Queen Deal

I’m not cocky or anything, but I hereby grant myself the title “Queen of Deals.”  Seriously.  Almost so much that it bites me in the butt when I can’t turn down a good deal and end up spending more than I would have otherwise.

I guess that’s the point of sales.

I went into Vons today to buy:

1. 1 container of Chobani yogurt for their facebook contest

2. Coffee creamer if had no self restraint and it somehow ended up in my basket

I walked out with:

For $14!!!!!!!  I do not lie.

I happened to walk by a random side freezer that was housing Vitatops, Amy’s, and all gourmet vegetarian foods all for 50% off.  Guess they were doing some sort of spring New Year’s cleaning?

Then I spotted blueberry yogurts for 50% off as well – making them 20 cents each.  Breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the next few days?  I think yes.

I obviously had no self-control as the coffee creamer still ended up in my basket.  I blame the 50% off endorphins.s

Might I add that this was my first grocery shopping trip in a month?  Shows how much I eat at home.

I also scored some major deals at a local natural health foods store (similar to Whole Foods) when I went in for 1 specific thing.  The cashier gave me extra coupons off, and even let me keep my free “Food Should Taste Good” coupon after I used it!

Definitely my day

 

Food highlights as of late have included:

Some sort of Chicken Masala from TJ’s (bought at work).  Not super great, wouldn’t buy again.

Thai tofu leftovers at work:

And iced coffee in my new Starbucks tumbler!!  (X-mas gift from the sista!)

I used to have the Grande size, but dropped and broke it.  I really wanted to Venti this time.  It’s huge, but you know that’s how I like them

 

This is what happens when you arrive back home at 2:20 on Sunday and have work at 3:00.  Then continue to work 8:00-8:00 for the next 3 days.  You dump your luggage, bags of crap, and bags of gifts on your floor…and don’t have time to clean anything up.

And also get to the point of “I don’t care, my room is already messy, let’s just strip my clothes off/take my shoes off/store it on the floor because I’m going to clean up soon anyways” mood.

I really wish I was lying about that picture, but I’m not.

 

Speaking of deals, I tried out a new pair of running shoes I got on sale at Running Warehouse tonight.  I also wore my new pair of running capris that I got at Nordstrom Rack for $15.  They look like denim, are super comfy, and I’m in love.

Running Warehouse has a bunch of their “older” models on sale, and I bought 4 online to try on and try out.  Yes, I ordered them online even though I live less than 2 miles away from the actual warehouse. 

I’m testing them all out, and trying to decide on 2, then will return the others.  I’ll talk about them soon in a post.  Thank you Christmas money!

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One Zero

10 things on 10-10-10.  Cliché.  But deal.

1. Milestones.

Speaking of ones and zeros….

My car (Sophie is her name, by the way) has reached a milestone and is now over the hill.  Getting up there with the old fogies.

 

2. Grocery shopping.

Because of my work schedule, I really only eat breakfast, some lunches, and 2-4 dinners at home per week.  However, I really was dwindling down to nothing.

Costco goods:

• Chicken sausage – $14 for 3 pack
• 18 eggs – $1.50

• Vanilla extract – $7
• Pumpkin spice coffee – $8.99 for 32 oz!
• 2 pack of CPK BBQ sauce – $6.99 for 2 40-oz containers.  I need BBQ sauce, and this was a pretty good deal!

Other grocery goods (Trader Joe’s, Ralphs, and local market):

• Voskos Greek yogurt – $1 each.  Splurge.  But cheap for Greek yogurt. Plus it’s an 8 oz container
• New Laughing Cow flavor!  $3 on sale, and wanted to try
• Guacamole Hummus – $3 (Dislike.  I actually ended up throwing it away today.  It was like bland bland weird textured avocado.  Not a fan)
• Pistachios on mad sale!
• Black beans – $1
• Oats – $2.30
• Peanut sauce dressing – on sale for $2.50

• Nectarines – .68 cents/lb
• Kobacha squash – .59/lb!!!!  Cheapest I’ve seen it anywhere.  This squash ended up being $2 something.  Crazy good deal.  I was so excited I bought 2.

Anyways, this was a slightly big shopping trip for me, but now I have pasta, sausage, rice, beans, and a few frozen foods to eat for lunches and dinner.

