Monthly Archives: March 2013

YOGURT and This Week in Photos

I’m a bit behind on my postings, but here’s the gist of my week: I’m completely and totally obsessed with yogurt. And sunflower seed butter. And yogurt WITH sunflower seed butter. But seriously though, I’ve been having yogurt like 3x a day. And I just stocked up for school!

Ok, so since I’m a bit behind, let’s do a picture post for the week!Image

Wednesday night dinner: turkey burgers, salad, green beans, and seasoned butternut squash.ImageImage

Yes, I had 2 consecutive yogurt meals. This is topped with a 2 ingredient pancake, from Tina‘s blog.Image

Bubble milk tea with the high school friends. Mango green tea.

 

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Read to go out/shopping. Since you never see pictures of me! Great selfie, I know.Image

Japanese dinner with the friends, chicken teriyaki. Followed by a movie…Spring Breakers. It was…strange. I wish I had seen a preview/knew what it was about before seeing it. Anybody seen it? Obviously that’s what my spring break is like.Image

I topped my yogurt with leftover sweet potato and leftover pancake.Image

The San Mateo Bridge on a beautiful day. I visited one of my friends who is home for break, and we went for a walk along the bay. Supposedly there are feral cats living around there, but we didn’t see any. 🙁 However, I’ve been dying to run on the trail here, so I will definitely be coming back when I’m training for my half marathon. The path apparently connects up to another nice trail to run on, which I’ve run on before, and it is all along the bay. Perfect for a hot summer day! After our walk, we went to her house so her mom could make me some home cooked Indian food. It was delicious! Sorry, no pictures! I got sunburned on the walk though. It was supposed to rain that day, so I was not prepared for the sun!Image

Greek salad.

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Frozen banana blended with cocoa powder topped with chocolate sauce and sunflower butter.Image

Not gonna lie, I had to make a 7 am yogurt run after spin for this one!Image

Lunch at a bakery in Half Boon Bay (beach area, but cold and foggy!) with homemade bread. We ate at tables outside the bakery where feral cats lived!

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I swear this one could have been Lilly’s sister! She was really sweet and let us pet her. To say that cats are feral is a bit of an overstatement. They lived there and were fed regularly.Image

Chicks at a farm store in Half Moon Bay.Image

Ducklings and baby geese! They were adorable! I watched a little duckling fall asleep standing up and it was the cutest thing. If I had gotten a video it would have been a youtube sensation for sure!Image

Dinner was cheesy garlic herb brussels sprouts with sausage, courtesy of Carrots n Cake. I used chicken apple sausage from Trader Joe’s. It was delicious. On the side? A purple sweet potato! I LOVE these! My best friend brought me one when I saw her on Thursday, and I was so excited! Funny story, I got a strange reputation last year when I would roast up whole yams and eat them like bananas, skin and all, after school before softball practice. I miss that!Image

Giant’s preseason game! And they won! YAY! Can’t wait for the season to start!Image

Best ballpark for the best team!Image

And of course no ballpark experience is complete without a Ghiradelli hot fudge sundae. We know how to celebrate baseball here in San Francisco! Seriously, these are the best.Image

Thai salad and cornbread. Image

Apple crisp! I found apple crisp topping at the grocery; it is a mixture of brown sugar, oats, etc that you cut butter into and then top apples with. Yum! Frozen yogurt on the side of course.Image

I had some artistic friends over tonight to help dye eggs! I think they turned out pretty well. 🙂 How cool is the tye dye one? I’ve gotten dye packs before with things like that, but I never read the directions on how it works before, and I’ve glad I did! It’s super cool! There are these plastic sleeves with the print that you put the egg in. Then, you dip the whole egg with the sleeve into boiling water, and the sleeve shrinks to fit the egg perfectly! How cool is that?? It might be hard to crack the egg open though. Do you guys eat your Easter eggs? One of my friends doesn’t and was shocked by the idea, because it had never occurred to her. On that note, any good hard boiled egg recipes? Image

An artsy shot, because I’m so artsy.Image

Aaaand Lilly watched us chat late into the night.

I also got some good workouts it, that I thought I’d discuss really quickly. Wednesday I lifted weights for the first time. It was a short and fairly light workout, but I was still sore so I’ll take it. Gotta get back slowly! Thursday was morning yoga, and a long walk with my friend. I can tell how much stronger I’ve gotten since just last week. I have to say, I had a particularly bad case of mono, but I recovered remarkably quickly, especially given all the other things I came down with as well.

