The night before Christmas Eve, I made my pumpkin gingerbread, and enjoyed that with wine while watching Home Alone 2 (we watched the original last year).

I started Christmas Eve with a festive spin class, of entirely Christmas songs.

On Christmas Eve night, my whole family went to Benihana’s per our tradition. I just got beer, a salad, and their amazing fried rice, and then stole bites of my family’s food.

Before we knew it, it was Jackson’s first Christmas!

Kitten’s first stocking!

^This was after I caught him looking extremely guilty with a little tree in his mouth.

For breakfast, we had gingerbread (for me)/croissants (my parents), plus scrambled eggs and turkey bacon.

After breakfast, my mom and I headed to the bay to take Chloe for a little Christmas walk.

Around lunchtime, my sister, her husband, and their two kitties came over (5 cats total in the house!)

We ate an easy lunch of soup, and then opened presents.

My sister made us all homemade gelato! Mine was salted caramel.

^This was my present to my sis! Lava and Ash, her kitties!

My sister and I were tasked with cooking Christmas dinner, which is a first for us. We poured champagne with pomegranate juice, and mulled wine to sip on while we cooked.

My sister made homemade pasta, pumpkin soup, and brussels sprouts. I made cranberry sauce (with maple syrup) and cranberry citrus relish, and then ended up sort of roasted a turkey. I wanted to buy some slices from Whole Foods like we did a few years ago, but when I went on Christmas Eve, they didn’t have that. So I ended up buying a whole (pre-cooked) Diestel turkey. Apparently I looked clueless enough at the store, and the store worker was super helpful and told me how to heat it up: 350 for 1.5 hours, with the first .5 hour covered. It came out super well (and we had a ton of leftovers which were enjoyed all week).

My sister’s husband is Jewish, and the two of them have perfected the latke. These are lemon truffle latkes with homemade apple sauce that my aunt sent us!

Highlights from between the two holidays:

Leftover turkey-cranberry opened faced sandwiches with laughing cow.

AMAZING turkey and rice soup. My mom made turkey broth from the carcass, and the flavor was incredible. Served with Brazilian cheese balls.

Beer flight during the Alamo bowl. This was a fun flight because we picked out the individual beers from Trader Joe’s, so it was all good things! Sadly the game didn’t go as planned…

For our football food, we did BBQ turkey sweet potato nachos. Roasted sweet potato slices topped with BBQ sauce, 2% Mexican cheese, leftover turkey, and green onions.

I made my weirdo salad with leftover roasted turkey instead of deli turkey and it was insanely good.

Friday night, my parents and I finally made it out to the local brewery. They have a beer called “Beer Kitty,” so naturally I had to get that.

They also had food trucks out. I had a kale salad with chicken, and french fries.

On the way home, we stopped for frozen yogurt. I had chocolate mint and  eggnog. Both were super good!

Saturday, I actually worked all day at the vet. It was good to be back, and we had lots of kitties that day—my favorite! I went out for dinner and beer with coworkers after as well. When I got home, it was madness. My family was gone, and my sister’s 2 kitties were staying with us as well. I got home to 5 kitties! Thankfully they all got along, and there were kitties EVERYWHERE!

^All 5 in one shot!

My NYE consisted of a spin class, lots and lots of cat time, Jackson’s first kitten playdate at my friend’s house, then my friend bring her kitten to my house to make it 6 cats, and finally game night at a different friend’s house while our kitties played. The rest of the post will be exclusively cat pictures! I got a new phone, so the cat pictures are higher quality and I have more memory to store them! Happy New Year!

Also…my body hurts. I don’t know what it was, but Crossfit hit me hard this week! I’m not sure what it is, maybe the programming, but I’ve spent a lot of time very, very sore. Someone had a shirt on yesterday that said “Everything hurts and I’m dying.” That’s sort of how I feel right about now.

I have been wimping out on my deadlifts lately (as in….the last year. whoops.) and did them with a partner the other day…so I was pushed to go a little heavier for sets of 5. I didn’t realize how sore I was until the next day, I reached down to pick up a horse’s foot and OW. And then it just keeps building. Yesterday was a spicy little couplet of 65# snatches and thrusters. I was expecting the thrusters to be trivial (for some reason…). Nope. The snatches felt much better. Oh, and here’s a new one: I bruised my hand doing pull ups (over 50 of them, to be fair). So that’s cool. But other than everything hurts and I’m dying, vet school life around here is going well! I’m actually fairly caught up on studying everything, which is a great feeling, and one that I’m not entirely familiar with. I completely changed my study habits when I got here, and honestly it takes away a ton of stress. This apparently is how I study:

1. On the lap

2. On the iPad.

3. On the chair.

And then this was last night. Apparently Rina knows I’m a grandma and meowed at me to come to bed at 9pm, so I brought my studying to bed.

