Great Day

Work continues to be really busy - and obviously effecting the frequency of my posts!  :)

My day started with eggs and toast.  I buy a loaf of french bread in the bakery at my grocery store and then ask them to slice it.  They slice it pretty thin so it makes really good, crispy toast.  Love it!

When I came home this evening, I threw together some "clean out the refrigerator" pasta.  Just throw in anything you need to use from the refrigerator!  It was pretty good!

Chicken, mushrooms, spinach, red bell pepper, broccoli, lemon, cream, whole wheat pasta, crushed red pepper, and parmesan cheese.

I was determined to go for a run tonight.  It's been almost a week since my last run and I was feeling pretty crappy about that.  I have a 10k race coming up so I need to start building my miles up again.  This was a great run.  Isn't it funny how you just feel light on your feet sometimes?  This was one of those times.  I could have kept going, but it was starting to get dark and I don't like to run in the dark.  I'll go for more mileage this weekend!

Girls Night Out!

This Saturday morning was very productive!  I was motivated by a few things - 1) I have a lot of things to get done before this afternoon; and 2) the house is clean and my kitchen is organized.  Well, not totally organized, but having the pantry done makes a huge difference.  Having a clean and organized work space is really energizing to me!

I have some bananas that are getting too ripe, so I peeled them and bagged them up to put in the freezer.  I have plans for these later...

Tonight I have big plans with a group of girlfriends!  About 3 or 4 times a year we have a slumber party where we eat, drink, talk, watch videos, stay up late and just have lots of fun!  We each bring something to snack on and something to drink.  Lately I've noticed in our emails that all of us are either trying to exercise more or eat better to shed some winter pounds so I decided to make something healthy.  I have a rainbow of veggies all cut into "sticks" for easy dipping!

Celery, zucchini, yellow squash, carrots, yellow and red bell peppers.

I made regular and red pepper hummus for dipping and I also have some pita bread to take (hmm...wouldn't that make a good pita sandwich? Yum!).

I can't wait to dig in to this!

Guess What's For Dinner...

Another busy day, made a little easier due to the fact that IT'S FRIDAY!!!  I did get a decent break over lunch time and met Matt at the Spicy Pickle.  I was craving a sandwich with good bread and lots of veggies...I guess I was a little over zealous because I totally forgot to take a picture until I was more than halfway through.  Sorry!

Here's the rundown:  roasted chicken, provolone, sun dried tomato mayo, portobello mushrooms, roasted red peppers, spinach, sun dried tomatoes, avocado, kalamata olives, and artichoke hearts.  It took me about 5 minutes just to order this sandwich because of my long list of veggies, Matt made fun of me.  :)  Holy cow was it good!  Seriously good! 

I did get a short run in tonight and it felt great!  I hope to do a longer run this weekend, but I'm not sure yet what day that will happen.

Time for dinner!  Here's a hint:

Tomatoes, avocado, cilantro, red pepper, jalapeno, roasted corn, black beans, lime, salt.

Obviously I was on a veggie kick today - I was craving more salsa fresca.  I made it a little different this time.  I didn't have any red onion so I left that out and I added black beans and red bell pepper.  This salsa fresca went into flour tortillas with cheese and hamburger.  Yum!

Organization!!

I had a yummy bowl of steel cut oatmeal this morning.  I've been trying to change it up a bit and added walnuts, pumpkin seeds, and chia seeds to my normal banana/pecan/maple syrup combo.  I'm not sure why, but both pictures I took turned out blurry...sorry!

This has really been a blah week, I haven't had very many interesting things to blog about.  Today was so busy at work but I love those days.  Usually my motivation is directly proportional to how busy I am - very busy = high motivation.  I went from one meeting to the next and tried to answer emails in between and that went on non stop all day!

I did manage to break away at lunch to grab a ham, prosciutto and mozzarella panini.  I took it back to work and ate at my desk.  The sandwich had kind of a funny flavor to it and was dry.  It would have been better with some kind of flavored mayonnaise.

I also got a chai tea latte with my sandwich.  This is the second one I've had in a week that I just wanted to throw in the trash after a few sips. This one was too sweet and tasted like the seasonal lattes that Starbucks has during the holidays (Egg Nog or Gingerbread).  I much prefer the chai lattes I make at home.  Maybe I'm not doing it "right", but it's better for me so I guess I don't care.  Someday I'll post about that and show you how I make them.

I didn't get home until almost 7pm and this is what I came home to:

I wish I had "before" pictures, it was totally full and unorganized.  I wish I could take credit, but I'm really not capable of such organization.  I wish I were...but it was all Matt.  Thanks honey!  :)  I love opening the pantry now and I just stand there and admire it!

Ho Hum Monday

MAJOR headache today!!  So much for my motivation...  I stayed hopped up on Advil all day and it just barely kept me going.  I did manage to get a little painting done though (remember, the painting project I talked about here and here).  This is truly the room from hell when it comes to painting!  It seems to never end.  I wish I had kept track of how many hours I've spent on that thing, and I'm STILL not done! 

I forgot to share this picture with you in my Spring Break Recap post...we passed this place on our way out of Austin in route to Brenham.

 

Matt said he wanted some "Pho King noodles"!  (Ha!!  Think about it...)

Not a very exciting Monday, but I DO have a few foodie things to share.  First, for my snack today I ate two of these really yummy cookies I made this weekend.

Just your basic chocolate chip cookie recipe except that I substituted coconut oil for the butter/shortening.  I also added a little bit of oatmeal to make a more dense cookie and added walnuts to the last batch for me.  My daughter is severely allergic to nuts, but I love them - go figure.  I was a little scared with the coconut oil substitution, but I soon figured out they would turn out okay based on the kids begging to eat the dough!  They couldn't leave it alone!  Actually, neither could I!  The cookies were FABULOUS!!  Matt didn't care for them because he said he could taste the coconut, but the kids and I loved them so much that we canceled out his vote.  Hee hee!

I kind of cheated for dinner tonight.  I very rarely buy pre-made meals, but the other day I went grocery shopping at Sprouts (my new favorite place!) and they had a pre-made meatloaf in their meat department.  The price wasn't bad at all, not much more than you would pay for the ground beef alone, and when I looked at the ingredients they were all familiar to me so I decided to give it a try.  All I had to do was bake it for 40 minutes so it was a really easy dinner.  During that 40 minutes I made a new side dish - cornbread pancakes.  I don't know why I've never done this before because they were a hit with everyone.  I used the recipe on the Jiffy box.

The meatloaf was really good too!  I will buy that again for sure.  Here is my dinner plate - I threw a few Brussels sprouts in the oven with the meatloaf even though no one else eats them.

I'm going to finish my Chai tea now and then off to bed!