Back in Action

Dayumnnn weather – you be lookin’ GOR-geous today!!  Keep it up

Today started out with some gym time.  I usually go do weights for about 30-40 minutes, but I felt pretty awful when I woke up, and decided to head in later at like 7:00 instead of 6:30. So I got in:

• 15 minutes easy weights (including pull-up machine…working on that!)
• 25 minutes abs class

Let me tell ya’ – doing ab work is dang hard with a boot on my leg.  I don’t know how much it weighs, but it ads to the intensity!  Of course I have to modify planks and such though.

Breakfast wasn’t eaten until 9:15 at work:

Voskos Greek yogurt (topped with a bit of granola)

…mixed with some Trader Joe’s honey apple butter.  It’s definitely yummy, but just reminds me of extra sweet applesauce.  It’s good, but I’d rather have jam (or pumpkin butter!!). 

While at work at snacked on watermelon which I was asked to cut up:

And a mini baby ice cream cone!  Cute.

Lunch (prepared in my wok – love love this thing) – stir-fryed broccoli slaw with ground turkey and enchilada sauce.  Sounds weird, but it was tasty!

 

Topped off with some Jalapeno greek yogurt dip (found at Costco) instead of sour cream.

I also snacked on 2 small random pieces of chicken while this was cooking.

And a couple carrot cake cookies for dessert.

I got this container 75% off at Cost Plus the other day, and have been plowing through.  Love you after-holiday sales!

 

I failed yet again at taking a picture of dinner at work.  It rarely rarely happens since I don’t carry my camera/phone around with me in my pocket (obviously), and we go straight on break into the cafeteria. Unfortunately, I just have to describe it to you

• Creamed spinach (so so good!)
• Steamed broccoli
• Vegetable soup (Au Bon Pan)

There are always 2 entrees, 2 vegetables (not always healthy steamed vegetables ), and 2 starches as options in the cafeteria.  Plus a salad bar, prepackaged wraps/sandwiches, and a soup.  The entrees are often foods I don’t eat (red meat, over-dried meat, meat with skin, etc), so I often go for the salad bar, veggie sides, and soups. 

Once home, I self massaged my tibial tendon (where I’m having lots of pain – right above my inner ankle), and snack on my new favorite dessert – frozen blueberries topped with a peanut flour sauce (will take a picture next time, promise!!). 

Plus hot chocolate! I needed to warm up someway after icing

 

By the way – yes I am counting calories (as part of my weight loss/fit back in my pants plan).  And today’s calorie count totaled out around 1500.  Probably a little more since I estimated on my peanut flour sauce and snacked on a few unmentionable carrot cake cookies I don’t necessarily like to talk calories on the blog (since I know many people do not like that, and I don’t want it to become all calorie talk since I don’t like that either), but I will occasionally talk about it.  Just the facts!

 

PS – yayyyy we made it through Monday!! (even though today is technically my Tuesday at the hospital, it is still my Monday at babysitting).

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Museum Fun

I knew it was going to be an interesting day when it started like this:

Stylin’.

We headed to the Children’s Museum downtown for some…fun?

First, we went to the hospital where I sat waiting amongst the many patients.

Wait…I thought I was at the doctor’s.  What IS that?!?

My, what a big mouth you have!

Seriously.  It was a tall toothbrush.

Woah woah woah.  I did not sign up for this.

Finally we left the doctors/dentist/torture chamber and took a little trolley ride.  Do you even have your license young lady?

We ended up at Farmer’s Market. 

They even had reusable bags.  How thoughtful.

Despite all the Farmer’s Market grub, I was still hungry for lunch!

I made a frozen cashew chicken dish (from Trader Joe’s).  I just didn’t use the rice.  I’m not a big fan of rice – especially white.

All eaten out of an egg bowl!

Hey little bunny.

Notice Florida down on the lower right corner?  Yeah, well speaking of Florida, I got into the Florida State grad school!!!  Yes, I found out a couple weeks ago, and was super stoked.  It was one of the Dietetic Internship/Masters combined programs I applied to, so I still need to get into the internship portion.  Which I find out about on Sunday.  Eeeek so soon!

