Day of my birth

Keep in mind this was supposed to go up yesterday, but I got distracted….

April 15 might mean one thing to most of you: TAX DAY.

But to me, April 15 always means…my birthday!

Source

Keys to a successful birthday:

1. Cake flavor.  In any shape or form.  While Funfetti Pancakes seem to be popular around here for birthdays, I didn’t have much time to make pancakes this morning.  And I’m on such a god-awful cottage cheese kick. 

Cake Batter Cottage Cheese!!

Don’t even knock it ‘till you’ve tried it.  It tasted like thick gooey cake batter.  Yummmmm.

And I definitely went back for seconds.

2. A good gym sesh.  Too bad I skipped this and slept in instead

3. Monster salad beast is a must for birthdays

I don’t even know what was in said Beast, but it consisted of normal salad fixins’ plus a scoop of Hawaiian Tempah, cashew chicken salad, and…..something else from the hot bar.

And it’s a good thing I didn’t buy a dessert because this arrived shortly after I got home:

4. More cake.  This time in heaven form:

Seriously people.  A deep dish S’mores pie (from Costco – where else would my family shop?).  My daddy knows me well

5. Beautiful flowers.  Flowers are a tradition on our birthdays.  My dad would always come home from work every birthday with a bouquet (from…uh…Costco).  LOVE.

Tonight is pretty low key.  Just grabbing some dinner, and then going out with friends! 

 

Foot/PT update: I stopped going to PT for the time being as it wasn’t drastically helping, it’s expensive, and I’m running out of appointments (due to insurance).  I caved last week and got The Boot.  Nothing is helping.  And I’m getting desperate here.  I know many people don’t recommend booting up, but I’m hoping it helps since I walk SO MUCH at work.  We will see. 

Which brings me to successful tip

6. Actually getting dressed in real clothes (and not the workout clothes I wear everyday).  Sexy boot isn’t it?

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Ball-tastic

Yesterday I was supposed to cut back on sweets.

Oops.

How could I turn down such delicious layers and a chocolatey crust?

Today I was doing pretty well.  Until….

Wait – what is that?

Oh, just some dough chillin’ in the fridge.

I’m stopping by my friend’s tacky Christmas party tonight, and wanted to bring a little something.  Such as Dough Balls!

I followed this recipe, except I subbed in oil for the butter (I have no butter!  And I sure as hell wasn’t venturing out into the downpour for some.  No offense butter.)

Anyways, I use oil in many cookie recipes, and I actually like the result more.  However, these tasted….off.  Not much flavor.  Super oily.  They just tasted like….well….oil. 

It wasn’t until after they were baking that I realized I used double the amount of oil I was supposed to.  I thought I was using the 1/8 measuring cup, when really I was using the 1/4 cup (and even this I know is wrong, considering I was using dry measuring cups.  Sometimes I am quite the lazy baker). 

No wonder they tasted like oil.  Oh well – I’m not telling.

And I still ate too much dough.  Plus about 3 cookies.

Prior to ball forming, I couldn’t decide what to have for dinner.  I didn’t want to open up anything that I wouldn’t use in the next couple days (since I’m leaving).  And I didn’t have much to work with.

 

Ravioli?  Naww – I’m only home for 1-2 more meals before I leave and I won’t finish the package.

Soup?  Ehhh I’ve had soup a lot recently and feel bloated.  Soup doesn’t help that.

Cereal?  Had cereal for my afternoon snack.

Pancakes? Waffles? Oatmeal? Yogurt? All very acceptable dinners.  However I wanted something different than my go-to-lazy-girls-dinner.

Meatloaf or ground turkey? Frozen ground turkey.  Too bad.

Don’t know how it popped in my head, but I came up with a frittata!  I just mixed eggs, frozen veggies, chicken sausages, and garlic salt.  I didn’t have any cheese, so I opened some laughing cow wedges, chopped them up, and sprinkled them on the frittata.

I had 2 squares – one square with Laughing Cow Blue Cheese and one square with the Sundried Tomato flavor.

Yum!!  I felt super healthy.

And then proceeded to eat my weight in dough balls.

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Toast le Francais

Bonjour!