Plus squash.  I’m so excited.

 

3. There’s really no way to make string cheese look attractive.  Fact.

 

4. Muffin baking.

I’ve been wanting to bake with that open jar of applesauce I have.  I’ve also been wanting to make pumpkin bread or muffins. 

Following this recipe, I used applesauce instead of oil.  And 1 cup of brown sugar instead of white.

I also topped it with a streusel mixture of:

• 1 Tbsp Earth balance butter, melted
• 1/3 cup oats
• 2 Tbsp brown sugar
• Cinnamon

 

5. Muffin eating

With vanilla pear butter spread spread on it.

These are delicious and healthy tasting.  You can tell they don’t use oil or butter, but are still moist and slightly chewy.  So good.

 

6. Peanut butter loving.

Literally.  They love each other.

 

7. The return of pumpkin cream cheese.

This is one thing I will splurge on no matter what.  Yes, $3.60 is expensive for cream cheese.  But it’s once a year.  And so so good. 

From Einstein’s if you have one near you.

 

8. Sushi.  It was good.  Especially the tempura vegetables.  And when I saw tempura kobacha squash, I was excited.  Of course.

 

9. Accidentally setting my alarm for 6:00 am rather than 5:00.  And waking up, getting my coffee, taking my time….until my phone rings at 6:15 and I see the time.  I’m supposed to be at work at 6:00. 

Whoops.

 

10. Finally getting cable and watching the Giants win their second game of the series.  YESSSSSSSSSS.

 

 

You can list your top 10 recent moments lately, or just your #1 Go for it!!

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Skimpy Dimpy

Let me walk you through my weekend day of eats 🙂

5:00 – ALARM ALARM!!!! Okay. My alarm isn’t that alarming. But at least it wakes me up that early. I made sure to have breakfast ready for me.  Overnight oats to the rescue!! And coffee already in the pot ready for me to press ON.

My first nectarine was moldy (boooo) so I had to use up 2 this morning. At least the second one was still good!

I am obsessed with jam as of late.

8:30 – Break time! Which means breakfast numero dos (sorry – awful dim lighting in the cafeteria that early). I got some scrambled egg substitute (really meant for the diabetic and cardiac patients.  But normal eggs were out). Score! There was leftover cottage cheese and canteloupe from breakfast as well. + another coffee

11:00 – Lunch break! Our lunch break is a tad on the early side, since we actually have to make and serve trays during true lunch time. Nothing on the menu looked good today, so I stuck with the salad bar:

• Mixed green
• Sunflower seeds
• Kidney beans
• Beets
• Artichoke hearts
• Pineapple
• Couple tortilla strips
• Honey mustard dressing

We actually got off early today at around 1:45 (it was a slightly slower day), and I scuttled home (scuttled Taylor? Really?) to change.

2:15 – Tummy rumbling once again! I really didn’t have any grainy carbs at lunch, so I made up for that with some cereal. And a scoop of PB in the middle.

I love to add a drizzle of syrup and some cinnamon to my cereal, depending on the flavor and sweetness.

4:00 – More work work work! At least I only babysat for 1 1/2 hours today. I did grab some grapes though.

There was one thing I knew I needed to do on my way home – and that would be get groceries!!

Sad, pathetic, skimpy food stock:

Mmmm that Mike’s Hard Lemonade looks good.

The pantry wasn’t much better.

$35 later…Oh yay – MUCH BETTER. (Ignore the empty wine bottles in the back. I only wish I bought those).

• Watermelon
• English muffins
• Carrots
• 3 small containers of yogurt
• 2 things of almond milk
• Zucchini

• Cauliflower
• Tub of plain yogurt
• Cream cheese
• 2 coffeemates (large size)
• Poweraide
• Cinnamon
• Cheddar cheese
• Cereal

While it was more than I wish to spend (my weekly budget is $40, and I still want to go to Trader Joes), I know I got a good amount for what I paid! Coupons coupons coupons! Find what’s on sale, and shop the cheap stores! Budget post is still in the works – I swear! It was also a bit more becuase I bought a few extra things such as:

• 2 almond milks (which should last me 2 weeks) – I don’t like shopping at Food 4 Less (where I get almond milk), so I try to stock up when I go in
• 2 coffeemates (it was a great coupon!)
• Cinnamon – expensive addition. But I’m out. And I can’t go without my cinnamon I didn’t necessarily need
• Cheese – I only bought it because it was on coupon for $1.69. So I’ll work my meals around it. English muffin pizzas anyone?