And while we’re on the topic of pets, guess who’s coming in just over a week??

I believe I promised you some food (and not just animals, but let’s be real here), so let’s dive in!

Breakfasts

Watermelon, a GF pumpkin spice waffle, and plain greek yogurt with honey and cocoa powder.

Smoothie as I ran out the door after Crossfit: frozen banana, 1/2 school of chocolate Quest protein, milk, and cocoa powder. The classic.

Yogurt bowl with raspberry jam and sunbutter. This was supposed to be with passionfruit, but the very expensive passionfruit I got was pretty awful (and basically empty.)

Yogurt bowl with cinnamon granola and sunbutter, plus a farmer’s market plum.

Lunches

Basically all packed salads. The treat was picking up a rotisserie chicken breast this week!

Salad with grapes, shaved parmesan, and rotisserie chicken. Tossed in light balsamic, served with rice cakes.

Fig, goat cheese, and chicken salad with balsamic vinaigrette.

Dinners

Beet, carrot, apple juice at the farmer’s market.

Zucchini and corn tamale from the farmer’s market, plus a kale salad with nutritional yeast.

More zucchini soup with grilled cheese.

When I picked up the rotisserie chicken, it was perfectly warm. Dinner was chicken with ketchup and a side salad with ginger dressing.

This meal was a Quick and Easy FTW. I wasn’t sure what to make this week, so before going to the store I scrolled through to see what looked good and decided on this salad. Balsamic kale with roasted butternut squash, dried cranberries, and parmesan. Chicken on the side.

Another farmer’s market tamale. Can you tell I’m a little obsessed? This was chicken and vegetable. Ginger salad on the side.

That’s all I have—it’s dinner time!

I wanted to pop in and share a little bit from my very last day in St. Louis.

What a freaking goof.

The cold came in Friday night, so I bundled up for Crossfit. My last one! Thankfully, the gym is heated. For the workout, we worked on hang cleans. The WOD was killer on the shoulders.

10 rounds:

10 push press (65 lb)

10 UNBROKEN double unders

10 weighted sit ups (25 lb)

I knew right away the push presses would be the hard part of this since 65 is a little heavy for me for a WOD. It was. Ouch. For the double unders, if they were broken (aka you messed up) you had to start over. Surprisingly, I only did this one set. It was a good workout to end on, and I said my goodbyes.

I went straight from Crossfit to The Mud House, a coffeeshop I visited once before, for some food and study time.

Kombucha and cheddar chive grits. Why are grits more of a thing in California??

The place was absolutely packed for brunch, but I was able to snag a spot at the counter. But the line was smooched up against the counter, so I felt especially awkward pulling up my anthrax research for microbio.

I didn’t do too much that afternoon other than squeeze in some last kittie snuggles.

Around dinnertime, I bundled up for one final outing.

Me and a couple of zoo buddies went to Seoul Taco in the loop. I had my last chocolate milk stout.

Plus a bowl with chicken and a very jiggly egg.

Next was our main event on the agenda, visiting Garden Glow at the Missouri Botanical Gardens. It was a big light display set up in the gardens, and I was really excited to see it! With lows in the 20s and wind, I was nervous for the weather. I finally made use of my winter coat, and the temperatures were only low 40s so it wasn’t too bad! Check out the lights though:

I had such a great time, and it was a great way to welcome the holiday season.

Afterwards, we stopped at The Cup in Central West End to pick up cupcakes. They had 3 GF options! I got a chocolate cupcake with vanilla ice cream and it was SUPER delicious and fudgy.

We ate these while watching Insidious 2 back at my place, and Scooby kept us company (and Yoyo wandered around making sure to creak every floorboard in the dark old house!)

And then it was time to say goodbye. I’m really going to miss these people. It’s amazing the relationships you can form in 3 short months. I can’t bear to get to sappy here, but I’ll leave it by saying it’s not goodbye forever, because I WILL come visit.

Sunday morning I woke up to this:

29, feels like 25. Yeah. I decided my run could wait until the “feels like” was at least above freezing. What did I do instead?

Finally I got out the door and did my normal 3 mile route. I had planned on running in Forest Park but didn’t want to spend the time driving there.

And then finally I said goodbye.

But with every goodbye comes a hello.

Oh, and I had my first cranberry orange bread of the season. This had warm spices which made it feel extra holiday-y.

As hard as it is to leave, I try to look forward as much as possible, because I’ve enjoyed my life at every stage lately and know that I will be just fine. (That doesn’t mean leaving people in the past though!)

How do you say goodbye?

The title of this post (the journey) refers mainly to the thing I planned my entire Satuday around. But we’ll get there.

