Monthly Archives: April 2016

Day in the Life Spring 2016: Classes

Date: April 25, 2016

Author: astottler

Hello! I mentioned last week I wanted to do another DITL post for a day that I had classes, so I recorded Monday. I know I’m a day early, but I’m still linking up to WIAW because this included all my food.

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Day in the Life, Monday 4/25/16:

7:00 alarm

Time to start getting ready for my workout!

Preworkout meal is lemon blueberry bread.

7:40: Leave for Crossfit.

8:00: Crossfit. Today’s workout is a 1RM strict press and 1RM push press. I had near/on my previous max for strict, and failed 110# for push. For push, my max is 120# but that was pre-shoulder injury. Honestly, my shoulder has been a little angry lately thanks to lots of pull ups and presses last week. It gets like this when I work it a lot and is strong again when it gets a break.

My good shoulder was feeling a bit wonky on the thrusters so I took them slow and did 55#. Since TTB is my current movement to work on, I spent most of my time with them.

Since I had to send my shoes back, I’m back to my old Reeboks.

9:15: Return to my dorm for breakfast! I’m pretty hungry this morning so I add cereal to my yogurt bowl, finishing off the bag of Gluten Free Maple Heritage Crunch. This is my new favorite yogurt topping, but the vanilla flavor is ever better. Also featured is homemade reduced sugar raspberry jam courtesy of my aunt, and sunbutter.

->10:15: Get ready for class, clean up, and dress up like the normal human I sometimes pretend to be.

10:30-12:00: Genetics. We get out 20 minutes early, which is really nice!

This is where I should mention something that is currently weighing on my mind. My foot. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this much, but it’s been hurting lately in a new and interesting way. And it’s getting worse. I just have a bad feeling about it. During our break in class, I made myself an appointment with a podiatrist, and luckily I was able to get a time early Tuesday morning. More about this later in the post, but I’m glad I can get it taken care of ASAP.

12:00: Lunchtime! Leftover soup+sweet potato tortilla chips. Super aesthetic, I know.

12:30-1:30: Bio library to start studying for next week’s test, because it was too cold outside! I think at least half of the people in the Bio library were asleep, so I guess it’s that time of year.

Oh, and here’s what I look like:

1:30-2:20: Evolution and Ecology of Animal Behavior

2:30-4: Human Behavioral Biology (We got out 20 min early.)

I had half a chocolate cupcake Luna bar in class, and was STARVING. This bar is so exciting for me guys. First time trying it. Still hoping I won’t react to the cashews. Fingers crossed!

4:15: Back at the dorm. I am hungry again so grab a few pop chips with strawberry cream cheese.

4:30: In the car to drive home for dinner+Biochem. I decide to listen to my audiobook, The Husband’s Secret. I’m near the end. I actually started it last August (what), but picked it up again recently with my long runs for the Cherry Blossom race.

5:00: Arrive home to my little Psycho Pup. (Disclaimer: I forgot to take pictures so I asked my parents to send me some after I left.)

5:15: Once she calms down enough, we sit down to dinner. Blueberry oatmeal muffins from the Nancy Clark Sports Nutrition book, plus a new and super interesting soup. This is Colombian Chicken Soup, and if you’re looking to switch up your soup rotation, I highly recommend this one. It had all kinds of interesting flavors and toppings. It was broth based with potato, chicken, asparagus, and corn on the cob. You then top it with yogurt, capers, rice, cilantro, and fresh avocado. YUM.

I also had a few bites of homemade chocolate.

6:10: Leave for Biochem

6:30-9:30: Biochem. I had trouble focusing for the first part because I was really worried about my foot. Like I said before, I just have a bad feeling about it. I’ve never had pain here before, and for some reason “stress fracture” keeps coming to the front of my mind. The place where it hurts, there is really not much but bone to go wrong. Like I said, I’m anxious for answers. A quick google search for recovery time for a stress fracture also included common running fractures. Guess where it hurts?