Friday I got my rear end into gear quite early for a 5:45 am spin class. Yes, I willingly rise at 5 am on spring break to work out. It was one of my favorite teachers, and it’s the last opportunity of break for me to go! It was an awesome class too, Easter themed. Well, sort of. We climbed Mary See Mountain, and Recess Peanut Butter Egg hill.

And today’s workout was great. As in, I’m going to be veeery sore. I’m already pretty sore and it’s 1 am (see what I do for you guys! It’s technically Easter!). First, I did this workout from Anne, which incorporated situps, box jumps, and kettle bell swings. It took me about 20 minutes, but I wasn’t really timing. I did step ups for some of the box jumps because my jumping is not as great as it used to be. But I really loved it. My abs were definitely worn out. I seriously wish the STUPID gym at my school had kettlebells. How can they not have them? Madness I tell you. After my mini workout, I went to a new yoga class. I ended up really liking the class, although I wasn’t a fan of the teacher’s voice. Any Friends fans out there? It reminded me of a mild version of Janice’s voice. I told my mom this and her response? “Oh. My. Gawd!” Haha! But the class was probably worth it. I think it complemented my mini workout really well. And we grouped all the standing balances to the end of class, which killed my hamstrings and ankles!

After class, guess what I did? Practiced soccer! I started soccer when I was 5, and played through my freshman year of high school. Now that I have more time, I signed up to play Intramural soccer. I’m pumped! It’s been a while though, and from being sick, I’m still terribly out of shape. My muscles are not used to kicking also, so I will most likely be sore. But regardless, I can’t wait to play again! My dad is a big soccer player; he STILL plays. So he was more than happy to help me out with some practice!

Ok, that’s enough from me today. Since it’s 1:15 am…Happy Easter!

Do you dye eggs? What do you do with your Easter eggs?

 

It’s Lamb Season!

Hey guys! I must admit, I don’t have a lot to share with you guys in food pictures, but I promise to make it up to you in other shots! Let’ start with this morning. Or rather, last night. Last night as I was lying in bed, I decided to change my life. I decided that today, March 26, 2013, would forever be a day to remember, because it is the first day of the rest of my life. I even set myself a nice little alert to wake me up, “You’re awesome. Today’s the day you change your life!” You know, just in case I forgot. I really should start setting my alarms to a nice little message. So how am I changing my life? I am going to be more patient. Less worried. Less stressed. More kind. More “zen.” And the day I changed my life could not have gone any more perfectly. Seriously. Breakfast was a delicious mango (I’m obsessed), a spoonful of sunflower seed butter on strawberries, and leftover egg scramble. I torched my tongue on a piece of broccoli though. But you know what? That’s ok! I also realized I can’t eat sunflower seed butter like I could peanut butter. I can’t really eat it straight like I could peanut butter (not that I did that a ton), it’s way richer! Hence the strawberries. No picture though, I didn’t have that much time. Yoga was awesome. I really concentrated on finding myself and my inner peace. I’m actually decent at meditating just from yoga, and that really helped me during finals my first quarter. I would just take a 5 minute break from studying, and just let my thoughts leave me. For those of you that meditate or anything of the sort, do you have a place you imagine yourself to be? I have a clear picture in my head of a place I always go to. What’s interesting is it is a place totally constructed by my mind; its not anywhere I’ve been. It’s like my own little corner of my brain. 

Anyway, I left yoga feeling awesome. I wanted to run into Whole Foods (just because it is across the street) because we had no greens at home, and I’ve been dying for a green tea smoothie. Plus, I wanted powdered green tea. I wasn’t really sure that existed, but hey, I found it! Any guess what? I got the best parking spot in the world. Like in all my years going to this store I’ve never gotten such a good spot. I picked up more mangos. I think our current count is up to 10. What did I say? I’m obsessed. Normally I bring reusable bags to grocery shop and I donate the bag deduction. I forgot mine in the car today and was feeling a bit guilty, so when the cashier asked if I wanted to donate a dollar to the cause, I decided to go for it. He then told me that I was the first person all day! That kind of makes me sad, yet selfishly happy that I did something good. 

