Flybynyght

Remember yesterday when I made a little joke that I needed to hide all of the extra chicken bakes in the back of the fridge, so that I’ be able to take some for lunch today?  Well this is what I saw when I opened the container this morning:

@?#?$  Are you kidding me?  He ate them all!!!  Save for one of course…  There were probably 7 or 8 in the container when I went to bed at 10.  And this is what I found when I got up at 630.  Todd gets home (when he’s on afternoons) at 1130 – apparently he’s hungry at this time!

I talked to him at lunch and he said, “They were good!”  Well, I would hope that if you ate them all, that it would be good at least!  He then continued, “There were two containers of them, weren’t there?”   I informed him there were not and he replied, “*crickets**crickets* Oh.”

Although I can’t believe he ate so many of them, at least they were enjoyed!

Since I couldn’t have cereal or oatmeal for breakfast ( maybe tomorrow I’ll have oats made with water…never done that before….), I decided to use the lonely chicken bake and have a nice savoury breakfast sandwich.

This is a toasted one bun (because all bread products are soooooo much better toasted!) with one lonely chicken bake, coarse mustard, alfalfa sprouts, spinach and a little italian dressing.  Not what most people would enjoy for breakfast, but I loved it!  Besides, it has everything I wanted – veggies, protein and whole grains.  Mmmmmm….

These two googly-eyed lookin apples were my morning and afternoon snacks.  They were delicious and somehow I don’t see this apple obsession going away anytime soon.  I had about 9 almonds with each one of them.

If an apple a day keeps the doctor away, what do two do?  :)  Well apparently they leave you hungry.  After my morning apple and almond snack I was still VERY hungry.  I tried to drink more water and to wait out the time before lunch, but it just wasn’t happening, So I busted this guy out of my lunch bag.  He doesn’t look very happy to see me…

Aka – hard boiled egg.  Todd is so creative (read: silly).  I’d like to say that this hit the spot, but I was literally counting the minutes until I got to eat lunch.  My brain was picturing nice heavy meatloaf and mashed potatoes to hit the spot, but I actually had:

Leek, lima bean and cauliflower soup.  SO easy and SO good.  I also had a few sweet potatoes and kabocha squash,

Not quite the mashed potatoes that I was fantasizing about – but even better in their own way!

And my lunch is never complete without my grapefruit,

I should post a video of how efficiently I can attack these things with a grapefruit knife…  Hmmm, now there’s a thought.

I was famished all afternoon – apple and almonds didn’t hit the spot then either.  Maybe I should re-examine my apple obsession…

When I was sitting at my desk watching the minutes tick away, all I could think about was my delicious almond butter and chocolate chip one bun from yesterday.  I decided to forego the one bun today and get to the heart of the flavour,

With peanut butter today,

It’s almost like the peanut butter is shining!  I guess this snack was meant to be  :)

After this was demolished (it tasted just like peanut butter chocolate eggs…), I started grazing on a couple bites of stir fry, a bite of lasagna, a rice cracker, a piece of cheese… and I realized that I had to stop.  I love eating just one or two bites of a bunch of things – but it can get dangerous (calorie wise – not nutrition wise, I don’t really have junk in my house so that’s not the issue) if I’m not really paying attention.

So instead of mindlessly eating bits, I put a plate together of bits and am calling it supper.

Bread and butter pickles, carrots, jalapeno pepperjack, vegetable rice crackers (on a small plate…)

And then after I took the picture, I peeled a hard boiled egg and added it…

And then after I took the picture, I decided that some alfalfa sprouts would complete the portrait:

It always reminds me of hair.  Delicious, fresh tasting hair…

I made this plate bout two hours ago.  I knew that I was really focusing on the food and the process of eating – but I really wasn’t giving my tummy time to digest and maybe I wasn’t as hungry right then as I thought.  I guess I was right, because I’m just getting ready to eat it now.  There will be coarse mustard, vinegar and ranch dressing involved – I’m sure of it  ;)

What is your go-to snack when you’re absolutely famished?

Hope you have a great night!

Hiya!

Breakfast today was portable, but for once this wasn’t out of necessity (re:  running waaayy late).   It’s because I’m having no milk, kefir, or yogurt for the next 3 days.  That’s about as long as I can go dairy-free  :)   I’m doing a long run on Friday (11miles) and my last long run was such a disaster and disappointment that I decided to prepare as I would for a race.  That means, no dairy for at least 3 full days before the run.  I find that this really helps with the mucus in my lungs (tmi!), my breathing is slightly better and my asthma is less prominent.  So long story short, this kinda makes my favourite breakfasts limited right now.

