What I Ate Wednesday

Since I just wrote a lengthy and wordy blog post about running, I figured I would do my first “what I ate Wednesday” post since I managed to take pictures of everything I ate (except an ice cream cone at the end of the night). I know, I know, I always take pictures of what I eat and post them nearly every day. But I figured it would be fun to join the “what I ate Wednesday” crowd, even though I don’t have a badge to post along with it.

Breakfast was Mini Wheats cereal with fruit in the middle. I was in a cereal mood and because my husband eats cereal every day, most of our choices aren’t that healthy!

Snack was an iced coffee (saved the day because I was really tired) and a delicious pumpkin spice Vita Top. Loved this flavor. I think this flavor was my favorite so far.

Lunch was a bagel thin with turkey & cheese, an Athenos strawberry greek yogurt, cucumbers and tomatoes and a Vita Top brownie for dessert.

After lunch, I had yoga class at work. It was a tough session today! I was sweating at the end, but I felt good and all stretched out.

When I got home from work, I snacked on some peanut butter, pita chips, and some cheese.

Dinner was red quinoa with chickpeas, tomatoes, chiles, & spices.

After dinner, I got outside for a little bike ride. It was so beautiful out again!

So what did I learn from this post? Looking back on today’s eats, I didn’t any fruit. Maybe I’ll go snack on some grapes before bed. I still need to do a better job of incorporating fruit into my breakfast. I am good at packing it for lunch, but always forget about eating it for breakfast, even though I love fruit!

Happy and lucky

It was tough getting out of bed this morning! We woke up to Karma pounding away at the baby gates and meowing–before my alarm went off at 5:30. At least the little guy still has energy because we had another health scare with him over the weekend. He was struggling to breathe and was coughing a lot on Sunday. I hope he hangs in there and overcomes what the vets thought about his condition.

Anyway, breakfast was a leftover homemade pancake and Chobani with preserves and fresh blueberries.

It was so hot out today and I decided to wear a dress to work. Everyone was surprised how dressed up I was. I guess I am usually a scrub!? No, I am not, but I usually just wear pants and a top. I dress kind of plain like most people at my workplace do. I probably got about 10 comments ranging from “Lisa is wearing a dress and heels!” to “do you have a fancy meeting today?” to “is Craig taking you out on a hot date tonight?” to “Craig better watch it when you are wearing a dress like that.” I was also told my dress flattered my figure and that my legs were tan (thank god for Sephora self-tanning spray that I put on before the wedding this weekend). I am pretty pale, so the tan comment probably was the nicest one I got all day!

Lunch was leftover pizza, carrots and a granny smith apple. Oh and I snagged a swedish fish gummy for dessert.

I read The Help outside on my break for a bit and it was getting so good that I didn’t want to put it down! I have to say that it is weird to read out of a real book after reading a couple on the kindle. I miss the kindle, but can appreciate normal books too.

I had a major chocolate craving strike at work around 2 p.m. and bought a chocolate chip cookie. I really wanted to bake some yesterday, but the hot temps prevented me from doing so because it was already near 90 in our house before we put our air on.

After work, I came home and snacked on peanut butter from the jar, some chocolate (notice a theme here?) and then I ate a pumpernickel roll with swiss rye cheese.

I went to the gym and cranked out 15 minutes on the bike, 25 minutes walking and running on the treadmill and some leg weights. My ankle was really bothering me while walking on the treadmill and surprisingly, running didn’t bother it at all. You probably are wondering what will happen with the 10k I signed up for. I will most likely just walk/run it. We have to do better than a 15 minute mile pace, so that should be feasible. My friend/co-worker who is also signed up for it agreed to probably walk/run with me, so that will be good!

And because I love being outside and being with my husband, we went for a 20 minute walk when I got back from the gym! A little teenage boy told me he loved me on the walk and Craig yelled back “I love her too!” Aaah, too much love in the air tonight! I was really chatty on our walk and it’s because I was just happy today when I got back from work. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t too happy to be back at work all day, but I appreciate my life outside of work even more then.

It ended up being my lucky day! I won a fantastic giveaway for this book from Kitchen Conundrum. I love to bake and prefer it over cooking, so this win is perfect for me!