Has any anyone ever experienced a yoga high? It’s a bit different than a runner’s high. I guess it is more like intensely feeling things. Driving home from a good yoga class and looking at the world, I really FEEL. I saw a woman power walking, getting some good exercise in and I was just so HAPPY for her. It’s interesting. I’m vowing to go to more yoga classes, and really get the most out of them. I’m so sorry the post was this long without any pictures! After yoga I made that green tea smoothie I’ve been dying to make. It took some shuffling of ingredients to come out, and I’ll post a recipe when I’ve experimented a little more. ImageFirst of all, I blended the heck out of this, so it ended up being fluffy. I added some greens (baby kale and mixed greens; I thought I was buying all baby kale. Whoops), and I really wanted to blend them up. Into the blender went a frozen banana, coconut milk, a handful of greens, a spoon of powdered green tea, about half-3/4 a scoop of vanilla protein powder, a few ice cubes, and a touch of honey. Oh, and I tried my new ingredient, xantham gum! I’ve been dying to try this! I wasn’t really sure how much to add. I kept having to add more to get any thickness. I may have added a bit much, but not too bad! The end result? The smoothie had good flavor, but for some reason it just wasn’t very cold. In the future, it definitely needs more ice cubes. But not a bad first attempt. The flavor was pretty good as well. I also had a side salad of mixed greens and ginger dressing.

After lunch, my mom and I went to Ardenwood. It is a historic farm just across the bay. They have all kinds of animals, and grow many different crops. A few years ago I went there on Halloween to get a pumpkin.Image(I couldn’t find a pumpkin picture but at least this is from the same day. Sidenote: I’m not too creative with my Halloween costumes. I wore this 4 years and was a diffrent baseball player this year. What can I say, as a softball player, I’m so much more comfortable in softball pants in than other costumes!)

I went there a lot when I was little too. My parents got married there. Well, we went there today because word on the block was that there were 20 newborn lambs. The farm is such a peaceful place, so what better way to start my new life?ImageImageImage

After seeing a few other animals, we found some baby lambs. The first ones were born February 21.ImageImageImageImageImageWe then got to see some newborns that were born 2 hours earlier. TWO HOURS. I’m so glad we went when we did! They were still a bit bloody (I know it’s gross but it’s a fact of life). They were so cute! Standing on their wobbly legs, exploring their first steps.ImageImageImageImageAfter the lambs, we watched some adorable little pigs snoggle in the ground with their noses. They reminded me so much of my dog with their sniffing snouts in the ground and their eating of grass and mud (such a well behaved dog I have).ImageImageMost of the animals were really tame and friendly, and would walk right up to us. There were peacocks walking around that would let you get almost close enough to pet them.ImageWhile we were visiting with the pigs, a cow in the pen next to the pigs started calling to us, so we walked over to her. She came right up to us to be petted.ImageShe was such a sweetie, despite her attempts (successful attempts) to lick my jacket with her big purpley tongue! She also reminded me of my dog, with the way she nuzzled us to pet her. And this shot. ImageOr this one.ImageSee the resemblance?ImageImageHeehee. 

There were chickens walking around everywhere as well. I looked at the animals differently after my animal behavior class last quarter. They are so interesting! I’m taking a class this quarter about animals in medical research, and I’m so glad I decided to do it. Plus, another announcement: I’m planning on volunteering at the kitten nursery in the humane society this summer!

Everything was so peaceful. After Ardenwood, I stopped at the track for an easy 2 miles. I’m still really sore, so I wanted to loosen up some and just re-accustom my body to running again, so I wasn’t running too hard. I timed myself though for a baseline, and I’ve gotten wayyyy slower! But then again, I was just jogging. I negative split my second mile by 1:15, so I definitely could have been going harder! I’m fine with this though. No dinner post yet, that will come tomorrow. Turkey burgers are on the menu again for tonight! And I’m making plans with my high school friends for tomorrow, yay!

Overall, I could not have had a better day to start living my life, and really experiencing things. Peaceful yoga and a quiet farm, plus seeing new life. I can’t wait!

What is your favorite farm animal?

Science Experiments on Myself

How was everybody’s Monday? It’s my first official day of spring break it it was rather unexciting. Here is last night’s dinner though: citrus grilled chicken, sweet potato, asparagus, and fruit salad.