This morning, I took my own advice.

Given extra time in the morning, I made a delicious breakfast.

Pumpkin french toast!

I soaked 2 slices of Ezekiel cinnamon raisin bread in:

• 3 egg whites
• Splash of almond milk
• Maple syrup
• Cinnamon
• Splash of vanilla and a bit of salt
• Big ol’ scoop of pumpkin

I then topped them off with a bit of homemade pumpkin cream cheese (a mixture of cream cheese, pumpkin, cinnamon & pumpkin butter).

And some real delicious and sweet maple syrup.

So so good.

I also may have had about half of this Mexican pumpkin brownie I got at work last night.

It was staring at me from the counter as my breakfast cooked up.  Call it an appetizer.

And then a See’s pumpkin spice lollipop as I researched internships.

Obviously my no sweets thing is going quite well, don’t you agree?

 

Because I had such a filling and late breakfast, I just snacked during the afternoon on a handful of veggie booty

and some pom-poms

Before the mom at work offered to bring my home Chipotle for dinner.  I jumped at the chance – YES PLEASE.  And thank you very much.

My Chipotle beasts usually contain:

• Salad base
• Fajita veggies
• Black beans
• (Extra) pico de gallo
• Medium salsa
• Corn salsa
• Guac (obvs)
• Sour cream (on the side so I can use a sparse amount)
• Hot sauce

I added a bit of rotisserie chicken to the above beast.  Sometimes I get chicken at Chipotle, but I like how guac comes with the vegetarian option.

 

Injury news: Still hurts.  Still in pain.  Although today my right side was no longer hurting.  It was more of a sharp pain in the mid-left side.  Less muscular feeling, more sharp side stich feeling – all day.  Probably the sharpest pain I’ve felt.

Looking back, my previous ab injury disappeared within 2 1/2 weeks of rest.  And that was with me trying to do weights/hiking during the first week.  I’m hoping this one disappears a bit faster, although it’s already been a week.

I’ll keep you updated, but try not to bog you down with details

 

As the french say – Bonne nuit!

 

What language did you take in high school or study during school? I took 2 years of French, and it was hard!  I would’ve continued, but I got stuck with an awful teacher my second year and learned nothing.  So I felt extremely unprepared to continue.  And I remember nothing.  Except “Je m’appelle  Taylor.”  Yup.  That’s pretty much it.

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Silver Lining

Happy Halloween!! 

My whiteboard creation – that would be a witch, mummy, bat, pumpkin, ghost, grave (with hands sticking out from the ground), vampire, and warewolf.  Talent right there.

I’m currently running on 5 hours of sleep…5 hours for the past two nights combined. 

Friday we watched a movie and I didn’t get into bed until 2 am.

Last night we went out to the bars, and I didn’t get into bed until 3 am.

Don’t ask how I got up at 5 this morning.  I’m just thankful that I did.

The past few days have been full of tons of treats.  Such as obligatory candy

Splurge cookies that I’ve had my eye on

You know you secretly like those frosted sugar cookies.

Now imagine them in pumpkin!

Fun drinks (+ wayyyy too many other drinks last night )

(Source)

I wanted to make these Candy Corn Martinis last year, but everywhere was sold out of candy corn!  They were okay.  I’m not a vodka person, and they were a bit strong.  But interesting to make!

The other night, we also went to dinner for a friend’s birthday where we literally devoured 3 bowls of chips amongst the 3 of us at our table.  Fast.  Plus a huge soda cup.

I got a massive and amazingly delicious fajita chicken taco salad.  This picture actually makes it look small.  But it was huge.  I only managed half after all those chips Leftovers!

 

Last night was tons of fun.  I ended up dressing up as….

The Tin Man!!  Unfortunately I didn’t get a single full body shot of my costume I’m saddened.  Here’s the only front view (and I’m oddly sitting, so my tutu is sticking out at a weird angle).

I was standing in the background of one picture, so it’s blurry and an odd picture, but you get the idea

My sister made the tutu, and then I made the hat.  Although the hat ended up falling off halfway through the night, and I also lost my heart.  So by the end of the night I was just a silver ballerina.  Haha.