In the odyssey of a 3 hour Biochem class, I moved from denial to freaking out to anger to acceptance. So I guess we’ll find out tomorrow. I’m just grateful this is happening post-Cherry Blossom and Crossfit Open.

Snack at the midway point:

10:00: Finally arrive back at the house.

I’m not in the mood to eat, but I’m hungry so I have a piece of chicken and a couple pop chips.

And some sips of aloe juice:

10:20ish: Start typing up this post.

Is that sufficiently meta?

11:00-12:00 (?): Probably finish this post, print out some reading for the doctor’s office, and possibly start Wednesday’s spin playlist.

Have you ever broken a bone? Or gotten a stress fracture?

Here Are Some Baby Animals

Date: April 24, 2016

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey guys! It’s been a little while, but this time I have no excuse. I haven’t been terribly busy with life or too bad with school, but I guess I just wasn’t in the mood. Plus, until just now, I haven’t had Wifi on my phone this entire quarter thanks to security kicking me off, so uploading pictures takes a while.

I honestly think I’m just tired. It’s that point in the year, and I also just haven’t felt like I’ve had that much to say. But with today’s catch up, I have baby animal pictures so hopefully that makes up for it! I think we’re best off attaching today in list form.

I never blogged about Easter which I realize was a full month ago but I still wanted to share pictures. I had 2 friends spend Easter with my family, and we embarked on the world’s most challenging Easter egg hunt, which I fondly call 1000 shades of green. Seriously, we had >5 shades of green, and about 4 shades of yellow. All the eggs were hid artfully, with color-appropriate plants (i.e. pink eggs were hidden under pink flowers). Since there were 5 of us hunting this year, there were also like 13 dozen eggs? I think 180ish? Other scenes:
In frightening news, I had a stomach flare up related to a single malted milk ball, presumably to the gluten. If I am that sensitive, that could be a problem. I’m going to experiment a little bit on myself once school is out. YAY.
Speaking of self-experimentaion, I had the crazy idea that I might actually not be allergic to cashews. Slash, I love Luna bars but the same 4 nut-free flavors are getting a bit old, and I was wondering if I would *really* react to the small amount of nuts in some of the Luna bars. I’ve been dying to try the chocolate cupcake flavor, which was cashew butter as one of the last ingredients. I pulled up my allergy test results from 3 years ago, and realized that cashews didn’t come up. Since the other allergies were low-grade, I assumed cashews were low enough not to show up. But I just realized I’ve never actually had a distinct reaction to a cashew because it never came up. It’s hard to accidentally eat a cashew. So I decided to try the chocolate cupcake Luna bar and see what happens. (It should be noted that my reaction is skin-related, NOT anaphylactic.) I had half of one tonight, and it was delicious! The hard part is the fact that I have to wait a week for my reaction to come in.
If you’re curious what happens if you put sparking water into a slightly broken camelbak, the answer is that the water will squirt violently out the spout (which stays open because it’s broken), thus drenching everything in your backpack. Imagine my surprise when I felt my backpack dripping and pulled out a geyser in the middle of the student center.
This was a fun lunch: Nicoise salad with calamari. And this dinner: chicken kebabs with babaganoosh. Plus GF chocolate chip cookies. Probably too many of those but SO GOOD.
So I had a rough Friday. Thursday morning, I did a fun Crossfit workout involving WAY too many Turkish get ups, plus pull ups and other fun things that make you sore. I went to the gym later that day with the intention of doing a few minutes of abs, but the squat racks were free and you can’t pass that up. I did some front squats and hang clean work. Then a little ab circuit and weighted planks. Also that afternoon, I got a rabies vaccine. I need it for my summer job, and you have to get 3 shots. This was my second. I woke up Friday morning knowing I would be sore, but instead feeling like I had been hit by a train. I was sore, plus I had total body aches and a low grade fever thanks to the rabies vaccine (those are fairly common side effects). So that was fun. Thank the lord for Tylenol and modern medicine. I also had volunteered to sub that evening for spin, and thankfully was feeling better by then. Totally not looking forward to the last shot.
Senior formal is this weekend! I have my dress. Be prepared for pictures, because me being dressy almost never happens.
I made it to another baseball game Saturday! We lost, but still so happy to be out there.
I experimented this morning food-wise. I made an old piece of lemon poppyseed bread (the kind that came out with a weird texture) into french toast, and it was delicious. I used a whole egg, and had the leftover as scrambled eggs on the side. Of course, I did it the old college style, in the microwave.
I had the most amazing run today. There’s a hiking/hill trail nearby and I’ve done the loop 1000x during my time here. A while ago, a friend mentioned that if you take a side trail, you see cows. I recently learned that the side trail is a real thing, and is actually a different entrance, one that I’ve run by 1000s of times as well and always wondered where it led. So I decided to exit through the other entrance and guys. Saying there were cows was an understatement. There were COWS. There were 50+ cows grazing right by the trail. As in, they wee within 5 feet of me, casually walking across the trail. This totally made my day. I hung out with them for a while before continuing my run. I will definitely be back.
BABY ANIMALS. Seriously, I saw so many ruminants today and it made my heart happy. Since most of my schoolwork this weekend was reading, I decided to head out to a local farm and hang out with animals there. I packed myself a little picnic lunch, and enjoyed my reading with my new sheep friend. In all seriousness though, this time was much needed. I feel like I’m grinding a bit now, and am at a pretty big crossroads. Sometimes it’s important to have a reminder about why I do what I do, what I’m working towards, and what is important. I don’t know what my plans are for all of my gap year, and seeing these little guys may cause me to shift my plans a little bit. Currently, my heart is torn in 3 different directions, so I guess we’ll just have to see what happens.
I feel like for a spring quarter, both I and my friends have been busy, so there hasn’t been a lot of socializing going on. I really want to try and make an effort to change that, because there are only 6 weeks left!
I was going through some pictures of this time 3 years ago, and all I can think about was what a mess I was. I was definitely struggling then, and it’s good to have a reminder about how far I’ve come. Speaking of which, I want to do a little progress post at some point in the nearish future. But for now, enjoy these throwbacks. Selfie game decidedly not on point.