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Dessert was some delicious apple pie from the farmer’s market, with some frozen yogurt.Image

It was EXACTLY what I had been wanting. Enough of yesterday. This morning began with an early abs class. I absolutely love the class, which is one of the things I miss while at school. But here’s the thing. As we have talked about before, after having mono and not being able to exercise, my abs are probably the weakest part of me. So I woke up sore from yesterday’s ab work. So ouch. This class hurt. As in I couldn’t reach up high to get something because it hurt. And tomorrow will most likely be worse. I had been loosely planning on a run today, but yesterday I decided I would be better off letting my legs rest a little. Yeah, still sore. I think my groins may be sore from spin but I’m not really sure, I’ve never been sore from spin before. But last Thursday at yoga, I didn’t notice any issues until I felt like my muscles were being ripped apart in happy baby pose. An interesting description….And the only thing I had done that week was spin. Oh well. Breakfast this morning was AWESOME. I have TOTALLY been obsessed with yogurt bowls lately. Even though this is only my second one, I’ve been thinking about them a lot. Plus I got some new Icelandic yogurt to try.

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It was pretty similar to Greek yogurt, but my impression was that it was maybe a little smoother, or some how stickier (that’s a terrible description, but I don’t know how else to describe it). I topped it with warm pumpkin bread from the freezer and my new favorite, sunflower seed butter. That combo is amazing!Image

After breakfast I read a little and decided a nap was in order (what else is spring break good for, right??). Around 11:30, my mom and I decided our activity for the day would be to visit a local old farm and see the 20 newborn lambs. We decided to have an early lunch so we would have plenty of time. Since we got eggs at the farmer’s market yesterday, and I knew they’d be really fresh, I wanted to do something with eggs. I ended up doing a spinoff of the bowl from the Korean restaurant on Saturday. I sauteed mushrooms and spinach in teriyaki sauce, and heated up some instant garlic brown rice and quinoa. I topped this with an egg over easy, and dug in!

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We also cut up some oranges from the farmer’s market.Image

Our day’s plans were foiled, however, when we discovered that the farm is closed on Mondays. So what did the day turn out to hold! Spring cleaning! Of our pantry, that is. Our cabinets, fridge, and freezer never get cleaned out unless I initiate it, and we end up with food shoved everywhere and a million of one item because it is hiding in some inaccessible location. 4 cans of beans. 5 boxes of Triscuits. 4 cans of pumpkin. The list goes on. We ended up composting and donating a ton of stuff, and now the pantry and fridge are organized and reasonably empty (in a mostly good way). However there is one issue. We have a huge “sweets” basket, complete with all kinds of candy left over from Christmas. So naturally I had to check if some things were still good. And then I found the Nutella. My family doesn’t eat Nutella much, we only had it because I used it in a recipe. I much prefer Justin’s Chocolate Hazelnut butter. Anyway, I figured I would just have a taste before getting rid of it. I’m not a huge fan of the stuff, but I must admit it was addicting! Especailly when I found some crackers that would go bad soon. The end result of this process? Sugar overload. Now I’ve talked before about how I have a pretty bad reaction to sugar, and I fully admit I am a sugar addict. That is why I attempted my No Sugar Challenge. A lot of times when I eat too much sugar I start to feel really hot. I’ve always wondered if this actually raised my temperature a measurable amount, so this time I figured, why not take my temperature? And guess what? 99.0. Slight, but certainly noticeable. Yes. I gave myself a sugar-induced fever. So I think it’s time to seriously cut back on the sweets again…That’s scary!

After cleaning out all our old food, we didn’t want to go to the grocery to get dinner and put more food where we had just cleaned things out, so we were forced to improvise. After several half-baked ideas, we ended up making Mexican bowls. Wow, I had lots of bowls today! My yogurt bowl, my (vaguely) Korean bowl, and my Mexican bowl! We heated up brown rice, fire roasted tomatoes (one of the many cans of tomato products we unearthed), black beans, frozen brussels sprouts, leftover citrus chicken, cheddar cheese (1 of 5 bags of shredded cheddar…) and salsa. Topped with guac from out mini avocados! On the to-do list for tonight is getting them ready to sprout!

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Tonight will most likely be low-key. Hopefully tomorrow I will get to see the baby lambs (don’t worry, pictures will be posted). I’m still on the fence about whether I want to go to 6 am spin or 9 am yoga. I think yoga may be more important for my strength, but I would like to do some cardio. Maybe yoga plus a run? We shall see!