Florida State was one of my top choices because it was a combined internship/masters program that focused on Sports Nutrition/Physical Performance.  I want to get my masters as well as become an RD, and attending a 2-year combined internship/masters program saves time and money (rather than just doing a 1-year internship followed by 2-year grad school).  However, I want to get my masters specifically in something sports related, and there weren’t many of those combined with an internship around.  So I also applied to some 1-year internship programs that I’d really love to attend as well.

Make sense?

I’ll talk more about it and my top choices when I find out on Sunday.  I don’t want to jinx anything!!

 

Happy April 1st and don’t get fooled!

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Super Senior

Happy Friday! Yesterday, I ran around doing a couple errands. Working on graudation gift assemblies (shhhh it’s a surprise!!), headed into my last day at one nannying job (I’d been with this family for 5 years now!), then went out for a bit to a new bar The Kilt for a friend’s birthday.

I also went shopping for a graduation dress, but everything is way to SHORT! I know I’m on the taller side (5’7″), but the dresses are size large, so shouldn’t they be designed for taller people? My tall tall wedges don’t help the situation either 😉

I came home STARVING and started devouring food the moment upon walking through the door. Starting with some finger dipping into the peanut butter jar (a common occurance lately). I managed to whip up a lunch:

I cooked up some ground turkey on the stove with BBQ sauce. Then I topped a whole wheat lavash wrap with pasta sauce and ranch dressing (half with each) and the turkey mixture.

Yummm delish. Times the amount below x2 (this was only half the pizza and I obviously ate the whole thing)

I finished off my lunch with probably 3 servings of blueberries.

And dinner was a simple stir-fry of veggies, some cilantro chicken wontons, more BBQ turkey meat from lunch, and quinoa.

I couldn’t even tell you all the snacks and BLTs I had yesterday!

To finish off my college flashback week, I’ll do a quick flashback to my senior year of college (2008-2009 – not this past year, since this was my “super” senior year 😉 )

I moved into a new huge house with 5 other girls. I finally got my OWN ROOM!!!!! So excited for that one. It was also my first summer staying in San Luis Obispo (besides my first summer as a freshamn). That summer was stressful with anatomy, but I got through it!  I celebrated by chopping off my hair 😉

LOVED it 😀

I started out the year in September as a WOW (Week of Welcome) leader. WOW is the week before school starts that freshmen come, get assigned groups, and do all sorts of activities to feel welcome at Cal Poly!

We did all sorts of fun things such as rock climbing

Hiking

Touring downtown (that is Bubblegum Alley – an alley of walls completely covered in layers of old gum. Nasy. But a tourist attraction!)

And seeing cool presentations, such as a hypnotist. This one was funny – at one point a hypnotized person came and sat on my lap and did all sorts of hilarious things. Here, I think we were separated by a glass wall, and he couldn’t reach me to kiss. So he started kissing the glass wall between us.

It was hilarious.

The rest of the year was pretty good. It was my first year going down to the bars (Downtown, or DT as we call it here). I went quite a bit with 2 of my roommates, and occasionally some of the others as well.

In October I ran the half marathon that I had ran the full of the previous year.

Halloween!

And as Indiana Jones

This was a HUGE surprise, because I literally ran into (yes, I was on a run) my old roommate Sarah (on the left) who had moved to Rhode Island. She was back!! We surprised our other old roommate Jamie (middle) for her birthday 🙂 Sophomore roommates reunite!

At one point, I was sick of the brassy color my attempted blonde dye job had turned. So I dyed it dark brown – even darker than my natural color. Which I loved! But then that too lightened up and brassied out.

All the rooommates together!

This year was a bit different, a couple old roommates, a couple new ones!

And it’s definitely been one of my best years here at school.

What was your FAVORITE year out of college?

Mine’s a toughie! I loved freshman year, but I also had such a great time this year as well. They were both great in such different ways!