But how could you not want this:  toasted tomato sandwich on 12-grain.  Doesn’t she (yes, she) look tasty?!?  Strange that both pieces of bread were the same size but totally don’t look it…

It was right about here that my day kinda went downhill.

I got out to my car and realized that I actually had to scrape my windows!  It was crazy foggy and apparently this was ice fog – hence  the scraping.   Ugh – I thought I was done with all of that…

After I got in the car, I carefully drove through the fog for a few minutes and realized that I had to stop at a mailbox to mail some work stuff.  No problem, there was a mailbox right ahead.  When I reached across the seat to grab the mail, I realized that there was something missing.  My lunch  :(

I drove back home through the fog and grabbed my lunch – which was in the same spot that it’s always in and don’t know how I forgot it…

So off to work I went.  Right past Tim’s.  There was no time to stop for caffeine now.  Boo.  No caffeine for the second day in a row.  Not a big deal to me – I don’t really feel like I “need” to have caffeine to wake up.  I do love the taste of coffee though and really could have gone for some tasty java today.

The morning went incredibly slow and was one of those days where I was waiting for people to do things/answer questions and I couldn’t do my work until they’d done theirs.  Blah.  I ate one of these apples around 1030 and the other around 3.  I don’t remember the banana actually making it into my lunch bag- lol!

A fruity smile  :)

The rest of the morning dragged by and as I was tidying up before lunch, I felt my hair fall down.  Huh?  My hair elastic broke.  Seriously, I didn’t actually realize that that could even happen!  I went into my desk drawer to grab another elastic…nope.  None left.  Crap.  You know the way your hair looks when you’ve had it up and now it’s down – ew.  Add to that, the fact that I’m always smoothing the flyaways, so it looks greasy too.  So annoying.

Something that isn’t annoying – Todd cooking.  I had some of his homemade lasagna for lunch.

A little blurry – but definitely tasty!  And some very fresh tasting red peppers.  I seem to be in a red pepper trend right now – but I see nothing wrong with that  :)

Who wouldn’t want to eat vegetables when they look that gorgeous!?!?

Fruit can be gorgeous too,

It’s like a rising sun…  Meaning, it’s crazy dark outside when I pack my lunch in the morning!

The afternoon dragged just like the morning did.  And how is it possible, that when you’re having a crappy day, that everyone wants to load more and more work on you?  Coincidence?  Better be!  It didn’t help that I was doing the most monotonous task today – picture the fun of folding paystubs and stuffing them into envelopes.  This process is about an hour and a half or so and makes me want to just throw them in the garbage.  Hmmmm, I think I’d have a lot of inquiries on pay day if I did that…

While I was trying to limit my paper cuts for the day, I was dreaming of this beauty,

My mouth is watering just looking at this.  Half of a toasted one bun with almond butter and semi-sweet chocolate chips.  Let’s just say that I was glad there was no one else home – I was a little vocal about my love for this :)

This yummy treat gave me the energy I needed to spend some time in the kitchen.  I made leek, lima bean and cauliflower soup; kale chips; roasted kabocha; roasted sweet potato and chicken bakes (chicken fingers just sound so bad for you and when it’s chicken breast hand breaded with whole wheat bread crumbs by yours truly, I get to call them what I want  :P)

Don’t those chicken bakes look phenomenal???  So yummy and so worth the effort.  I’m hoping that the leftovers are hidden well enough in the fridge and I can take them for lunch tomorrow  ;)

Sweet potatoes are so pretty – don’t they kinda look like a flower?  Oh, just me?

And my whole meal altogether now.  I had kabocha and added some raw carrots because I just didn’t think that my plate was orange enough  :)

Ok – now the Biggest Loser is on and I have a pile of dishes to do….see you tomorrow!!!

Hey all!  Sorry for the hiatus, it was a little bit longer than I had intended.  Thanks for all of the kind words and although nothing is resolved, I’m thinking positive and moving on (in terms of the blog anyway…)!

Saturday morning brekkie:

This is a one bun with peanut butter and pumpkin butter, oven roasted potatoes with an egg and spinach frittata and lots of ketchup.  Oh how I love my ketchup…

While Todd was watching tv, he noticed this and thought it was hilarious enough for a picture.  I agree :)

Around 11, we decided to go for a nice long run at Point Pelee National Park, where we have season passes and is only about 45 mins to an hour away.

Before we left for the drive to the park, I had a toasted one bun with tuna (mixed with a wee bit of mayo, pickle juice, mustard, garlic and chopped up bread and butter pickles) and a fist full of spinach.