Right away I got to work on dinner with something I already had in my pantry. Nothing special. Nothing fancy. But something quite delicious.

Spaghettios?!?!?

Make that Annie’s P’sghetti loops with soy meatballs (found on sale at Target last week for $1! Trust me – everything I buy/eat will be on sale 😉 ). I also had some leftover chili beans chillin (I kill myself) in the fridge, so I mixed those in as well. Why not [take a crazy chance]?

Mmm these meatballs are yum.

Spaghettios was our main source of fuel when I moved into my house when I was 5.  Since we didn’t have many dishes or pots and pans unpacked to cook, we relied on these canned beauties.  I vividly recall sitting on empty crates in our empty kitchen eating spaghettios.  Brings me back.

Please don’t judge my skimpy side salad + sesame dressing (x2). It has feelings too.

Now my eyes hurt. I’ll probably hit the hay at 9:00 or so. After I have some hot chocolate of course.

Hey all, by the way – what are you all doing for Labor Day weekend?! I hope something fun pleeeeease!! 😀

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Sad sad empty jars

This is always a glorious sight!! OIAJ anyone?

Unfortunately I ran into 2 problems:

1. I have no oats.

2. It would be quite difficult to dig my spoon into this monstrous jar.

So I had to use my last almond butter remnants on my toast.

I try to make toast look appealing on an Iphone camera. Really, I do. But it’s hard.

Especially sandwich thin toast And since that’s my only form of bread in the house – well. Sandwich thin toast it was!

I then headed out on my first run in almost 3 4 weeks. I honestly can’t remember if it’s been 3 or 4 weeks, and I don’t really feel like figuring it out right now. Hmm…

Distance: 3.75 miles
Time: 37:10

With a few walking breaks – it was pretty tough. Gah. I’m super behind on my half training now. I was up to 10 miles before I had to take a break, and those long runs were still tough. Now I have…8 weeks to work my way back up until my half. Including taper time. We’ll see!

Good news is my side stitch/pulled ab muscle/odd side pain was barely barely noticeable! I’d say it’s about 98.5% better than what it was at the peak. It only slightly hurts now if I push on it.

Post-run lunch was another chicken pesto wrap. Frozen section at Costco.

Hope you’re not sick of these yet. I still have a few in the freezer.

Darn it. Another empty nut butter jar?

This time I used the last of my cashew butter to make my snack – CB&J sammy. Enjoyed at the beach.

I came home starving, devoured a yogurt (unpictured – mucho sorry!), and headed out to pick up some black shoes for work and get some necessary groceries. My little fridge section has looked sad the past couple days.

Pssst that’s the egg white salad container I got from Costco. It’s delicious! Reminds me of those Trader Joe’s egg white salads.

Seriously, not much to work with.

Ahh much better 😀

I’m staying at a friend’s house (actually it’s the house I lived in my past 2 years) for the next 1 1/2 weeks. So I didn’t want to get TOO much food. But I do need some stuff!

Dinner was quick, cheap, and easy.

Pasta pasta pasta! I mixed in some canned green beans.

It was a ton of pasta, but I was still hungry an hour later and cooked up my cauliflower.

Don’t judge.

I want to leave you with what I managed to look like at the end of yesterday. Babysitting + not caring about your looks + slightly hungover leads to this attractive ‘do:

Apparently I also thought I was slightly ghetto.

First day of the real job tomorrow!! Wish me luck 😉

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#notinSF Baking

First off, I recently won both Danica and Paige’s awesome giveaways! I must have been wearing my luck underwear socks (??) those days. Dang – should’ve been paying closer attention. Thanks ladies 🙂

In other news, since I was #notinSF on Twitter all day yesterday, I decided to take advantage and use the kitchen! Lately, I’ve felt that all my meals have consisted of easy-peasy boring schmorning throw-it-together from the freezer ingredients.

