The snow finally came

I’m working this evening, for the second night in a row (boo), and on my quick dinner break. Here’s what’s been happening in my life this week.

Read this article from NY times and found it pretty interesting.

My department had our holiday work party yesterday and it was really nice. We had a Jamaican theme for the food and that was fun.

We exchanged secret santa presents and this is what I got, which I loved, of course.

Southeastern Wisconsin finally got some snow that stuck and I have been wearing my Uggs everywhere. Yes they are ugly, but they kept my feet damn warm today when I shoveled in the cold temps. That’s all that matters to me!

I find the snow pretty and bright, but don’t really love it. Driving home in it was awful last night.

This kept me fueled while I worked out this morning. Since I am on my feet a lot at work tonight, I kept my workout light with a walk on the treadmill to warm up, some time on the Cybex Arc trainer and some free weights.

I picked up this very bright C9 sports bra at Target this week and found it to be pretty supportive. I think it’s better for light cardio or yoga, but for $5, I was not going to pass it up. I know some people swear by these sports bras.

This has been my crazy week, so I will be happy when it’s over. Besides working two nights in a row, I have two things to go to tomrorow as well. Sunday’s schedule is clear, which makes me so happy.

Time to get back to work! Have a wonderful weekend.

Snow day!

Happy Snow Day for the Midwest and anyone else who got hit by this blizzard!

This morning, I woke up early to watch the news, went back to sleep and made blueberry whole wheat pancakes for breakfast.

I worked on a few projects for about two hours and then called it quits.

My husband was nice enough to bring home a Netbook for me to work on today. I had to do a lot of projects in Word and PowerPoint and I own an iBook, so sometimes it’s just easier to use a PC for work projects.

Mid-morning, we went outside to tackle the huge snow drifts (well and I posed by them).

My favorite drift with all of the layers. Did I just say I had a favorite drift? I guess I enjoyed my snow day!

My car, not buried as badly as people’s cars on the East side of Milwaukee were.

To tackle the foot plus of snow, Craig was armed with our snowblower.

Me with a shovel to conquer our front door and walkway. Eek!

Once indoors, I spent about an hour plus chopping veggies for a the Vegetable Medley with Chiles recipe from Terry Walter’s cookbook Clean Start.

It contained parsnips (my first time cooking with them), sweet potatoes, brussel sprouts, shallots, garlic, chiles, sea salt and olive oil.

Ready to go in the oven!

I paired the veggies with two pierogies.

Yum, a great winter lunch and the best part is that I have leftover veggies to eat for the next couple of days. I think they would be great paired with pasta and/or quinoa.

Dessert was the last of the Strawberry Newman’s Own Organics licorice and a mint chocolate flavored attune probiotic bar.

After lunch, I worked some more because Craig was peacefully taking a nap.

Then I did dishes, cleaned the house a bit, pulled out some clothes for our trip to Florida and here I am, blogging as the sun is setting on a crazy day after the blizzard. Our street is still not plowed out and if it isn’t tomorrow morning, there is no way we are going to work!

Off to enjoy the rest of my evening. Hope you had a good snow day if your area got hit by the storm.

Off tomorrow!

My work already declared that they are closing tomorrow! Do you know what that means? I can sleep in, well except for waking up to feed the cats!

I left work early today and worked from home until 5. Tomorrow, I don’t have to work from home, but I will for a bit of the day. I think I’ll put in 3-4 hours tomorrow and then use the rest of the day to prepare for our upcoming trip! I also just want to use some of that time to read magazines. My magazine stack is huge!

Breakfast today was a mini bagel with strawberry cream cheese and a bowl full of fresh blueberries.

I was super busy at work, but I took a brief break for some hot chocolate and a jalapeno cornbread muffin.

Lunch was a buffalo tofu wrap with tons of spinach. I overestimated the amount of spinach I would need, but that’s ok, just more nutrients for my body! I also had a Granny Smith applesauce and a Raspberry Dark Chocolate attune bar for dessert.

Once home, I worked for a while, made some hot chocolate and had two Hermits from Newman’s Own Organics.

Love the back of the package! It cracked me up when I saw it!

Is it weird that I was really looking forward to watching Oprah today because it featured Michael Pollan and talked about her staffers going vegan for a week and how they felt as a result? Unfortunately, due to the blizzard news coverage, it got pushed to airing at 12:30 a.m. We don’t have DVR, so I won’t be watching that show except for maybe in a rerun. It really stinks that Oprah doesn’t have videos of her show available online. I guess I can always read the transcripts. Did anyone see it? If you did or plan to watch it on your DVR, can you please fill me in?

This is what our front yard and my poor little Honda Fit looked like this afternoon. This is nothing because we’ll be adding 12-16 inches on top of this already high amount of snow!

On his way home from work, Craig called and asked if I could start making some frozen pierogies.