I had a bad run.  I struggled the entire time and my foot was on the verge of being excrutiatng.  I was planning to do 11 miles, but did a mere 6.  I was quite bummed and disappointed :(

On a positive note, Todd had his best 11 mile time ever:  1:29:56 – yay Todd!  He’s really hoping for a personal best in the Martian Half Marathon next weekend.  I’m just hoping that my foot will treat me ok – or that I can block out the pain.  I’ll get it looked at after the race (if I do it after, I can’t be told not to run….  I know, Bad Becky!).

Seeing as though we were famished (even though I barely did half of what I had planned…) we had a yummy charcoal barbecue of chicken and Oktoberfest sausage,

Along with some salad that tasted strangely like dill…  The iceberg and the dill are sharing a crisper right now.

The sun was beautiful, but it was VERY cold.  The wind was brutal – it was colder than that time a couple months ago when we bbq’ed in the snow…

I had planned to have just a little taste of the sausage (haven’t had sausage in MONTHS!  …and I’m ok with that – it’s not really my thing), but it was soooooo amazing that I actually ate a whole one (sliced in half, on two one bun halves – think hot dog style…).

As soon as we were done eating, we got the heck outta there and into the nice wind-free Saturn.  On the way home, we decided to check to see if our favourite drive in called the Dairy Freeze was open for the season yet.  It was!!!  I was frozen, but I didn’t care!  One $1.80 cone dipped in chocolate please!  It was wonderful and I relished every lick.

Sunday was spent shopping Stateside – yay, another trip to Trader Joe’s!  Unfortunately, I didn’t take a single pic that day.  Oops!  We had a late dinner of club sandwiches and rice medley,

Very tasty and there was originally double this amount.  Todd took the picture.  I was too lazy to go get my camera :(

This is me minutes after telling Todd that I wasn’t going to fall asleep  :)

Clearly only one of us looks cute in this picture and I can’t believe I”m posting it :)

Here is my cereal packed up – for some reason I was not hungry at all when I got up.  Knowing that this wasn’t normal, I packed it up and brought it to work, because I knew that I’d be hungry and surprise, surprise – I ate it about an hour after I got to work.  It was great.

It’s kamut, some multigrain harvest flakes (or something like that – gonna have to look at the box) that I bought at Trader Joe’s, walnuts and raisins.  Milk and kefir is in the container underneath.

My cereal woes are over, I indeed needed a flake.  :)

Snacks for the day:

I ate the grapefruit with lunch (as always!), and had the apple in the afternoon with a handful of almonds.  The scary looking banana came right back home with me and went straight into the freezer.  It shall make a very tasty smoothie in its’ second life.  :)

Lunch started out with the leftover salad (if you can call it that….sadly it was mostly iceberg) from Saturday.  This is in just one of the (many) ziploc containers I own – it’s only about 4 or 5 inches in diameter…shoulda had something to show the size – because it looks humongous (it’s the same as the cereal pic above)!

With a little bit of italian dressing/white vinegar combo.

The main event:  Homemade spinach lasagna (homemade sauce and noodles!) in yet another ziploc container.  This was quite yum.  Isn’t it amazing how pasta always tastes better when it’s leftovers!?!?  ….and when someone else put in the effort to make it :)

Because my belly was still feeling like it needed a little something else, I ate this little guy:

Hahahhaha – Eek-ster Egg!  Get it?  It’s a scary vampire…   Eeek!!!  :)  Todd likes to write on the hardboiled eggs so that we don’t get them confused with the regular eggs.  I think he just likes to be silly and draw on the eggs  :)

When I got home, I ate this leftover eggplant in about 23 seconds.

Notice that article?  It is the most DUH! article on health I have ever read.  It’s basically about how to get healthy and the 4 word title says it all.  It does not get any more in depth than that.

And speaking of in depth – ok, not at all, I just needed a segue  :)

Anyway, I made this to go with the eggplant that I inhaled.  It’s garlic sauce and ketchup.  Sounds awesome doesn’t it?  Well, if you love garlic as much as I do, it sure sounds great!

Unfortunately, it was the furthest thing away from good.  Absolute fail.  straight down the drain it went.  If it hadn’t been for the time spent with the sauce, I would have had the eggplant gone in a mere 21 seconds  ;)

About a half hour later, I had some of the leftover TJ’s Brown Rice Medley from yesterday.  Wow, this stuff is absolutely delicious!

Here’s the package:

Throw this in your basket and you will NOT be disappointed!  Todd actually grabbed this…good job Todd!  Glad he likes to try new things.

I can’t get him on my kefir bandwagon though.  One of my favourite ways to have kefir is like this,

Chocolate milk with Kefir.  Mmmmm…  Looks kinda gross, doesn’t it?  Check out the full view:

It tastes a thousand times better than it looks  :)   It just needs to be stirred up.

Next up on my grazing train was leftover (twas the night of leftovers…) mustard dill salmon.