I am sure I will be baking some recipes from the book soon and can share the recipes and thoughts on them with you then! Do you prefer baking over cooking too or do you like both equally? Maybe I like baking because I love sweets.

On that note, I am going to sign off of here and read some blogs, plus my book.

Strawberry Rhubarb Crunch

Like I said earlier today, I had other things get in the way of blogging over the last two days. It didn’t help that I worked 10 hour work days yesterday and today. So, I’ll catch you all up on my Sunday post, which I intended to write until the lightning storms started!

On Sunday, I forced myself to relax a bit more before I cut our grass. I read Water for Elephants outside because it was so beautiful out.

I also ate lunch outside, which was nice. I need to take advantage of eating outside more before the mosquitoes come!

After lunch, we went to my brother and sister-in-law’s house to pick up tomato plants! My brother has a huge garden that takes up most of his backyard. He already had broccoli, brussell sprouts and asparagus planted. I wish we could have a huge garden like that! We also got a ton of rhubarb, so I came home and thought about making a strawberry rhubarb pie later in the week and then it struck me that I should make a strawberry rhubarb crunch instead because I most likely had all of the ingredients for that, and I did!

I used this recipe and it turned out really well. Kind of sweet, so next time I make it, I will use less sugar.

I’ve been eating the crumble for dessert all week and piled on top of Chobani vanilla yogurt for breakfast.

I also bought some pretty flowers on Sunday!

I don’t normally plant flowers, but I love the sight of them so much and wanted cheerful, summery ones that would last all summer, so I got daisies and Celosia.

On Sunday night, we experienced some really bad thunderstorms and had the scariest lightning strike close to our house. It shook our whole house and freaked everyone out, especially the cats. I decided not to blog because it wasn’t a good idea to have my laptop plugged in at this point in the evening.

Today was pretty typical and so was yesterday. I decided not to take pics of my food and post them since I was behind anyway in general.

My workout yesterday was on the Cybex and I lifted weights. Tonight, I biked and lifted weights.

Wow, this week is flying by and I only have two more days of work left and then a long, glorious four day weekend! Tomorrow evening, I probably won’t blog because I am going to the Taste of Home cooking show. Should be great and I will share everything I learned!

What is your favorite way to use rhubarb in a recipe? I need ideas to use the rest of the rhubarb up or it’s getting cut up and put in the freezer!

Yoga at work

Thank you all for your sweet comments about my ankle. Love how supportive the blog world is. It means a lot to me.

I woke up in pain this morning, probably around 3 or 4 a.m. and then it was hard to sleep after that. Made for a tough morning at work!

Breakfast was Crunchy Nut cereal and coffee.

At work, I snacked on some almonds and I had part of a french cream baked good someone brought in. I needed comfort food after feeling pretty down about my ankle.

Lunch was an Amy’s Vegetable Lasagna and an apple. The frozen meal was really good.

We had our first yoga class at work today and it was great to do yoga in the middle of my work day. Especially because my back had been twisted in a weird way sitting at my desk all morning. Kind of strange to do yoga with co-workers, but you get over that fact quickly when you focus on feeling good and stretching. I am so thankful that my workplace is focusing on health and wellness programs now.

I wore my ASO ankle brace and that helped. I felt pain in certain poses, but it really wasn’t that hard to do yoga with the injury. I tend to believe that yoga will help, not hinder me. I made the mistake of not exercising a lot when I went through the same thing last February and then the physical therapist said that my ankle was so weak as a result.

After yoga, I went to a meeting and then I decided to leave early and use sick time for the rest of the day. I couldn’t elevate my leg properly or keep icing it at work, plus I was super tired. Not sure why I am making excuses for myself, but people probably think it’s weird I went home because of a sprained ankle. Let’s just say sitting at my desk and having my left leg propped to the side and then twisting my body towards my computer wasn’t so much fun! I also may take off tomorrow so I can rest some more and properly take care of myself.

I went to the gym tonight to lift weights and bike. I did some of my old physical therapy exercises too. Biking wasn’t so hard because I put most of the pressure on my right side instead of on my left.

Dinner was just pepperoni pizza. You know what that looks like, so I didn’t bother with a photo!

