Party Hopping+Realities of Veterinary Medicine

Date: July 17, 2017

Author: astottler

How was your weekend? Mine was pretty good! A mix of work and fun.

Saturday morning I finally tried the pancakes I’ve been meaning to make forever. I just mixed up my flapjacked apple cinnamon muffin and instead of microwaving it, I cooked it on the stovetop in pancake form. It was pretty good! I needed more maple syrup though.

Plus honeydew balls.

I ended up eating lunch super early—like 11—just because of how my schedule worked out. I had literally no food except veggies in the house so this was definitely one of the weirder lunches I’ve had.

Lots of GF crackers plus a weird salad: lettuce+guacamole+egg whites+American cheese+ketchup. I brought liquid egg whites and cooked them at work, so at least it wasn’t cold. Definitely one of the weirder meals, but honestly not bad! And I’m so glad I packed egg whites at the last minute, because I really needed protein!

It was a surprisingly rough day at work.

My foot/leg got peed on very early, and I can’t exactly change my shoes. It ended up being a pretty busy day, and I got super beat up. I got kicked/scratched really badly by a couple of big dogs (mainly one) and now I have the nastiest bruises. I truly love what I do, but I hope anyone interested in getting into the field knows what it’s really like! You work long hours, you get every bodily fluid imaginable on you, you get beat up. Yes, there are puppies and kittens, but there are also wild feral cats, 100 pound dogs to control, very dirty butts to clean. The “it’s just puppies and kittens” moment always comes to me when I’m holding animals as they vomit up whatever they shouldn’t have eaten. It is a glamorous job I do, folks. But I wouldn’t trade it for a thing.

I ended up staying almost an hour late, and I was DEATHLY hungry by the time I got off. Like, I can’t remember the last time I was this painfully hungry. I raced home for food+multiple baseball games I wanted to watch, and changed all my nasty clothes while my mom helped me get food quickly since 1. dying and 2. I had to go back in half an hour later.

Open faced turkey and havarti sandwich with apple slices, broiled, and zucchini noodles. Plus the crackers I shoved in my face while getting that ready.

I had just enough time to catch most of the part of the games I cared about, and eat a well-deserved cupcake! This is my last one from my Davis announcement. It felt appropriate, because it was my last day of work before vet school!

Sunday was a fairly busy day. It seemed like EVERYONE wanted to see me in a 2 day span, so I did what I could to see as many people as possible!

I started the morning with a casual 3 mile run.

And then I cleaned myself up to go see my sister! She wanted us to taste a few dark beers and ciders to decide which one to have at her wedding.

I actually packed my own lunch because she was making authentic Italian pizza and #gluten. I did try a bite and it was amazing. I think next time it would be worth an actual piece.

My salad was actually delicious, partly because I used scissors to make it a chopped salad. I’m loving guacamole as dressing right now, and the chopped-ness made it much easier to mix the guac on. I used fresh deli turkey, American cheese (I got an organic brand and it’s delicious), lettuce, guac, and a little ketchup for extra flavor. Don’t judge, ketchup is my jam.

I left my sister’s place a little bit early to hop over to a birthday party in a local park. I was told to bring Chloe, and she’s always a handful. Well, today especially. My friend brought her pup, and they were doing super well together at first. They’ve met once before, and did pretty well.

^The above picture is not her trying to bite the puppy, it’s her reaching back to lick my friend’s face.

Chloe was great at first, and then really, really bad. I think I mentioned this before, but she’s been really bad with other dogs lately. We think she may have had an incident while boarding, when we were not around. Even while boarding, in playgroup, she’s been different. She used to be the clique leader and play a ton, and now she’ll walk around a little and then sit on the foot of the person monitoring. She barks like crazy at dogs when she doesn’t see them coming. Well, that happened a few times while we were hanging out at the park. I think it was especially bad because we were sitting down and she felt territorial. Then, she started acting aggressively towards the puppy. I don’t think she would actually hurt the puppy, but she would not stop barking. I’ve truly never seen her like that. Needless to say, she had to be picked up. That is not acceptable behavior. I’m not sure what exactly caused the change, but we 100% are going to work on it.

I snuck out of the birthday party a little early and grabbed a quick dinner at home before the next event.

Teriyaki tacos minus the tortilla+salad with cilantro dressing.

Flax brownie Halo Top sundae.

Then, I drove down to Palo Alto for birthday party #2 with my college friends. My friend’s new place is in the weirdest location. I had to park at the bottom of a hill and then hike 5-10 minutes straight up in the middle of nowhere. I think it was like 400-500 feet elevation gain, which was kind of crazy.

Oh, and here’s a bruise update. This picture does not do it justice, from the knee up I am about half black and blue on both legs.

