Loco for Cocoa

As evidenced by yesterday’s overnight 60 minute oats.

• 1/3 cup oats + 1/3 cup almond milk + 1/3 cup yogurt
• 2 spoonfuls cocoa powder
• Few drops of stevia
• Sunbutter (mixed in)
• Topped with a handful of Life maple cereal (need my crunch!)

And this morning’s chocolate-PB OIAJ (oats in a jar).

• 1/3 cup oats + 2/3 cup almond milk + 1 egg whisked
• Add cinnamon, 2 scoops cocoa powder
• Chocolate PB2
• Dash of vanilla

Then I remembered to mix in about 1/4 cup of wheat bran after it was done cooking. That stuff adds a butt-load of fiber!

Honestly, it’s hard to tell a difference between overnight and hot cocoa oats! They’re both….dark?

Scrapeable almond goodness down at the bottom yo.

I’m actually not sad at all to see my raw almond butter exit the fridge. It was kind of just taking up space. I know lots of people said raw AB would grow on me, and it did. But I still wasn’t a big fan.

Yesterday’s snack was non-cocoalicious, but worth of sharing.

Some strained yog, Penny’s LF carrot cake muffin top (forgot I had these in my freezer!), handful of bluebs.

I’m not sure if the muffin top was too old, or if I just micro’d it too long, or what. But I wasn’t a big fan. I really liked the almond poppyseed flavor I tried long ago.

I’m now sitting here convincing myself to go for a swim, but I think I’ve run out of time. Oh well such is life! 😉 I’ll hopefully get some weights & abs in here at home before I leave for class.

As February comes to a close, I thought I would take you through all my Februaries in the past 4 years.

Back in 2006…

Cowboy & Indian party.

I went home for President’s Day weekend and it snowed!! Unheard of in my hometown.

Celebrating Mardi Gras on the D-L. San Luis Obispo used to be a huge Mardi Gras town until a few years ago when they started to crack down immensely on partiers. You could get in some big trouble!

Pretty stoked over these pink & orange shots 😉

We also wrote all over the wall in our suite. We were allowed to paint the walls, as long as we painted them back to the original color. We opted to draw on the walls instead 😉

But in February, we decided to paint them back to white 😦

2007…

Reppin’ the lab goggles.

We took my roommate mini golfing for her 8th 20th birthday.

Batting cages!!

POLAR BEAR shot glass!! 😀

2008 was slightly uneventful, but I have a few pics!

With the current roommate of junior year.

My room that year (don’t ask. My roommate was a mess. She literally slept out in the family room for 90% of the year because her bed looked like this):

My very favorite trees ever bloom only for a couple weeks in February. There’s a strip of huge cherry trees on my walk to school, and it made me smile everyday 😀

Hanging out with my old roommate from sophomore year!

2009 brought the February of age 21 😉

Repeat shirt alert!

I think my face says it all. LOL. I do not like shots.

We also went to see Sex & the City in theaters, and wanted to enjoy a pre-drink of champagne. This bottle would notopen. haha!!

And now 2010!

Pretty much all we’ve done this month includes birthday celebrations 😉

No flash because my shirt was reflecting with the flash.

Classy slippers 😉 Hey, might as well stay comfy until we head out!

Hope you enjoyed my last 5 Februaries – man how they fly by!! Yup, the years fly by, so I’ll leave you with this quote:

“Love everything and everyone in your life. Nothing last forever so live it up, drink it down,and laugh it off. Avoid the bullshit, take chances and never have regrets. Cherish everyone , everything and every moment. Love the people that treat you right , apologize when you should and let go of what you cant change. Life’s too short to be unhappy , you have to take the good with the bad. Cross the lines, break the rules, and love with all your heart. Never regret but learn from your mistakes. Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it.”

– Unknown (I randomly found it and loved it).

How have the past years flown by for you? Okay, that doesn’t really make sense. But…what were you doing 3, 4, 5 years ago that feels like it was just yesterday?