Day in the Life: Spring 2016/ WIAW

Date: April 19, 2016

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

I made it through my hell weekend! Yippee! I think I left the house all of once on Sunday. But I think I made it through relatively unscathed! I want to do a pair of day in the life posts. I wanted to do a Monday/Tuesday pair, but this Monday was my test and I didn’t want to spend the time documenting it. The reason for 2 days? My schedule is super variable. Mondays I have 8 hours of class. Tuesdays I have 1.5 hours. So I’ll document next Monday!

And while we’re at it, why not make it a WIAW?

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Before I get into my day, I want to share an awesome dinner from Monday night. Since my class is in my hometown, I go home for dinner beforehand to beat traffic. My mom made an awesome slow cooker tomato bisque. The trick? It’s filled with veggies! Zucchini and celery. I included the recipe in a homemade slow cooker cookbook I made my mom for Christmas, but I dug it up an fit can be found here. My mom also made killer “croutons,” which were gluten free bread toasted and crusted with parmesan. Insane.

6:30 am: Get out of bed. It’s 30 minutes before my alarm, but I like waking up before my alarm because it makes the morning a bit more relaxed.

I then start the getting ready process. Pre-workout snack is more lemon blueberry bread. We tried adding some lemon juice this time, and honestly I think it tasted no different. It’s my current favorite lemon blueberry recipe though!

7:40: Leave for 8am Crossfit. Love the 8am time. It doesn’t require what I would consider getting up early!

8:00: Crossfit. The WOD was a doozy. 2 15 minute workouts of every minute on the minute, which means that each move is completed every minute. Ideally you would have about 15-20 seconds of rest each minute, but it didn’t entirely work that way. This was a LONG one.

