Mysterious Disappearance
I hope everyone had an awesome holiday! Do you all have Friday off too? Today’s not really an off-day for me, since I have to go into the lab, but I don’t really mind it. I suppose I should go over my day yesterday, right?
I had the early shift at the kitten nursery. Every week I am astonished at how fast they’re growing up! The tiny kittens who we had to hand-feed a few weeks ago have now moved to the main nursery and are rambunctious and mischievous.
After my shift, I drove to the trail by the bay, where my parents met me with my bike. I got in a nice 10 mile bike ride while they walked the dog. Yesterday was (more or less) a rest day for me, and a much needed one at that. My legs were pretty much done.
After my ride, my best friend came over to bake brownies for a barbecue with all of our friends from high school. We wanted to do something a little more interesting, so we made S’mores brownies, but we did it the lazy way. If you do it “right”, it looks like this (I made these last year):
For these, you make a graham cracker crust and bake it, then bake the brownies on top of it, and then top that with marshmallows and brown them in the oven for like a minute. We took the lazy way out and just crushed graham crackers at the bottom and mixed marshmallows into the brownie batter.
Do you see any marshmallows here? Yeah, me neither. They kind of evaporated (ok, dissolved). I didn’t really think that one through…They were still delicious though, and had some extra chewy parts. Plus, they were a hit at the BBQ.
The BBQ was fun. It was so nice to catch up with people I basically haven’t seen in a year.
After that, I came home and shortly after began prepping for my family’s holiday dinner. While my dad grilled, I whipped up the blueberry crisp to go in the oven. I used this recipe-so simple, yet so delicious. I used whole wheat pastry flour for the white flour.
Pre-oven.
While this was baking up, I had a delicious salad with grilled peaches, chicken, and goat cheese. I promise I’ll post the recipe tomorrow, I’m not sure what the dressing recipe was at this point in time.
Let me just say that this combo is ridiculously good.
We also roasted up yams (most of which were from the farmer’s market). I think in theory they were supposed to be made into fries, but we didn’t exactly plan it that well, so I was kind of lost when they came out of the oven. I cut them into disks, added salt and pepper, and could not stop eating the whiter ones! I was surprised by how SWEET they were, given they weren’t even orange. SO GOOD.
My sister and her boyfriend popped in to pick something up just as the crisp was coming out of the oven, so they ate leftovers from our dinner, and joined us for the crisp.
The ‘ice cream’ is actually nonfat frozen yogurt. I believe it is Dreyer’s, which is by far the best fro-yo (in a carton). I forgot how much better it is when it’s not ridiculously crystallized and freezer burned!
After dinner, we went out to our annual spot on a hill to watch the fireworks. From where we were, we could see fireworks from all over the Bay Area. We probably saw 10-15 different displays, although only 2 were front and center. Do you guys remember San Diego’s fireworks from last year? I remember hearing about it and watching the Youtube video. Check it out! Here. I believe they ended up realizing that in their calculations for the timing of the show, they accidentally used 15 seconds instead of 15 minutes. Too funny!
Aaaand today is back to the grind. Ok, not really, but here’s my breakfast:
A mango and blueberry smoothie topped with sunflower seed butter, plus scrambled eggs. I also had a grain-free waffle on the side. On tap for me today? Lab, 4 mile run (I’m going to just do it at school), possibly an afternoon movie, and Crossfit tonight.
I hope you all continue to have a great holiday weekend!
Kitten Pictures-You’re Welcome
First of all, Happy 4th of July to you all! I’m meeting up with my high school friends for a BBQ for lunch, and then this afternoon maybe I’ll see a movie. My family is grilling tonight, so lots of barbecues!
Normally, we make flag cake for 4th of July-Devil’s food cake, vanilla buttercream, and decorated with blueberries and raspberries.
Last year, I was trying to cut back on sugar so we made strawberry shortcakes instead (with a major fail from me-I put a little too much egg coating and ended with scrambled eggs on top-it was still delicious though!). This year, I decided on Blueberry Crisp because A) it’s the best thing ever and B) I had devil’s food cake for my birthday.
Blueberry crisp is so delicious, but that devil’s food cake sounds pretty perfect just about now!
I have to share dinner from last night with you guys-so delicious!
Butternut squash and roast chicken soup, Paleo Zucchini fries, and balled honeydew. Everything is better in balled form. That’s a fact.
And ketchup is a food group. Here’s the zucchini fries recipe. They were sooo good, but a tad salty. I think we’re going to try the same recipe with other veggies as well. Suggestions?
And let’s keep this post light with probably the only reason you clicked on it-kitten pictures! Some of the previously really tiny kittens moved into the main nursery this week (and my favorite litter left 🙁 ). It’s crazy how grown up they are, given I bottle fed them a few weeks ago!
I bottle fed that little tabby in the front and he fell asleep on me!
What are you doing for 4th of July?