All these moments feel like they were this past month! I feel like I was just living in the dorms and paiting my walls and goofing off with my rooommates of sophomore year! Crazy!

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Back in the Water

Another Wednesday, another day at work. This quarter I’m only working one full day (Wednesdays 10-7) and 1 or 2 half days (Thursdays 3:45-6, every other Friday 3-6). Yes, not much. But my school schedule just didn’t work with my work schedule this quarter. (I nanny for any of you who didn’t know).

So Wednesdays are definitely long, and it helps tremendously when the little girls are in a good mood 🙂

Such as today for example, when the 3-year old kept complimenting my dingy old sweatshirt. “I love your sweatshirt Taylor!” she kept on saying. HAHA She was so enthusiastic about it.

Later she wrapped her arms around me, sighed and said “I love you Taylor.” It just melted my heart. And put me in an awesome mood 😀

Today was also the last Wednesday for Jamba’s $1 oatmeal. Tired of seeing them by now? I’ve tried the

• Banana brown sugar
• Cinnamon-apple
• Very cherry pecan

And today I got the Blueberry-Blackberry flavor.

Topped with cooked up (and sweetened) blueberry/blackberry preserves and brown sugar.

I realized afterwards that this counts as an “added sweet”, but I’m not kicking myself over it. It’s a little bit on oatmeal for crying out loud 😉

This was probably my favorite flavor out of all of them! The preserves tasted exactly like a pie or cobbler. It was delicious all mixed together.

Unfortunately, even though their oats are supposedly cooked with soymilk and have protein in them, I’m always hungry ridiculously soon after!

Snacked on some turkey & hummus (only 1 1/2 hours post-breakkie!)

I admit lunch wasn’t anything impressive. With a coupon, I scored a pack of 4 Lean Cuisines from Costco for only $5.25. As a busy student on a budget, I caved and bought them because I knew they’d be a cheap and easy option to grab when absolutely necessary.

This honey roasted chicken flavor was mehhh. I really liked the lemon chicken I had a few weeks ago much better. The pilaf side was very bland – I had to add extra seasoning!

But in general, these “Spa Meals” have been 10x better than the Lean Cuisines I used to buy in my pre/early-college years. They’re flavorful, usually whole grain, and the chicken is actually tender and tastes like chicken!

Snackies have included carrots & salsa (with no great picture).

Multiple (I mean multiple) cups of coffee with creamer.

Campbell’s light southwestern soup with cheese around 5:00 to hold me over through the girls’ dinner-bath-getting ready for bed rush.

And then a big bowl of cereal when I got home at 7:45 😀

I also made myself a fruit smoothie out of frozen pineapple, mango, papaya & strawberry mix.

In workout-related news, I finally got around to swimming on Monday and Tuesday!! After so much struggling with my knee pain, I finally gave up all exercise (besides weights and ab work) about 1 1/2 months ago. At first it was beyond tough (I felt slobbish, depressed, sad – you know the exercise-withdrawl symptoms!). It got easier to deal with, but of course I missed exercising. For the past 4 years I’ve exercised on a regular basis (usually everyday), so 1 1/2 months is a crazy long break!

Monday I hopped in the pool and went 1300 yards pulling (no or slight kicking with just my left leg) in just under 30 minutes. It felt awesome. I was actually very happy with how easy it felt considering I’ve been on such a hiatus.

Tuesday I went another 2100 yards in 45 minutes.

Swimming doesn’t give me nearly the same effect as a good run or good sweaty workout gives me, but I’ll take what I can get. Until then, I’m still focusing on hip strengthening and I’ve also been splurging on regular massages to get rid of the scar tissue around my knee.

I realize now that I’ve never asked where you all work or what you do? What does your job look like?

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Happy Birthday Sara!