Sidenote: I probably won’t be around much the next couple days due to the family arriving and GRADUATION!!!!! But I promise I’ll be back Sunday or Monday to let you guys in on all the festivities. Have a wonderful weekend!! I sure will 😀

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April Beginnings

Happy first day of April!!

I know it’s April Fool’s Day, but I always like to think of the first day of April as something more – it’s definitely one of my favorite months of the year. Things I’m looking forward to this month:

1. Easter – one of my favorite holidays. A rich family member always throws a giant party in their beautiful yard. This year, they’re not having it, but I still love Easter. And still hunt for eggs! 😉

2. Brooks & Dunn and Jason Aldean concert at the end of the month!

3. Finally starting to feel like spring. Beautiful weather. Yes, there’s stll rain, but there’s also the occasional warmth for shorts!

4. Birthday month!! On April 15th at approximately 10:59 pm a little youngin’ who now goes by the name of Taylor was born. Thank goodness. What would the world be without her?! 😉

My stomach has still been off from Vegas (drinking and all that food obviously doesn’t agree with me. haha). And my appetite was finally back today.

Started the morning off with a bit of freshly cut pineapple.

And a little bit later, made a yogurt mess with this new yogut I picked up to try!

It was good! Not quite as creamy as Chobani. But still delicious. It has a higher calorie content than other Greek yogurt brands, but I’m impressed it has more calcium!

• Nature’s path Strawberry Optimum cereal
• TJs almond butter with flaxseed
• Blueberry jam

My mess also contained a bit of this delicious find I picked up on sale at Target. I’ve been snacking on this stuff nonstop in the past week. It’s madly delicious and addicting!

It’s really pretty much just super sweet granola with a few random cereal flakes 😉

I then bandaged up my blisters, squeezed my feet into my shoes, and tested out my feet at the gym.

3.3 miles total (including warm-up & warm-down) of running/walking intervals.

Good news?

Blisters or knee didn’t hurt too badly on the treadmill at all!

Bad news?

Afterwards, my pinky toe hurt like hell and it was starting to bleed. Um whoops.

Post-gym, I was hungry!! Welcome back appetite!

1/2 of a French Meadow Bakery hemp bagel spread with some cream cheese and Crofter’s jam.

A big thank you to French Meadow Bakery! I’ve been dying to try these bagels for while and they didn’t disappoint. With 13 grams of fiber and 19 grams of protein, these bagels pack a big punch!

Looks at the seedy goodness.

Chewy and nutty tasting 🙂

I also had the rest of my Brown Cow Greek yogurt (~ 1/2 cups worth) mixed with pineapple and a scoop of almond butter.

Not gonna lie when I say I’ve eaten almost the entire pineapple today. And will probably finish it off after dinner 😉

And starving only 2 hours later, had some carrots and dip (as always, unpicture 😉 ).

And dinner was giant stir fry of mixed veggies and chicken. With a bit of chow mein noodles on the side 😉

What are you looking forward to in April?

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Knee Update

I’ve had a few questions regarding how massage therapy is going on my knee.  (You can read about my first knee pain description here, the first MRI results, and the second MRI and second PT diagnosis)

Just to qive a quick background, the physical therapist I saw in December recommended massage therapy to get rid of the scar tissue right below and around my knee. Once I got down here to school, I had a hard time with this. The physical therapist I began to see here at school wasn’t exactly focusing on massage so I began to look for professional deep massage therapists (and more expensive – eep).

As of a couple weeks ago, I had gotten 4 deep massages – all from different therapists. Each one was different, so I kept switching around trying to find one I liked.

#1 – was deep all over my leg, but literally focused 30 seconds on my actual painful spot. All over leg work is quite beneficial for my problem, but I also need significant massage work done on the actual scar tissue to work that out.

#2 – was not nearly as deep as the first. But she focused a bit more on my specific painful spot.

#3 – a shorter massage, so she focused more directly on my painful spot. However she wasn’t deep or strong enough at all.