This was our first time buying frozen pierogies. I was the one that pushed buying them. Craig is ancestrally half Polish and I don’t think he ever had a pierogie until tonight. I had had them before, but it’s been a while.

They were yummy, but three pierogies didn’t make a dinner. We are trying to use up food before our trip, so I didn’t have a lot of fresh food to pair with my pierogies.

Instead I made his and hers berry smoothies with Soy protein powder. I added frozen mixed berries, blueberries, almond milk and pineapple.

While Craig snowblowed, I read the February issue of Woman’s Day.

One of the quotes from a love story in the magazine sounded very familiar.

My husband and I knew each other in high school. We had algebra together and he sat behind me. We never dated. Nine years later, I moved back from California and in with my parents, who were now living in a town other than the one I grew up in. While perusing our high school alma mater grads on MySpace, my husband happened to see the name of the town I lived in and he recognized my picture from high school. He had been working in the town my parents now live in for 8 years at that point. Craig had been down the road the whole time and I never knew it. After e-mailing each other daily, we met for ice cream a couple of weeks later and the rest is history. He even proposed at the ice cream place we met at. 🙂

Ok, I am feeling like my writing isn’t so great and I am getting tired. Time to read a few blogs and then disconnect.

I’ll be back tomorrow with a snow day recap!

Monday off

I had this Monday off because I work on Saturday. I am also hoping for this Wednesday off because of the snow!

Originally, I wanted to treat myself to a matinee movie of The King’s Speech. Those plans all changed as I ate the breakfast below (Stonyfield plain yogurt with Jessica’s almond cherry granola, fresh blueberries, chia seeds and a bit of almond milk; coffee; and a jalapeno cornbread muffin I had to save for a mid-morning snack because I was too full from my main meal).

You see, the last in the trilogy of the Stieg Larsson books was due back to the library today. I still had about 150 pages to read. Well, I stayed on the couch, snuggled with Karma and read the rest of the book. It moved fast at the end, but I think I read for about an hour and a half straight!

By the time I finished reading, I really felt like moving and going to the gym instead of showering and heading to a movie theater to sit for two hours. I sat enough (and napped) all weekend! The gym was calling me and I headed there for a good two hours.

Before the gym, I needed something to hold me over until the end of my workout. I snacked on half of a peanut butter cookie Larabar.

Walking into the gym, a cute little toddler girl was walking out way ahead of her mom and into the round driveway where cars pull up quite often. I looked at her mom’s face and immediately turned around to stop the little girl. It was a scary moment for her mom, who was tied up with a little boy in her arm. She was very grateful for what I did and then the guy who checked me into the Y said to me, “you saved that little girl.” It was my good deed for the day.

I worked out on the elliptical for 45 minutes. Blame HGTV and an American looking for a house in the French countryside. Aaah, they get me every time with International House Hunters. I also did a full circuit of weights and then called it quits, because it was a little after 1 p.m. at this point.

The snow was coming down pretty badly when I was driving back and I was glad to get off the slushy roads. Sadly, this is just the beginning of the snow for us this week!

For lunch, I made a buffalo tofu wrap for lunch with a whole wheat tortilla, spinach and swiss cheese.

This meal filled me up! I probably will bring the same thing for lunch tomorrow too. Tofu is the perfect food for me because I normally don’t eat a lot of protein and subsequently, don’t feel full and want to snack a couple of hours after a meal. With tofu, I always feel full until my next meal.

After lunch, I got to work on dumping photographs from iPhoto onto my Lacie hard drive. I really need to make photo books out of each season or year. Otherwise, digital photos just sit on my hard drive. Blogging has also caused rows and rows of food pictures to sit in my iPhoto. I need to clear those off my computer, because really, what am I going to do with all of them?

I headed out in the snow again to return my book and dvd to the library. Then it was time to shovel some of the driveway until my hands were so freezing cold that I couldn’t stand it anymore.

Off to get ready to head out again with Craig! We’re going to look at one more eyeglass place and then hopefully order some new glasses for him tonight.

Hope you had a good Monday!

Eating carrots instead of chocolate…

On my lunch break today, I was eating baby carrots like they were chocolate. The crunching noise and feeling somehow helped me relieve my stress. The vet called me back this morning with more bad news. In the last few days, she wasn’t able to find anything medically that relates to Karma’s symptoms. Basically, there is no diagnosis and treatment for his condition. We will put him on steroids in two days, but she doesn’t have much hope that that treatment will do much for him. Of course, I got this news at work and I instantly wanted to run and hide. I called Craig with the bad news and that was equally as difficult as getting it from the doctor on the phone.

Breakfast was Apple Cinnamon cheerios and coffee with Silk Nog added. I am trying to use the stuff up before it expires.

Dinner at one of my favorite restaurants

I am behind on blog posts so I will recap yesterday.

It snowed overnight, so I shoveled a bit before heading to Body Pump at the YMCA with Angie.

I had coffee, cheerios and half of a Balance Almond Brownie bar before class.