I definitely wrote this yesterday (Friday) and then forgot to post it once I got home and got internet access. So let’s just pretend it’s Friday 😉

First off, Happy Birthday to my roommate Sara! 😀

Instead of opening a new can of pumpkin this morning (I have one can left, and am scared for the rumored pumpkin shortage!), I opened some butternut squash to mix into my yogurt!

Nutrition stats are similar to pumpkin – less fiber though.

With the yogurt.

And finished off with a bluebran Vitatop, pumpkin butter, & sunbutter.

But I missed the crunch of cereal!

I then ran around doing a few errands, baking a bit and decorating for the birthday gal, that time snuck away from me.

I grabbed a couple slices of this leftover pesto pizza from the roommate’s dinner last night (she didn’t like it! What?!) on my way out the door to work.

Not positive what’s in the cards for dinner – but we’re thinking a local BBQ place or even Pita Pit – yes Sara wants to go to Pita Pit for her birthday dinner! haha.

Sara and I have only been roommates for 1 1/2 years, but I decided to do a little flashback Friday of our times together.

We were the two random roommates moving into a house of three girls who had lived there for a year. They found Sara through Craigslist! And I’m so glad they did. She has become my best friend. Sorry if some of these are repeats of recent times!

Halloween last year:

Fun times spent hanging out at the bars last year!

Sara is hilarious and makes some of the funniest faces ever. And never on purpose either! haha

We’ve got so much closer towards the end of last year and over the summer.

LA trip for Disneyland & the Dodgers game!

Kayaking.

She’s introduced me to a ton of great friends 🙂

And this year has been an absolute blast.

Spent an awesome New Years in LA.

And whether we were going on adventures…

Going out…

Or just having fun at the house…

I just have fun with her no matter what 😀 I’m so glad we “met” through craiglist. Happy Birthday Sara!!

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Too Sweet

So I’ve been ridiculously MIA. And I swear I started to write a post on Valentine’s Day! Then got sidetracked, distracted, caught up with school, etc. So sorry!

I hope everyone’s V-Day was spectacular and filled with love. Even if you don’t have a significant other, I hope you celebrated your love for yourself 🙂 And also showed your love & appreciation for family and friends!

A couple of my friends and I went and saw the movie Valentine’s Day. I loved it!! Not only was it cute and entertaining, but I thought it was quite the comedy as well! A pure American re-make of Love Actually though 😉  I just chose to ignore the whole Taylor Swift storyline.  Could’ve done without that one.

I obviously can’t catch you up on everything from the past week, but I will do a little recap of Friday – my roommates birthday!

We went to Caliofornia Pizza Kitchen for dinner, and I wasn’t sure what to order since I’d had such a bad stomach ache all day. I spotted a new salad on the menu – the words butternut squash caught my eye right away. I knew I needed to order it and planned to just pick at it, depending.

(From the menu description): Moroccan-spiced chicken breast with crisp Romaine lettuce, roasted butternut squash, Medjool dates, fresh avocado, toasted almonds, fresh beets, chopped egg, carrots, dried cranberries and red bell peppers. Tossed with our champagne vinaigrette.

Looking back now, I had no idea the salad had chopped egg! haha.

Um – it was the best salad ever. I’m not exagerating. The sweet dates and cranberries, delicious squash, creamy avocado – oh my!! I can’t wait to get it again.

Tip: get your dressing on the side, and then dip your fork into it. You’ll get dressing with each bite without the salad beting saturated!

It was a fun dinner!

Then we came back, changed and headed out to celebrate 😉

And you know what comes with birthdays don’t ya?

Birthday shots Cake!

And the best fudge that our friend made. This stuff was sooooo good.

I nibbled at it every time I was in the kitchen, and probably ate half the container full. About 10x this amount throughout the weekend:

Dangerous stuff that fudge was. My hips don’t lie when they say they’re kind of glad it’s gone 😉

While we’re on the topic of sweets, guess what’s back in season?