#4 – this guy was more specifically trained for all-over sports massage for general health. I could see the techniques he used being quite beneficial to work out my kinks and tight muscles if I was currently running a lot.

As you can see, each one had their pros and cons.

The pain definitely began to get a bit better. It no longer throbbed while I was lying or sitting. It would sometimes still bother me if I sat with my legs crossed (in Indian style position), but not all the time.

The question was – Was my pain getting better from the massage? Or was it just not as apparent because I literally had taken off from all activity for 2 months?

Well last Thursday I attempted my first treadmill activity since the beginning of January. Monday I went again (1.5 miles run 2 minutes/walk 1 minute), and Tuesday I did the stairmaster for 20 minutes. (I still have been doing some hip exercises 2-4 times per week)

There was no pain during activity- good sign! But my knee definitely felt stiff and not nearly 100% okay. And there has been slight pain the past couple days.

So what am I trying to say? My knee feels exactly the same as it did before the massage therapy.

So there it is – the progres (or un-progress) that has been going on in my knee’s world. I haven’t been updating on it that often – didn’t want to constantly whine and complain over it!

Moving on…

This morning I warmed up a peach sprinkled with cinnamon in the microwave (to make it gooey and delicious) and topped that over my yogurt mix.

• Plain yogurt
• Kashi Golean cereal
• Micro’d cinnamon peach
• Scoop of Justin’s honey peanut butter

Delicious.

Then I set off for another doctor’s appointment, this time for my ear.

I’ve had a progressive ear infection starting 2 weeks ago. It started out just a bit itchy, which I thought was from swimming. Then the earlobe itself started to itch, and it just got worse and worse. This past weekend, my earlobe was swollen to about half the size of my whole ear! (Sorry if the picture is a bit gross)

Infected ear:

Normal ear:

It was excrutiatingly itchy all around it and inflamed – even behind the ear looked disgusting (I’ll spare you that picture 😉 )

It started to get a bit better on Sunday, and by today it hardly bothers me at all, but is still a bit swollen and dry so I kept my appointment. The nurse just diagnosed my ear with eczema. I’m pretty sure I had an actual infection, but oh well. It’s pretty much gone now, I just wanted to make sure it doesn’t come back in the future if it was from swimming. I just proceeded on my way to class since I was already a bit late.

Mid-day fuel was an iced coffee with soy millk & creamer.

And PB&J on a whole wheat bagel thin (eaten in the middle of class presentations, so no picture).

And snackage at work was a combo of things that in essence became a meal.

Homemade soup with chicken, celery and carrots.

A small bit of salad with Newman’s Own sesame dressing.

And carrots with dip (unpictured. I eat carrots & dip almost everyday, yet for some reason never remember to capture them on film memory card. I’ll have to do that someday before I die).

Din-din was quick and easy stir-fry. I cooked up some frozen veggie medley and asparagus with black bean sauce and soy sauce. Then tossed it with some raisins, slivered almonds, and quinoa I cooked up earlier in the week.

And 2 muggies of lurrrrve throughout the night.

PS: Thank you for all your tips regarding my pan! It’s about halfway clean after the dishwasher detergent soaking, so I’ll definitley try some other tips. I just feel kind of bad soaking it in front of the roommate after she’s already scrubbed it. Don’t want to come off rude

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Just call me Mary Poppins!

After my delicious breakfast cookie on Friday, I decided to head to the pool and locker rooms since it was the last day for me to clean out my locker befor they closed up for 2 weeks. Walking there seemed like a good idea to me! So I walked a total of 3.7 miles roundtrip. Unforunately my breakfast cookie didn’t hold me over for as long as I was hoping! I got pretty hungry only 2 hours later, so on the way home I stopped at Starbies for a decaf iced Americano with 3 pumps pumpkin spice syrup to hold me over.

I could maybe taste the teeniest hint of pumpkin spice in this drink. Next time I’ll have to get a smaller drink or more syrup. But it was refreshing none the less!