 

What were you for Halloween?  What did you do this weekend to celebrate?

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Long Lost Love

First – I’m so sorry for being MIA for days – my computer has had a few issues, and still doesn’t seem to be quite over it yet.  Roar.  Sometimes it turns on.  Sometimes it doesn’t.  I’m trying not to use it for too long, and I need to spend most of my computer time researching dietetic internships (which is stressing me out beyond belief), so I may be around randomly for now

 

I’ve also been pretty under the weather.  I really don’t get seriously sick, besides a cold (knock on wood).  This time my whole body just ached and I just wanted to curl up.  I felt dizzy, lightheaded, about to faint at times, and all around awful all weekend. That part seems to be gone now, but now I’m stuck with a cough and some congestion. 

 

Anyways, enough complaining.  This week I had to say bye to 2 close people thing in my life. 

Mr. Maple

And Mr. Chocolate

Now, these 2 were very close.  So it was only fitting that they went within a week of each other.

With swirls of goodness

We left on good terms.

Although I’m still sad to see them go.

And I’ve been surviving without nut butter in my pantry for a good week now.

Shocking.

 

I’m going to attempt to run today.  How long?  Well that depends on how I feel.  My two 3-mile runs in the past week have been sh*t, but that’s okay.

I’m at the point where I’m not training, and running should be done for fun, short cardio fitness, stress relief, etc.  And if I’m not up for a run – don’t run.

Today I want to run, and I hope it goes well.  My body is no longer achy, nor do I have a headache. 

I’m also starting to do strength training again.  With work, I barely had time to fit in my runs, let alone strength training.  But I know strength (especially ab strength) is very important in running and injury prevention. I also miss the way I felt from strength training.  Not to mention a little more muscle .

I only wish I belonged to a gym at this point.  $$$!!  

 

Okay, I’ve been on this computer long enough, and I should get off before it combusts.

Adios!!

PS: this is what happens when you try and transfer a pumpkin cupcake in the car.

I tried.  And failed even more.

The frosting ended up all over the container

But that didn’t stop me from licking it off

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Sweet Tooth

I made the mini-goal to avoid sweets and dessert for the rest of the week.  Wellll…..

Question: How is it possible for me to turn down a pumpkin chocolate brownie with cinnamon whipped cream frosting?

Answer: It’s not.

Sidenote: I kind of forgot the brownie was frosted when I stuck the container in my purse. And the brownie got tossed around. And frosting got stuck to the lid. And then I licked it off. You know.

You can also assume I had a fun sized 100 Grand at work (um. Can you say best candy bar ever? Thought so) and some ice cream while watching Gossip Girl.

Evidence of night-time snacky hunger:

First I started with popcorn.

Then moved on to ice cream.

And finally a mug of hot chocolate almond milk.

Maybe it’s because dinner was small. But you’d think pizza would be filling. Bread + fats + protein….right??

(That’s a tiny tiny plate by the way).

Rewinding to breakfast….it was something I’ve been waiting to make for a couple weeks.  Probably because I’ve had this empty jar taunting me for a while.

I just hadn’t had time to make hot oats – how sad!

Fini! (I took French in high school, by the way).  Oui…Oui.

I actually felt slightly sick after this. Sometime my oats are just to sweet and rich for my taste. Shocker.

I’m so glad my healthiest eats of the day went unphotographed – think turkey & hummus sandwich, vegetable soup, and green beans.

Yup. Obviously healthy foods are scared of the camera.

Okay – I’m in need of a little clean eating here! I don’t care how controversial some people think it may be at this specific point in time – but I’m going to try and clean up my eating for the rest of the week.

Something quite special is coming up in less than 2 weeks(!!!), and I don’t need to be weighed down for it 🙂

Do you have a big sweet tooth? I’m definitely more of a sweet person than salty. Sure, I love salt on my food (yes, yes I do very much), but I can turn down chips & salsa anyday. Sweets on the other hand? I obviously have a problem 😉

Au revoir!

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Weekend in…4, 3, 2, 1…25?

4…

desserts I had.

Friday night’s cookies and ice cream (3 mini cookies total).

Saturday’s mint patty.