My favorite second fave ice cream flavor!! (Pumpkin obviously wins #1)

Amazing stuff. Vanilla & caramel ice cream with chunks of Samoas cookie pieces throughout. The actual ice cream deserves the focus here:

Mmmm love those chunks. (Ew – that sounds nasty)

Oh hey guy hey.

I enjoyed a bowl of this while watching The Bachie (which PS: Jake what are you doing?! I swear he picks Vienna. I’ve heard the rumors, and I just see it comin’. Oh great).

And in the spirit of Wednesday, I had to stop and get my $1 Jamba oatmeal on the way to work today!

Now I’ve tried the banana-brown sugar, and apple cinnamon flavors. Today I decided to try the Berry Cherry Pecan.

It came topped with dried fruit, brown sugar crumble, and candied pecans. Mmmm. While it was tasty, it honestly was way too sweet for me. And we all know I love sweet (obviously), and usually love sweet breakfasts (hello french toast and pancakes!). I think it would have been best with either the brown sugar or the pecans – not both.

Mmmm chewy nutty slow-cooked steel cut oats. Much better than the Starbs instant ones of last week 😉

Next week is the last week for $1 Jamba oatmeal! Can’t wait to try one last flavor. And I still have a free coupon for one as well 🙂

And to round out the sweetness of the day, I have some anti-sweet news.

I know many of you out there realize it’s Lent, and some celebrate it, some don’t, which is very cool! For many years, I’ve given up “junk food” for Lent – and I always define it by my own standards (the typical sweets, pizza, chips, etc). This year, I decided to do just sweets having been inspired by Ellen’s no-sugar movement. As a nutrition major, I know there are many many forms of “sugar” and it’s in so many things. So I’m not just giving up “sugar” of course. Just sweets (candy, desserts – cakes, cookies, ice cream, etc).

I know many of you probably won’t agree with this, as it’s all about things in moderation – and I’m all about enjoying food and enjoying treats. Cliche, it is, but I’ve just always done this, and I’m doing it again!

And of course, it means no hot chocolate 😦

What about you? Are you giving up or challenging yourself in anyway?

In other news, I’ve also been enjoying….popcorn?

This is what we opened our door up to this morning:

And someone wrote on our car windows with shaving cream.

At first, we thought it was a birthday joke for my roommate (another roommate’s birthday is this Friday). Then we realized it was some of our immature friends being dumb. The shaving cream is one thing, this popcorn is quite another.  I’m not joking when I say these people are in college. And that I’m quite peeved >:-( (That’s supposed to be a mean mad face, by the way).

Who knows how we’ll clean this all up now. Ridiculous!

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Jamba Fail

Jamba failed me this morning. When I arrived at 9:30, the oatmeal wasn’t even nearly cooked. At 9:30? Really Jamba? At least they gave me a coupon for a free oatmeal!

Since I was headed to work and without a breakfast, I hopped on over to Starbucks since I had a giftcard.

I have to say though that $1 steel cut oats made with soymilk at Jamba scores a tad higher on my scale than $2.45 instant Starbucks oatmeal.

I used half of each of the dried fruit, mixed nuts & brown sugar packages.

It really never satisfied me at all, and I was hungry/snacky all morning long.

Carrots & hummus.

Glad to know I was “eating right.” Thank you.

Unpictured cookie dough (my weakness).

Leftover roasted broc (topped with the holy of all things tomato ketchup.)

I also really need to stop breaking into the 2-year old’s “potty candy stash.” I’m pretty sure I don’t need treats when I make it to the toilet.

Finally got the kiddos down by 2:00 and broke into lunch.

Amy’s veggie lasagna.

(Please excuse their odd orange kitchen lighting)

After watching I am Legend on one of their movie channels, came the afternoon from hell.

Let’s just say the poor little potty-trainee has had a hard time going #2. Here was the play by play:

“I have to go!!”

Pick her up. Run to the potty.

Sit and scream on potty. “No!! I don’t want to go!!”

Sit a minute more then remove from potty.