Once again, my proportions are odd – this is actually on a saucer and the salmon is smaller than the proverbial deck of cards.

I realized after I ate all of my many dishes that I ate a nice dinner…just over about an hour and a half  :)

And here’s my little supermodel basking in the sunlight…

Night!

Hi Everyone.

Sorry for the lack of posting yesterday, but I got some unsettling news yesterday.  It involves the medical health of a family member.  I don’t really want to talk about *what* the situation is (and that person would not want me to).  Needless to say, I’m a little discombobulated.

I’m not sure if I’m going to post tonight – we’ll see how I’m, feeling.  You know, it always seems like one thing right after the other.  Meh.  I guess that’s what they mean when they say “Life is what happens when you’re busy making plans.”

I think that’s all I want to say right now – but I think I’m going to go read some of your blogs and put a smile on my face :)

Happy Tuesday!  Well, today’s post will be a little different…camera died and I have no breakfast or lunch pics!  The batteries needed to be recharged and I didn’t have the time to search around and find fresh ones.  So, no pics for you!

Remember my cereal issues?  Well, today I had yummy kamut cereal with peanut butter, chia seeds, dried cherries, 1/2 banana, cinnamon, kefir and skim milk.

How did I like it?  Well, the kamut was VERY light, but it was also VERY tasty.  I do feel like I need some sort of flake (or something of the sort) to add to this – it just needed more crunch (more than just the chia seeds).  I also found that the kefir didn’t complement this quite the way it has all of my other cereal choices…again, I think some kind of flake would alleviate this…

Before the batteries decided that they needed a day off,

Very, very tasty red pepper.  Along with this I had about a 3/4 cup of the leftover rotini from last night with a very small amount of steak chopped up in it.  I also put an ounce of the onion and chives cheese, the leftover swiss chard and a huge handful of spinach.  It ended up being more spinach than anything else – but that is not a problem in my books  :)  It did however, leave me a little hungry.

Of course, I ate my grapefruit,

However, still hungry.  I ate the apple about an hour afterward (and the banana in the morning).  About an hour before leaving work (glad to do that today! Leave, I mean…) I had 6 almonds and thought that I’d probably be ok until after the gym.  I had to stop at home to get clothes (I didn’t have time to find batteries, so I definitely didn’t have time to get gym clothes together!) and it was a good thing, because if I hadn’t come home I wouldn’t have made it at the gym.  I needed more food!  I ate a few little bites of bread and cheese – trying to manoeuvre the balance of hunger and too much food in the tummy to work out.

My workout went really well.  It’s funny, because I decided that I was going to go today and do my normal things more or less, but lower the intensity.  I wanted to save my legs for my 8 mile run that I want to do tomorrow (8 miles is a long run for me).

***Ok, I don’t know if it’s because I can basically see Detroit from my house, or whatever, but every time I hear or write ’8 mile’ I can’t help but sing the beginning of the song by Eminem…***

But of course that didn’t happen.  If I’m working out, I’m doing it right!  Why go to the gym if you’re just going to half-ass it? …Although I must say, I see TONS of people who do just that… argh!  Must try not to judge!  I don’t know who these people are, or what their goals are!

Anyway, I did 20 mins on the Elliptical, 15 mins backward and 15 mins doing random hills at level 9 on the bike.  I was a sweaty mess when I was done.  Sweaty and tired, so happy to just make something simple for myself for supper,

This is two whole wheat tortillas with a *very* small amount of steak from last night, red peppers, pepper jack cheese, ranch, southwest mustard, broccoli and boat loads of spinach (can you tell I’ve been buying the huge bags from Costco each week :P).  I could have easily fit everything into one tortilla and saved the extra calories, but tortillas in the panini press = yumalicious.

I also had some of the leftover shrimp from last night as a side,

Can shrimp really *be* a side dish?  Well, it was for me and I had it with a pat of butter, lots of garlic and some oregano.  Wow shrimp, you rocked my world.

Well, since I seem to have so few pictures today, I thought I’d add a few that I took 2 weeks ago when we were in Burlington to run the Chilly Half Marathon.

This is a pic of the hotel *beside* the hotel where the expo was.  If you look closely, you can see just how dilapidated it is…

Pretty broken down.

But the best part?  The front of the hotel…

OMG!!!!!  Seriously, it was OPEN!!!! Wow, you would have to be pretty down and out to need to stay somewhere like that.  Thanking my lucky stars that I have a roof over my head, food in my belly and although I don’t have a lot of money – I’m far from being desperate.

And on a ‘hope springs eternal’ kinda vibe, there was an artist painting the hotel,

From what we could see, it was of the hotel in better times.