First on the agenda? A morning run. I’ve been wanted to run along the river but never got around to it, so today was the day! I went to bed super early the night before, so I was wide awake and ready to face the day at 6am.

Brrrr. Hard to imagine how hot it was last time I was down around there, my very first weekend in St. Louis.

I did my usual 3 miles, enjoying the sights of this city I’ve called home for the past few months.

Then, it was time to hit up my final coffeeshop of the list. Mississippi Mud House. I’ve been putting this one off since it’s downtown and that seemed like it required more effort. But like I said, I made a day of it. I ended up parking about half a mile from the coffeeshop, near where I was going to get lunch. I love walking around cities, on during the chilly early morning (like 8:45am).

The place had a cool vibe. It was in the front of an art gallery.

Of course, I got a decaf cappuccino.

This was probably the one of the best milk foams. I could tell the milk used was really high quality. The cappuccino was a little milky, which was what I was in the mood for, but I do have to dock a few points for style. I would maybe rank this just under Rise? The flavor wasn’t super deep.

But as I’ve finished my coffee tour of St. Louis, expect a full recap coming up! My Tuesday studying will be a little victory lap.

It felt good to start my morning with some productivity though!

My caffeine tolerance is sad. I don’t know what it is, but lately I’ve been feeling the caffeine even with decaf (and I’m sure it’s decaf). I can’t go through more than half a cup before feeling it.

After coffee I walked through the city to lunch. It was chilly so I decided to go back a block over in the sun, and ran into City Park!

Lunch on that chilly day was hot soup from Bread Co. (Panera in St. Louis). I got the Autumn Squash soup.

While I was downtown, it did occur to me that I should probably visit Anheuser-Busch before I leave St. Louis. I went home and showered and then arrived at the brewery.

They offer complimentary 45 minutes tours of the facilities and the production process, complete with free sampling.

We even got to see the Clydesdales! I love them.

From there, we started touring the facilities and learning about beer making.

We had the option of tasting Budweiser Select or Bud Light. Why would you ever choose Bud Light?? I think it’s a step up from Coors Light though.

I won’t pretend like I understand beer making, so enjoy some pictures!

At the end of the tour we got to choose any beer on tap to “sample” (I use quotes because it was a full glass). I went with Spaten. Not bad, but I like the dark Spaten better.

TO be honest, Budweiser isn’t my favorite beer. It seems a little bit water to me. That being said, at the Crossfit night out last weekend, I talked to a fellow Crossfitter who worked for Anheuser-Busch, and he brought up the point that Budweisser is really good for its style. And I’ve decided that that’s fair. It’s crisp, and not bad for a ballgame, but I personally like a little more complexity.

My next stop was to pick up some GF cannoli. Right??? I stopped by Piccone Pastry. They have tons of flavors, and they’ll fill the GF shell with whatever you want! I got a sea salt caramel and a chocolate chip.

I also picked up some tea at Blueprint across the street.

For dinner, I kept it on the light side because I fully intended on filling up on cannoli. I made avocado toast and cooked up my honeynut squash from Trader Joe’s. I bought this a few weeks ago because I thought it was cute and since it was small, it seemed like the perfect single girl’s squash. I was planning on microwaving it to soften it enough to cut, and then roast, but apparently 5 minutes was enough to make it totally soft. And then for some reason just turning on the janky oven here was enough to set off the fire alarm so that was out. I ended up finishing it up by sautéing it in a pan with olive oil, salt, and pepper.

I cut my cannoli in half in case I actually felt like using portion control but you better believe I devoured them.

I spent the first part of the evening watching Clueless, curled up with Scooby.

Then I went to watch a horror movie (Insidious) with my zoo buddy. I brought the last of my Oktoberfest beer. I had it in my bag with my wallet, keys, etc, and as I was getting out of my car, I dropped my bag and one of the bottles exploded. I was literally pouring beer out of my wallet. My bag was dripping and full of glass shards. Luckily, 2 of the 3 were spared, but my wallet and everything in it was a sloppy mess. I actually got a new wallet today, which was probably needed anyways! But everything smells like Oktoberfest (which thankfully is more pleasant than average beer).

Sunday morning I went to an Olympic Lifting class at Crossfit. They just got a new coach to teach it! I’ve been Olympic Lifting for over 6 years now, and in that time my focus on it has come and gone. I don’t work on my lifts as consistently with Crossfit (which I’ve been doing for over 3 years now) because we have so many other focuses, but I did work with my original trainer again last summer, and I got really strong and my technique improved greatly. I PRed all my Oly lifts last summer. Between my shoulder and my foot injuries, these lifts have kind of fallen by the wayside.That being said, I have pretty good technique. One thing the coach helped me on a lot was the position out of the bottom of my snatch, which is my weak point. I’m actually easy stronger from the hang than the ground, just because my position isn’t where it should be. He instructed me to arch my back more at the bottom, start with my hips a little higher, and bring the bar in closer to my shins. This worked to created a straight plane for the bar to move in, and it felt like it was flying up! My clean and jerk is definitely stronger for me (technique and weight-wise) so there were fewer comments for that!

