On Order and Blogging

Date: August 9, 2015

Author: astottler

Hello again! I’m currently enjoying my only day off in 8 days-to be fair, it’s because I’m traveling later this week, but it’s nice to get a chance to relax for a little bit!

I was just thinking about one of the things I like the most about blogging-the order. I’m naturally a person who likes neatness and order-not to say that I always succeed in the neatness and order, but I thrive off the routine and feel better when things are organized.

I definitely have a habit of grazing on food throughout the day, but I would love having all my food organized and captured in one place-I think this is what I liked so much about blogging, especially day to day.

Another thing-I feel like I actually enjoy things that happen in my life more when blogging because it gives me a chance to reflect on them and put the memories down and make them into something tangible.

So-today I’ll go through a couple of days of nearly complete meals, and talk about some life stuff.

1. I went on a run this morning with Crossfit. It was so fun-I actually felt pretty good, and it’s my favorite trail!

2. I finally went to the farmer’s market today and it was glorious. I stocked up on figs. YUM.

3. I’m in 2 slow pitch softball leagues. One league finished last week, and we won the championship! It was quite the stressful game, but a big rally at the end secured us the victory. In my other softball league, I got to play in the all star game (like I did 2 years ago) and it was awesome as well! I got the chance to make some plays and had a big hit. Playoffs for that league just started and unfortunately we lost our first game-but it’s double elimination!

4. I like reading old blog posts. I miss writing like that and I feel like my posts have kind of gone downhill-partly because I’m always catching up, I kind of breeze by the interesting details.

5. Not to brag, but I think my puppy is the prettiest Aussie on the Internet.

So here we go!

Pre-workout: part of a BoBo’s Oat bar. I freaking love these.

Breakfast-Siggi’s 4% vanilla+figs. I’m currently obsessed with summer fruit. I really liked the 4% too! It was smooth and not super sweet. I also like the smaller size because I can never finish a big yogurt.

Lunch-my typical salad (minus the bar-my picture from this day wasn’t as pretty). My salad is chicken, goat cheese, date, nectarine, and champagne vinaigrette. Plus some Mary’s crackers. I have this most days of the week.

Dinner: Quesadilla on a gluten free spinach tortilla-stuffed with mozzarella, broccoli, corn, and a sprinkle of garlic powder. Plus carrots and guac.

Dessert: Cinnamon pie. My mom made this once a few years ago after watching a Psych episode featuring cinnamon pie. It’s a custard based pie.

I love this picture because you can see Charlie sneaking around the background!

And here is a second day of food (Saturday):

I started work at 7am, so no workout, and no cooking!

Stonyfield blueberry fruit on the bottom yogurt, a banana with sunflower seed butter, and some more oat bar.

Lunch:

Same old, same old. Salad+crackers.

Snack:

Dinner: Chipotle! I’ve only been a handful of times for some reason, and I met up with a friend there so I was looking forward to it all week! I got a salad with chicken, and of course guacamole!

For dessert back home, I think I had some chocolate, and maybe either a granola bar or ice cream?

Since Chipotle was next to Petsmart, we made a trip in. My friend recently got 2 adorable kittens, and with all the babies (kittens+puppy), we pretty much always need supplies! Here are her kittens:

(Picture shamelessly stolen from my friend’s Snapchat.)

My puppy Chloe is…difficult. She’s really high energy, really smart, and very nippy. We constantly are on the lookout for new, interesting toys-anything to keep her amused! I got the green light from my mom to get anything that might keep her occupied. Needless to say, I ended up with an armful of squeaky and adorable dog toys.

I felt like quite the crazy puppy lady walking around the store with all that!

So far, the new toys have been a hit though!

What kinds of toys keep your dogs amused?

Day in the Life: Summer 2015

Date: July 10, 2015

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hello! I don’t have work today since I’m working Sunday, so I went to a 5:45am spin class this morning. I’m running on about 4.5 hours of sleep and am definitely going to take a nap soon! I wanted to do another day in the life post for while I work my summer job.

6:05am alarm goes off (with a day in the life post reminder)

Then I get ready for Crossfit and packed everything up for the day!