Screaming continues. “Hold me!! My bottom hurts!!”

Bloody murder sobbing continues.

Repeat every 15 minutes for the next 2 hours.

And of course, this all happened during dinner time as I was trying to cook food and feed both the kids. Eventually she ate her dinner but only while sitting on my lap. If I set her down, screaming followed.

I managed to squeeze in my very pathetic dinner in the midst of her sitting on my lap and feeding the other baby her dinner.

Kashi Golean & Life cereal. Yup.

But as hard as the afternoon was, I still love the little munchkins of course.  And I just felt so bad for her 😦

I made up for dinner at home with my dessert of frozen bluebs + almond butter (favorite as of late). And some hot cocoa.

I ran out of NuNaturals stevia packets, which I had been using in my cocoa. So I decided to go the drip route.

Definitely not as sweet with the amount I used. And my mouth had some funky coated feeling afterwards. Not sure if if was the stevia though. I’ll have to try it out again.

If you’ve ever nannied/babysat, what has been your worst experience or horror story?

Mine was actually one time when we were in Borders, and the girl (who was 10 at the time) diarrhead in her pants. (Sorry – TMI?) Anyways, it was quite the fun time cleaning that up. And now that I think of it…why do all my jobs seem to involve the bathroom?

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Valentine’s Day in November?

Well, seeing as how it is November February…

Apparently my local store is a few months behind the times. But at least I finally found the sought after pumpkin pie yogurt!!

You know what my breakfast was this morning 😉

• Stonyfield pumpkin yogurt
• Kashi Go Lean cereal
• Quaker oatmeal squares
• Pumpkin butter
• Naturally More peanut butter

But alas. Disappointed I was. It was too sweet and I’m just too darn used to the thick stuff (that’s what she said?). I like my homemade pumpkin yogurt better 🙂

More in the February spirit – Momma Tay Tay sent me a package of lurve.

Some heart shaped cookies, Lindt candies, and the mug I wanted from Starbies!! ❤ you mommy!!

Disclaimer: Contrary to my roommates and family members giving me a hard time about wanting yet another mug, I have already used this beauty 3 times in the past day. Thank you very much.

It was 4:30, I was hungry, and this girl’s sugar cravings were kicking into high gear. Of course I dug right in.

But let’s rewind to lunch.

If that’s not an appetizing plastic container of food, I don’t know what is.

Guilty as charged of enjoying a lean cuisine. Lemon chicken to be more specific. I haven’t had a lean cuisine in years. But you know what? A college girl isn’t turning down the 4 for $5 package at Costco. And at least it’s one of their “spa meals.” AKA – healthier and whole grains?

I’m not gonna lie when I say it was actually kind of tasty.

Aaaaaaand then starving 2 hours later (naturally). Raided the fridge upon entering the kitchen and many eats when unpictured. But I did enjoy carrots in some new yogurt dip!

Garlic ranch, cheddar jalapeno, and cilantro jalapeno flavors.

Found at Costco.

Determined to be quite tasty.

Also, one of the unpictured eats was kabocha squash dipped in guacamole.

Advice: that combo was amazing.

Oh and some pistachies.

Which just caused a rando thought to pop in my head. Has anyone tried pistachio nut butter? Yes, no, maybe so? Thoughts?

I kind of overdid it at snacky time and kept dinner light. Eggs + some more guac I whipped up.

And roasted broc.

Old picture, but honestly? The broc really didn’t look much different. Still green. Still roasted. And still yum.

With a lindt

And a few bites of this to round out the night.

I’m honestly not all too impressed with this flavor. I love other coconut milk ice cream flavors, but this one is just too…well, minty. I know, I know, hence the name mint chip. But there was none of that rich coconut taste. And can you tell me, where are all the ‘chips’?

And remember, tomorrow is $1 Jamba oatmeal day!!

You’ll know where to find me in the morning 😉

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Great Wall of PB

How were everyone’s superbowl celebrations?