Leg Demolisher
I’ve done this a few times, but I wanted to repost it now that I have a Workouts page. Enjoy! I guarantee you’ll have rubbery legs (if you go heavy enough!).
The set of 8 minutes of back squats should be at around 75% of your max. For overhead squats, I just used the bar. You could use dumbbells or just raise your hands above your head.
I usually use dumbbells instead of kettlebells. And keep you toes pointed forward, not like I am in this picture!
Heel raises 3 ways is toes straight, toes in (pigeon toed), and toes out (duck footed).
Also, feel free to add some abs or planking at the end-abs are way harder after rowing! Let me know how this goes!
WIAW and Graduation!
Hello everyone! Happy Wednesday- the one time in the week where we all come together and enjoy delicious food! And of course, thank you Jenn!
Guess what? I’m actually ahead on post ideas. As in, I have 2 posts that I’m planning on writing up. What?? Who am I? So be on the lookout for those. I also had some excellent suggestions from you guys for how to make my pictures pretty- pic monkey! So naturally I had quite the fun time today playing around with that! And…naturally this was my subject-so let us commence What I WISH I Ate Wednesday!
Heh heh. Editing is fun. Although this didn’t actually need anything to look mouthwateringly delicious. Did you guys know there’s even a spray tan and a nip and tuck feature? Although I assure you, this froyo does NOT need to appear smaller!
As you can see, I definitely have a type 😉
So let’s move on to what I ACTUALLY ate:
A salad inspired by Beth and my laziness. A salad with spicy avocado hummus and beautiful Farmer’s Market heirloom tomatoes, topped with a runny egg.
Normally I would have my hummus salad with a hardboiled egg since the yolk is delicious combined with the hummus. However, I was not about to hard boil eggs (that takes TIMEEE), so I decided to try this! My opinion? Two thumbs up!
As you may know, I’m trying to change my snacking habit. (It takes 21 days to change a habit, so that’s how long I’m skipping snacks for!) And just a clarification, I’m not necessarily trying to restrict food intake, just break the habit of mindless snacking. One thing that was interesting that without snacking, I didn’t want as much food at dinner. Interesting! So that’s one day down!
ANYWAYS. Dinner was delicious!
The breakdown: a couple of recipes courtesy of Cooking Light: Asian Lettuce Cups and Steamed Sugar Snap Peas. The lettuce cups are delicious- they have ground turkey, water chestnuts, and mushrooms. They’re fun to eat, and would also make a great finger food at a party (but granted they’re a bit messy). Also on my plate was a Garlic Brown Rice and Quinoa mixture.
I love this stuff-it’s more interesting and has more flavor than plain rice, and it’s still super versatile. I’ve seen it at both Whole Foods and Costco. For dessert, I had some papaya and dark chocolate.
I love Hawaiian papaya, I just wish it wasn’t so darn expensive! Blah.
I love super dark chocolate. The lower square is 91%.
So let’s get to today’s workouts! This morning I went to a yoga class, but I complete my 4 mile training run beforehand on the treadmill. I did some intervals and some steady. It’s amazing how much intervals can kill your legs! Yoga was really good as well. I haven’t gone in 2 weeks- not since I tried Bikram. I’m sooo tight. I guess that’s what running will do to you! I need to make it a priority to go more often. Also, my arms are pretty weak. I can’t remember ever before my arms having this little muscle. For years, I was playing softball regularly, which included pitching, which kept my arms strong and muscular. And then of course, rowing kept that up (I actually bulked up a ton in my shoulders during winter quarter…). Even after lying in bed for weeks with Mono, I still had a little of my rowing muscle left over. However, now with no sport, and running pushing weight lifting out of my routine, I’ve lost that. Yoga plus Crossfit tonight left my arms quite jello-y. At Crossfit, I worked on handstands-I was against the wall, and got about a foot away from a decent handstand. Not bad for my first time!
I also worked on deadlifts. It was a super light weight for me, but I was technically still in an Intro class. I was able to Rx the WOD though in terms of weight! Here’s what it was:
4 Minute Tabatas (20″ on 10″ off 8x) of each:
Deadlift (95)
Kettlebell Swing (35)
Hand Release Push Up
I finished with a total of 171. I did the hand release push ups on my knees though since I wanted to maintain good form, and there were a lot of them. This WOD was HARD. My arms were jello. Yoga plus hand stands+ push ups=jello arms.
But you want to know the best part? The coaches determined that I don’t have to do the “on-ramp” which is the 1 month program beginners of Crossfit have to go through to learn the lifts, since I already have a really strong lifting background and basically know all the lifts. Yay! (Hence-graduation. I’m no longer an ‘Intro’!) What does this mean for me? I get to do the regular WODs, come in for any of the workouts, and save $75! Woo hoo! I can’t wait to go in again-not sure when that’s going to be though! See you all tomorrow!
What is your favorite way to eat froyo? Are you going to the Healthy Living Summit? Crossfit-love it or hate it?