I love my new Nike Crossfit shoes, but there’s a defect and the sole is coming off (I’ve had them less than 2 weeks). I need to contact Nike and send them back. It’s on the long to-do list of things put off until life is less crazy!

9:00: Breakfast in the car. I wanted to mix up my yogurt today, so I added vanilla Progenex protein powder and cocoa powder. The verdict? Pretty good. But I think that anyone who likes the taste of artificial sweeteners/stevia is 1. lying or 2. wrong.

I did feel really recovered with all the protein though. I also had some pineapple. It came in my fruit and cheese of the month shipment, and I brought it home on Monday to cut. It’s delicious and sweet!

9:30-10:30: Squirrel watching. This is why I ate in the car. I go straight to a local hiking trail to observe squirrels for an hour. For one of my classes, I have to observe a wild animal 2 hours a week, and because I have a deep connection to squirrels, I chose ground squirrels. We are doing a research project on the behavior of our animal of choice, and I’m honing in my research topic.

Today, I worked on tweaking my ethogram, now that I have a better idea of what I want to study. An ethogram is a detailed list of all of an animal’s behaviors.

I’m convinced my 2 hours of squirrel watching is going to make me tan.

10:30: Hydrate! It was a warm one today so I wanted to make sure I got some fluids after sitting in the sun for an hour. I sipped on some sparkling water while finishing up some reading for a class.

11-11:45ish: Get ready for the day, more leisurely than normal because I had extra time.

11:45: Hash. For my house, every week we are required to help set up one meal, and mine is Tuesday lunch.

12:00: Lunchtime! Today was a good one. Veggie stir fry+crispy rice noodle salad, with chicken.

I also had some frozen fruit (since this is WIAW after all).

12:40: Work on my resume. I’m applying for jobs, and my advisor had some feedback on my resume, which I am working on incorporating.

1:30-3: Class! This is actually funny. This was my 2 person lab animal enrichment class, and we spent the day making an ethogram for lab bunnies, for our research project for that. What are the odds I would be making 2 ethograms in one day, for different classes? #biomajor

3:15: Afternoon snack! I grabbed a bite of gluten free pasta salad…

A few of the biggest blueberries ever…

…And then a S’mores Luna and pineapple. I was opposed to the new formula of the S’mores flavor, but it might be growing on me (although the old formula is definitely better, I may be able to tolerate the new). The new S’mores flavor is super crumbly though.

The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing, taking a brief nap, and sorting laundry in preparation of a much overdue load.

5:30-6:15: Spin! I’ve been going to a local studio 1x/week since I’m currently teaching one class a week. (Although I am subbing an extra this week.) It helps keep me inspired! I found an instructor I like, and it’s fun.

I wore my fun pants, AKA BRIGHT blue (although you can’t tell here). I can’t teach in them because they have a thin waistband, and I have to clip the mic to my pants and they just wouldn’t stay up :/

6:30: Dinner!

I got the last piece of GF pumpkin bread, which was super exciting. For the actual meal, I had swordfish (eaten with ketchup), chickpea salad, corn on the cob, and Greek salad.

I also had a bit of vanilla ice cream (unpictured).

7:15: Throw laundry in (finally), make a couple more resume edits, start typing up this post.

8:00 Dinner #2/Snack

Pineapple, GF pasta salad, roasted sweet potatoes.

8->on: Folding laundry, making a spin playlist (see below), finishing this post, and then schoolwork. I still have 2 animal behavior papers to read and a short write up about my squirrel project. It’s looking to be a longish night, so I’ll wrap up here, but hopefully I’ll be in bed by midnight! (It’s 9:30 as I finish this.)

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Ripped Hands That One Time

Date: April 14, 2016

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Oh my gosh guys. My life is insane right now. I don’t know which way is up. I don’t even remember the last time I blogged. I wanted to blog Easter, and that still hasn’t happened!

