Calmness

How is your week going? Mine has been pretty good so far! I don’t think a lot of Packer fans can say that today after that horrible referee call last night. I don’t watch football, but even I was shocked and angry when I saw that play on the news this morning. My favorite headline was “Clueless in Seattle.”

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I’ve had quite a calm come over me lately. I don’t know if it was that week of vacation I took, that I am still feeling sort of out it from this never-ending cold virus or that meditation is the cause of it. Whatever it is, I am thankful for the feeling.

To keep my calm feeling, I went for a walk outside in the gorgeous fall weather during my lunch break today. My destination was Starbucks and a Pumpkin Spice Latte was my treat.

I have only had two this season and they have hit the spot! For some reason, they taste much better than I remembered them tasting last year. I think it’s my imagination though.

It was so calm and quiet at Starbucks. I just chilled in a chair and played on my iPhone and watched people.

This sounds odd, but I know I am not the only girl that does this. I spotted a girl who was dressed so cute in a typical fall outfit: brown boots, dark tights, a skirt and a crossbody purse. She looked effortless. I think I need to dress like that more often, especially in fall because I love wearing dresses or skirts with tights and tall boots. I looked down at my boring outfit and thought to myself, you can do better.

While walking, I listened to a great new podcast: From the Inside Out by Trish Blackwell.

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The episode I listened to was about patience. I think I am a pretty patient person, but I know that everyone could find ways to be more patient and it was a good reminder to work on that.

Dinner tonight was kind of my go-to meal: quinoa with whatever I can find to dump in it. I mixed together Trader Joe’s roasted red peppers, quark from Clock Shadow, feta cheese, various spices, sea salt and cooked chickpeas. I made enough for leftovers for our lunches too.

Instead of going to the gym, I took advantage of the crisp and beautiful weather and went for a bike ride. There won’t be many more evenings left to do that, so I figured I should spend some time outside.

Craig suggested I also do Wii Fit, which I haven’t done in ages. I got a half hour in on there and it felt great to have fun while playing various balance and cardio levels.

My favorite is catching the fish in the penguin balance game. 🙂 I also did step aerobics on there for 10 minutes, which got me sweating! It was a good reminder to pull out the Wii more in the winter months, when I don’t feel like going to the gym.

Do you listen to podcasts? If so, do you have a favorite you subscribe to? I have a mixture of fitness, travel, language, vegetarian, NPR and nutrition podcasts on my iPhone.

Lactose Free Yogurt

I’ve had lots of stuff going on after work this week! I had to catch up on grocery store and Target runs after failing to do both over the weekend.

On Monday, I got my eyes checked and the doc said that I must be eating my veggies because my prescription hadn’t changed. Hooray! Now I can get new eyeglasses and hopefully I’ll find some I like this weekend.

After my appointment, I met Craig at Outback Steakhouse and this is the only the second time either of us had been to that restaurant. Thanks to a suggestion from Karis, I got this free steak dinner coupon in the mail and Craig was able to use it for his dinner.

He got a wood fired steak and garlic mashed potatoes. He enjoyed the meal and took half of it home.

I had a small portion of a chicken quesadilla. It was yummy and greasy–had bacon on it and I dipped it in the honey mustard sauce it came with. For someone like me, it was hard to find an item on the menu that really appealed to me. This was the best I could come up with.

Last night, I went to Bodyflow with Angie and it was the second week of the new release. I liked the old one better, but class was still excellent. My abs hurt today and that is a good thing! I guess I liked the old music better too.

I purchased some Green Valley Organics blueberry lactose free yogurt while at Whole Foods a couple of weekends ago. I tried it for lunch today and was so happy to find the taste pleasant and the texture good too. Hooray!

I definitely will be purchasing more of their products. I really love yogurt so if I do end up having a lactose intolerance, I’ll be eating this instead of traditional yogurt. For those of you wondering about the lactose intolerance situation–after my one week test, I can’t be sure I am lactose intolerant. After my EGD and colonoscopy in two weeks, I’ll ask for a hydrogen breath test to confirm.