Then, I come downstairs to be greeted by a crazy puppy. Full disclosure-we’re having some behavioral issues right now.

Pre-Crossfit snack/breakfast: a little baking experiment-carrot oatmeal raisin granola bars!

6:45am: leave for Crossfit.

7-8am Crossfit

Workout:

Warmup/accessory:

3 rounds- 20 double unders, 8 bent over rows, 100m farmer’s carry with 2 25# plates

WOD:

7-14-21-28

pulls ups

wall balls

kettle bell swings

The original workout called for burpees instead of wall balls but my hip isn’t that great so I subbed wall balls with a shallow squat

We then finished with some ab work.

8am: Clean up and change into scrubs. I’ve never actually gone straight from Crossfit to work before so this part was new for me.

8:15am: Hang out in car, eat, browse blogs.

9am: Start work. It’s a fairly slow day at the vet today.

1-2pm: Lunch break! I don’t normally work 9-6, but it’s one of my favorite schedules because it’s pretty normal. When I start later or earlier, I eat at either 11 or 2/3!

Leftovers: BBQ chicken, coleslaw, mashed sweet potatoes.

I eat lunch in the break room with coworkers and also enjoy a few break room snacks. One of the vets brought in Jamba Juice for us!

6pm: Done with work! I get out right on time today. It’s a pretty dark sky.

I was planning on going to the track, but I get a text from a friend wanting to hang out, so I spend time eating a snack and debating my options.

Plus 2 squares of dark chocolate

6:20 Decide to do a slightly shorter track workout. Regret eating dark chocolate because 2 squares of 72% is a lot of caffeine for me right now!

Track workout was originally 8x400m, but I end up with 5x400m. Given I’ve done 0 speed work lately, that’s good enough for me.

7:10pm: Arrive home, and make myself a quick and easy dinner. I’m not super hungry since I just had a snack, so I make some frozen veggie/potato snacks. One flavor is sweet potato, the other is broccoli. With ketchup. Yes, they are Spongebob shaped.

Plus s small slice of my granola bar with sun butter.

Then, I shower off all the animals and get ready to go.

8pm: Leave to make the 25 min drive to school where my friends are living for the summer. I arrive around 8:30.

After debating what to do, since I have a car we go to get boba. They realize how small my car actually is. It’s actually kind of ridiculous.

I ended up getting Rose-Aloe tea. I think it was rose tea with chunks of gelatinous aloe? I would have preferred pearls, but I actually had no clue what I was ordering-all I cared was that it was decaf, and my friend got this and knew it was decaf!

Around 10, we head back to campus and meet up with my other 2 friends. I stay there until around midnight, and am in bed by about 12:30! If I had work the next day, I definitely would not have been out so late!

What is your typical day like?

My Life: Puppies, Vet, Food

Date: July 6, 2015

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

What has been going on lately leaving me such little time to post? This one is part of it! She’s quite the handful. Fortunately, I think we’re starting to get through the worst of the biting phase, but it’s still a work in progress. She started puppy school a couple of weeks ago, and already knows come, sit, down, and shake. She’s a bit headstrong though, and still somewhat easily distracted. She listens to every word we say, and cocks her head to the side when she doesn’t know what we’re saying or if she hears a new noise. She puts her tongue and mouth on everything, and anything is fair game to be chewed on. The weird thing is she really likes licking feet and ankles. She’s also started jumping up to put her front paws on all the furniture. It’s only a matter of time before she’s stealing food from counters!

Work at the vet has been going really well, and I really like my job. That said, it’s basically my entire life right now, to the point that I have dreams about it every night.

And finally, food. Because I’m home, food is a lot more interesting! Last Sunday, I went to another Giant’s game with my mom and got cauliflower flatbread.

And a hot fudge sundae. YUM.

Oh, and a sunburn. Look at what a beautiful day it was in SF though!

Other notable and colorful meals?

A teriyaki bowl with asparagus. Quick and easy.

An egg white scramble with spinach, nutritional yeast, and lemon thyme salt, plus oatmeal and an amazing nectarine. My friend who lives on an orchard visited me again last weekend!