First, baking is expensive! I was trying to follow the November Challenge of $100 spent on food this month – but just yesterday alone, I spent over $50!! That is beyond a lot for me (my weekly grocery bills are usually $15-$25). I’m a huge frugal & sales shopper and usually only buy what I need or what’s on sale that week. However, it must have been luck that I ran out of tons of staples this month (flour, cocoa, cornstarch, oil…and needed to purchase molasses).

Dang baking goods!

And I couldn’t turn down these roadshow meatballs from Costco. “Limited time” really sucks me in.

So for dinner, I combined my new meatballs with my new butternut squash for a Maple Quinoa Stuffed Butternut Squash.

First, roasted both halves (one with salt/pepper & one with cinnamon – for later). Next, I stuffed the salt/pepper side with a quinoa mxture:

The stuffed segment consisted of:

• Quinoa
• Buffalo meatballs
• Onions
• Pistachios
• Pumpkin seeds
• Light rice vinegar
• Lemon juice
• Salt, pepper, garlic salt
• Maple syrup

The maple syrup was a completely last mintue addition to make it a sweet & savory concept. It worked quite nicely!

My tummy hated me after this.

I forgot how much I miss & love butternut squash! And how easy it is to make. Definitely need to take advantage of the season.

I’ve also been wanting to bake recently, so I decided to try out an adapted recipe of the vegan pumpkin scones Megan recently cooked up. I halved the recipe, and did a few substiutions (such as oil instead of margarine – I had none), then popped them in the oven this morning.

I know oil and margarine are completely different, and my scones probably turned out much more “doughy” because of it, but they were still delicious!

My roommates loved them and said they were more “cakey” than “crumby”.  I never eat scones (see T-vlog below), so I have nothing to compare, but I loved them! I helped myself to half of one straight from the oven.

Eventually I got hungry for an actual breakfast.

• Kashi Go-lean
• Nature’s Path maple pecan crunch
• 1/2 sliced banana
• Other half of my WW pumpkin scone
• Strained yogurt

Fueled my gym sesh quite nicely where I did another 4.5 mile dreadmill interval workout. I’m obsessed with the intervals lately. But man, I notice how much more intervals rev the metab – I’m way more starving doing intervals than I was just going slow and steady.

Sorry for no more pics throughout the day but unpictured highlight eats include:

• Other half of my butternut squash (Holy moly I need to go buy another A-stat. Forgot how much I love them!!)
• Chocolate Heart Thrive warmed up with chocolate almond butter (mmmm yes please. Loved the gooey chocolate chips in the bar)
• Banana whip with 1 scoop pumpkin ice cream & sunbutter.

Hey hey hey…check it out! Another V-log? Or T-Vlog? Enjoy 🙂 And sorry I seem super spacey in it – when I go back and watch it now, I seem to “umm” and stumble quite a bit…

Edited to add: I looked up types of pastries, and wowzers – I had no idea it included so much!  I definitely love cinnamon buns, baklava, and PIES.  I love pies.  Especially dutch apple (with the crumbly top), pumpkin & pecan.  Okay – so I definitely do like pastries!!

Pssst…and how was everyone’s weekend?!

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You Tricky Lara

I haven’t been as hungry as I was today in….well a while.

Breakfast was the last of my frozen oatmeal pumpkin pancakes.

With Greek yogurt & sunbutter layered between each. And all topped with syup.

Nommmmmm. Guys – sooo good. These are the best pancakes I’ve ever made. And the yogurt in each layer just adds so much.

With a bowl of fruit + yogurt. Honeydew, 1/2 a peach, 1/2 a banana.

Although I was crazy late for the bus, so after a few bites, stuck this baby in the fridge for later.

Clinical Nutrition lab midterm was ehh. We had 2 patients to evaluate and interpret their blood lab values. Then had to determine the type of anemia and write up SOAP notes (page long subjectie, objective, assessments, and plans). I knew 1 patient well enough, but got stuck on the other diagnosis. We shall see.

I was starving halfway through the test, so I kind of just wanted to be done with it so I could eat. This:

What I thought was a PB&J lara.

Bite.

“Man, this PB&J has cherry overload.”

Bite.

“Dang, weird how different bars of the same flavor can taste so different.”

Bite.

“Okay, this is one tart baby.”

Oh. Surprise!

So that’s why there was so much cherry flavor.  You tricky Lara, you.  Being in such similar wrappers.