What is your idea of spring cleaning?

New Beginnings

Yeahh so guess who is behind posting again? Me! I swear I planned on posting Friday. And Saturday…Here’s what ends up happening. I usually like to post at night to recap my day. Makes sense, right? But see the thing is, when I am at home, my family likes to watch TV episodes at night, so we end up getting really into it and watching until late (we have the shows on DVD). And then it is late. And since I’VE BEEN ABLE TO WORKOUT (yay!) I have to wake up at a reasonable hour. So I don’t want to stay up even later…yeah let’s just say I should not try to wait until late to blog because at that point it just doesn’t happen. So since I’m a bit behind…I was really sore from yoga on Thursday! I have now found my downward dog muscles…It’s amazing what a month off can do to you! Friday I ended up decided to skip my planned run, especially since I was planning on running on Saturday. I’ve been trying to have SOME type of activity to do each day, and I ended up decided Friday would be baking day. I wanted to make something complicated, and the winner was…Boston Cream Pie! For those of you that aren’t familiar with it, it is 2 layers of sponge cake with pastry cream between the layers and a thick chocolate glaze. I just used the recipe from our America’s Test Kitchen Cookbook. I’ve made the recipe once before, and it’s pretty complicated although not terribly difficult. It is just a lot of steps. And hey, it was the perfect opportunity to use the new mixer! (Note: I’ve misspelled “the” every single time in this post…) Here’s the process:ImageImageImageImageImageImageImageYes. It was delicious. I like how this isn’t SUPER sweet. I think I could have taken the cakes out a bit sooner though. Eek looking through my pictures, I realized I’m getting ahead of myself on meals! I had some good eats! Guess what? I had my first yogurt bowl! I know so many of you swear by them, so it was time to try it! (Sidenote: Kefir and cereal is seriously delicious as well, for all you yogurt bowl lovers.) Plus, I got some sunflower seed butter, which doesn’t seem to make my skin break out. I’m pumped. ImageThese guys, plus some pumpkin bread I found in the freezer, which I swear we didn’t have any left of, but hey, I found basically half a loaf, so I’m not complaining!ImageYogurt bowls? I’m a fan. I’ve been dying to recreate this since but I have had to eat really lightly because I’ve had morning workouts. Lunch was also good on Friday. Apparently we had some whole wheat tortillas hiding in the fridge. ImageI filled it up with rotisserie chicken, jack cheese, tomato, spinach, and pesto, and then popped it into the microwave. Yum! Plus half an artichoke.

Dinner was a scramble filled with veggies, plus some oranges. I wanted to keep it light to save room for my day’s work!Image

Saturday morning I head over to the track for a workout (!). I did some running, mixed in with some abs and sprints. I ended up running 2.5 miles, which were broken up into miles chunks (plus the half mile). Given this was my first time running since I got so sick, and the first time in over a month, I’d say it went pretty well. I have a ways to go to build up my stamina, but I felt pretty good, and my legs didn’t really feel tired at all until the final half mile. It also occurred to me while I was running how much better running is than erging! However, I’m REALLY sore today. I’ve never been this sore from running. Even my arches are sore. So once again, I have a ways to go! After my workout, I cleaned myself up and my parents and I drove over to Berkeley to have lunch with my grandparents, since we won’t be seeing them on Easter. Their new favorite place is a Korean restaurant called Bowl’d, so we all went there. I got a chicken bowl, and here’s what it looked like:ImageImageIt was really good! The bowl had various types of rice, noodles, and vegetables. Topped with a citrus soy sauce, which was vaguely sweet (almost like a teriyaki sauce). I liked it! But the bowl stayed VERY hot the whole time, and I was constantly in danger of burning myself! 

My whole family was ready for a nap by the time we got home, so I read in bed with this little guy:ImageImageImageImageImageI love my cats. We ended up ordering a quick dinner from a local diner-type restaurant, and I chose huevos rancheros.ImageHey, anything with avocado and I’m sold!