It was really nice to see these people; it had been a few months! Plus, someone brought gluten free cookies. I was super dehydrated by the end of the night though. I sat outside in the park all day in 100 degree temperatures, and I was too busy dealing with my little brat to drink much water. I ended up getting to bed at a reasonable hour, which is a priority right now because the next week actually is going to kill me. All good things though. More on that tomorrow!

The Weekend and Beyond

Date: February 18, 2016

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Whelp, it’s officially that point in the quarter. Over the past week I’ve had to write a couple of scientific research papers (surprisingly fun and interesting) and just took a midterm today. I finally feel I have some relief! Despite all that, I still had an awesome Valentine’s Day weekend. I’m going to to a sentence per picture recap (pretty sure I’ve never done this before, but why not?). Also—apparently I love experimenting on myself. I think I actually just love the scientific process, but whatever. Anyways, details tomorrow on a new experiment!

Pre-first run of my 10 miler training—4 miles this week.

Saturday I had a chocolate tasting event with my dorm and then dragged my sister out (with the condition she could wear pajamas); the night included meeting new people, seeing kitties, and a cat ear cleaning #vettech.

The stars aligned for my schedule on Sunday; spin class at my favorite studio then a cupcake pickup, then lunch with some of my high school besties!

I stole GF cornbread from the freezer at home and have been eating it all week with a touch of butter and honey; side of tomato soup with cheddar (the best way to eat tomato soup!)

Little cupcake mishap in the car but cupcakes escaped relatively unscathed; Valentine’s sampler included coconut chocolate, chocolate cream, caramel chocolate, red velvet, chocolate raspberry, and white chocolate passionfruit.

The gluten free—dulce de leche and chocolate. Freaking amazing, and I have 2 left in the freezer!

I threw a Valentine’s Day party for my friends on Sunday night and it was awesome; the spread included English cheddar and 1000 day aged gouda from TJ’s, crackers, and cupcakes.

My friends are the cutest; we had an awesome turnout and everyone had a great time!

Luna has a new formula and I strongly dislike it, especially the S’mores (the lemon seemed ok and I haven’t tried the others) so I’m trying to stock up!

Whole Foods green smoothie post-80 degree noon Crossfit was perfect and necessary; the workout included lots of back squats which luckily I am getting less sore from each week.

Leftover GF dulce de leche cupcake, inside view!

Sometimes I’m so classy I can’t handle myself. Breakfast was yogurt in a jar because I had a jar to use and we were out of bowls. Lunch in a can because I didn’t have anything else to store it in.

I tried this for the first time and like it better than the other flavors. It’s growing on me but needs some salt; better alone because it’s a milder flavor overpowered by yogurt! I’m still partial to my farmer’s market gourmet sun butters though.

The Grad School of Business arguable has the best food on campus, and I had some awesome chicken mushroom chowder. Also exciting, but right before lunch I successfully gave a mouse an IV injection!

I like Italian food way better without pasta I’m learning. Tons os delicious homemade sauce over greens, with plenty of cheese. I added a meatball after the picture.

New favorite way to eat bananas: once they get speckled I won’t eat them plain, but they’re awesome microwaved and served with a pool of chocolate butterscotch sunbutter! Eaten post semi-soggy run. I hit my paces at least!

Check back in tomorrow for details+results of my experiment!

So I Guess I Should Blog…

Date: November 18, 2015

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Ugh, I am so ready for Thanksgiving. We get a whole week off, which is basically the best thing ever. I’m still teaching my Monday spin class that week, and you better believe it’s going to be Thanksgiving themed! I spent my entire run this morning brainstorming and I think I have a solid idea! I’ll be sure to share it next week!

Speaking of sharing…I haven’t blogged much lately. I’ll almost certainly blog more over the holidays, but I honestly feel like not that much has happened, or at least not much Internet worthy. Just typical college stuff.

My high school friend visited, which was super fun! We both wanted to go shopping, so that was enough of a reason! Over the course of 2 days, I basically bought every long sleeved shirt in existence. I <3 long sleeves. The goal of shopping was actually to find lion colored clothes-more on that soon.

We also went to my friend’s Wind Ensemble Concert:

My friend is also crazy enough to want to track down a spotlight with me. There had been a HUGE spotlight in the air all week, and it was driving me crazy not knowing where it was coming from! We took to the streets and tracked it down. Success.

The course? HP. Typical. Gotta love Silicon Valley. We then proceeded to videochat our other high school friend for 3 hours…much needed!

I was met that weekend with quite the delivery-my roommate went home and brought persimmons! The obsession continues.

The following night consisted of dinner with my parents, an awesome prank, and a friend’s birthday party.