Once home I made yet another yogurt mess (addicted I tell ya!).  After a trip to the AT&T store, dinner involved my Cranberry & Pumpkin Seed Quinoa. I cooked up some chicken and added it in, then topped it all on a bed of spinach. I then drizzled the whole thing with Annie’s Raspberry dressing and topped it all with feta cheese.

It doesn’t look like there’s much quinoa there – but there was a ton. We planned to go bowling that night, and then my roommate called and notified me that it was drunk bowling. Hmmm….I ended up drinking a bit, but in no way too much. It actually takes me a lot of alcohol to get anywhere near buzzed, let alone drunk. My two girl friends did get pretty crazy though so that was entertaining.

Unfortunately I had the “buzzed munchies” when I got home and nothing could stop me from digging into my froyo carton. For 3 bowls. Topped with brownies and cookies. Ugh. I’ve had numerous problems with ice cream binges in the past, but it had been so long. Needless to say I wasn’t very hungry the next morning (or all day really) with my bloated belly.

My roommate and I both caught the cleaning bug, however, and spent most the day cleaning/organizing! Icompletely rearranged my room – took me 3 hours to move around furniture, and my bed and dresser ended up almost exactly back where they started! Ha. I also scrubbed down the dirty dirty kitchen.

When I finally got a bit hungry, I made something pretty light. An egg white omelette filled with onion, turkey, laughing cow cheese, a bit of my quinoa mix & some corn salsa.

And then topped with ketchup…duh!!

I proceeded to work on my room all day, and then threw on my running clothes to hit the track. Pre-workout I had 1/2 an Ezekiel english muffin with sunflower seed butter (more on that later) & superfruit preserves.

My run was much much better than the other day. Granted it was probably 30 degrees cooler, so I’m sure that helped. Once I got there, I realized my crappy respectably old Ipod was dead, and there was no way I could run around a track 1800000times without music. Enter my handy dandy Iphone! Plugged my earphones in, turned on Pandora, and wa-la! Like pure magic I say 🙂 Gotta love it. I went:

• 2 miles run/.25 mile walk
• 1.75 miles run/.25 mile walk
• .75 mile run (a bit faster)/.25 mile walk

Total: 4.5 mile running; 5.3 miles total with walk breaks

I even kept under a 10 minute mile average including the walking! I wanted to get to 5, but the knees were a bit stiff so of course I pulled back.

For dinner I whipped up a simple chicken veggie stir-fry with my last chicken breast and a whole bag of frozen veggies.

To my bowl, I added a small bit of quinoa salad (yes – I still have a ton of this stuff left) & corn salsa, and last minute added a bit of BBQ sauce.

And I ended up going back and finishing off the entire wok. So much for leftovers! Guess my run brought back my normal appetite!

I remembered something else that I wanted to try out. Miss. Chocolate Covered Katie’s Banana Butter! I blended 2 bananas and 2 big scoops of PB. It tasted a bit too banana-y to me, so next time I’d use more PB or less banana. Or maybe less ripe bananas. I used pretty ripe ones – and I’m not a fan of that strong flavor. Either way, she wasn’t lying when she said it was lick-the-blender-good since I did indeed lick my blender!!

Afterwards I mixed in cinnamon and raisins to make some Cinnamon Raisin banana butter. I can’t wait to try this out after it’s set!

This morning I woke up still not super hungry. Baah. I tried to repeat my last breakfast sandwich, this time on a bagel. What’s inside this, you may ask?

Oh well let me tell you. Garlic/herb cream cheese & avocado spread on the bottom, topped with scambled egg whites, turkey, a scoop of corn salsa, and ketchup. Sandwiched and smashed between a Rudi’s cinnamon raisin bagel.

It was good, but I liked the waffle ‘wich more.

I also had to try my Banana Butter for good measure. It seemed that the cinnamon rose to the top over night?

Maybe becaue I didn’t blend the cinnamon in, I just mixed it. It was still good! I could just eat this whole thing by the spoonful.

Gotta get going because we’re going kayaking today!!

So how much did I actually get accomplished off my last list?