My day started inspired by 2 of my favorite bloggies.

Yoatgurt! If she weren’t tanning her way through Jamaica right now, Janetha would be proud 🙂

Coffee oats + cinnamon greek yogurt.

With the “Great Wall of PB” modeled after Paige. And two blobs of chocolate almond butter on either end.

How did those little chocolate delights get on there? 😉

After getting some essay writing done, I got busy in le kitchen!

Guac-a-mole!!

In the mix:

• 4 avocados
• Couple spoonfuls of salsa
• 2 spoonfuls sour cream
• Garlic
• Salt & pepper
• Lime & lemon juice
• Dash of paprika

Made a huge batch, and I even had 4 extra avocados (they were 2/$1 at Vons this week so I obviously went a little avo-crazy).

We also supplied salsa.

And chips.

Although once we arrived to the party, there were about 5 other bags of chips, 2 other bowls of salsa, and another thing of guac. Ha. Whoops!

There was a ton of food and I forgot my camera. Yes. Fail. But I had a good amount of chips & guac (my homemade stuff was better 😉

4 BBQ chicken legs (amazing!! Delicious! Finger lickin good.)

Source

And 1 1/2 of these.

Which only succeeded in making me tired. haha.

But….CONGRATS SAINTS!! They deserved it 🙂

I obviously wasn’t very hungry for dinner, but got a bit snacky around 9:00. So I cooked up an apple & frozen blueberries with cinnamon in the microwave. Topped with a blog of yogurt and granola.

And then went down for another bowl of ice cream – Dreyer’s slow churned Samoas flavor. With a small scoop of coconut milk’s mint chip.

Off to get some ab work in.

And I also just received an email that my Clinical Nutrition teacher had her baby boy this weekend :-D. Congrats to her!! And that lab is canceled today. So that means I’ll probably hit up the library after my 12-2:00 class.

Have a great Monday!

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$250 cookies

Well today was my massage appointment I was so excited for. But before I went, I obviously had some breakfast 😉

Re-heated frozen pumpkin WW pancakes.

Layered with some yogurt and the last of my pumpkin cream cheese 😦

Yummmm syrup 😀

Now for the massage. Because it was an hour massage, she said she would do a little of my back, but spend the majority of the time on my legs. I told her my situation, and showed her where I had the most pain. Well, she ended up spending a good 20 minutes on my back/neck area, probably 15 on my hamstrings (which felt good), 10 or so on my quads (those hurt like hell) and literally like 2 minutes on my painful spot below my knees.

Umm hello?

That’s where I have the most pain and where I want the scar tissue massaged out!

I’m not going to lie and say the rest of the massage wasn’t relaxing, and I know it was beneficial to release tension in my quads and hamstrings. But I wanted to focus on my main problem area.

Needless to say, I’m going to continue with massage therapy – I’ll just be on the lookout for a different massage therapist.

Afterwards I hit up the gym for 40 minutes weights & core work.

And came home for a quick light lunch before the library.

PB&J on a deli thin!

+ some unpictured chocolate 😉

I then proceeded to write 1 page of my senior project in 2 hours. Man, such progress! 😉

Dinner was an exact repeat of Thursday – roasted up some squashie and broc.

And fried up an omelet on the stove.

Look familiar?

Yup, even the same plate 😉 Plus some more veggies obvs. And much more red stuff.

After dinner I whipped up some of my mom’s cookies! Love them.

It’s pretty much a modified version of the famous $250 cookie recipe. My mom has made it this way my whole life, so it’s what I’m used to! Oil instead of butter makes the cookies much more doughy and “lumpy” (as you can tell in the pictures). Personally, I add cinnamon (my mom doesn’t) and use whole wheat flour, which I actually like better – this flour makes it more dense and moist.

• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 cup canola oil
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 cups flour
• 2 1/2 cups blended oatmeal
• Cinnamon (2-3 tsp worth?)
• 2 cups chocolate chips

1. Cream sugars and oil
2. Add eggs and vanilla
3. Mix in baking soda, powder, salt, flour and oatmeal
4. Add chocolate chips
5. Bake at 375 for approx 9 minutes. The cookies will look doughy and underdone, but that’s okay! It’s how they’re supposed to look.

My roommate is obsessed with them, and I always get rave reviews 😉

I had some dough + about 2-3 cookies as they “crumbled” out of the oven 😉

Plus a few bites of my new ice cream buy today.

Hmmm review to come.

Did anyone see Dear John yesterday? I have to say – madly disappointed. Horrible acting, barely any plot, kind of boring and slow…As attractive as Mr. Tatum was, I couldn’t get over how he had no personality and just mumbled the whole time. Then there was a plot twist (that my roommates and I found utterly creepy), and a very “blah” ending. I think it just got so much hype, especially because A Walk to Remember and The Notebook were so popular.

Anyone who saw it – what did you think?

And plans for the superbowl tomorrow? I’m not very into football. But I get excited for commercials and betting games! Haha. I think we’re heading over to our friends house.  But whatever you do – have fun!!

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When we were merely freshmen…

Hello hello and happy Friday to one and all!

Let’s start with yesterday afternoon, shall we?

During my 10 minute rush between class & work, I grabbed some pumpkin yogurt & bluebs for a snack.

Then couldn’t help myself at work – they had some pizza that I absolutely love! White sauce & pineapple (picked off/ate around the ham) – yummm. Had a slice.

So I wasn’t too too hungry for dinner. Kept it light with an egg & veggie (sauteed zucchini, onion & mushrooms) omelet topped with cheese.

And some roasted squash & broccoli.

I have a problem.

And then my roommate made White Trash Toffee (toffee made with saltine crackers).

Um. Yum. Had about 3 pieces too many.

Whoops!

Breakfast this morning was quick and easy on my way out the door.

Cinnamon-raisin Ezkekiel english muffin. Half with pumpkin cream cheese, half with PB & jam.

I had my breakfast very late (11:30! I was busy all morning and not hungry until then), so I wasn’t very hungry for lunch before work.

Had a snack of squash (+ ketchup) before work.

This squash from last night is dry!!! I don’t know if it’s just a bad squash or I didn’t season it right, but man was it bland and hard to choke down. I literally had to take sips of water to moisten it up with each bite!

And then a small piece of this PB/Chocolate fudge thing at work

& coffee at work. 1/2 caff Americano with 1 pump peppermint. + a splash of creamer & some NF milk of course. Delicious.

I brought a sandwich thin to toast up at work, but honestly wasn’t hungry. I think it’s the “less-hungry” time of the month, y’know? 😉 And that squash filled me up.

——————————————————

I wasn’t sure what to do a Flashback Friday post on today, but knew since Janetha is out of town, I should definitely do one in honor of her 😉

So as I sat here procrastinating on my senior project paper, I decided to look back through all my pictures for inspiration. With senior project on my mind, I looked back at my freshman year pictures – I can’t believe almost 5 years have flown by!

Originally when I applied to my school (California Polytechnic University – or Cal Poly as it’s mostly known 😉 ), I actually got rejected. But through my cousin, I knew of a “backdoor entrance” – apply for summer quarter! Rejected for the fall quarter of 2005, but accepted for summer 2005!

I literally graduated on Friday, went to our all-night grad party Friday night, packed up on Saturday, and drove down to school on Sunday. Phew!

I was so upset to be missing my “last summer home” after graduation, but I honestly had the best summer of my life away at school for that summer. I was only taking one morning class, and had the rest of the day free to relax and have fun – away from home! 😉

My 3C roommate! (with Jamie – my old roommate I just mentioned the other day!)

Summer was extremely empty. There were about 150 freshmen, and only about 10-12 girls lived on my dorm’s floor for the summer. We all became super close.