Lunch today was homemade egg salad on top of spinach, the lactose free yogurt and some cucumber slices with Penzey’s Mural of Spice.

For dinner the last two nights, I’ve been making quinoa with chickpeas and Mmmm sauce. I seem to go through phases with the Mmmm sauce and will want it all week and then get sick of it.

That’s all for now…two more days of the work week! Woot woot!

No cavities

Yesterday was rough. I felt like I got hit by a bus in the morning, was nauseous from lack of sleep I believe, and couldn’t even drink my coffee. Then, Tanzi the cat saw a centipede on the wall behind me as I was eating my breakfast and I just about freaked out. I also didn’t have the best day at work and it wasn’t because I came back to tons of things to attend to after a little vacation. I’m not complaining, just noting it wasn’t the best day overall.

Luckily, today was much better.

This morning, I went to the dentist for my cleaning before I headed to work. I received pleasant comments from my hygienist, such as “I can see you have good home care” or “you’ve never had braces? Your teeth are so straight and perfect!” That made my day until the dentist came in and looked at the freshly taken x-rays only to say that I had to “watch” two teeth and make sure to floss around those areas a little more than normal. I actually don’t mind going to the dentist. Since I stopped drinking massive amounts of soda years ago, I haven’t had as many cavities as I used to.

Breakfast was the natural flavor of a Vega Whole Food Health Optimizer. I didn’t like this flavor, but still drank it nontheless. Blah. I think Vanilla Chai is winning out as my fav, but I saved the best for last and have the berry flavor to try tomorrow morning before writing my recap post on Friday.

Lunch was a Bright Citrus flavored Cascal fermented soda (loved this flavor), the leftover quinoa and Mmm sauce dish I made for dinner last night with some tomatoes from our garden thrown in, and a raspberry Chobani. I found it hard to eat everything because the quinoa really seemed to fill me up.

Around 3, I took a break from my work computer, went by the sunny windows, and read Farm City while eating this Eat. Think. Smile bar.

I’m going to head out on a walk/run around the neighborhood and try to enjoy this cooler weather. I didn’t go to the gym, because I wanted to get this particular thing done and I am glad it’s behind me so now I can go play outside. 🙂

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Oh and please head on over to Jessica’s blog tomorrow to bid on some yummy Trader Joe’s products for a cause that means so much to me, the Crohn’s and colitis foundation of America. I have colitis and trust me, it’s a horrible disease to deal with. I am so happy Jessica is running a race and fundraising money for Crohn’s and Colitis. So go bid on some Trader Joe’s products tomorrow! Thanks!

She is also hosting a bake sale, which starts on September 16th, so check back then as well.

Loving the farmers market veggies

My breakfasts and lunches have been kind of boring lately, so I haven’t been taking pictures of them. Lunches are basically leftovers of the meals below.

Last night, we made the corn on the cob that I got at the Farmers Market in Madison. It was delicious! I am glad it’s a vegetable I can make that Craig will also eat.

I topped one of my halves of corn with butter and Penzey’s spices. Then I just felt like eating it plain with butter and salt.

I also made some Mmmm sauce and quinoa again. I’m just a bit addicted to Mmmm sauce!

Tonight, I was craving veggies again and wanted to use some zucchini, but didn’t feel like doing anything elaborate with it. I just cut some up, threw it in the pan and cooked it up some red pepper, garlic, and olive oil and put it on top of a little bit of pasta and Parmesan cheese.

Breakfast this morning was red grapes, half of a banana chocolate chip muffin, and coffee with stevia. It was my first time trying stevia (I won some from a giveaway hosted by Allie at PickyEatingRD) and I thought it was ok. I have been using raw sugar lately and really liking the caramel flavor that produces in my coffee. But, it doesn’t seem to “melt” or blend well with my coffee.

I’ll try the stevia products again in some baked goods soon and let you know how i like it.