Ok, this post is all about my boring ankle, but that is what consumed my day I guess. Onto more fun things…

I ordered the 3G Kindle tonight! Bummer that I couldn’t use the $50 in gift cards that were attached to my account because I received the bonus $25 gift card free with the mother’s day promotion. Oh well. Craig and I have a bunch of things we want to order, so we’ll use that $50 on those items.

Night!

Injuries stink

There is no other way to put it, injuries are devastating. I managed to injure my ankle tonight while hopping off the treadmill. I had just run 2.85 miles in 33 minutes (walked part of that time as warm up/cool down). I felt fine the whole time on the treadmill. When I stepped off the back, my left ankle gave out on me. This is the ankle that has an old break in it from an injury that occurred about four years ago now. Amazing how it just keeps creeping back up. Anyway, I fell down to the ground and felt awful. The pain surged up my leg and I instantly was depressed about what had just happened. A nice guy lifting weights asked me if I was ok and I thanked him for asking. I walked it off and felt a little better. I also stretched and took off my shoe to see how it felt. The pain was really bad so I just decided to leave and get home ASAP to ice it.

Luckily I had a paradice pack in the freezer and a good nurse to help me feel better just by petting his cute little face.

Breakfast: honey nut cheerios and coffee

Snack: Almond Latte and Blue Diamond raw almonds

Lunch: lemon chobani with strawberries (such a good combination); a bagel thin with pb & j, a string cheese and an unpictured nutella cookie.

Dinner: since my foot was killing me, I warmed up the rest of the beer battered tofu and chowed down. I also had Stonyfield plain yogurt with Kashi cocoa granola and chia seeds.

My goal is to read A Homemade Life or an e-book tonight and catch up on my google reader, so off I go.

Barbies, exercise, and a yummy dinner

It was another great day for me/us! The warm weather put me in a good mood. I can’t believe it got up to the high 70′s today in Wisconsin! We aren’t used to these kind of temperatures at this time of year.

So, I woke up this morning and realized I have been dreaming about weird things lately. I remember this, but I woke up in the middle of the night from a running dream and was actually pounding my feet on the bed and woke Craig up. Then, I was dreaming about bananas too. I had a dream about brussell sprouts the other day. Craig said, “you’re even a food blogger in your dreams!”

I started out my day with coffee and Post Great Grains Cranberry Almond Crunch cereal.

My parents came over mid-morning to bring a big filing cabinet to us. I will be glad to get rid of paper work from our office and organize it in this cabinet. They also brought some of my stuff they were still storing at their house, including my Barbies. Yes, I still have my childhood Barbies and I am 30 years old. Doesn’t every 30 year old still have theirs?

Karma enjoyed playing with one of them. He was attacking her at one point.

After my parents left, I fueled up for a run/walk with some water and a clementine.

Craig and I were pretty warm after spending about 20 minutes outside.

I went to the gym after that and lifted a full circuit of weights, biked for 22 minutes, did squats and abs on the BOSU, did some abs on the Swiss ball, and lifted free weights. As you can see, the warm temps (extra warm in the Y workout room) motivated me to workout today!

Back at home, I made a chocolate banana protein smoothie. I added ground flax too.

I didn’t really eat much else for lunch. The warm temps are affecting me and reducing my appetite.

I finally finished Animal, Vegetable, Miracle in the afternoon! I read this book pretty slowly, but really appreciated learning about the Hopp/Kingsolver family’s experience with eating from their farm and eating locally for a year. Looking forward to discussing it at the book discussion this week!

I was excited to start Crazy, Sexy, Diet, so I dove right into that selection. I love it so far!

Dinner was fresh asparagus roasted with olive oil, lemon, garlic, sea salt and ground pepper from Penzey’s. Yum!

And some tofu.

Now it’s time to get off of here and pay attention to the Amazing Race!

How was your Sunday?

Lucky Friday!

Happy Friday everyone! This week went by quickly! I hope the weekend goes by slowly. Tomorrow, I must clean the house, go to Craig’s grandma’s b-day party, grocery shop and then relax and read my book. On Sunday, we have to devote the day to taxes and I plan to start by 10k training.