Wow, wish I could be artistic in that way – always wished that I could draw or paint (more than just straight lines :P).  And if I could paint, I’d like to use this cutie as my muse

And speaking of water….eh, you like how I did that?  A pic of water, talk about water…  :)   Anyway, Project Hydrate has completely been a success for me and again I was able to drink the amount that I like to drink in a day:  7 mugs (about 12 oz each) throughout my workday (over 8.5 hours), 40 oz (but not a 40 ouncer :P) at the gym and another 20 oz when I got home.  Oh, and have I said that I feel fantastic?  Because I do!

Ok – Biggest Loser is on!!!

Night all!

So our story picks up at yesterday’s lunch :)

Todd and I were out getting groceries, so didn’t eat lunch until late, which Todd prepared.  This monstrous creation is a giant panini, made with an olive and rosemary focaccia,

It had red peppers, roasted red peppers, chipotle peppers (we like our peppers!), the rest of the pulled pork (naked) and garlic sauce.  I added a big handful of spinach to mine.  Todd cut this in half and I ate 2/3 of one of the halves – which would be 1/3 of the whole thing if you’re going for your lowest common denominator :)

We decided to eat this outside while we watched the NASCAR race.  The deck in March in Canada?  Hmmm…amazing that there’s no snow!  The sun was out, but so was the wind, and it was brutal when it blowed (blew?).  We’re troopers though and had a great time.  Along with our panini (mine is the one that is still open), we had multigrain pita chips and homemade guac.  Yum.

It’s like our living room, but outside :)

Dinner was going to be steak and shrimp, but as we had eaten so late in the afternoon, we decided to wait until the next night to have it and enjoy it more.  Instead we nibbled on the leftover cabbage rolls from the day before (sorry – it escaped my camera!).  That’s right, the cabbage rolls didn’t even make it into the freezer.  I could say that I’m surprised, but I’m totally not.  ;)

We ended up going to bed early and somehow I still woke up feeling like I could use more sleep.  And for some reason, I couldn’t get apple juice out of my head.  Luckily, I actually had some!

I grabbed this at the Chilly Half Marathon and never drank it – it sure came in handy today!

Remember all of my excitement over getting *real* cereal?  Well, this morning I  totally didn’t leave enough time to eat any!  Tomorrow, I guess.  Instead I had this yumminess,

2 pieces of 12-grain toast with peanut butter, a banana and cinnamon.  I took it to work with me and ate it at my desk.  Well, I took the bananas off and ate them and then ate the toast separate – good decision.

Because I ate an hour or so later than I normally would, I felt no need to have a morning snack.  By lunch though, I was more than ready to chow down on the last remaining cabbage roll.

There was so much yummy sauce, that I toasted an extra piece of 12-grain and dipped it in.

Damn, that toast looks yummy   :)

Since there wasn’t much cabbage, I upped the veggie quota with some cucumber

This tasted ick – like fridge – or something.  I couldn’t really place it, and really didn’t want to think about it too much.

I also had 6 little pieces of this brick onion and chives cheese.  We buy these cheese ends as a great way to try different cheeses that we haven’t had before.  Small amount = small commitment if you don’t happen to like it!

And yes, I still had room for my daily grapefruit :)

I brought an apple and banana for snacks, but only ate the apple.  I ate it and about 9 almonds an hour before I would be at the gym.

Doesn’t this apple look absolutely delicious?  Well, it wasn’t.  It had absolutely no flavour.  It tasted like water.  If I wanted water, I’d have water! …which I had lots of.  In fact, as I’ve been participating in Project Hydrate, I’ve noticed that my water consumption is back to where I like it.  I had about 84 oz of water throughout the workday (which is just over 10 cups).

At the gym (and after) I drank another 60 oz.  And boy did I need it – I sweated my butt off (which sorta is the reason for the workout :P).  I did 20 mins on the elliptical, 10 mins backward, and 20 mins of random hills at level 9 on the bike.  Very high intensity today and it felt great.  So did my shower :)

For dinner, we had the meal that we were going to have last night,

Steak with mushrooms, shrimp (mmmm…), rotini with Todd’s homemade sauce and swiss chard.  This was awesome.  We haven’t had shrimp in quite a while and this was my first time ever having swiss chard.  It was a lot milder than I thought that it would be, but I would definitely have it again soon!

After dinner, I decided to hunker down with the tv.  I was still peckish, so had this perfect snack,

Hot air popped popcorn!  …with about a half a tablespoon of butter.  It was delicious.  I made enough to share with Todd, but he didn’t want any, so I most of it myself!!!

Now I’m off to relax a little before bedtime – night!!!