I ran some errands afterwards including getting a flu shot, and made a quick lunch of avocado toast and pizza eggs (marina+cheese). 

After lunch, I picked up my coworker and we drove out to Defiance, Missouri’s wine country. 

We went to Sugar Creek Winery.

We did a $4 tasting, which included 4 samples and a wine glass. I went with all whites, plus the blackberry.

I sampled the Vidal, the Boone Country, the peach, and the blackberry. All were delicious, with light flavors. Plus, the company wasn’t too bad!

We got a bottle of the Boone Country to share while chatting and enjoying the scenery.

This was on the sweeter side and it was pretty easy to drink. So, how does MO wine compare to CA wine? I talked to a wine distributer about this at the Crossfit night out, and I think I agree with his assessment that CA is better for the price. These were also all lighter flavors than a lot of CA wines. I’m going wine tasting in Napa over Thanksgiving so I guess I’ll have a direct comparison!

And now I’m on the couch. I wasn’t planning on being here for the rest of the night BUT i’m currently under 2 kitties. Yoyo decided to join me halfway through this post. He really wanted to settle on my laptop, which was a problem. Now he’s on my belly and my laptop is lodged in the space between 2 kitties. I’ll miss these boys.

That’s all for now! I’ll catch you guys later!

But then I decided that that just wouldn’t do. I needed to figure out how to turn myself around, because I had scary visions of my entire rest of my gap year in potato-land. As I mindfully made this decision, I wanted to do a post on it, because we all have potato days. Here are some things I did to bring myself out, or that made me smile.

-I started referring to myself as a potato which I definitely found amusing. It lightened the situation.

-I decided to make a blog post about coming out of bad days, therefore forcing me to focus on the small positives throughout my day.

-I started my morning with a workout. Exercise first thing ALWAYS helps. We did 4 sets of 10 back squats today (yuck) at a relatively light weight. Then the WOD was 5 rounds of 150m run, 15 box jumps, and 10 hand stand push ups (which I did off a box). At the start of the WOD, I just didn’t feel like moving. But one round in, I felt much better.

-I made myself presentable. Looking good on the outside always makes me feel better on the inside. I didn’t have the option to wear cozy clothes (zoo uniform), but I considered not wearing any makeup, and decided I would feel better if I actually put the extra 2 minutes in.

-I hugged a Yoyo on the way out the door. A selfie occurred. He was not amused, and both kitties were a little suspicious about why I was chasing around trying to hug them, but it lifted my spirits! Especially because then they got riled up and started wrestling and it was kind of adorable.

-I took a second to appreciate the pretty leaves outside on my way to the car. I love fall.

-I played my current jam on the way to work.

-I got an awesome parking spot at work (also I love my Spanish music. Enrique <3)

-The zoo is starting to put out holiday decorations and I love it!

-Polar bear eating lettuce. Enough said.

-Watching and listening to little kids can be endlessly amusing. They all LOVE our polar bear Kali. This comment this morning that a kid was repeating over and over cracked me up: “He’s a beautiful specimen with a giant butt!” True.

-Vegetables. The best way to feel better and to start eating better again. Nothing crazy, just veggies. I had a salad with champagne vinaigrette, humus, goat cheese, and an egg for lunch.

-Productivity. Sometimes I feel guilty about not getting things done and it can be a little bit paralyzing. I took some time on my lunch break to get ahead on Microbiology reading.

-Timehop. I love it. I wish it would somehow be able to look at pictures on my computer since I’ve deleted most from my phone, but I saw this gem. I was a minute early on 11/11/11 at 11:11 I guess!

-The Sun Bears were pretty active today, which made them fun to watch!

-My zoo buddy hung out with my for the very end of my observation while I was a little bit overwhelmed, and it was helpful to have an extra set of eyes! Plus she brought me a cookie <3

-I made plans with myself to do something more interesting for dinner than eggs and lettuce, so I stopped at Whole Foods so I could get dinner and spend some time afterwards studying.

The food wasn’t that great since I was early and it was probably still from lunch. But I was enough out of my potato-ness that this didn’t bother me.

-Kombucha. Always helps.

-A delicious and healthy dessert to eat while curled up on the couch. I had half a piece of healthy pumpkin bread with semisweet chocolate chips, vanilla Halo Top, and whipped cream.