This quarter is insane. I spend half the time feeling like I’m in way over my head, which makes me angry because I’m supposed to be enjoying my last spring! And I spend the other half of the time (ok, maybe more like 25%) thinking, ok, I’ve totally got this, I can manage my time. Seeing as I’m currently blogging, I’m sitting in that 25% right now, after just about finishing my take home test due Monday. This is my schedule: GRE Saturday, take home test due Monday, essay due Monday, Biochem test Monday, normal reading due Monday. ARGH. The awful thing is that unfortunately this is definitely not my only Monday with those 4 things! This quarter is going to be the death of me. But right now I’m managing. And by right now, I mean in this exact moment.

Another current bane of my existence is that my university shut off my Wifi last week, and I had to go through a 10 hour encryption process to get it back. And TBH, it’s not worth doing that on my phone, so I’m currently not on Wifi on my phone, which means photos don’t transfer to iCloud very well. Blerch.

So Thursday. I had a super awesome Crossfit workout that morning. I was able to do kipping pull ups for real, no band, stringing them together (ok, in 3’s) during the WOD, which is a huge first for me. Then we did 100 weighted hanging knee raises. Then I decided to do one more extra pull-up, just for fun. And on that one bonus pull up, I tore the #@%$#$ out of my hand. I’ve never exactly understand hand tearing before—I’ve gotten blisters, etc. but in this case, my callus tore off my viable skin. Yuck. I had to wrap my hand to be functional in life.

But pull-ups, am I right??

Here are some Thursday meals.

Mushroom garlic soup with GF grilled cheese for lunch.

A really weird taco, essentially filled with lettuce, tomatoes, and hominy. But it had avocado, so of course it was great. Side note: I really love hominy! For those unfamiliar with it, it’s corn that is sort of soaked/sprouted.

Thursday night, I made the questionable decision of going to Senior Night. Questionable because #sleep.

We ended up taking an Uber because the bus line was insane. It was a super fun night, but I didn’t make it to bed until 3ish.

I got up earlier than necessary Friday morning to run. While that may seem like a questionable decision, 1. it wakes me up and 2. I woke up before my alarm anyway because I can’t sleep in. Whoopee. Friday night I had sorority recruitment until 1am, and 5 hours of classes leading up to it. The prospect was daunting. Friday morning was turning out to not be my morning at all either. First, after my run, I managed to lock my car keys in my trunk. I didn’t think that was possible. Then, on the way to class, I totally wiped out on my bike. My hand was still wrapped up and beat up from pull ups, so I couldn’t grip my handle bars well with that hand. It was raining, and my good hand slipped off my handlebars. There was no way to go but now. I landed on my hands and knees, drenching myself, but reasonably unscathed. Then I got to be the hot mess showing up to section applying all kinds of bandaids, with a big wet spot on my leg.

My mom sent me these pictures after I complained, haha!

Luckily, before my last class I was able to sneak in a little baby nap. I had to leave pretty early for class because the hand I landed on (i.e. my formerly good hand) was bruised and scraped up, and my wrist was a bit sore, so I had to walk to class because I couldn’t hold the handle bars. I never walk, so this was kind of a big deal!

After 8 long hours of sorority recruitment, I ended up staying up until 4ish talking and joking with my friends. I think we were all a little slap happy. But man, that knocked me out.

Saturday, I spent the morning resting up, and then tested out my new Crossfit shoes. I’m trying the Nikes, and so far I like them a lot! Although I do worry I have 1/2 a size too big.

I lifted on my own, to the best of my torn hand’s ability. I did back squats, deadlifts (though my hand wouldn’t let me go as heavy as I hoped), single leg deadlifts, calf raises, and weighted planks.

Then, I headed home to get my Senior Formal dress (!!!) altered. And to eat.

Basic wrap: corn tortilla with grilled chicken, cheese, and pilothouse farms caesar (I’m officially a fan of Bolthouse farms). Plus a side salad.

I stayed home for several hours to bust out a cover letter that had been hanging over my head.

Sunday was spent catching up on work and going to a spin class.