I brought a giant cake.

I feel pretty confident that none of the prankees will ever find my blog, so I’ll go ahead and fess up to it here. We got a walkie talkie (they’re pretty cheap off of Amazon these days) and hid it in our friends’ room. The next morning, after 2 hours of sleep I sat outside in 40 something degree weather blasting various things through it-notably the music from both Jaws and Psycho. Nailed. It. More pranks to come.

Other college things. The reason for lion colored clothing?

We had a big themed dinner/party at my dorm. The theme was “Who Run the World? Girls!” So vaguely Beyonce, vaguely vague. Since I sure as heck cannot pull off Beyonce, I was planning on dressing up as the lion from the music video. It actually didn’t end up working out due to a failed effort at coordinating another costume, so I ended up vaguely Beyonce, meaning I wore the one sparkly thing I own, paired with a pencil skirt and heels. Well, briefly heels. I think it’s actually been a year since I’ve worn heels so they definitely did not last the whole night. I think there’s a full outfit picture of me floating around on someone’s phone, but here’s a selfie.

Also noteworthy-hiking the Dish trail with my mom. It was the perfect day for it!

And a visit from the (kind of) pups.

I also went to a football game, which was a crazy and frustrating one ending in a close loss. Unfortunately, I only stayed for half the game because I had a retreat for my sorority.

So that’s college. I realize that is not remotely food/fitness related, so stay tuned for lots of talk of that. Spoiler: I did my final trial for my class project of improving on a fitness endeavor!

Who’s excited for Thanksgiving?

Art Party + Wedding Dress Shopping

Date: October 4, 2015

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hello! Happy Fall! I’m loving the subtle changes in weather and cooler temperatures thus far this fall! I’m currently doing laundry-I have to run 9 miles this morning per my half marathon training plan but I have kitchen clean up in a little bit and despite waking up early to do it, I was running a few minutes late so I didn’t try to fit it in-later today!

School is finally kicking into gear. I already feel so behind, but I’m also enjoying my time here. Sometimes when a phrase from your assigned reading sparks a meaningful 2 hour conversation with your roommate, you just have to roll with it. And sometimes you have to cram in all the experiences unique to your school in your last year. Let’s back up to Thursday.

I went to Crossfit for the first time in weeks! I did a combo of hang cleans and rowing-I skipped the overhead presses. It’s frustrating that my shoulder is still limiting, but I really have to compare how it is week to week and be patient. I could do the press overhead, but brining the bar back down hurt.

After a full day of classes on Thursday and a much needed nap, I tackled a half marathon training run-5 miles on the hills! It felt like perfect fall weather. Maybe I can get behind evening running after all? The timing would work out better, but I love how I feel after a morning run as well! Anyways, since my stomach has been better, my sweet tooth has come back. On the way back, I was thinking about how awesome gluten free brownies would be-specifically a kind with white chocolate chips. I returned at dinner time, and guess what our chef made for dinner? I couldn’t believe it! SO good!

Really though, the entire meal was awesome. Wild rice, salmon, herbed chicken.

After dinner, I hurried to get ready for a truly unique Stanford experience-a party at the art museum on campus. To get in the spirit, my house had a fun get together beforehand that included throwing water balloons filled with paint at canvas to make some art of our own! Sadly the balloon that I threw went through the fence!

We made the trek all the way across campus to the art museum, but it was a nice night! At the event itself, there was food and student group performances, plus access to the museum.

It was a fun time, especially spent with friends.

Big event #2 for the week was Saturday! I started out with a fun spin class, and then headed up to SF as part of my sister’s wedding entourage for her first stab at dress shopping. AHHH.

We arrived to the city in time for lunch at a French restaurant and start with mimosas to celebrate the bride-to-be!

I had delicious roasted chicken with roasted potatoes.

We had some extra time before her appointment, so we stopped into a coffee shop nearby for cappuccinos-Wrecking Ball Roasters. Why is coffee in SF so amazing??

Wedding dress shopping was so surreal. How are we this adult?

She looked beautiful in the dresses and may or may not have found “the one.”

(It should be noted that this is not it.)

The dress she loved could only be held for a few days, so we made a last minute appointment nearby to get a feel for some other looks.

AHH so exciting! TBD on what the dress will be though! What’s important is she got a better sense for what she’s looking for, and now everything seems more real!

While we were driving home, my dad made me some pumpkin chocolate chip muffins from this recipe.

They came out delicious, in a healthy tasting way. But I ran that in a good way! I used sunflower seed butter in place of almond butter, so when I arrived back on campus, this happened:

Gotta love chemistry, my friends.

What pumpkin products have you made/eaten so far??