This morning I headed over to one of my favorite spin classes. I had to get there early to sign up, so I did some crunches while I waited. It was a great class, I was able to push myself more like I normally do. My stupid bike seat started sliding back towards the end of class though, even though I tightened it. I got off my bike once to fix it, but when it slipped a second time, I just gave in and finished the class. 4 hills! Whoop! Which, I must say, is way better than 1 30 minute hill…

I didn’t snap a picture at breakfast because I was in a hurry, but I had a sort of yogurt bowl: kefir with peanut butter puff cereal and sunflower butter, plus a mango (of course). We still have like 8 mangos, which are all starting to be ripe. This will not be a problem.

After spin, I went to the farmer’s market.ImageMy best find? Avocados! They were 6 for $5. They also had mini avocados, which I naturally had to get.ImageImageI think I am going to try to sprout the pits, and see if I get a mini avocado plant! I’m not sure they will sprout though; they are so tiny!

Have you guys ever gotten kettle corn at the farmer’s market before? It is by far the best kettle corn out there. So naturally we bought a reasonably sized bag (as opposed to giant. See? Showing restraint). We also bought an apple pie from a stand that came from a local pie restaurant that we used to always go to when I was little. My mom and I have both been dying for apple pie lately because it keeps coming up in the books we are reading. It cost just as much if we bought slices as to buy a whole pie, so a whole pie it was!

After the farmer’s market, I began this blog post and then went out to Indian food with Jessica, one of my best friends from High School.Image

It ended up being a buffet, which was just as well since neither of us would have known what to order anyways. She had never had Indian food before, and I never know what to order since I’m not exactly sure what anything is. The end result? We basically got some of everything to try.ImageIt was really tasty! It wasn’t too spicy, except for one thing, which I figured out fairly quickly and avoided. Jessica didn’t fare as well. Her plate got completely mixed together, so she couldn’t tell what anything was and couldn’t identify the really spicy item! We used the warm Naan served on the side to take away some of the kick.

After a fun lunch, we saw a froyo place that I had not tried yet right across the street, so NATURALLY, what choice did we have? And hey, it’s been over a week since my last one! It was a Tutti Fruiti. The yogurt was good quality and the toppings bar was a good variety, but the flavors weren’t especially interesting. But I guess at this point that’s hard to expect given how many places I’ve been to. It was a great afternoon; we probably stayed in the yogurt place chatting for an hour! I miss that girl!

Other than that, I haven’t done too much up until now. There’s one last thing I want to talk about though (hence the title of the post). As some of you may know, I walked onto my college’s crew team this fall after never having rowed before in my life. My school has a program for novice rowers, so the fall was spent teaching us all how to row. It was an awesome experience, one I wouldn’t trade for anything. I met some truly amazing people. Come winter, the novices moved in with the varsity rowers, recruits and Olympians alike, starting with winter camp (which you can see in my earliest blog posts). Through blogging about this, I found some other rower/former rower bloggers (shout out to Brittany and Theresa!), which is totally awesome. But then winter quarter got hectic. Rowing took up 5 hours every day, and I was only getting about 6 hours of sleep a night, and certainly not putting 100% into my classes. I can’t help but think this is part of why I got so sick. It probably didn’t help that the first day I was sick I spent a couple of hours freezing my drenched butt off in the bay…ANYWAY. These past few weeks have given me some perspective. I realize there’s no way I can keep that type of schedule up anymore. I spent a lot of time on softball in high school, but that was MY sport. I had to remind myself that while I loved rowing, I had only been doing it for a few months, and it really wasn’t MY sport. I had such an amazing experience, but I’m not up to full strength. Racing starts in less than a week. And most importantly, an aftereffect of this stupid illness (mono) is that I will need more sleep for a while. So I decided I cannot continue to row. One again, I wouldn’t trade anything for the opportunity to row at a high college level, but it is time to move on, hence the name of the post. Right now, I’m training to get back into shape for Intramural soccer, which I’m pumped for. I started playing soccer when I was 5, and haven’t played since my freshman year of high school, and I’ve really missed it. And I want to really get into running. I can’t wait to have more flexibility in my workouts and in my life. Seriously, I’ve never had this kind of freedom. For so long, anytime there was any event or activity, I automatically knew I couldn’t go. In high school, it was because I had softball, and this year it was because I had crew. I’m excited to try new things and meet new people. I feel like I have so many more opportunities now, and I think I will have a chance at not going through life as a sleep deprived zombie. (Speaking of which, has anyone done a zombie run? I think it sounds like fun!) It’s also important for me to have a good quarter academically, given I had to drop 2 of my classes because of the mono last quarter. Like I said a minute ago, a really want to get into running. I really want to try one of those “Mud Runs” where you have to go though/over all kinds of obstacles. That’s total body fitness right there! Anyway, I wanted to let you all know what is going on with me. I decided a little while ago, but i wanted to wait until everything was finalized. To end, here’s a picture of my favorite flowers, which my cats have been leaving alone so far (last year I found my birthday bouquet scattered around the house).ImageThe picture doesn’t do them justice!