It was raining out tonight, so no walk outside for us. 😦 I just went to the gym and lifted weights, biked while reading Women’s Health magazine, and ran/walked on the treadmill. Running felt good because I really got my heart rate up!

Time to finish my post on the town of New Glarus. I have so many pictures to share, so I hope you like picture filled posts.

Mmmm cream puffs

What a great Wednesday! Ever since I went to yoga last night with my friend Laurie, I have been in such a good mood. I feel like my life is more balanced this week than last week and maybe that is contributing to my good mood too.

I decided to switch things up for breakfast and had a poached egg with provolone cheese and Frank’s Red Hot on whole wheat bread.

Lunch was a small taco, pineapple Chobani yogurt, and a pink lady apple.

After work, I met my friend Angie at the gym for some weights, cardio on the Cybex Arc Trainer, and abs. It was fun to catch up with her and have a buddy to workout with.

On my way back from the gym, all I could think about was making quinoa with Mmmm sauce. I’ve been wanting to make Mmmm sauce for a while now and when I tried to load the recipe online over the weekend, it wasn’t working! So, I finally made it tonight and now I know how it got it’s name!

I added chickpeas and tomatoes to the quinoa. The sauce reminded me of the flavors I love in Indian food!

I did sit there and say “mmmmm” while eating this dinner. I made Craig try some too and he thought it was pretty good.

My mom won six Wisconsin State Fair cream puffs and picked them up today, so we got three of them to enjoy.

I had one and indulged a bit.

I just heard on the news that they will have the world’s largest cream puff at the Wisconsin State Fair this year! Crazy. 🙂

I guess I had a sweet tooth tonight (even though I didn’t have any major cravings for sweets), because I also had a few bites of this addictive ice cream.

Time to read some blogs, a book on my kindle, and then get some zzzz’s.

ABSolutely going to be sore

Hips Abs Butt Intense Thighs (HABIT) class killed me tonight. The teacher set up different exercises than we did last week and they were great and effective ab exercises. We focused more on obliques tonight using hand weights and the step. I am going to be hurting over the next couple of days!

After dinner, Craig and I also went on a walk around the neighborhood. It was a shorter walk because the weather turned suddenly cool and windy.

I have been distracted by etsy for the last half hour. You see, I am not the quickest decision maker when it comes to pretty things from etsy. I have been trying to pick out the best coupon organizer for weeks now. I secretly keep hoping someone will pop up with an Amy Butler fabric coupon organizer. Have you seen her fabrics? They are beautiful!

It’s already getting late here…so a quick post will follow with my eats.

Breakfast

Snacks/lunch

Dinner

Gotta go, it’s way too late now and I have to get my clothes ready for yoga at work tomorrow. Night!

Monday Monday

Oh Mondays, how I loathe you. Glad you’re almost over though.

I started off my day with chobani plain greek yogurt, chia seeds, wild blueberry preserves and Kashi summer berry granola. This seems to be my go to breakfast lately.

My sister-in-law Lisa has become my “Chobani dealer.” She works close to Woodman’s now and asks me if I need anything and each time she asks I say “two tubs of plain chobani please.” My mother-in-law tried some Chobani just plain yesterday and said it tastes like sour cream. I threw in some of my beloved Bonne Maman wild blueberry preserves and she loved that combo! May have hooked another person on Chobani!

Lunch was leftovers–pizza and quinoa. I didn’t eat all of that quinoa though. I saved the rest for more leftovers. I also had about 6 carrot sticks and gobs of dark chocolate covered almonds from TJ’s to comfort my Monday blues.

During my 15 minute and lunch breaks, I managed to read my Kindle and I have to say that I love the option to read so many different things. Sometimes I am just not in the mood to read a certain book, so I could preview a new one or read the Amazon Daily post. I downloaded lots of samples yesterday including The New Weightlifting Rules for Women and started reading the sample before bed last night. It sounds like a book I should buy a paper copy of. Love what I have read so far. Anyone out there read that book yet or started it?