I woke up Saturday morning and could smell bacon.  Mmmmm.  But at the same time, it kinda meant that my long run that I had planned was thrown out the window!  However, it was already cooked, and sometimes bacon just wins ;)

This is two pieces of bacon with scrambled eggs and mixed peppers on a toasted one bun.  There was also a small piece of cheddar that I crumbled on it.  On the side is some pan fried potatoes and a boat load of ketchup.  It was even better than it looks.  And if you don’t think it looks good, well – it was.

I didn’t want to give up on physical activity altogether though, so watched some crappy tv while I waited 3 hours for my meal to digest.  I figured this should be long enough.  I was wrong.  I decided to do a 3 mile run and end up at the gym.  About 5 miles into my run I felt horrible.  This continued for the entirety.  Lesson learned, no bacon before running.  Duh.

I live within a half mile of my gym, so I planned my route to pass by my house before I got to the gym.  This way I could pick up my backpack with clean socks, a t-shirt (I was running in a long sleeve), my water bottle, lock, etc., which I had placed in one of my recycle bins – so I could just grab it as I was running.  I should have thought to actually put some water in the bottle, because I definitely could have used it (damn you delicious dairy!).

I got to the gym and realized that I had no ID and I forgot my swipe card to get in.  Luckily the girl at the desk has seen me a zillion times and let me in.  I had a really good, high intensity end to my workout, I did 20 minutes forward on the elliptical, 10 minutes backward and 10 minutes of random hills on the bike. 

By the time I was leaving, I was a very sweaty mess.  Unfortunately, because I didn’t drive to the gym, I obviously had to walk home.  The wind had kicked up and it is March in Canada, so that means that it was brutally cold.  My body was ok, but my head and my face were ice. It took me HOURS to feel warm again.

When I got home, Todd decided that he felt like swimming (unlike me, Todd did a 7.5 mile run on that breakfast – and had no issues…) and found a place that had open swimming.  It was a 45 minute drive away, but it was a nice day for a drive, so we thought – why not!

Since I didn’t have my regular breakfast, I decided to have some cereal for a late lunch,

This is Post Selects Blueberry (for the second last last time – yay!) with half a banana, dried cherries, chia seeds, peanut butter, cinnamon, kefir, skim milk (added after the pic) and the last of my greek yogurt :(  It hit the spot perfectly.

On the way to the pool, I sent my Mom and Dad a text to see if they had any plans for the evening.  They didn’t so we decided to get together after swimming and play some cards.  Their town wasn’t really on the way, but what’s a small detour when you drive 45mins to go swimming?  :)

The pool was nice – it had a hot tub (I called it a warm tub – I was STILL frozen from my walk home) that was connected right to the pool, so you swam from the hot tub and right into the pool – no need to actually get out.  We swam and hot-hubbed for about an hour and a half and had a great time just swimming around and watching the kids attempting to dive and cannon ball off of the diving board.

After getting cleaned up, we made the half hour drive to my parent’s condo and enjoyed the beautiful sunshine.  My Mom asked if we’d be wanting to have a meal or just snacks, and not wanting to put her out, I said just snacks.  Well, she figured that we’d be famished after swimming (we were) and overrode my decision and made this tasty goodness,

Homemade cabbage rolls and hash brown casserole.  Yum.  She also had shrimp, crackers, cheese, and cut up veggies.  Not bad for a couple hours notice  :)  Because she’s my Mom, she had to send me home with leftover cabbage rolls.  Oh darn.  They’ve gone into the freezer and will make an appearance in a week or so I’d assume.  Maybe sooner ;)

After dinner, I was too tired to concentrate on cards, so we played crokinole instead.  It was fun – something I rarely play.  Shortly after we made the trek home.  Once home, I checked my email and went directly to bed. T.I.R.E.D.

I slept fantastically, but woke up tired.  Not sleepy tired, but body tired.  I decided that if I were going to go to the gym, I’d better do it right away.  I got dressed in my gym clothes (no changing my mind then…) and ate this,

Post Selects Blueberry (for the last time ever!  Yay – new cereal tomorrow!) with raisins, craisins, walnuts, 1/2 banana, kefir, an almond butter peanut butter spoon (a la Whit) and after the pic was taken, skim milk, chia seeds and cinnamon.

I went to the gym and had a good workout.  20 mins on the elliptical, 10 mins backward and 10 mins of hills on the bike – all while watching Sunday Morning on CBS (I love that show!  …and I had forgotten my Zune).

When I got back home, I made this strange concoction,

A piece of 12-grain toast with pulled pork and peas mixed with garlic sauce and red peppers on top.  Ya, weird.  It was good though and I polished it right off.  Now Todd and I are off to the market and the grocery store and Costco.  Yay – more grocery shopping!  See you later…

Good Morning!