Workout
Clean out my locker at the gym
Clean/organize room/rearrange furniture
Call my madre
AT&T store to deal with my phone (it’s been acting up)
Organize my music on my computer & Itunes
Catch up on Google reader
Work on the blog

Ehh…not bad!

Today’s plan of action:

Finish the room organization
Head back to the AT&T store to exchange my phone
Have fun on our Kayak adventure!
Do ab work – yes that’s on my list because I always procrastinate on it
Organize my music on my computer & Itunes
Catch up on Google reader
Work on the blog

I’m just making this my list for the next couple days since I don’t work Tuesday either. Gaah I love lists! 😀

How is everyone’s adventurous holiday weekend treating them?!

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Itsy Bitsy Spider

There must have been a spider on my left arm last night because I woke up with 2 bites – one on the front, and one underneath by my armpit.  Ewwww.  Creepy!!

How is everyone’s week going?  I am so excited for this weekend because my sister is coming down to visit on Saturday, and then on Sunday we’re driving down to LA for the Keith Urban concert!!  I just downloaded his new CD on Itunes just a few days ago and really need to get on the ball listening to the songs.  I know most of his “popular singles”, but I don’t know most of his new CD at all!

Where did I last leave off with you all?  Oh that’s right…I was about to embark on a banana dessert making adventure! I threw 1 ½ frozen bananas into my fake “magic bullet”, which didn’t work out too hot.  Maybe my bullet wasn’t strong enough or something, but my bananas were not blending!  I ended up having to add a bit of milk (I used the coconut milk I recently bought to try out), kept having to scrape the sides, and ended up blending it for such a long time that I could smell my motor starting to burn!  Eeek!

I have to say, I was madly disappointed L Maybe it was the fact that I used coconut milk so it added a slight coconut taste, and I’m really not a fan of coconut taste at all (sorry everyone – it seems to be such the hot stuff on the blogs).  Or the fact that I used very overripe bananas (and I don’t like overripe bananas, either).  Or maybe it was because it was pretty melty after being blended for so long (and I don’t like melty froyo either).  Sheesh…do I like anything?! Haha.  But don’t let my experience turn you off, because I know everyone seems to think it is absolutely amazing!  So I’ll probably try it another time (minus the coconut milk!).  I ended up picking off all the chocolate chips and throwing the rest away.

Wednesday highlights:

I realized it had been a while since I’d had French toast! Topped with whipped cream cheese, Naturally More PB, syrup, and a sprinkling of Feed cinnamon raisin granola:

For dinner I used up my leftover quinoa, and stir-fryed some veggies with a chopped up Morningstar Chipotle Black Bean patty.  I got these patties in a huge box at Costco, and they’re like twice the size of the patties you buy in packs of 4 at the normal grocery store.  Mixed some 2% Mexican cheese in and topped it of with a drizzle of BBQ sauce for a finishing touch:

Yes, there’s quinoa under there somewhere!  It’s been a while since I’ve made a simple stir-fry!  I used to live off of them along with couscous last year!

I was insanely craving froyo later that night.  I admit that I’ve had problems overdoing it on ice cream and frozen yogurt for the past few months.  And by that I mean eating ridiculous amounts.  I finish off one bowl, go back for a second (because it’s so good), then a third, and by that point I’m almost to the end of the container so I might as well finish off that, right?  Um….not such a good idea.  Anyways, I was definitely craving the cake batter froyo I had in my freezer, so I decided it’s not wise to deny cravings (to a certain extent, of course!).  I probably didn’t need to top it off with extra chocolate sauce, a TJ’s peanut butter cup, Oreo cookie, and whipped cream (in addition to the brownies that were already frozen with the yogurt).

It was delicious!  But that’s where I overdid it a bit.  Whoops!

Thursday:

Early quick gym workout before I headed to physical therapy appointment numero dos.