Sunday’s Mexican pumpkin spice brownie at lunch.

And Sunday night’s remainder of the brownie with ice cream.

I don’t think it’s so great that my room is downstairs. It makes it way too easy to go back for seconds of ice cream. Which I did.

3…

hills covered during my hill run.

2 gradually steep hils that were about 1/2 mile each. And 1 majory steep hill. The SF race has hills yo. I need to train for them.

Pre-run fuel was 1/2 the orange-mango bagel I picked up at Einstein’s the other day. Sounded too interesting to turn down.

I liked the sweetness. But wasn’t a huge fan of the orange flavor.

2…

messes my raspberries died red.

Yogurt mess:

And cottage cheese.

With PB of course because that’s how I do it.

1…

delicious new dressing I’m obsessed with.

Salad with chicken, feta and said dressing at work.

25…

hours worked total in 2 days. Phew. GOOD NIGHT.

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Sweetie Pie

Tonight my friends put a little putluck together. Right away I knew I wanted to make this bread pudding. Knowing I would be working from 6 am – 5/6:00 pm, I prepared most of it last night.

I toasted up 8 pieces of bread. The recips calls for 5, but my bread slices were super tiny!! Only 50 calories per slice to give you a better picture. I bought the cheapest bread at Walmart! That might explain it.

Toasty.

While they were toasting up, I whisked the rest of the ingredients

• Milk (3/4 cup 2% milk, 3/4 cup almond milk. I didn’t want to use up tons of my almond milk 😉 )
• 3 eggs
• Pumpkin (used in place of sweet potato)
• Pumpkin pie spice
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt

Cut up bread and put in baking dish!

I baked the bread pudding at my friend’s house so it would be fresh and hot just in time for dessert!

TOO. MANY. SWEETS. TODAY.

Oy.

My whole day wasn’t sweet-tastic. But much was.

Breakfast was sweet. Awesomely sweet.

Yogurt + peanut flour + maple syrup sweet. Cereal + banana + nectarine sweet. Jam sweet. Yummmmin sweet yummins.

Mid-morning breakfast: some oatmeal, eggs, cottage cheese & COFFEE. Big and filling.

Therefore I wasn’t too hungry at lunch. Salad bar it was!

Loaded with beets, feta, sunflower seeds, cottage cheese & Italian dressing.

I couldn’t help but grab this apple pie leftover from last night out of the fridge. I picked at half.  Mostly the bottom crust.  My favorite part.

It was falling apart, so I figured they wouldn’t serve it to any patients. Right?!?! 😉 SWEET.

Then that afternoon one of the chefs offered everyone some samples of desserts she was preparing. Um hello. How could I say no?

Delicious dense chocolate cake things. I had 1 1/2 small pieces. (Keep in mind these are small like 4-5 inch plates).

And carrot cake.

MAJOR SWEET.

I rushed home after work, changed, and grabbed a snack on my way out the door to nannying.

MASSIVE SWEET.

But nature sweet 🙂

When I found out dinner wouldn’t be until 7:30 or 8:00 (dang – these people eat late!!), I knew I needed a snack. Leftover cheesy veggies I actually cooked up last night, but was too full to eat. Topped with hummus.

And a big ol’ scoop of Nutzo.

At the potluck I had: (apologies for the horrible photos. Iphone camera + dim lighting doesn’t work out too well).

Couple handfuls of tortilla chips.

A sundried tomato breadstick

Veggie pizza and fruit salad (this plate x2)

Can’t forget the sweets – dessert.  PIE!! Oh pie. If I had known someone else was supplying dessert I wouldn’t have made mine.

Just kidding. Obviously I love every excuse to bake sweets.

Banana cream(!!)

Chocolate cream pie, and of course pumpkin bread pudding. And vanilla ice cream to top it all off.

You know what my plate looked like 😉

HOLY SWEET.

I actually only ate the crust off the chocolate cream pie. It had coconut in it – not a fan.

So. Full.

If I’m not careful, I’m gonna turn into a sweetie pie soon.

Oh who am I kidding….I already am one 😉

PS: everyone really liked the bread pudding.  I was so happy!  I feel like pumpkin and bread pudding are both hit and miss with people.  Make it!