Sorry I didn’t do a post last night, but I was pooped!  Work went pretty well yesterday and started off with this beauty:

This is Post Selects Blueberry with walnuts, dried cherries, raisins, chia seeds, almond butter, greek yogurt and after this picture, kefir and skim milk.  Very tasty.  However, it’s time to get some *real* cereal.  I’ve been eating the Post Selects because we have it in our pantry (it was on sale at some point…), but it’s not what I want to be eating.  I dress my cereal myself, I don’t need anything more than something that’s a simple flake.  Todd said it right when he said that it’s basically sugar cubes in a box. Ya, not what I want to eat.

Something that I did want to eat was this:

This was my lunch.  Peas mixed with pulled pork (more pork is below the peas…), put on the one bun in the background and topped with the spinach in the plastic bag.  I also ate a few red peppers (which appear to have missed my lens – which is a shame as they were very succulent and pretty) from my snacks and the delicious grapefruit finished off my meal.

Speaking of the snacks,

I didn’t eat the banana that I had ear marked for my morning snack, I just had a few almonds (about 9) instead. The piece of toast with almond butter was for my afternoon snack and it was very yum.  I toast most of my bread products that I take to work with me.  I’m not into soggy bread and this always gives it a little bit of extra crunch.  This particular piece looks like it’s a little extra dark…

When I got home, Todd was in the backyard doing some yard work and enjoying the glorious sun.  When he finished we sat in the sun.

Unfortunately, although the sun was warm, the wind was blasting cold – hence the big fat hoodie.

A very happy sun dog.

After this I ate some almond butter and pumpkin butter on a one bun (recycled pic, sorry!).

Neither Todd nor I really felt like eating supper, so we just grazed on a bite of this and a bite of that.  Nothing really noteworthy.

We then grabbed a coffee (couldn’t stop yawning!) and did what every couple does on a Friday night, we went to the bookstore!  :)  Todd wanted to check out some books on deck building, because he wants to build a very simple deck at the back of our yard – actually, where we were sitting in that picture above.   While Todd learned, I grabbed Michael Pollan’s Food Rules off the shelf and started reading.  We were there for less than an hour, and I managed to read the whole thing!  It was really interesting.  Bare bones, simple and straight to the point.  I really enjoyed it and think that it can teach people a thing or two about what actual, *real* food is.

After we left the book store, we went to the other place where all couples love to go on a Friday night – the grocery store!  We picked up some collard greens, swiss chard, shrimp and kefir.  Ever since I first tried kefir – I can’t get enough of it!

This is the kefir that I love:

Unfortunately, the closest Trader Joe’s is across the border and about 45mins away from my house

This is the kefir that I can buy here:

It’s alright, but nowhere near as good.  It actually really tastes like grains.  We have a whisky distillery in my city and the kefir tastes almost the same as the distillery smells.  If you live in Windsor, you either love the smell, or you hate it. When I first moved here, I thought it was gross – but now I look forward to the days when you can smell it.  However, I don’t really like my *kefir* to taste that way…

Besides, kefir, I also love Todd and Moxie – aren’t they cute?

Don’t you just love her blanket?  Gotta love the dollar store!!!

I woke up this morning feeling a bit like a zombie.  But nothing an awesome bowl of cereal can’t help, right?

Post Selects Blueberry with dried cherries, walnuts, peanut butter, greek yogurt, kefir, skim milk and lots of yum  :)

I actually did feel a little more human after eating this.  I am completely a morning person and am the most productive during the first hours after I get up.  I didn’t quite feel like a morning person today – but stopping at Tim’s on the way to work for a large regular definitely helped the morning along.

Next thing I know, my stomach is growling and I’m shocked to see that it’s already 11 o’clock!  I love when the day goes faster than you’re expecting!  I grabbed the red pepper from my snack supply in my lunch bag and cut it into strips at my desk.

I ended up eating some of the baby carrots with my lunch, but throwing most of them away.  They didn’t taste right.  Not quite sure what was wrong with them, but they were off somehow…

I also packed the exact same thing for lunch as yesterday – it was THAT good.

This is a leftover enchilada with about a half a cup of black beans, salsa and fat free sour cream.  The bread bag is actually FULL of spinach that I mixed together with the enchilada mix when after it was heated.  YUM.  And of course, I finished lunch off with a grapefruit (that wasn’t very good actually…).

Although the afternoon didn’t fly by, it did go by at a good pace and before I knew it, it was 3 o’clock (fyi, I work until 4…)!  I ate the banana from above and a hand full of almonds from my desk.  This wasn’t to fuel for the gym – today was Blood Donation Day!  Todd and I give blood every 56 days (that’s how often you’re allowed to give blood in Canada).  Why do we do this?  Because we can.  If everyone gave blood that was able to, there would never be a shortage, sadly they have shortages all the time.  I’m not a fan of needles, but it doesn’t hurt, and you get cookies at the end!