• 15 minutes stairmaster (level 11)
• 20 minutes treadmill 4.3 mph 15% incline

We focused a lot more on strength during PT than last time.  He had me do 5 different strength exercises, one stretch move, and then an ultrasound.  I did ask him about incorporating running back in, and he said to hold off.  He’s had me warm up by using the stationary bike, and said that next time we’d work up to the elliptical and see how that feels.  I told him I’m already doing the stairmaster a lot, and have been doing slight running on a treadmill lately with only slight and little bit of pain.  I’m still not as impressed by this place as I was by the one back home I went to for my calf last year.  At the other place, they watched me walk and stand to analyze if I overpronated, how my ankles rolled inward, etc.  They didn’t do any of that at this place, which may likely play a part in my knee problems.  Besides all of that, I definitely got a lower body workout there today!

Had a little extra time between PT and work, so I grabbed some crack an iced Americano.

Blech!  This thing tasted almost of pure water!!  People, people!  Americanos are supposed to taste strong because it’s espresso!

As for lunch, I’m so sick of quick frozen meals (but I have so many in my freezer because of cheap deals & convenience).  However today I had no time to make anything else.  So I grabbed the last of my cottage cheese, strawberries & blueberries, and bagged up a mix of cereal – TJs high fiber twigs, & Nature’s Path multigrain flakes:

Having a party all mixed together now…

I proceeded to spend most of the day reading my book Nineteen Minutes, which is really, really good.  I’m already more than halfway done after having only read it for two days.  I gotta say, Jodi Picoult’s books are hit or miss.  Some have been ridiculously page-turning (like this one and Change of Heart), while some have been a bit slower, but still excellent reads (like My Sister’s Keeper. I really enjoyed that book, but it took me a while to get into it).

Thursday nights = Farmer’s Market!! Even though I still have apricots left from Costco, I knew I needed to restock on these apricots at got at Farmer’s last week.  They are the best ones I’ve had in my life.  Hands down.  $9 later, I walked back to my car with a 1.5 pounds of apricots, 3 white nectarines, a peach, and a basket of strawberries.

Check out this odd man out!

Extra tasty, I’m sure! 😉

Didn’t get great deals, but summer fruit at Farmer’s is the sweetest thing around.  Can’t pass it up!  Helped myself to samples while there as well – tons of pita bread & hummus bites (favorite stand ever!  They just stuff pita bread & hummus in your face!), handful of candied almonds, and some fruit.  I also got these 2 lovelies, which I saved for later:

Was supposed to be Rhubarb pie & ollalieberry crumble. But that’s lookin’ more like apple pie to me, no?  Unless that’s what rhubarb pie looks like.  Honestly, I’ve never had it!

Ready for my next book review? I know you’ve all been on the edge of your seat waiting for it!  😉  I’ll make it quick since I’m one tired lady!

I recently finished The Queen’s Fool by Philippia Gregory (author of The Other Boleyn Girl).  This book follows a young girl, Hannah, who escaped the Inquisition in Spain and is now living in England.  She has the “sight” (is able to see the future on occasion) and ends up working as a fool at the court of King Edward (Henry VIII son – you know, the guy who beheaded all those wives?).  She gradually gets drawn into working as a spy to try and bring Princess Mary (aka Bloody Mary) to the throne, and eventually works with her sister Elizabeth.  Throughout the book, Hannah must also deal with her love towards her master, while also being betrothed to her cousin.

I found it to be a great read!  My sister is extremely interested in much of historical London royal stories, and she gave me a brief history lesson on it all when we went to London a couple summers ago.  So it’s interesting to read about those historical figures, especially when you’ve visited their actual old stomping grounds!  Personally, I liked The Other Boleyn girl a lot more (if you’ve seen the movie – read the book! It’s so much better).  This one was good, but I got kind of tired of it about 3/4 of the way through.  It was getting slightly repetitive.  Recommend it?  Yup!  But I overall recommend this author.

Grade: A-

I hope you all have a wonderful Friday (I’m posting this late late Thursday night, so I know you’re all reading it on a Friday!).  Any special plans this weekend? Like I said, mine include work, sister date, roadtrip and concert!!

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