pomegranate Kiwi. Verdict? Delicious.

Welp, that’s it for my foodie recap.  On the fitness front things have been less than successful.  I did however walk a little less than a mile today just in random walking around campus.

Things To Do:

• a TON of homework and reading
• grocery shopping
• regular house cleaning and organizing
• catch up on my blogs
• journaling!!!
• chiropractor (yay – I am SO looking forward to it)
• finish MFA in Creative Writing program writing sample

It doesn’t look like much, but it is a LOT considering that one thing takes HOURS to do….ugh.  Hope to get back on a regular blogging schedule soon.

Have a good night everyone!

My first Cherry Chocolate Bomb

Hello.  I am finally getting a chance to post  I had some issues since my last post.  First was the camera battery deciding to die.  I replaced the batteries and the new ones died too.  I was not happy.  But, it seems to be better now.  I had to take a few pics with the Crackberry and skipped a few pics, but it’s okay

I realized I had some pics on the BB that I forgot to upload.  Here are some from my grocery shopping trip (where I spent WAY too much, I thought):

the goodies in my grocery shopping cart

KIND bar (new favorite) I scarfed down once I got in the car after shopping

VERY yummy pomegranate limeade Odwalla drink that I drank on the way home

Last weekend I purchased two new awesome things – a new pedometer and a HRM watch.  The HRM is strapless for two reasons – I don’t think the strap will be comfortable being an overweight woman and chafing will annoy me.  I would have liked to get a HRM watch with a pedometer, but I didn’t have that option at my store, so I went with a pedometer in addition to the watch.  It works sideways and upright, so that’s MUCH better than my other pedometer that crapped out.  It even has a clip and a strap.  Basically I wanted something to give me my HR as well as the distance I went, but that wasn’t available.  I rolled with the two things.

Pedometer

HRM watch

One problem with the watch – it is too tight.  It also appeared to have been opened (though not a big deal since it worked), though it’d have been opened in the store by me if I’d remembered to try it on.  :(  I was in a little bit of a hurry and wanted out of the store.  *Note to self – do NOT go to sporting good store on the weekend…their parking is HORRID and the store is insanely busy*

So, even though I could get the watch on and fastened, it was too tight for comfort.  I wanted to be able to wear it loose or tight.  Also, it wasn’t that attractive.  I like blue, but really didn’t want that color of a watch.  Unfortunately, the only other watches that are for women (since the men’s are HUGE, and if I’m getting big HRM watch, I’ll get a Garmin ) are either petite (the issue with this one – oops) or are PINK.

Now, anyone that knows me will know I have a slight aversion to the color pink.  I actually don’t mind it sometimes and in small quantities.  I bought some athletic shoes with pink in them and a brown and pink skirt *gasp*…but, I wanted a different color.  BUT, I will get one if I have to.  Function is first, and honestly I am considering the Polar F6 – it’s pink, but not too bright.

Okay, now that the HRM and color debate is over, I will move on

I had my first Z bar the other day:

snack on Wednesday before we made dinner

It was pretty good.  Peanut Butter

James made his awesome stir fry for dinner on Wednesday:

YUMMY

We had the beef stir fry (beef strips, green cabbage, red and green bell pepper strips, and bean sprouts) with some Jasmine rice.  It was pretty delicious.  While we were eating, I realized that it was one of the few meat dishes we’ve had in a while.  I don’t know the last meal we had that included meat, but it seems that we only have it once or twice a week  We don’t wish to give it up, but we’d like to limit the amount of red meat we consume.  It seems that we’ve inadvertently done that

Yesterday we had a meatless burrito – it had refried pinto beans (refried bean love <3), a sprinkle of cheddar cheese, some romaine lettuce, and some homemade guacamole (which wasn’t good enough to photograph) and salsa.

bean and cheese burrito

sorry for the blurry pic

I had two – small size, but I was stuffed with my little  big bean burrito baby…

The past few days have been insane, busy, and a little stressful.  We’ve had some noise issues with a neighbor in our apartment complex (one of the reasons I am looking to get out of here) and it resulted in me getting so frustrated that I couldn’t concentrate.  It began on Wednesday night (we had to call the police it was so bad) and I was WISHING for quiet time to work, but it didn’t happen until the police showed up (11:10 pm) and the neighbor left (11:20pm).

I was still up (I keep wonky hours lately) when he came home and started the music/TV up again at 2:30 am.  Seriously, is it so difficult to keep your TV at a reasonable volume?  It is illegal to disturb your neighbors, not to mention it being against the lease terms.  Yet, though I have never had anyone complain about our TV/music volume…obviously it can be done.  Unfortunately, I seem to want silence when I work sometimes, and my neighbor can’t respect anyone around him.