I had an afternoon slump, so I ate half of a cherry pie larabar to see if that helped. Nope. Oh well, I tried.

Dinner was a Trader Joe’s chana masala veggie burger with jack cheese and I put it all on a TJ’s sandwich thin, which was awesome! Definitely getting those more than Arnold’s and if you remember from my post last week, their nutritional stats were better too. Had some strawberries on the side and munched on more fruit before dinner in the form of dried mango.

After dinner settled, I made my way to the gym. I walked on the treadmill for 34 minutes and logged 2.14 miles. I watched a new episode of Property Virgins on HGTV and ran very slowly (13:00 minute pace) during commercials. My ankle wasn’t irritated, but my body just felt off. I need to get back into running slowly so I can keep training for the 10k. Then I lifted some weights and left.

And now I am just chilling with an adorable cat by the name of Tanzi next to me and ready to go read my kindle some more. Almost halfway through The Secret Holocaust Diaries!

Oh Goody!

…the Kindle arrived today! I now have my own Kindle and we are a two Kindle household. I have always been a big reader since I was about 6 and I think having an e-reader will even encourage me to read more. I got the 3G version so I will have internet anywhere (basically, where cell service comes in). If we travel to Europe again soon (yes, please), I can use the Kindle in most countries there. I should do a proper review on the Kindle soon for anyone who is more curious about it.

I worked this morning until about 12:30 and then it was off to Trader Joe’s. I spent almost $100 there, but I bought double of a lot of things that we love. I always tell myself this, but I need to shop there more often. I just have to time my trips right because coming home from there on a work day, I would hit major freeway traffic.

When I checked out, the cashier said to me, “this looks like a vegetarian’s cart.” I replied, “yeah, we are about 90% vegetarian in our household.” He shared some of his favorite vegetarian finds from TJ’s, including soy chorizo, which sounds delicious. I’ll have to pick that up next time. Aren’t the cashiers at Trader Joe’s just so friendly and helpful?

After watching Food, Inc. for the second time tonight, I feel like becoming a vegetarian and not eating 10% meat in my diet. I seriously cry every time I see the baby chicks and then the chickens. I can’t even write about it and describe it without wanting to tear up. Since I was young, I didn’t like the thought of eating animals and my parents had to force me to eat any type of meat.

Dinner was comprised of some of the products I picked up from Trader Joe’s. I made my traditional quinoa meal of roasted red peppers, kalamata olives, feta cheese, chickpeas, and artichoke hearts. I paired it with TJ’s pomegranate green tea. So filling that I didn’t have room for any dessert, which is a good thing because I snacked on too many dark chocolate covered almonds in the afternoon. 🙂

After two days of resting, I got to the gym for a long workout. The gym was dead, so I took full advantage of that and spent more time lifting weights. I did a full circuit with more reps than usual, biked for 25 minutes, did the Cybex Arc trainer for 15 minutes, and did some abs on the ball with my body weight and hand weights. It felt good to be back there. My ankle was not aggravated by the bike or Cybex at all. I stretched very well before and after my workout.

Be back tomorrow with a mother’s day post dedicated to my lovely mom. 🙂 Since I spent last Sunday with her for her b-day, I won’t be spending tomorrow with her. 😦 What are you doing with your mom?

Dinner and book discussion

Last night, I didn’t blog because I went from work, home to meditate and then to meet Karis for dinner at Noodles and Company. This was our first time meeting in person after writing e-mails back and forth over the last couple of months. How fun to meet another blogger in person, especially because we are interested in a lot of the same things! She even was sweet enough to bring me two books I am really looking forward to reading: A Year of Sundays and A Homemade Life.

After a great dinner discussion, we headed over to the New Berlin Public Library for their book discussion on Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

It was fun to hear what others, especially those coming from a different demographic, had to say about their impressions of the book. What I took away from the book was that growing as much food as you can helps the environment, your budget, your piece of mind and it’s a fun process. I am looking forward to hopefully expanding our patio container garden a bit this summer. Oh and I can’t wait to try some of her recipes inspired by what she grew on their farm.