What fun or interesting runs have you done?

Phew!

Sorry I didn’t post yesterday guys, I swear I was going to! Yesterday began with a trip to the doctors so they could steal my blood for blood tests. Well, the good news is my liver functions are good, meaning I’m all healthy again! The bad news? Getting blood drawn is becoming progressively more traumatic. Apparently my veins are really hard to find so it’s always an interesting experience. I still have bruises from where they drew blood in the ER a month ago for my mono test. Shiver. Sadly, yesterday’s experience was maybe the best one I’ve had. And it still involved holes in 2 arms. But the last 2 times I’ve gotten blood drawn, I’ve started shaking like crazy. I hope it will be a looong time before I have to get blood stolen drawn again.

After my fun experience at the doctor’s, we headed next door to a shopping center (which is right across the street from school) to grab some lunch (I had to fast for my tests) and to explore the center, since I’ve basically driven by it a million times but never really gone in. My mom and I searched for a place to eat, and as soon as I saw a sign advertising green juice in the window, I decided that was the place. It was a cafe called Calafia. The only thing was as soon as I walked in the door, something fell on my head, and I quickly brushed it off, only to realize that it was a yellow jacket. I’m allergic to bee stings, so yeah that was pretty terrifying. More shaking. Yayyyy. I decided we’d be better off eating at an outside table! 

Everything on the menu looked sooo good, but I decided on a special, which was some type of rockfish tostada. It was really tasty! I was worried it would be too spicy, but not at all! Just to be safe, I ordered a soy chocolate smoothie 🙂ImageImageThe tostada had so many flavors; the warm and spicy fish, the tangy cabbage, and the hidden black beans (which it took me a while to find, they were under the tortilla!)

After lunch, we walked around the center to see what was there. At the bookstore, I picked up some mysteries. The one I’m reading now I admit I bought just because it has an adorable kitten on the front. Hey, I’m a sucker for cute kitties. Has anyone else noticed there is a definite trend between mysteries and food/cats? So many mystery series are food or cat themed. Gahh I’m already perfectly fitting the demographic, and I’m only a teenager! (Crazy cat lady anyone??) Either way, I’m enjoying the book because it is set around where I live, and the main characters all went to my college, so I recognize a ton of the places and such!

Another stop? Sur la Table. Anyone been there? It’s a cooking supply store that has all kinds of adorable cooking tools you never realized you needed. I should have snapped a picture of some of the things we bought. Kitty measuring spoons? Yes please! Another highlight purchase? A new hand mixer! I’ve been begging my mom to buy one for a while now. We’ve had ours for as long as I can remember (definitely over 10 years) and it’s gotten soooo rickety that whenever I use it, I feel like the beaters are just going to come flying off!

The other notable stop of the day was Kara’s cupcakes. I’ve been dying for cake lately, and I’ve been thinking about carrot cake….so that happened. I couldn’t decide what to get, so I ended up with a salted caramel (filled) chocolate cupcake….Imageand a mini carrot cake cupcake!ImageAs it turns out, I like chocolate cupcakes way better with vanilla frosting than with chocolate frosting, and since that little mini cupcake had so much, he was willing to share with the chocolate cupcake. Yum! Craving=satisfied. I spent the rest of the afternoon reading my new book, and then for dinner, we had a surprise visit from my sister, so Thai food happened. I had some yellow vegetable curry, green beans, and chicken with peanut sauce.ImageSorry it is so messy, I accidentally dumped half of the sauce onto my plate…whoops.ImageFor dessert, I had a Protein Brownie for One from Fitcupcaker. I could tell it WOULD have been delicious, but I cooked it a little too long. If I had left it gooey, it would have been sooo good, but I cooked it until it was kind of tough….Never fear! There is always plan B! I had been meaning to blend up some frozen bananas with cocoa powder to just be in the freezer if I ever wanted instant soft serve, so I blended that up last night with a splash of coconut milk. I ended up stirring in the cocoa powder by hand because I didn’t think it would blend in very well. The result? (Excuse the re-used mug)ImageI swear this was more delicious than the photo demonstrates! I topped my banana soft serve with peanut butter and warm fudge sauce. SO GOOD. SOSOSOSO GOOD. 