Anyway (sorry for venting on here, but it influenced my stress levels, which in turn influences my health), tonight it happened again (not as loudly, but still noticeable and annoying).  Finally, I HAD to get out of the house.

Thankfully, my wonderful best friend suggested a walk.  PERFECT!  My boyfriend agreed to come along (good for him and us since it was dark outside – almost 9pm).  It felt SO good to get outside and go walking!  I didn’t take pictures because my phone was charging and my camera had died…but it was lovely.  Stretching my legs by walking was so good!

I think that the walk energized me as well as calmed my nerves (which were so raw the hour before).

After we came back to the apartment, I whipped up my version of a Cherry Chocolate Bomb Shake:

Cherry Chocolate Shake deliciousness

My shake had:

• almond milk
• spinach
• frozen cherries
• chocolate powder

It was delicious.  My friend is allergic to bananas, so I didn’t include any.  She didn’t care for the spinach in it, so I whipped her up one that only had the other three ingredients.  I think that next time I will include some vanilla extract and banana (like in Kristen’s recipe).

After a while, I got hungry (I didn’t exactly have a lunch since I woke up so late), so I had a snack:

cottage cheese with nectarine and a banana (unpictured)

and some tea:

Bigelow Ginger Snappish tea

Now I am going to TRY to get some reading done before heading off to bed.  I have a LOT to get done this weekend (the last two days of my spring break)  :(

Good night!

Does a Green Monster the day before count?

Good afternoon everyone  How is your Wednesday going?

I thought I would try posting earlier than normal today.  I usually do a recap, but it is kind of getting old, so here is the mid day post

I don’t really celebrate St. Patty’s day (it’s just another day to me) despite my Irish heritage….so, would you say that my consumption of this bad boy (see below) yesterday counts as enough green???  Of course, I AM wearing my favorite green (totally unrelated to Patty’s day)  sweater because it’s chilly today!  

Yesterday after “dinner” I had a Green Monster:

It had:

• 1 cup Silk Almond Milk
• 1/2 of a banana (but it was pretty large)
• 2 cups raw spinach

Pretty good, but again it had a very strong banana flavor.  I like it, but would like something else.  Maybe later I can try adding a few cherries (which I bought for another shake, but that’s okay).

James broke out the blue corn tortilla chips last night and I had a few with some salsa:

I also had a bowl of undocumented Peace Berries cereal.  The berries are okay and the cereal is good, but it doesn’t compare to my favorite (which I devoured this morning) after a hot cup of Earl Grey tea:

with my favorite milk:

Now I am off to work on a paper for one of my classes, read about poetry for another, and work on a creative story I’m writing for class AND for a graduate program I am applying to.  Whew!  Busy day!

Have a good day

Tea and Poetry

Good evening blogworld  Hope your week is going well.  It is definitely going fast over here.

This morning I woke up to the sound of rain!  I was surprised (since this is my spring break) and not surprised (this is South Texas).  It definitely made it difficult to wake up.  That and the fact that I was up WAY too late last night watching movies.

Speaking of movies…I have to say I am a horror movie lover most of all, but…I actually ADORED the movie The Proposal.  I am an English major (with aspirations to be a fiction writer), so her job as an Editor in Chief was awesome.   I laughed my butt off and it was a really cute movie overall.

That wasn’t the only movie I saw last night.  It was a movie splurge.  I also watched My Cousin Vinny and a TV movie called Wounded Heart (with Paula Devicq).  I gotta say that the latter was still good, but the fashion left something to be desired….the 90′s were good, but I am glad shoulder pads are out

Back to this morning…I had a glorious breakfast:

Vans brand waffles (which are new to me – and delicious) and some fruit.  I paired it with some lowfat milk and was good to go!

I had a fairly bumpy morning dealing with things I’ve needed to take care of, but after a little while I was back to my normal self.  Let me rewind a little to recap my shopping visit yesterday and the rest of Sunday

Ahh, glorious  The mug was filled with Earl Grey tea with one packet of Truvia (which I just started using).

This is how I spent my Sunday evening – drinking tea (in one of my favorite mugs) and reading about poetry.  I love being an English major.

My breakfast Sunday morning was lackluster, but it was still pretty good:

Whole wheat bread with almond butter (crunchy)

Yesterday, I finally got to go grocery shopping

I got to pick up my favorite fruit – strawberries  They have to be eaten within a day or so, so that’s why they were part of today’s breakfast.  In the bags next to the strawberries are bean sprouts (for stir fry), and random veggies (I got lettuce, cucumber, bell peppers).  Also got some sundried tomatoes to try.  Stocked up on Attune bars

Picked up a single serving of Myoplex.  I am trying out different protein recovery drinks to see what I like best and what works for me best.  It’s a long process, but once I figure it out, I will be happy.