My current go-to work lunch. Recipe coming soon!

Eggs with brown rice/quinoa blend, plus a nectarine for breakfast.

Cooking Light Asian Lettuce Cups with mint snow peas, plus brown rice/quinoa.

A post-workout protein smoothie into which I accidentally dumped a third of the container of dark chocolate cocoa powder, hence the intense color. The smoothie was half cocoa powder, and the other half was a frozen banana, soy milk, a pinch of protein powder, and a handful of spinach.

Froyo at lunch at work. Want to hear something terribly sad? I realized I’m allergic to one of my favorite froyo toppings! Apparently the last ingredient in Heath bars is almonds. On the one hand, this makes me really sad that I won’t be able to enjoy Heath in my froyo any longer, but on the other hand, I’m glad I have an explanation to why I was having a significant mystery allergic reaction. Boo.

Brown rice+my copycat SweetGreen salad-watermelon and feta!

A very pale but delicious dinner. Cooking Light’s lemon marinated grilled chicken, rice with feta and spices, and frozen then baked cauliflower with Greek seasoning blend.

A simple breakfast of eggs, and blueberries/a tiny banana with sun butter.

And finally:

The Primavera salad from Le Boulanger with no nuts and added chicken!

What’s the best thing you ate last week?

The Answer Should Be Yes

Date: June 27, 2015

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Well hello guys! It’s been a little while, hasn’t it? My life has literally been nothing but the vet lately. Animals are taking over my life. Because then I come home to a crazy pup and a needy kitty!

I’ve had no energy or desire to pop open my computer these past few days. The first couple of days were totally exhausting, and my brain shut down before 10pm. Yesterday I started work at 7. I’m there for 9 hours a day, including lunch, and I’m on my feet the entire time. Needless to say, my feet haven’t been too happy about this! I love working at the vet though-I’m getting the hang of things much faster when I’m there 40 hours a week rather than the 4 hours a week I had been doing during school.

What else have I done this week? I went to the Farmer’s Market on Thursday-there’s one in the evenings right next to work on Thursdays. I’ve done some workouts, including teaching my spin class. One workout in particular I’d like to mention is the reason my legs are currently sore, and will only get more sore.

I mentioned it before, but I’m working with a trainer this summer. I trained with him all throughout high school, and in just the 2 weeks I’ve been with him this summer, everything is improving. My Olympic lifting technique is improving rapidly. In Crossfit, I feel like the strength/Oly portion gets glossed over on the way to the WOD, so this is really good. I still need to get a little more confident in my lifts, and my max weights should go up even more. Yesterday we did both snatches and cleans. I PRed my snatch again this week-from the power position. How crazy is that?? Then we did squats. I’m on a lifting program, and this week was sets of 10, 10, and 8. Yuck. High rep squats are the worst. My first set of 10 was 145#, my second was 155#, and my set of 8 was 165#. I can confidently say I’ve never done a set of 10 at 155# before. The thing though is, I never doubted that I wasn’t going to make these lifts. I think the mental aspect of weightlifting is incredibly important, and in high school, this is something that really shaped me in other areas of my life, which is one reason I fell in love with weight lifting. I actually wrote part of my college admissions essay about this. I can’t believe I’m actually sharing this, but I think it is really important so here’s a little excerpt:

“In weightlifting, I learned to push through mental roadblocks, launching myself into uncharted territory. With my mind, I could push my body further than with sheer strength. With difficult lifts, I found that if the thought of failure crept into my mind, I would instantly fail.”

Also note that I was a much better writer 3 years ago-being a science major does not foster the same types of skills…

I think that weightlifting has been a huge influence in shaping who I am.

Anyways, back to the workout. After squats was push presses and bent over rows. Then conditioning. My trainer asked me how my legs were. I said they were okay, to which he replied, “Oh, I thought they’d be shot.”

The answer should be yes, they were shot, because then I proceeded to do conditioning full of burpees.