I got home and Todd and I walked to the Blood Donor Clinic – because it’s only a 10 minute walk away and because it was a beautiful day!  After all of the paperwork was done, I was seated (laid?) next to Todd and even though his blood donation started before mine, I finished first!!!  This has never happened before – I routinely take 5 mins or so longer than him!  I’ll attribute this to Project Hydrate :)

I then consumed far too many cookies.  But I only do this every 56 days, right?  :)

When we got home, I had to run around doing a few errands and when I got back, the pulled pork that Todd was making in the crock pot smelled awesome and was nearly done.  I looooove pulled pork with coleslaw, but didn’t think to get any, so I had this instead,

Pulled pork with Sweet Baby Ray’s on 12-grain with peas, mixed peppers, a boat load of spinach and a smidge of ranch dressing.  On the side I had asiago cheese (so little has sooo much flavour!) and the best tasting cucumber I’ve had in months!

As for Project Hydrate, I think I’m doing excellently and I’m back to where I used to be.  This morning I had 3 mugs (about 12oz I think) of water, and the same for this afternoon.  At the blood donor clinic I had an apple juice box, while running my errands I had 20oz  and with dinner I had 20oz.  Now I’m done for the night – otherwise I’ll have to get up during the night.

And speaking of done for the night… G’night!!!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!!!  I actually forgot that it was St. Patrick’s Day and remembered when I was packing my lunch.  I looked down and was surprised to see that I just happened to be wearing green – and not the green shirt that I had originally planned to wear!  Imagine that.

You know, there were a bunch of times today where I thought of things that I wanted to remember for this post.  Did I write them down?  No.  Do I remember them now?  Of course not.

One thing that I do remember and wanted to mention was Anne’s post today where she talks about her eating tips.  This just so happens to pretty much embody my personal eating philosophy.  Check her post out instead of me re-hashing it all – although I’m sure that I’ll talk about the whole thing in depth another day.

Breakfast today was cereal and it was not only great, but I seemed to have accomplished the perfect mixture of milk, greek yogurt and kefir on my cereal (although the pic is pre kefir and milk).

It also had, peanut butter, walnuts and dried cherries.

Here are my snacks,

Well, 2 of the apples and one of the bananas were my snacks.  I had in an apple in the morning and an apple with some almonds in the afternoon.  The banana ended up being eaten with lunch.  Exciting, I know.

In honour of St. Patrick’s Day, I threw a TON of spinach on top of one of our healthier enchiladas from last night’s dinner.  I also added about a half a cup of black beans and some salsa/sour cream mixture.  I topped o’ lunch (sorta like Top o’ the morning… ya, it was a stretch…) with a grapefruit.  Lunch was truly delicious and it really stuck too!  Could be that I ate a banana right afterward too…

I ran around and got very frustrated looking for something that I don’t really need to talk about here, but said item was elusive.  I went to three locations, all three were not open even though they were supposed to be.  Grrrrr.  And now, I’ll get to repeat the performance tomorrow – I hope it’s with better results.

When I eventually got home I was famished.  I decided that I needed to up the green quotient and ate a strange snack of asiago, jalepeno pepper jack, bread and butter pickles and a fist full of spinach.

I made little bitty green sandwiches.

They were quite satisfying and a snack that I will definitely replicate sometime.

I just saw two people walking down the street in green wigs and shamrock ear headbands.  They weren’t moving in the straightest of lines and I hope that they’re going directly to their beds – or at least to their house where I won’t have to worry about their well-being.  Ya, I worry about the health of random passers-by.

So I couldn’t stay away from the cereal today.  Not only did I devour it this morning, but it’s all that I could think about having for dinner.  Todd and I had already decided that it would be a leftover night – this qualifies doesn’t it?  Well, it doesn’t create more leftovers so it must be ok, right?  Looking for cereal justification here…anybody? Janetha seems to understand.  Cereal is not just for breakfast.

Well, at least I switched up the toppings,

This is Post Selects Blueberry (miss my corn flakes…) with peanut butter, chia seeds, cinnamon, walnuts, raisins, craisins, kefir, greek yogurt and skim milk.

Now Todd and I are sitting in the living room enjoying the gorgeous sunshine that is streaming in.  It was beautiful out today.  Todd went for an 8-mile run and I did not.  Not only did I get to do my fruitless running around, but I didn’t get to do any sort of exercise.  My foot is uber-sore and I think that it’s a good idea to give it a rest – save for the walk that Todd and I might take to the neighbourhood bar for a green beer later.

Enjoy your green beer and shamrock shakes responsibly!