Didn’t sweat nearly as much at the gym today. Must’ve been that ridiculous stairmaster yesterday. Evil machine.

• 2 mile run (broken into 5 min. run/2 min walk segments)
• 20 minute upper body strength
• 10 minute abs

Off to work (on the way ate my fruit/yogurt from the morning) where I had lunch. Leftover asparagus quinoa.

Obsessed with the flavors in this dish.

Still pretty hangry after this, but I tried waiting for my brain to catch up. I finally had some carrots & multiple cups of coffee, which seemed to do the trick. But not for long. Less than 3 hours later I was beyond shaky with hunger (I swear quinoa never keeps me full!). I went crazy trying to satisfy it.

Apple.

Handfuls of cereal.

Trail mix.

and 1/2 a banana.

Yesterday, I realized my free Starbucks ice cream coupon expired today, so I knew I had to use that now or never! No way was I letting that sucker go to waste 😉

I’ve tried the Caramel Macchiato flavor (love) before, so this time I decided to try out Mocha Frappucino.

Check out those swirls!

Tasted remarkably identical to a mocha frappucino (really?  Never would’ve guessed that from the description). But I still like the caramel macchiato better. Probably because I don’t like chocolate ice cream much. And I’m in love with caramel.

I also found (drumrolls please)…Pumpkin Pie yogurt!! No not Stoneyfield, but Vons/Safeway has their own brand of it (Lucerine brand). I’m a huge fan of their light gingerbread flavor. Unfortunately the pumpkin pie is low-fat and not light (so 28 g. of sugar!!), but splurged 😉 I’m sure it’s delicious! And $1 raspberries 😀

8:00 pm and a starving Tay both lead to an easy and quick dinner. (Repeat alert!)

English muffin pizzas.

Half savory: pizza sauce + ricotta + cheese + turkey pepperoni

Half sweet: pumpkin cream cheese + pumpkin & ricotta mixture + cinnamon

Small dinner, but my snacks from the afternoon finally caught up to me.

Small dinner also = snacking later. Oh who am I kidding, I always have a nightime snack, big dinner or not.

Raspberries drizzled with agave.

And hot cocoa (x2)

All right, I’m out. Finish packing is a must.

What is everyone’s night time snack of choice?
Mine is definitely ice cream. Or dates with PB/AB. And I have hot chocolate every. Single. Night.  Yummm.

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The Missing Pumpkin

Lessons learned on Friday night:

Pumpkin ale is not as pumpkiny as I was expecting.  But still good.

Don’t pose with a 5’4″ heel-less person unless you wish to look like a giant.

When your sober driver almost collides with another car, scream and then laugh about it?

Opening up a french fry shop next to a bar is genius – pure and utter brilliance.

Check out this menu. To the recommendation of my friend who’s been there before, we got “Herbs de Provence” (thyme, rosemary, savory, oregano, marjoram) with the Curry Mango Chutney dipping sauce. I generously shared with everyone hogged 90% of them. I can’t believe I have never been in the 3 years since this place opened.

All right, enough of Friday reminiscing.

So my grandma loves chain emails. Not the ridiculous “send this to 10 people and you’ll win a $25 gift certificate” emails, but cute, funny, or meaningful ones. I really enjoy them! She recently sent me “21 rules to live by” and there are a few that I wholly agree with or that stuck out to me.

1. Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully.

2. Marry a man/woman you love to talk to. As you get older, their conversational skills will be as important as any other.

4. When you say, ‘I love you,’ mean it.

6. Be engaged at least six months before you get married.

7. Believe in love at first sight.

8. Never laugh at anyone’s dreams. People who don’t have dreams don’t have much.

9. Love deeply and passionately. You might get hurt but it’s the only way to live life completely.

14. Remember that great love and great achievements involve great risk.

15. Say ‘bless you’ when you hear someone sneeze..

16. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.

18. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great friendship.

20. Smile when picking up the phone. The caller will hear it in your voice

21. Spend some time alone.

What are some of your “life rules” to live by?

Today was grocery day and I spent waaaay too much. I went to the local natural foods store to look for Stoneyfield pumpkin yogurt (no luck!) and came out with $25 worth of stuff…WHAT?!

Then I hit up TJ’s and Food 4 Less (hate that store – but I was on the search for pumpkin) and ended up spending another $40. Holy Moly! I did have a few splurges (although all still on sale).  So many little things just add up.