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Running Peep Show

Today the temps reached over 100. For San Luis Obispo – a coastal town that averages 70 year round, that is crazy hot.

It was probably 20 degrees hotter than that in the kitchen at work. I do not lie.

I had a delicious yogurt bowl at 5:30 this morning.

Mixed with a nectarine, Trader Joe’s high fiber cereal, and a big ol’ scoop of Nutzo.

Breakfast #2 at 9:00.

+ a banana muffin.

I wasn’t very hungry only 2 hours later for lunch. So I got steamed carrots and a wrap that I could eat part of and save the rest for later.

It was a Greek turkey wrap with turkey, veggies, and feta cheese. It was a bit dry so I topped it with some caesar dressing at work, and BBQ sauce at home.

These wraps are massive.

I then ran a few errands and picked up some groceries to make dessert for a potluck tomorrow. Vons had a deal going on if you buy 5 specific items, you save $5. Doing so made this $2.79. And I knew I had to have it.

A small taster.

It makes the perfect pre-run snack if I do say so myself.

Soon after I put on some running shorts I’ve actually never worn. I love them because they’re embroidered with the date and race of my marathon. Yet I got them on super sale the year after.

However, I’ve never worn them because they’re see-through. You can see the panty liner through the light pink fabric. Today I said “MEH” and sported them anyway. Take a good look boys!!

3.1 miles later I was a hot sweaty mess. It was still WAY hot outside at 7:00. Crazy. Now our summer weather hits us! My run wasn’t the greatest, but I was happy I made it out after such a long day.

I really wasn’t hungry the rest of the night. I was actually feeling rather bloated. A hot meal and veggies might not have been the best choice. But too late now.

I cooked up a can of green beans (note to self: by the salt added next time! These were bland), along with pasta sauce. Layered it over a salad, topped with feta cheese, a small scoop of pesto and 2 tortellinis that my roommate was cooking up.

You also best believe that I couldn’t end my night without some of this action.

How can I buy a container of ice cream and ignore it on the very first night? I mean, feelings would be hurt and grudges might develop.

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Moving Weekend

First, I want to apologize for being so MIA – in blog posting, blog reading/commenting, Twitterland, etc. The past weekend was jam-packed with moving. And now I don’t have internet at my new place yet.

AKA – I’m stealing using Borders internet at the moment.

There’s so much I wish to post about and catch you up on. But that might be impossible. I’ll try to work with you in stages.

Secondly…I’m Obsessed.

But that’s another story.

Today’s story focuses on the weekend Taylor finally moved from her longly coveted half-deflated air mattress, and onto a real bed.

The weekend was full of yogurt mess bowls:

And cottage cheese mess bowls.

With my new love.

And cottage cheese obvs.

It was also filled with salads such as one from lunch –

And one from my favorite BBQ place in town where I went with my parents (they came down for about 3 hours – yes a 7 hour drive roundtrip to help me move in for 3 hours. Love).

Lettuce, bell peppers, onions, tomatoes, feta, pine nuts, and shredded chicken. Doused in the best BBQ sauce EVER.

Then came moving, unpacking, and more moving. And my room is still a mess. I’m guessing it will take another week to fully unpack.

A Costco trip was definitely in order to stock up on necessary toilet paper and paper towels.

This is what happens when you go to Costco hungry on a Sunday evening, yet the tasters are all packed up:

I LOVE their berry sundae. Although I know it’s just tons of added sugar with the sundae “sauce”. Meh. It’s tasty and I rarely get it.

Oh and you really can’t forget my ginormous brownie from work either.

Huge, and I had already eaten a good 1/4 of it.

PB cream cheese brownie to be exact.

I ate about half before calling it a day. It was too dry for my taste.

Well that was my weekend in a nut shell as short of a post as I could make it. I know it’s not super interesting. And I also know it’s now Tuesday, so you probably don’t care to know about Saturday/Sunday events and eats.

But maybe I’ll get around to catching you up on Monday and Tuesday by the time Friday rolls around. You know how that is.

Or perhaps by then I’ll actually have internet. And my room will be unpacked.

But I doubt that one.

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