-Spending the rest of the night snuggled up with Scooby, watching a Rom-Com set at Christmastime, while eating said bowl of deliciousness.

And now I don’t feel like a potato.

This has been a really low key weekend, which was needed after a few crazy ones. I was traveling the last 2 weekends, and had an action packed weekend the week before that with my parents visiting.

Friday morning began with a great Crossfit workout—front squats and deadlifts! I love anything with power movements. We did 10×2 front squats, and I used 125 lbs. The WOD was

15 deadlifts (135 lbs)

15 box jups

15 deadlifts

15 box jumps

rest 3 minutes. repeat.

For breakfast I had something a little bit different. I’m trying to make my way through the freezer, so I made a protein smoothie with a frozen banana, milk, cocoa powder, and Quest salted caramel protein.

I haven’t been feeling meat as much lately for some reason, so my lunch salad was meatless. Pears, dried cranberries, and lots of goat cheese in champagne vinaigrette, with crackers on the side.

And a pice of chocolate.

I can’t believe I only have 2 weeks left of zoo life!

My wild Friday night included plan at a coffeeshop to work on my online Microbiology class. With all the travel lately, it’s kind of been put on the back burner.

I started out by ordering a sandwich. I ordered it on GF bread but I don’t think they actually gave me GF bread because I’ve gotten sandwiches there before that don’t look like that! Despite the results of my gluten experiment, I decided I didn’t want to lose mental capacity so I just ate around the bread. The sandwich was turkey, swiss, and herb cream cheese with a side salad.

After enjoying that, I ordered a baked pumpkin maple latte (decaf!) to sip on while completing an assignment.

I’m not normally a sweet coffee person, but this was no Starbucks. It was really delicious and actually tasted like coffee!

I was planning on watching Game 7 of the 2014 World Series (I have it on DVD) afterwards, but I was craving a book so I stopped by Target to pick one up. This was my night:

I like this book! There’s definitely a lot to it, and it’s fairly dark.

Saturday morning I was supposed to teach spin, but no one came to the class. Instead, I headed out to a 9am Crossfit for some clean and jerk work and a partner WOD. In groups of 3, we split 75-60-45-30-15 push press (65), calories on the rower, and kettle bell swings.

Afterwards, it was time to hit up a St. Louis must-do.

Rumor was they have GF donuts Friday and Saturday mornings, and I picked up a GF pumpkin spice cake donut!

Of course I had to try a bite in the parking lot (but managed to save the rest for when I got home because it needed milk).

It was good, but to be honest, I think I would have liked it more baked. I don’t really like the fried flavor. But my first donut in a very long time was well enjoyed.

I also really like this milk, so I wanted to mention it. It’s filtered to have lower lactose and high protein than normal milk, but mostly I like it because I actually have a pretty strong fear of sour milk, and I feel like if it’s super filtered that’s less likely to be an issue!

My entire day basically consisted of reading my book on the coach with kitties. Mostly Yoyo, but Scooby joined us for a little bit. He sat on my lap but kind of spilled onto Yoyo and was directly on top of him, so I LITERALLY had cats on cats.

Saturday night I went to a Crossfit night out.

My local Crossfit here organized a night out at a local bar. It was a really fun night; it was nice to actually talk to people outside of working out (though of course the topic of Crossfit was brought up once or twice ). It was really interesting learning more about people’s lives outside of them gym, and of course I had to try some local craft beer! It just makes me all the more sad to leave these people in 2 weeks!

One really nice thing was that it was within walking distance of my house, and while the temperatures have dropped quite a bit these past few days, it was a really nice, crisp night to walk.

Sunday morning at 6am, Yoyo busted open my door and before I knew it I had 2 kitties snuggled up on my bed.

Despite their antics, I managed to sleep a little bit longer!

My main event for Sunday morning was going to Crossfit run group. It’s basically just people meeting at the gym to go run together. There was a short and a long option. The short was 1.5, and the long was 5…1.5 seemed a lot shorter than what I was hoping for, so I decided I might as well go for 5 and turn back if necessary. I hadn’t run this far since my stress fracture; I had only run 4 miles 2x, and 3 is my normal distance.

My foot performed fantastically! I was able to cover 5 miles pain-free, which is pretty huge. My legs were feeling it by the end though! A group of 3 of us did the 5 mile option, and apparently our average pace was 9:36, which is not too shabby! It felt good to run longer again, and I’m sure I’ll be feeling it tomorrow. My plantar fasciitis is flaring a little bit from the increased effort though. Running on my foot is pretty variable. I think the fact that I spent the entire previous day on the couch is part of why I was able to cover those miles pain free. I walk and stand a ton at work, which limits my mileage.

I was HUNGRY when I got home and had a few gulps of chocolate milk while preparing lunch.