Here are the goods:

+ 4 unpictured apples, okra, and a surprise dessert for this week.

New TJ’s find alert! Too curious to pass it up. And nutrition stats ain’t bad either!

Excited about some new salad dressings.

And a new brand of almond milk which was on sale. And some on sale pineapple yogurt. Curious to see how this compares to Chobani’s.

Yes – that is my free starbies! Did you take the taste test? The instant was good, but I definitely could tell the difference. I also may or may not have snuck a few extra “free” coupons. They were sitting there for the world to take!

As per Ellie’s recommendation, I was also on the lookout for pumpkin scones at Trader’s.  But there were none in sight.  Where oh where are all my pumpkin products?

Well, let’s rewind to this morning, shall we?

I woke up hungrier than I’ve woken up in the longest time. I literally had to hop right out of bed and run to the kitchen for food. During times like these only one thing will satisfy.

Oatmeal. Pumpkin oatmeal to be exact. It was the ushe (how do you spell ‘ushe’? As in short for usual?) except I wanted a bit of crunch throughout. My slivered almonds were rancid (blech) so in went some pumpkin seeds!

After some studying blog reading and twittering, a gym trip was definitely in order. My treadmill run itself was awesome – I felt strong and never tired. But I pushed my knee far too much. I did make sure to incorporate more walk breaks this time though. Stats:

• .25 mile warmup
• 1 mile run
• .2 mile walk
• 1 mile run
• .2 mile walk
• 1.5 mile run
• .2 mile walk
• 1.75 mile run
• .5 mile cooldown walk

Total: 4.75 miles running

Although I’m pretty sure my treadmill speed was way off since my normal walking speed felt much easier than normal. I actually think it was about .5 mph off. Frustrating.

Then I hit up the grocery stores where there was one sample I just could not turn down.

Newman’s Own mint cookie.

Mr. Newman – you are my new lover.

Once home, I snacked on a honeycrisp apple and a small slice of this amazing smelling quiche my roommate was baking.

This was by no means a healthy dish at all – it was a legit flour & butter crust with a filling of eggs, tons of cheese, heavy cream and broccoli. But it smelled too good to pass up 😉

Unfortunately, the pumpkin shortage has hit my town! No canned pumpkin at any of the stores I looked at today. I am beyond bummed – there goes my pumpkin bread, pumpkin yogurt, pumpkin smoothies, pumpkin oats…and my planned pumpkin pasta! Instead I chose to go with something I bookmarked off Angela’s blog months ago…vegan mac & cheese!

Awful picture of my leftovers, but I’ll pretty it up for the next time I eat it.

It turned out delicious and creamy! But a little bland for my taste. Not quite sure what it needs exactly…

And tonight I dug into this amazing treat I got today.

Oh yes. Creamy and delicious – I am in love. I just might have to go back and pick up another flavor while they’re still on sale.

PS: These make me smile 😀

So I treated myself to some today. They match my room!

I hope they make you smile as well 🙂

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Pumpkin Discoveries

I found it!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But more on that in a bit.

As my last day to really make something for breakfast for the week, I decided on homemade pancakes! This might sound crazy, but I’ve never made pancakes from scratch before. I’ve always used a mix. But this was super easy and delicious!

Pumpkin oatmeal whole wheat pancakes.

You can’t see them, but I also cooked banana slices into them to carmelize when cooked.

Each pancake was topped with something different.

• Vanilla chobani “frosting”
• Pumpkin butter & cream cheese
• Sunbutter & cream cheese

I like cream cheese on my waffles/pancakes/french toast.

And all drizzled with maple syrup and sprinkled with Banana Nut Cheerios.

These were sooooo good. I never want to use boxed again!

When I finally got around to going to the gym, I ran into a problem. I left my keys in my roommate’s locked car, who had just gone out of town for the day! Ugh. Guess I’ll take the bus. What college town bus doesn’t operate on a Sunday? Oh – apparently mine! Sunday is #1 homework/study day (hello procrastination?). What’s going on bus schedule?

Eventually my other roommate offered to give me a ride there. Where I went:

• 1.5 mile run (5.8-6 mph)
• .25 mile walk
• 1.5 mile run (6 mph)
• Cooldown

3 miles running
4 miles total

Followed by some lower body strength moves for the knees.