Now onto today! I grabbed a quick breakfast of a small mango and half a banana with peanut butter on my way to yoga! Since I’m home, I get to go to all my favorite classes at the gym! I loved the class! However, I’m pretty weak and inflexible. As it turns out, sitting in bed for 3-4 weeks doesn’t lend itself to fitness. Who knew? My abs are especially weak. Since the exertion of as much as sitting up in bed was enough ab exercise to send me into a coughing fit, let’s just say that my abs were not getting a ton of work. But hey, the only positive about being horribly out of shape is I get a way better workout from a lot less, right? 

I stopped at Whole Foods afterwards to get some more mangos. Since the 7 that we had already were not enough. But none of the ones we had were ripe, and I’m not patient. I ended up getting new chocolate protein powder. Whole Foods brand was like half as expensive as the other brands for the same amount! Score! I also picked up some protein bars and such for school that don’t have nuts 🙁 Plus, since I had a fairly light breakfast and it was around 11, AND I was tired of seeing hot delicious breakfast foods there and not trying them, I grabbed a snack. I got a little baked pancake, a little creme brulee french toast, and some breakfast fruit crisp. The crisp was my favorite, it wasn’t too sweet! It had “seasonal fruits,” which turned out to be pineapple and strawberries! So good! I didn’t get any pictures, I somehow managed to leave my phone in the car….When does that ever happen?

Today consisted of running errands/me shopping. First was Old Navy. I am in search of workout capris, but they didn’t have the ones I wanted in my size. I found a sweater and cute yoga/workout top though! Then we hit up Sports Authority (it’s next door) to look at workout clothes (which, if you haven’t noticed, I love doing. Nike shorts? LOVE.). I got a pair of capris and some running socks to try, which are supposed to prevent blisters. We’ll see about that! At this point, it was after lunch, so we met up with my dad at the cafe at his work. I ordered a veggie wrap, which had cream cheese, pesto, veggies, and avocado. Not gonna lie, I got it for the avocado. What’s new, right?ImageMy last errand of the day was Target. I found one of those infinity scarves (the loop ones) and some sunglasses.ImageCan you say springtime? Sidenote: I always thought the first day of spring was the 21st of March. But this year apparently it was the 20th. I’m not sure why this really bothers me but it does. This is not what I ordered! I like my seasons to come on schedule!

I found a couple of other fun clothing items as well. Afterwards, my mom needed some garden things from a garden type store, but I was pretty beat at this point so I stayed in the car. My energy levels are definitely not 100%! By the time we got home, I only had a little time to recoup. I took the best 15 minute nap ever. Sometimes you just need a quick pick-me-up. Where was I off to? I was getting a pedicure! I guess my mom decided it was our treat for making it through the past few weeks. I almost always paint my toenails silver, and today was no different. Note: I hate having my fingernails painted! It drives me crazy for some reason! And I am bad at repainting my toenails. As in I leave the nail polish on for months….It was a nice relaxing experience though. 

Dinner was leftover turkey burgers, mine in a beautiful lettuce leaf. More homemade ketchup!ImagePlus some broccoli, and chips/veggies and salsa/guacamole. Mango and regular salsa! The guac was made with a mix, but I added some nutritional yeast (which I got today!) for some extra B vitamins, which are supposed to help with Mono recovery. I had a mango after dinner (BEST. FRUIT. EVER.), and a taste of another new purchase, kefir. ImageThis is my first time trying kefir. It tastes like a strong, liquid yogurt. As it suggests, I think it WOULD be really good poured over cereal or granola. I’ve been pretty serious about trying to get my Probiotics in after the million anti-biotics that I had to take while I was sick. 

Well, that was my day. I’m pooped. But heyy, I’m still blogging, right? All I have planned for tomorrow is a run, so we’ll see what the day holds. Also, shout out to Miranda for the Under 21 Club! Check it out!

under21bloggerbadge1.jpgHave a great night!

What are your ideal spring break plans?