I messed up flipping my egg, but somehow it turned out perfectly bread shaped! I’ll take it! I made an open-faced egg sandwich with American cheese. On the side was a salad with goat cheese and dried cranberries.

After lunch, I facetimed a friend back home, while mixing up pumpkin bread (and dividing the recipe in half!) Somehow, despite multitasking, I think I managed to not screw anything up.

I asked my mom to dig up my favorite pumpkin bread recipe which I haven’t made in a little while. The recipe is from so long ago, it’s 1. pre-blog and 2. on paper!

I tried to find the link to the recipe, but I can’t find it!

I cut the recipe in half, used GF flour, and used a bit under 1/3c brown sugar and 1/3c maple syrup in place of the full cup of sugar. I also sprinkled a few chocolate chips on top of one side!

Delicious!

Chilly temperatures+pumpkin bread?

NOW it’s fall.

I spent the afternoon studying. I went to Rise for a cozy decaf cappuccino.

Dinner tonight was another warm fall favorite: soup! I heated up some mushroom lentil soup and topped it with fat free cheddar (kind of rubbery but trying to use it up!). On the side I had some buttered toast.

For dessert, I sautéed up some apples with butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla. I don’t think I added nearly enough butter, and the edges got sort of caramelized. I served that with some vanilla Halo Top.

It was a great, relaxing, low key cozy fall weekend!

What do you like to do when the temperature drops?

All this led to be fasting for 16 hours and then eating radioactive eggs.

It’s weird going to the doctor and having them feed you, right? I did a gastric emptying study. Basically, they fed me radioactive eggs that they can then track through my stomach with an MRI type of thing, over the course of 4 hours, beginning with a 30 minute long picture. The process was long and involved a lot of waiting, but was relatively painless. While waiting, I googled symptoms/treatments for delayed stomach emptying and found myself nodding along with the symptoms, so I wasn’t too surprised when the test came up positive for delayed stomach emptying.

After a follow up appointment, it sounds like this is likely what is causing the problems. Treatment is mostly managing the symptoms and changing eating habits. I basically have to avoid eating too much. I have to eat more mini meals throughout the day, instead of full meals. I’ve actually been pretty good about eating fairly light over break so far, and I think that has kept most symptoms at bay. So I will be eating lot of small meals, and soups (since liquid can be easier to handle).

Lunch today was a mini bowl of soup and a baby piece of cornbread.

I have mixed feelings about this. I’m glad to finally have some answers, but I’m nervous this lifestyle change will be either difficult to adhere to or won’t “cure” anything. When I think to how bad off it was when it first started, I can’t imagine that smaller meals would make a difference. Thankfully I am better than that, but the threat of that worries me. I just want to be normal! If mini meals might get me there, then that’s what I’m going to have to do. But I feel like at least for now the threat of a full on flare is still very present.

So what else have I been up to?

More soup-Greek lemon chicken. We added carrots and lemon juice. This was topped with chives and feta, and the feta linked all the flavors perfectly. On the side was Trader Joe’s Gluten Free cornbread (from a mix). I really liked it! With butter and honey.

My first ever flat white.

Peppermint hot chocolate with my sister from Peet’s.

Last night’s dinner: sage, chicken, and mushroom soup, with a gluten free rosemary roll on the side. The roll is from Mariposa in San Francisco. Yesterday my mom and I went up to San Francisco to go to the Ferry Building.

We started out with a gluten free lunch at Mariposa, and I got a turkey sandwich with cheddar and cranberry sauce.

We also stopped by the gourmet ice cream shop. I was hoping they would have olive oil ice cream like I had last time, but they didn’t so I settled for some delicious chocolate.

We wandered the shops a little bit before heading home.

Another food excitement—new energy bars! It’s nearly impossible for me to find bars that meet all my various restrictions, so when I saw a website for custom bars on Kaila‘s blog, I jumped at the chance.

I got mine with a date and sunflower seed butter base, and then had whey protein, chia seeds, chocolate chips, vanilla, and honey. SO delicious!

In terms of workouts, this morning I went to the track to do my simple 6x200m. Love the view from this track though!

The other night, I went to a fun Santa Themed spin class, which I dressed up for with Santa socks and a holiday bow in my hair.

I’ve also been going to my home Crossfit, which has been SUPER fun. My first workout back was Tuesday, and the WOD was 5 rounds of 400m run, 30 sit ups, and 15 back squats at 115#. This is exactly the type of workout I LOVE, and it was fun! However, I haven’t done a ton of back squats since hurting my shoulder (I think the first time I was able to do them was like a month ago?) so while the weight wasn’t too heavy, the underuse plus high reps has left me unbelievably sore! Man!