I was thrilled to find this in the little refrigerated section of my HEB (Texas grocery chain).  I was convinced that they didn’t have three things I found here – the Myoplex single serving, Kombucha drink (in the pic below) and coconut water (also below).  I almost jumped for joy right there in the store.  Almost

Almond milk (never had this brand), yogurt, some new bars (I LOVE the KIND bars), string cheese, avocado, an Amy’s pizza, some Pirate’s Booty (my new addiction), organic milk, POM tea, cottage cheese, and some frozen cherries were purchased.  I think I see a Cherry Chocolate Bomb Shake in my future.

Some carby goodness:

Seven grain tortillas (for some burrito action later this week), some sandwich thins and (unpictured) whole wheat bread.

Broccoli, bell peppers, and cabbage (for stir fry).

My fridge is FULL

I also got to get some of this:

Endangered Species Chocolate.  This (if you can see the pic well enough) is Sea Turtle  Cue the awwww….go ahead, it’s okay…you know you want to.  This one has blueberries in it  Very cool.

I snacked on a piece of that as we prepared our dinner last night:

Amy’s Pesto Pizza.  I really like the Amy’s brand, but I need to try to watch what’s on the label because this one was way too high in fat and calories for such a small amount (even though a pizza is technically THREE servings.  We split it between the two of us).

An after dinner snack last night:

Okay, back to today:

Because of my late wake-up today, before I knew it it was time for James to come home.   Of course, that meant he was asking me what we were having for dinner (I hadn’t eaten breakfast not that long before!).  I usually have the week’s meal plan on the fridge, but because I hadn’t scheduled the whole week yet, I wasn’t sure what we were having.

I wanted homemade potato soup (using the potatoes I didn’t photograph), but it takes over 7 hours in the slow cooker.  That meant tonight should be easy and simple:

Grilled Cheese Sandwich (with Earth Balance and American cheese), mac and cheese, pineapple, and milk.  It was rather plain looking, but inside the sandwiches were some sun dried tomatoes that were marinated in olive oil.

Well, that’s it for the updates.  Time to go heat up some tea and get to work

Good night everyone

Impromptu Yumminess

Hello  How is your Sunday going?  It is going pretty well over here.  We have been late in doing everything today

Yesterday morning, I decided to start the day with a mozzarella cheese stick (I love those things, they always hit the spot!)  The rest of breakfast was some cinnamon toast and an Earl Grey Tea  I LOVE tea.

After getting some work done (which seems to be what fills all the time in my day), I made a light lunch:

Almond Butter sandwich with BBQ Pirate’s Booty

In the later afternoon, I snacked on this:

Before we were ready to make dinner (which was really late), I had these to tide me over:

Since I wasn’t feeling 100%,  I wanted some comfort food:

Blueberry Pancakes

Daylight Savings Time came too soon, and before I knew it, it was already 3:30 am.  I went to bed really tired.  :(

Perhaps my fatigue is why it was SOOO hard to wake up this morning.  We had a late start, and all I wanted after waking up was protein.    I didn’t want anything heavy, so I opted for a shake.

I did some work on some critiques (for creative writing), and was feeling snacky:

After doing some work around the house (laundry, cleaning, other organizing), I got to work at my desk.

A little while ago I organized a few of my loose recipes.  I think I need to go through my recipe box and eliminate recipes we won’t use or do not think are healthy enough (and maybe keep them in a binder just to have in case I need them).

While in the kitchen, I saw we still had some whole wheat tortillas.  So….I got creative and dug these out of the fridge:

I chopped some red, green, and orange bell peppers, some onion, and a jalapeno.

James sauteed them with some sliced garlic:

And then we added some sliced cheddar cheese (since we only had slices and no shredded or block cheese), Morningstar meatless patties, lettuce, salsa and some organic black beans to the tortilla:

It was HUGE.  It kept wanting to fall all over my plate,

but I devoured it too quickly:

It was impromptu, but delicious.  :)

Even James loved it.  Very good idea  Very filling, too.  I have to say that as someone who used to loathe the texture of beans, I actually love them now.  Weird.

Now, it is time for me to go through the mail, work on some journaling for three of my classes, work on a couple of papers and some reading.  In there somewhere I will read my new Natural Health magazine

I think dinner will be leftovers (pancakes, cantaloupe, carrots and hummus, and maybe an egg )  I need to clean out the fridge before shopping tomorrow (which I was supposed to do today, haha).