Breakfast was strawberry waffles and coffee.

At work, I needed a Friday pick me up, so I got an almond latte. I can’t get used to drinking those fancy drinks and I need to go back to my peppermint tea.

Lunch was applesauce and a pb&j sandwich. I had a cookie for dessert.

I always read blogs on my lunch break and was so excited to see that I won Food Snob STL’s “favorite things” giveaway! I won justin’s almond/chocolate butter packets (which I also love), KIND bars (love and eat all the time), a meal/grocery planner notepad (totally need this badly) and raw honey (will definitely use).

It was definitely a lucky day! I came home to find a lovely package in my front door! Vitalicious was kind enough to send me some of their products.

Yum, can’t wait to try these! I put all but one in the freezer. I am saving that one for tomorrow morning!

When I get home from work, I often just want a little snack. Today, I had a few cheese curds.

My workout was 10 minutes of rowing, some weight machines and 25 minutes of biking while reading Health magazine.

I wasn’t too hungry for dinner, so I just had a mini bagel with an egg white and cheddar cheese and some red grapes on the side.

Now Craig and I are geeking out. He likes watching Shark Tank and we both are being geeky and watching a PBS show called “Electric Dreams” where a family goes back in time with the technology in their house and they see how things change from the 1970′s to current times. It’s the history nerd in me that loves this type of show! It’s so interesting to see how technology really does isolate the family members over time. I hate that it does that, but then again, here I am blogging away for the last hour on a Friday evening when I could be reading a book I have to finish by Wednesday.

Do you embrace technology or have you found it has isolated people at work and at home more over time? What is your favorite piece of technology? Mine definitely is my iPod touch. I don’t have a fancy phone, but I love playing with my iPod touch and surfing the web when I don’t feel like pulling out my laptop.

Trying Kale Chips, at last!

Even though I had to work today, I had a great Monday. I was really tired when I first got up, but perked up with an afternoon coffee.

Breakfast was two Eggo whole wheat waffles with skippy crunchy natural peanut butter, syrup and earth balance spread.

No mid-morning snack for me because I was in a meeting that went longer than I expected it to.

Lunch was a ham sandwich with spinach, tomatoes and Frank’s Red Hot on whole wheat; applesauce; and red grapes.

I snacked on half of an apple pie larabar an hour before I left work, so my tummy wouldn’t be so hungry at the gym. I had the other half at home, right before going to the YMCA.

After work, I picked up these two books from the library.

I had started Animal, Vegetable, Miracle years ago, but never got into it, because at the time, I was not as interested in food and nutrition as I am now. I am reading it to prepare for a April 13th book discussion at the New Berlin Public Library. All of you local foodies–Karis and I are going to attend if you want to join us. She put it out there on her blog too.

I am also excited to read crazy sexy diet. I have heard good things about both books–if only there was more time to read! I’ll have to make time during my lunch breaks and before bed.

At the gym, I did a warmup of 10 minutes of biking at a quick pace. I then lifted a few weights and went on the Cybex Arc Trainer because it was the only cardio machine available. I wanted to run on the treadmill, but they were all full.

Recovery included a blueberry, frozen banana, milk, ice cubes and soy protein powder smoothie. I needed some protein to fill my tummy temporarily while I cooked dinner.

Dinner was delicious! I finally made kale chips and used Kath Eats Real Food’s recipe. I also had some herbed tofu.

The kale chips were really good. I had Craig try one and he was grossed out. Oh well. I topped them with various Penzey’s spices, sea salt and olive oil. I definitely learned my lesson because I should have made more, but I figured I was trying it out for the first time anyway, so I didn’t want to make too many in case they didn’t turn out well.

Fun fact for those of you watching Dancing With the Stars tonight (we don’t watch it). On our honeymoon in Europe, we happened to walk past (and later “stalk” to get pictures of) the model and now Dancing contestant Petra Nemcova on the Charles Bridge in Prague. It’s embarrassing, but I am the one who recognized her and not my husband. I remembered her as a supermodel and from about five years ago, when she was on Oprah talking about losing her fiance in the tsunami.

Here are my stalker pics of the model.

Oh wait, that’s me in Prague. Ha ha.