Currently, I am blogging from under both a cat and heated blanket. Winter break isn’t too bad!

Friday morning began with a visit to the beachside juice stand. My fresh squeezed orange pineapple juice was enjoyed beachside, with some yogurt and fruit.

First kitty spotting of the trip by the beach!

After we cleaned up, we headed to Lahaina. Folks-it was a scorcher that day! Upper 90s and humid.

My dad is constantly in search for the best lau lau (pork wrapped in taro and banana leaves), so we stopped for lunch at a restaurant with local fare.

Teriyaki chicken for me!

Dessert was much anticipated-a gluten free bakery! We shared a cream puff and then I had a chocolate cupcake with lilikoi (passionfruit) icing.

It was impossible to tell the cream puff was gluten free, and the cupcake was phenomenal. The cake was moist and dense, and the frosting was the perfect tart counterbalance.

We walked through downtown Wailea, burning up the whole time as we stopped in and out of shops. Finally, we reached our destination: Dan’s Greenhouse. This is a little hidden treasure-we’ve actually been coming to this little shop every time since I was a child. This is also where I got my beloved plumeria plant that has lived in my dorm the past 2 years! But the best part??

Miniature pot belly pigs! I’ve mentioned before that I don’t eat red meat, and these guys are partly why. I think I stopped eating pork around 5th grade, after absolutely falling in love with these guys. This little guy was just a ball of energy. I believe he was 6 months old-he was 8 pounds but will grow to about 15. They eat a vegan diet-similar to what they eat in the wild. If you overfeed them or feed them a too protein rich diet, they can grow to up to 70 pounds! You can pay to feed them, which is more than worth the money. I got to sit on the ground with him in my lap, as he gobbled up berries, kale, and oats from my hand.

I think the photo quality reflects just how wiggly he was!

On the way to the car, we stopped for a dole whip for my dad and iced lattes for my mom and me-plus some much needed time in air conditioning!

My final stop in Lahaina was Enjoy the Ride-a spin studio! They had a big screen in front that displayed a real terrain which was cool. The class was fun but not the hardest I’ve ever taken-it was perfect for the vacation!

Scenes form the drive back to Wailea/Kihei.

Dinner was at Three’s Bar and Grill. We started with a miso kale salad-I’ve had a couple of these while here and I’ve really loved them! For my entree, I had fish lau lau, which also included purple sweet potatoes and kale.

Dessert was gluten free lilikoi cheesecake. Gluten free cheesecake is something I’ve seen pop up on several menus around here!

Saturday morning was another highlight. We began with a trip to Starbucks for a quick breakfast (I had a smoothie plus sliced pineapple from Starbucks!)

On the agenda was the Grand Dairy Tour at the Surfing Goat Dairy. This tour allowed us to see the production process of the small, humane certified dairy. We got to feed the goat, milk the goats (!!!-so excited), herd the goats, and finally-taste all the cheese! I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

Their cheeses were top of the line. We bought some to et during the rest of the trip, and are planning on ordering more online to send home! The blueberry and the lime goat cheese truffles I tried were delicious as well!

Next stop-higher upcountry for lunch and pineapple wine tasting!

Lunch was at the ranch burger place across from the winery. I had a taro burger on a gluten free bun.

At the winery, we did the complimentary tasting where we got to choose 3 types of wine to try. I tried the sparking pineapple wine, the rose sparking, and the sweet raspberry dessert wine.

I was really torn about taking home a bottle of the sparkling pineapple or the sparkling rose. I liked the rose more, but the pineapple was really unique!

We took a complimentary tour-and I learned that they produce a really small amount of their award winning sparkling rose-it’s made with grapes grown on their property, and because they produce so little, they only sell their award winning rose on the property, so I felt good about my decision to get that! Scenes from the tour:

The rest of the day included a decaf Kona cappuccino, exploring some shops in Wailea, goat cheese, and room service.

Um-check out this cheesecake. Lilikoi cheesecake with a gluten free brownie base. YUM.

So-can you tell I kind of like animals?

I never did a NYE recap! Well, better late than never!

This year, 2 of my closest high school friends came over to spend the night.

Somehow we managed to accumulate 200+ pictures again.

I ended up keeping the food for the day and night fairly light. Lunch was black bean soup again.

And post Crossfit dinner before they came over was some eggs and fruit.

Our main delectables for the night included a veggie tray with hummus and with ranch dip-this was devoured. I love that I have friends I can eat veggies with! We used to have veggie parties back in high school.

I also picked up so healthy-ish looking kettle corn which was good! The main request for the night was ice cream sundaes. I got slow churned brownie fudge and cookies and cream. Slow churned is slightly healthier, right? I was actually shocked by how much lower in calories it was!