Happy Sunday everyone!  Have a good week

My First Oatmeal and Egg Puff

Hello  How is your Saturday going?  Ours is really good, though it got a late start.  We did a couple errands (that I’ll detail in the next update).

The past few days have been a little crazy

Here are the eats from the last few days:

Thursday I had my chiropractor appointment.  I am improving  I think that I am not going to have to go very often anymore.  My neck feels much better than it did two months ago.

I was bad, though and didn’t eat before the appointment.  I also forgot to bring anything to eat on the way.  I finished at the appointment and went to look for apartments (considering moving when our lease is up).  I finally got home and had this for a late lunch:

Lean Cuisine Pepperoni Pizza

Since my groceries are limited, we opted for an (unphotographed) easy dinner – box mac & cheese with a grilled cheese sandwich.  I guess I was feelin cheesy

A little later, I had a small bowl of this:

with a big bottle of water

A little before bed I was craving this yumminess:

Yesterday morning, I tried a new cereal:

Quaker Oatmeal Squares (Cinnamon) – YUM.

I must have been on an oatmeal kick, because I opted to try to make my first oatmeal (using a recipe ratio from Emily).

The base for my oats had:

• 1/2 cup oats
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/4 cup milk

(I was out of almond milk, which I will try after my grocery shopping).

I added:

• 2 dark chocolate almond Dove candies (which may have made it a tiny bit too bitter)
• 1tsp flax seeds
• a few almonds
• almond butter

The result:

For dignity’s sake, I didn’t lick the bowl

Later that night, after doing some work at my desk while semi-watching Criminal Minds, a couple reruns of ER and the new House, I decided to make some dinner (the grumbling in my stomach was a clue that it was time):

I made an egg puff (Fitnessista style) by spraying a bowl, whisking the egg (I only used one this time) and microwaving until done.  I think it took somewhere under a minute.

It came out glorious!  Thanks for the tip, Gina!

I was going to just have it paired with the whole wheat English Muffin (topped with Smart Balance), but I got an idea to have this instead:

VERY good idea  The only thing it was missing was a veggie sausage patty (which I will be getting from the store)

After a little while I was feeling snacky (which is happening a lot lately), so I swiped these from the fridge:

I need to get some work done.  I’ll update on today’s activities, eats, and shopping later on.  Have a good Saturday night!

Susan

Spring Break Begins

Hey there  How are you?

It is finally my spring break.  After a class that seemed too long, I came home and got ready to go to Target

I held back and only got the items on my list, but I saw some beach towels I will have to get next time.

I did find a new chocolate:

Dove Dark Chocolate with Almond.  :)  I used to hate dark chocolate.  I used to ONLY eat milk chocolate, but for some reason lately I’ve been craving dark chocolate.  So, I saw these babies and since they have dark chocolate AND almonds, I *had* to get them.

They are as delicious as they look

Let me go back a bit and recap yesterday.

Since I had breakfast at almost 1pm, my “dinner” was sort of my lunch:

The last of the steak that we picked up at Sun Harvest, leftover sweet potato, a side of peas, veggie baked beans (I had only 1/2 since I was getting full), a fruit cup for dessert, and 2 glasses of water (I was so thirsty!)

Oh yeah, before dinner I snagged an unphotographed Girl Scout Thin Mint from the freezer before we prepared dinner

I worked on some writing and did some reading, and after James was already snoozing, I realized that I was starving!  I didn’t understand why until I realized I hadn’t eaten for FIVE hours!  Since I was up late, I needed some more food, so I had a bowl of this:

Vanilla Almond cereal with the last of my milk

Today I had a breakfast I haven’t had in quite a while (and since I was out of milk, yogurt, and waffles, the breakfast choices were kinda slim):

(sorry for the

crummy pic – Crackberry usage happened here….)

After my first class, I came home and heated up lunch:

Amy’s Enchilada Meal

Dinner was after my Target run and chocolate snack

Some fresh Buitoni Three Cheese tortellini and Buitoni pasta sauce with a little (lot) red wine mixed with the mushrooms.

Oh yeah, I stopped for some caffeine at Starbucks

My favorite – Earl Grey Tea Latte

I savored every drop.

Now I am about to sit down and watch some Criminal Minds…I don’t have to get up for anything tomorrow morning except my chiropractor appointment

There are a few things I am looking forward to getting accomplished this week:

• Getting fitted for running shoes
• Finding a HRM (heart rate monitor) watch
• Short shopping (because it is already warming up here in South Texas – supposed to be 78* tomorrow)

Hope everyone has a lovely rest of the week and I will see you back here with more updates

Good night!