6 minutes, on the minute:

1. 1 power clean (85#), 10 burpees

2. 2 power cleans, 8 burpees

3. 3 power cleans, 6 burpees

4. 4 power cleans, 4 burpees

5. 5 power cleans, 2 burpees

6. 6 power cleans, 1 burpee

I honestly surprised myself that I even finished 10 burpees in a minute!

But yes, now I’m feeling those squats. I started to get sore 2 hours later. So this should be interesting.

Foodwise?

Breakfasts

I mashed up a ripe banana with cocoa powder and then stirred in oats. I topped all that with plain Greek yogurt and sunflower seed butter.

Eggs+oatmeal. My berries to oatmeal ratio was 2:1 which was just about right. Oatmeal isn’t exactly my thing.

Lunch

For the first half of this week, I packed really unphotogenic sweet potatoes stuffed with black bean soup, chicken, and avocado. Plus a veggie. I’ll spare you the pictures. I finally settled on a favorite work lunch of a salad with dates, feta, chicken, nectarines, and champagne vinaigrette.

Dinner

Black bean soup with cheese and avocado.

Salad with corn and avocado, topped with Trader Joe’s BBQ chicken.

Parmesan encrusted chicken over garlic spinach, with a sweet potato on the side.

Take out-a chicken burger with dijon and avocado on a gluten free bun.

And of course-this is necessary:

How was your week?

Exploring DC

Date: June 23, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Well, I FINALLY have WiFi! It was a process but here we are. I’ve officially finished my first day of work! And my first day commuting. The Metro system seems pretty good but it’s still a tad stressful! And I’m totally the person who wears running shoes with fancy clothes to save my feet!

I have lots of fun things (read: delicious) to share from the past couple of days. Clearly the best way to explore a city is through the cuisine, right?

On Sunday while my parents were still here, I woke up on the early side, awake but definitely dragging. (The time difference really killed me around 2pm today!) I went and got my first Dunkin Doughnuts coffee! There’s one on campus where I’m staying. I think that no coffee was harmed in the making of the cappuccino-it was so milky!

For breakfast, I had a frittata with sun-dried tomato and ricotta from the restaurant at the hotel.

We spent the day moving into my dorm and gathering other supplies, so we stopped for a quick lunch at Panera. I love their Fuji Apple salad.

And it really should be no surprise that in my first 2 days here, I checked out the highly recommended cupcake shop, Baked and Wired.

All my friends from DC swear it’s better than Georgetown Cupcake-I guess I’ll have to be the judge!

My mom and I split a chocolate with buttercream and a lemon blueberry.

They were really good, don’t get me wrong, but they weren’t anything special. They were solid but not the best thing ever in my opinion!

Despite the order of events, my last meal with my parents was at a little Italian place, and I had salmon.

I had more salmon this past weekend then I probably had the past 6 months combined…dining hall salmon at my school was rare and pretty badly cooked.

Then, I came back to my dorm/apartment to prep some food for the week. It is SO nice to have a kitchen!

I wanted to boil down strawberries and peaches, but couldn’t find peaches so I used strawberries and mango.

This made for the perfect quick breakfast Monday morning-atop yogurt and sunflower seed butter.

I also packed lunch. I actually got to have an oven roasted sweet potato-not just a microwaved one! I made a sort of hash with eggs, cheddar, spinach, and salsa.

After work, I was eager to head out for a run to explore the area. I can see the Lincoln Memorial from the end of my street (I really want to go to November Project at some point! Not quite ready for morning workouts though…) so I headed out in that direction.

It was such beautiful weather to run in! It was lateish evening, but it was still plenty light, and not too hot.

I got some major DC sights in…on only a 3 mile run. I’d say I did pretty well for my first day of sightseeing!

Afterwards, I threw together a quick dinner. I had planned on roasting cauliflower, but the pan I bought is too large for the oven. It’s not a very big pan either….In fact, I’m not sure even what pans will fit in there! Anyways, I microwaved it a bit to soften it (although not enough) and then transferred it to a pan on the stove to sauté it with olive oil, salt, pepper, and cumin. I served it with some pre-cooked chicken strips dipped in ketchup.

Not a bad day of cooking, I’d say!

And definitely a good first work day overall! I’m excited for all that this summer will bring!