I gave my knee 4 days rest after it was more sore than normal last Monday & Tuesday. It felt okay today, but I plan to reduce my mileage and stick to the treadmill dreadmill (rather than the track) for now.

I had a mini-breakdown talking to my dad afterwards. He commented how I need to work with my knee and just find something else that doesn’t bother it as much or just run on the treadmill forever. He said that my body just can’t seem to handle running outside. As he was “lecturing” me, tears definitely started falling. Obviously I know my body isn’t able to overtrain, and go far distances day after day (which is how I injured myself in the first place). But I’m 22 years old! I should at least be able to run short distances outside for crying out loud! I know everyone’s body is different, and not everyone can handle the pounding of long distance, and maybe my long marathon distances are over. But what’s wrong my knee is not normal. It’s been over 5 months now. Grr.

Okay rant over.

After the gym I was starving and whipped up this salad.

• Bed of spinach
• 2 sauteed zuchinis and onion
• Sunshine falafel patty
• Tons of sunbutter hummus (5-6+ servings – no joke)
• Poppyseed salad dressing

I loved the contrast of the sweet dressing with the veggies and patty!

I loaded on the dressing and hummus, so along with the patty, it was quite fat laden – although healthy fats.

Finished off with a pumpkin pie saltwater taffy.

Once I was finally able to retrieve my keys, it was grocery time! Since I’m sticking to my freezer/pantry stock, I really didn’t need much – just some fruit, veggies, milk, and eggs…oh and something my roommate texted to me:

“They have pumpkin ice cream at Ralphs hahahah this is an epic day.”

Pumpkin ice cream!!!! I had all my roommates on the lookout at every grocery store they shopped at 🙂 I’ve been searching for it since the beginning of September! I really wanted the double-churned, but Ralph’s didn’t have it. So I settled for the regular. Better than nothing!

I came home with this loot:

How did these guys sneak out of the picture?

More expensive than I was expecting – $28, especially considering everything I got was on sale (except those dang ‘naners). I guess I did splurge on the ice cream and whipped cream (a must for pumpkin flavored things!) so that upped it a bit.

I was still stuffed from my late salad lunch so I didn’t think I’d be very hungry for dinner. But hunger randomly hit so unexpectedly that I chowed down too much, too fast. I went straight for my leftover Kashi pizza.

(+ 1 other slice that I wolfed down straight from the fridge)

While this re-heated up, I chose the fruit side-dish route, rather than veggies (I’d had my fair share at lunch!)

1 peach + 6 strawberries + 1/4 a super un-ripe pear flavorless crunchy green thing.

Guess I need to let those pears ripen just a bit…

Now onto reading that I didn’t get done all weekend. Must finish that before the Desperate Housewives premiere! Anyone else watching/watched it? Megan just tweeted me that it was weird? Excited to find out!

Hopefully I’ll eventually have room for some ice cream as well. I’ll let you know tomorrow! (Who am I kidding – of course I will 😉 )

**Edited to add**

Just want you guys to make sure you’re subscribed to my posts at:

https://heyitstay.wordpress.com/feed

If you’re subscribed without the ‘feed’ at the end – my posts won’t show up in your reader!

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Feel the Burn

Of course I stopped for a froyo treat this afternoon.  Who am I to deny myself the right to delicious cake batter frozen yogurt when they have it in stock?!

Yes – that is the 16 oz container I filled up there.  But I only ate about 2/3 and froze the rest for later.  Crushed oreoes & brownie chunks found their way to the middle layer, and I added chunks of peanut butter at home.

I also ran a few grocery shop errands (specifically to pick up ingredients for a bulgar salad I want to make), but unfortunately they don’t sell mint at TJ’s!!  Rather than go back to Vons (I went there first), I’ll just pick up some mint tomorrow after work and make the salad then.  But I did grab these Just Flattened Bananas I’ve seen on other blogs and am excited to try out!!

Dinner was burrito-style! Sauteed onions, mushrooms & a chopped up garlic chicken patty wrapped in a WW tortilla with wholly guac, FF sour cream, garlic salsa & lettuce.

The burrito looks a bit shiny because I tried to pan-fry it afterwards…didn’t work out too well.  With a side spinach salad with goat cheese & Annie’s Goddess dressing.