Here’s Petra.

It looked like she was filming an ad on the bridge because she had a big group of people with her and they had video cameras and other equipment.

After we saw her in person, I had to take a picture of Craig next to this ad just for fun.

Time to go read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle!

Hope you had a swell Monday too!

Morning at the Winter Farmer’s Market

This morning, I got up, relaxed a bit, made oats in a jar and coffee and then got ready to go to my friend Angie’s house.

We headed over to the Milwaukee County Winter Farmer’s Market together at State Fair Park.

It was a fun morning spent sampling all sorts of treats: dark chocolate caramel with sea salt, eggplant Parmesan soup (totally delicious), bread with balsamic vinaigrette, cookies, scones, bread, flaxseed crackers, feta/kalamata olive dip, sorghum syrup, granola, enchiladas, & strawberry preserves (tasted the difference between no sugar and sugar, I actually liked no sugar just as much). Well, no wonder I didn’t want to eat lunch later in the day! The samples were all very little of course.

I can’t wait until the spring and summer markets open up, but this was fun to experience. The only thing I purchased was sorghum syrup. I had never had it before or even heard of it. I sampled a bit before purchasing and think it tastes like molasses. I grabbed a free sorghum recipes brochure and will try making something from that, maybe some cookies.

Here is a sign the booth had posted which did influence me to buy it.

After the market, I got a tour of Angie’s adorable house, we chatted for a bit and then I headed home. I thought Craig and I were going to get Indian buffet for lunch but after last night’s buffet and all of the samples I had at the market, we opted to save it for another weekend.

I was in my “cleaning mood” as Craig calls it and I did more laundry, hand washed lingerie, brought some things into the basement, did dishes, etc. It felt good to clean up around the house!

I finally had something for a late lunch–just plain chobani with the wild blueberry preserves.

I rested on the couch and like always, conked out in a nap and so did Craig. By the time we woke up, it was 3:30. Aaah, naps are too common for me lately and then I feel so behind in my plans for the day.

I got up, cleaned some more and ate an early dinner.

I had red grapes first.

Then I made pasta with mushrooms, kalamata olives, feta and tomatoes–all drizzled with olive oil and topped with a bit of sea salt.

Dessert of cadbury mini eggs were calling my name.

After meditating, Craig and I went on a walk around the neighborhood for about 20 minutes. I changed into my gym clothes when we got home and headed straight there, because it was getting late at this point in the day.

I just wanted to do a light workout so I lifted a few weights and biked for a half hour while finishing reading a Fitness magazine and watching HGTV’s dream home show.

Once home, I needed some protein so I had a strawberry Chobani yogurt.

Time to log off and watch Despicable Me! Tomorrow, I am headed to brunch with the girls and then to my parent’s house after to visit and drop off/pick up some things.

Night!

Fridays make me happy

Recap of my Friday…

Breakfast was Cheerios and coffee. I dreamt about having bags underneath my eyes and boy did I have them today.

So, I headed over to Starbucks for a little Friday treat of a non-fat grande latte. I had half of a cherry pie larabar as a snack.

Lunch was another wrap-this time with ham instead of turkey so I won’t have heavy eyelids after lunch. I also enjoyed lots of red and green grapes plus it was my first time trying Stonyfield’s cherry flavored Greek yogurt.

The verdict? Pretty darn good!

I came home from work early, did some loads of laundry, cleaned a bit, meditated and then headed to the gym. I ate the other half of that larabar before going there so I wouldn’t get too hungry, because I went around dinner time.

I did 20 minutes on the Cybex Arc Trainer, biked 10 minutes and lifted a full circuit of weights. Everytime I do the Cybex, I totally think I could keep going for a full hour. Maybe I’ll try that sometime because the machine always says I would burn about 760 calories in an hour. Sweet!

Dinner was at Cici’s pizza. It was a buffet. Not healthy, but something different (and a mere $4.99 per person) and we didn’t feel like cooking. I am not a big buffet person because I overeat and I did do that. I had some salads to get my greens in and tried various types of pizza and a few breadsticks. Dessert was a brownie and a really yummy dessert pizza thing.

Then we just went to Home Depot, walked around and came home to relax.