I wasn’t too hungry this morning so I had Post Great Grains Cranberry Almond Crunch cereal and some coffee.

I was tired again today so I had an almond latte and some raw almonds for a snack mid-morning.

Lunch was a pb & j sandwich. I used Smart Balance peanut butter and it’s really yummy.

After work, I meditated and snacked on half of this KIND bar.

Then I met up with my friend Angie at the gym for some weight lifting and the elliptical. It was nice to catch up with her and chat while working out. So different to be working out without music blaring in my ears too.

I was so hungry by the time I got home at 7! I quickly chopped up some stuff and added to quinoa that was already cooked. It was basically the same quinoa combo I made the other day.

And now I just lost to my husband in Wordfeud. It’s so addictive to play and I keep saying it’s my “Alzheimer’s prevention” because I don’t play enough word games. I am surprised my hubby likes it because he doesn’t like Scrabble. It’s fun to compete against him, even if I just lost to him big time. Oh well–there’s a new game starting now and I better get my thinking cap on.

Night!

Busy, but productive Saturday

As my title says, it was a very busy day by choice, but felt so nice and productive. At about 6:20, when we were sitting down and having dinner together, I said to Craig, “wow, this day went by so slowly, but in a good way because I got so much done.” Love those kind of days!

I woke up, meditated and then had a craving for oatmeal, so that’s what I made.

I wanted to go to yoga, but by the time I ate, it was getting late and I was SO full from the oatmeal. I decided to stay home instead and clean. I was in one of my cleaning moods, so I threw laundry in, dusted, washed dishes, cleaned counters and the kitchen table, vacuumed, swept and got the kitchen ready for mopping. I managed to read my book in between cleaning too.

I wasn’t too hungry for a “real” lunch, so I had a pomegranate chobani and a triple chocolate chunk vita top.

The vita top was delicious, as expected! Very chocolaty!

Then I was off to Craig’s grandma’s 90th birthday party. I went late, after the meal was over, because I really didn’t want to pay $15 to have the meal choice they offered and there was no vegetarian option. They had fried chicken, ham, mashed potatoes, green beans, etc. I wouldn’t have enjoyed the meat and it probably would have upset my stomach. I just had a few bites of birthday cake.

Here is my sister-in-law, Grandma, and Craig.

After the party, I headed to Pick N’ Save to get some groceries on double double coupon day. I could double 10 coupons, which was great because we needed oatmeal, cereal, clementines, olive oil, etc. and I was able to save a lot of money today.

Then it was time to mop the floors! I really hate this chore more than any other in the house. It takes so much time to clear everything out and we just have a small kitchen and bathroom!

Seeing shiny, clean floors made me happy though.

I felt like the energizer bunny today. The next thing I did was lace up my running shoes and get outside for a 15 minute run.

It felt so good to run outside opposed to the treadmill. I just wish I had a garmin to see what my pace was and the distance I completed. I know they aren’t that much money, but I am not sure it is worth the investment for me. Especially because I couldn’t use it at the gym in the winter.

Clearly this is a (shiny) face of a very happy blogger who can get outside and run, at last!

Because I didn’t go to the gym, I decided to lift my 8 lb. weights too.

Dinner was delicious. Every time I make a quinoa dish like this, I just go “mmmmm” throughout dinner. I made mine with kalamata olives, roasted red peppers, tomatoes, tomato basil feta cheese, dried basil and mural of flavor from Penzey’s spices, olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

When I saw this flavor at the store today, I knew I had to try it in the quinoa dish.

And after dinner, Craig and I went on a long walk around the neighborhood. It was nice to see flowers coming up and some even had bloomed already! They’re really going to go into action tomorrow when it’s in the 70’s.

Right before I started blogging this post, I ate a skinny cow cookies n’ cream ice cream sandwich.

Time to finish reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. I am almost done!

Hope your Saturday was fantastic!