We then topped that with a fresh warm brownie, caramel sauce, chocolate fudge sauce, and whipped cream.

I honestly wondered what we would do all night, but as it turns out, if you put 3 old friends in a house together, it’s not hard to find something!

We had fun talking, breaking out old yearbooks, and playing with the kitties.

And of course, right at midnight, we turned on the TV to watch the ball drop.

And I got my New Year’s kiss.

Then, it was snack time again. This time-whole wheat quesadillas!

(Me on spatula duty.)

And here’s a #transformationtuesday for ya!

It was a great night, and I couldn’t ask for better people to spend it with!

Despite staying up until 4am talking, I dragged myself to noon Crossfit to start 2015 off strong! It was a bodyweight partner workout so nothing too crazy, but it felt great to get moving before settling in on the couch to watch football all day. PAC-12 represent! I honestly never thought I’d root for Oregon, but of course I’ll root for PAC-12 teams-so under appreciated as a conference.

To watch the Rose Bowl, we made baked Brie for the first time. (Remember back when I went to the Rose Bowl?)

I cut off the top and side rinds, topped it with cranberry-apple butter, and then threw it in the oven at 350 until it was completely melted and bubbly.

It turned out really well! I liked that the cranberry cut the sweetness a bit. I enjoyed it with some crackers.

During both the Rose of Sugar Bowls, I also enjoyed the company of a certain orange kitty.

A certain sleepy orange kitty.

Dinner later in the day was thrown together from the depths of our freezer. Trader Joe’s sweet potato gnocchi with sage butter sauce (really good and tender), Trader Joe’s mushroom medley, and a basic side salad.

The random dishes ended up complementing each other well!

I hope you all had a fantastic New Year’s Eve!

What did you do for NYE?

I’m currently blogging with my kitty snuggled in at my side. My mother likes to keep the house FREEZING so we’re both cold! So, let’s get to the holiday recap, shall we?

Christmas Eve morning started with a workout. I got up at 5am to go to a spin class….only to find that the gym didn’t open until 7 (the class was supposed to be at 5:45am)…despite the fact that the class appeared on the schedule! I ended up going to Starbucks for coffee and hanging out there for an hour or so.

I ended up getting a killer workout in-treadmill intervals, single leg RDLs, and abs! I left feeling great and ready for the holiday to get started! Blasting Spanish Christmas music during the workout helped too

My family got all dressed up and headed to Benihana, a Japanese steakhouse. I wore my seasonably appropriate Christmas sweater.

We started with a ginger salad and mushroom onion soup.

But we all know the best part is the fried rice!

I don’t know why I’ve never tried to make fried rice myself-it doesn’t seem that hard!

For my main course, I kept it on the lighter side by ordering steamed veggies (which came with a small tofu appetizer). I failed to take pictures, but it included all  kinds of goodies like mushrooms and butternut squash.

We had several other ideas for things to do with the rest of the day, but we ended up just lounging around. Later in the evening, we watched my favorite Christmas movie-The Year Without a Santa Claus!

And then it was time to hang the stockings and put out the cookies and carrots (for reindeer!).

Not a bad looking tree this year! Fun fact-all our ornaments are unbreakable because my kitties like to chase each other around the tree.

Christmas morning we awoke and opened stockings and pet presents.

Billy enjoyed his new reindeer! It came in a little chimney with another reindeer and Santa!

Then, it was time to dig into breakfast! We got a TON of food gifts this year, and especially breakfast foods!

My dad make scrambled eggs (not pictured) and I dug into blueberry coffeecake and a blueberry English muffin (other half didn’t make the picture).

Then, my parents and I opened presents. Which, of course our kitties loved.

After getting prettied up, we were off for Christmas lunch with my grandparents.

My grandparents live in Berkeley, so we met up at a restaurant in the marina with views of the Golden Gate bridge from afar!

The room we were seated at had an insane view!

Lunch was a full buffet with all kinds of delicious food!

Course 1:

Crab salad, Greek salad, pasta salad, and cheese with bread.

Course 2:

Traditional Christmas fare! Half a biscuit, a small piece of cornbread, turkey with stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, and cranberry sauce, and candied yams.

Dessert:

Creme brûlée, bread pudding, and chocolate dipped pineapple and rice crispie treat. There was a chocolate fountain! I HAD to try that!

After lunch, we climbed the hill to my grandmother’s house to open presents and have dessert.

Unfortunately, we ran out of time for dessert because we had to come home and take care of my dog, but she sent us home with some beautiful cakes!

Chocolate mocha cake.

Amazing blueberry cheesecake.

Once I rallied a bit from my food coma, I dove in!

So delicious! It was a great day, spent with great people, although I had a bout a 3 day food coma! So thankful for this family!