On Monday, this dinner was noteworthy. The soup of the week was a spinach and goat cheese, and I was a huge fan! It reminded me a bit of the Greek spinach and cheese pastries, Spanakopita. The recipe calls for 24 cups of spinach! And makes about 4-8 servings of soup…

We added some chicken for a little staying power. I really liked this one; it’s crazy how versatile soup can be!

Also noteworthy: these. Blueberry and fig. YUM.

Monday was also my puppy’s first birthday! So here’s a little throwback.

Tuesday morning after Crossfit, I had breakfast with a view.

For one of my classes this quarter, I’m observing squirrels 2 hours every week, and this is my location of choice, so I packed some yogurt to enjoy while watching the wildlife.

One of my subjects.

This was a delicious lunch. Chicken salad with grapes and sunflower seeds, roasted root veggies, and sautéed mushrooms.

Tuesday night, I made it out to another baseball game. Despite my crazy schedule, I’m so glad I did. I think my biggest regret at Stanford is not going to more baseball games.

I packed a wrap for dinner, so dinner was with a view as well.

It was a good game; we CRUSHED SJ State.

And that brings us to todayish. The only few noteworthy things I can think of:

Apparently my new Crossfit shoes are magic because I can now string together double unders. I usually do double-single-double-single, and only got like 3 doubles straight through ever. In the workout I busted out the full set of 21. What?? Where did that come from??
I was super inspired for this week’s spin class. Lots of new music, and requests from my students! Sadly, everyone who requested something was not there to enjoy it, but I think everyone who was there had a good time!
I got a rabies vaccine today. #prevetproblems Just to be clear, it’s preventative, not because I’ve been exposed! Also, the process took a while, and I was waiting by myself for about 15 minutes with a detailed handout about potential side effects. And I’m sort of a hypochondriac so that was fun. So far, so good though!
I have a wild Friday night planned. Biochem studying. Maybe I’ll get a little wild and throw in some GRE vocab.
I got a pineapple. In my fruit and cheese of the month box! Pretty sure I’ll need to bring it home to cut because it’s going to laugh at my silly dorm knives.
And now I think it’s time for bed. WHEW. Let the craziness continue! (Except please don’t. Ugh.)

What is your favorite fruit?

I’m currently pretty excited that it’s mango season!

Recipe Catch Up

Date: April 6, 2016

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

In the midst of all my traveling, I’ve been slacking on posting some of the recipes I’ve tried! I thought I’d do a little bit of a catch up post.

Roasted vegetable soup with chicken from Cooking Light. This was different than a regular chicken/veggie soup recipe because before being added to the soup, the carrots, onions, and celery were roasted which really brought out the flavor. In the future, I think I’d roost the veggies a little bit extra.

Ginger chicken scallion shiitake soup. This was a broth soup with rice noodles, chicken, scallions, and mushrooms!

I feel like this picture doesn’t actually show much. This soup is essentially chicken noodle, but with zoodles! (aka zucchini noodles). Served with Trader Joe’s cornbread (GF) because I am obsessed.

The obsession continues. This was triple lemon blueberry muffins from Sweet Tooth, Sweet Life in bread form. I’m still on the search for the idea lemon bread recipe, and so far this recipe has been the best! It was delicious, but doesn’t have quite as much lemon flavor as I’m looking for. It does have a really good flavor though, a hint of vanilla. I think next time I’m going to try this recipe again, but try adding some lemon juice/other sources of lemon. I’ve been enjoying this pre-workout for the last couple of weeks though!

Other fun food as of late that never made it to the blog:

While home, I experimented and made some cheesy green onion potato pancakes. Just nutritional yeast, baked potato, spices, green onions, and egg. They were delicious!

Also while home, post-long run avocado+egg on GF toast.

While home, I got some cereal for my yogurt, and have been enjoying it in yogurt bowls since!

My fruit and cheese of the month came. These grapefruits are amazing, and when I first tried this type a few years ago, it was the first time I ever actually liked grapefruit!

Mango salmon over greens, with avocado quinoa. Also, GF banana bread which was perfectly moist.

What recipe have you tried lately?