We were the smallest floor up at the very top, so not many people came up to visit. Some didn’t even know people lived up on the third floor! So the “Third Floor Ghosts” we called ourselves 😉

First hike during the first week.

Full of my first parties.

Lingerie party (which I obviously did not feel comfortable to participate in haha).

And can’t forget Harry Potter coming out and getting the free glasses that came with it!

Beach trips and bonfires…

Midnight vending machine runs with our campus dollars.

I just loved hanging out with the floor every night. It was like a giant sleepover!

I found this on my camera. Creeper roommate. haha

TPing someone’s room.

Along with nightly dance parties. Theme song of the summer was most definitely “My Humps” by Black Eyed Peas.

Oh and our obsession with peanut butter.

We even got some of the guys to try it by the spoonful 😉

The sign we posted so all could write on it. Massive inside jokes 😀

It was really sad to pack up and say goodbye at the end of the summer. 😦

The summer I started out dreading turned out to be the best one of my life. 🙂

I love my Third Floor Ghosts and won’t ever forget them!!

All right – enough procrastinating. It’s not freshman year anymore. I need to work on this senior project!

Plus I’m off to see Dear John later tonight! Eeee it’s definitely a BYOT (bring your own tissues) type of night, I’m sure 😉

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One Dollar Oatmeal

(Sung to the tune of “5 dollar footlong”)

This morning, I finally had my physical therapy appointment I’ve been trying to get here at school for the past month! Let’s just say, I left extremely frustrated and no where near closer to fixing my knee. I believe that massage is really what’s going to help with the pain from the scar tissue.

I’ve taken the past month completely off of all exercise except for ab and upper body weights. It’s been beyond tough, and I’ve definitely had days where I just want to say “screw it” and workout. But honestly? After a whole month my knee feels absolutely no different. Not even a bit better. This just makes me feel even more that I need actual massage to work that scar tissue out!

So after my disapointing PT appointment, I immediately started researching massage places and made an appointment for this Saturday. I’ve never had one done before, but I’m praying it will be worth the cost.

Pre-PT appointment, I had a light egg white snack with ketchup.

This was to hold me over until my trip to Jamba Juice for the $1 Oatmeal Wednesday!

This week I opted to try the Apple-Cinnamon flavor.

Mmm amazing. I just can’t get over that brown sugar crumble!

As delicious as this apple topping was, I might just like the banana flavor better. But we’ll see when I try a new one next week 😉

I then hurried to my long day of work – although today wasn’t bad. The 2 girlies were in good moods 🙂

Unpictured snack of carrots & salsa.

Lunch of leftover broccoli & cauliflower.

And a thin bun topped with laughing cow, cinnamon & strawberry jam.

+ unpictured sugar cookie dough that they had in their fridge. And I cannot turn down cookie dough. My pure weakness.

Dinner was quick and processed (since I’m running around at dinner time making/feeding 2 other people!). Pre-made cashew chicken from Vons/Safeway.

Looks good? But beyond disappointing.

The sauce was too thick, and even slightly solidified once it cooled a bit. And it was an odd tasting sauce. I could hardly scarf it down. I was also hoping for whole cashews, but it only contained little crumbly bits.

I had high hopes for these Signature Cafe meals, but all three I tried were disappointing. The broccoli, chicken & cheese dish from last week was very rich. And the orange chicken I had this past weekend (unpictured – sorry!) wasn’t as “orangy” as I was hoping. Meh – you live, you learn!

And once home, I demolished some hot chocolate and a blueberry + almond butter dessert. For some reason, I’m in the habit of not photographing my night-time snacks. I need to fix that!

I did, however, have a delicious homemade Albertson’s made cookie 🙂

Now I’m exhausted, and I was falling asleep 2 hours ago! I haven’t done any studying today for my midterm tomorrow, but I’m hoping I did enough in the past few days.

Anyone have any massage experience? For injuries or just for fun?

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