While I was actually satisfied a little more than halfway through the burrito, I still finished it.  But I’m proud that I didn’t go back and finish off my leftover chicken/onion mixture (which is what I planned to do).  I put it in a container for leftovers.  Smaller dinner than I was anticipating, but I had that huge froyo at 5:00, so I’m sure that’s why!

And for those of you who were asking for the lasagna recipe from last night?  There really was no recipe involved!  I just followed the directions on the back of the lasagna noodle box.  (Except I used ground turkey, cottage cheese instead of ricotta, and added spinach to the mixture).  Basic steps I followed:

• Mix the cottage cheese with 2 cups of mozzarella cheese & 1 cup parmesan cheese.  Add to cooked ground turkey & mix in frozen spinach.

• Layer pasta sauce on the bottom of the pan, followed by noodles, a layer of turkey/cheese mixture.  Repeat with a 2nd layer.  Sprinkle 1 cup mozzarella cheese on 2nd layer.  Repeat a 3rd layer.

• For the top layer – noodles + sauce + 1 cup mozzarella + sprinkling of parmesan.

Sorry it wasn’t complete step by step – but I’m sure it’s on the back of most noodle boxes!

Still feelin’ the burn (literally – I completely forgot to put sunscreen on this morning ) from my hike, I found this picture from when I hiked it in June of freshman year (exactly 4 years ago!):

We had no idea the type of hike it was – heading out in jeans!  Sheesh…what amateurs we were! 😉 This was a sunset hike – which I’ll have to do on another occasion!

What with cross-training more now, I’m trying to find other enjoyable activities, and not just necessarily maximum-calorie burning vigorous exercises.  So I’ve decided to make a weekly “hiking date” with myself!  I live in such  a beautiful area, with so many trails, hikes, and places to go.  I’m only here for another year (or less!) so I really need to take advantage of it.  So my goal will be a new hike every week (at least for the summer), and then we’ll go from there.  I’m excited!! 😀

Click here for a chance to win coconut mango persimmon butter AND almond butter!!  Or don’t click because I want to win!  😉

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Technical Sunday

My Sunday plan was gym and then homework all afternoon.  But I spent my Sunday researching and looking at computers.  Completely not how I planned my Sunday to go!  I woke up to a big ol’ bowl of oats:

The mix included:

• 1/2 c. oats
• 1 c. almond milk
• Egg
• Cinnamon
• Couple spoonfuls of PB
• Spoonful of almond butter
• HBO cinnamon clusters
• Ground flaxseed
• Sprinkle of brown sugar

Phew!  What a bowlful!  I planned to go to the gym soon after, but my dad texted me that today was the last day to buy this cheap computer at Costco.  So I had to go check out and compare the two computers he recommends I get.  So my afternoon was spent examining computers at Costco and Best Buy and then researching them online.  I still can’t decide between the two!  There’s a 12 inch super thin/light one and a 14 inch one – argh!

My snack at 3:30 was intended to fuel me through my coming up gym workout:

Kashi blueberry waffle topped with some honey almond cream cheese, peanut butter, and boysenberry preserves.

But I was awaiting a phone call from my dad, and before I knew it, it was 6:00 and I was tired and hungry!  So I just did 25 minutes of quick upper body dumbells and some ab work here at home.

Dinner consisted of the other half of my California Dreamin’ sandwich from last night, and a HUGE salad with feta cheese, onion, and BBQ ranch dressing.  With a side bowl of honeydew melon.

I did find some more good buys today!  New running shirts (or just exercise shirts in my case right now) at Costco!

32 oz blueberries for $7.99!! My absolute favorite fruit ever and that is dang cheap!  Ralph’s also had raspberries for $1, and I decided to try out these Cedarlane couscous vegetable wraps.  I love their bean & cheese burritos, and these were buy 1 get 1 free, so being the bargain shopper that I am, I thought I’d check them out!  I obviously get excited over good finds and good deals :-D.  Hey!  I am a college student on a budget here!

The roommates and I planned an Angels & Demons movie night, but it looks like maybe that’s not going to happen.  We have a big day tomorrow (Santa Barbara road trip!) so maybe we’ll just take it easy.  Woohoo for 3-day weekends!

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