A Day of First: Kitten Nursery and Crossfit

Date: June 14, 2013

Author: astottler

Hey everybody! I just got a Twitter and Instagram so follow me at @fitnessissweet and fitnessissweet!

Yesterday morning was another early wake up call-I had the morning shift at the kitten nursery at the animal shelter. Before running out the door, I had a quick breakfast of yogurt with banana and sunflower seed butter.

As soon as I got there, we went right to work. We had to clean out the kittens cages, weigh them, feed them, play with them, and then set up their cages again. When we took them out of the cages, we kept them in cardboard boxes, and then carried the boxes to a table and took them out there to play and eat. They were pretty mischievous- the boxes were so hard to close because little paws and heads kept popping out!To put it in perspective, most of them weighed about .5 lbs. The next pictures are the group of kittens we took care of last. Since we were basically done after them, we had them out for longer to play and socialize with them. This group was fast asleep when we took them from their cage. Anyone who has had kittens knows this is a recipe for disaster! Kittens have this instant on switch that brings them instantly from 0 to 60! These guys were rambunctious! So much so that the little stripy kittens wouldn’t even eat at first, they were so busy playing! On top of that, they kept trying to wander around. When there are 4 kittens on the table and one of me, there are going to be problems! They kept trying to climb onto the windowsill. The white and striped one was quite the adventurer- somehow he made it off the table without me even seeing him get near the edge! By the time we were all done though, all the kittens were snoozing. We then went back to the other kitten nursery where the even younger kittens are. These kittens can’t really eat on their own, so we learned to feed them with a syringe. It was pretty difficult-the kittens were pretty fussy! I ended up finally being able to get some food in by wrapping the little guy up in a kitten burrito. I managed to feed him enough-he even went for the food bowl a little himself! Soon though, he stopped opening his mouth, and a minute later, he was fast asleep! Having a tiny kitten fall asleep in your arms is the best thing ever. I can’t wait to go back!

When I got home, I wanted a snack, which turned into a snacky early lunch.

Edamame Leftover sweet potato fried from dinner the previous night. Turkey roll ups-big leaf lettuce with deli turkey, onions, avocado, and ketchup.I also wanted to try and recreate the delicious iced tea from the previous day. I brewed Earl Grey tea with mint leaves, and then added ice, almond milk, and a touch of honey. I loved how refreshing the mint made it, so I concentrated on that aspect. Overall, it was good but nothing really like what I had had the previous day. I think it would have been better with coconut milk, or something slightly thicker than almond milk. And the Earl Grey tea flavor kind of overwhelmed the mint. But it was quite thirst quenching all the same!I then spent some time on the old blog, attempting to figure out Twitter. I sent this to my friend asking her what it meant my username was. #clueless

If you follow me on Instagram, you can see tons of cute cat pictures such as this one 🙂Before I knew it, it was Crossfit time! It was in a warehouse right next to an indoor batting cage where my high school softball team would occasionally practice.

First, let me just say- I loved it! Everything about it-I love throwing heavy things around. I really liked the warehouse atmosphere as well-it seemed very hard core (in a good way). If you are thinking about trying Crossfit, do not be intimidated! Everyone is super nice and of different fitness levels! We began with a warm up run and stretching with the regular class, and then another new person and I broke off with a trainer to be assessed and to go through a mini WOD. The WOD we did was actually one I had done on my own before,but a shorter version. I had had to modify it when I did it at the gym at school, and it was much harder yesterday.

10 AMRAP

100 m run

5 pull-ups (banded for me)

10 push ups (chest all the way to the ground)

15 air squats

I made it through 5+ rounds in the 10 minutes. I really, really loved the atmosphere. The workouts are very similar to what I did with my trainer at the gym in the past, and the atmosphere is more what I liked about softball conditioning with other people, except everyone actually cares about working hard!

The only thing for me is since I know all the Olympic lifts (there are very few Crossfit moves I don’t know), I would really like to try and skip some of the Intro classes and dive right into the normal WODs. I really don’t want to have to sit through classes learning the lifts I’ve been working on for the past 3 years. Plus, watching everyone throw heavy weights around kind of had me drooling-knowing I can do the lifts at the same weight that they are make same want to join right in! I totally could have done the normal WOD! I need to try and see if I can somehow be fast tracked at least a bit.

But I really, really loved it. I would say I’ve been bit by the Crossfit bug, but I know I’ve been obsessed for much longer! I’m going back again Saturday, and I seriously cannot wait!

Dinner was black bean soup from this Whole Foods recipe. We didn’t want to have to wait for the beans to sit, so we got canned, and probably didn’t add enough beans, because it was pretty liquidy (normally it’s pretty thick). Still delicious though! I highly recommend this recipe. HOWEVER. One major modification I made was using vegetable broth instead of water in the soup. It’s super plain without, but has a ton of flavor with!

My bowl was really weird/pathetic looking so I took a picture of my sister’s instead!Plus a side salad.After dinner, my wimpy mouth was burning! What better solution than frozen yogurt (with chocolate sauce)?What a fabulous way to end the day!

Have you ever done Crossfit? WHat did you think?

Mental Block and Solving the Mystery

Date: June 10, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey guys! I am currently in between finals, and since I feel moderately prepared, I figured I’d give my brain a break and blog. (Hmm the fact blogging is a brain break probably doesn’t speak well of my writing…) Also, can you believe tonight is my last night sleeping in this dorm?? I miss my bed at home! It is wayyy more comfortable!

(Recycled photos- sorry!)

Yesterday was my 5 mile training run. So naturally I chose the biggest hill imaginable for this run! It was…very unpleasant. To be fair it was super windy. Yeah, great idea Aurora, on the windiest day of the year, find the highest, most open space. It was also kind of a wake-up call. I had the whole run to think about running. One thing: I really need to train smarter. As in, stick to the training plan. Running 3 days in a row just does not work for me right now, especially when my 5 mile run was less than 24 hours after my previous run. My legs were shot on the first mile, before we even reached the giant hill. Also, I am kind of terrible with recovery. I nee to roll out more and get back to yoga. My legs are soo tight today, but I sent my roller home, and today is a rest day, so I’m not sure I want to go all the way to the gym just to use the foam roller…

Anyway, the other day, Beth raised a really good point- if I don’t focus on my running, my runs will not be very good, and I can’t put all my effort into them. That got me thinking-why aren’t my runs my priority? I haven’t fallen in love with running yet. Why? Because it is HARD. I think one of the biggest reasons I’ve avoided running is because it forces me to stare in the face of the fact that I have definitely lost fitness in the past few months. Running is where that loss is most apparent. By avoiding running, I am somehow avoiding this fact. Running right now is harder for me than it has been in a LONG time, and the fact that it isn’t as easy as I remember takes away from the pleasantness. So that revelation, mixed with the fact that my sister and her boyfriend smoked me on the run yesterday has made me really decide to dedicate myself to this. The problem is, it won’t get easier unless I do it more. So for running to be more enjoyable, I need to push through. The plan is to put more effort into my runs. I’m going to do some speedwork and hills on my shorter runs- the goal of my longer runs is just to get the mileage in my legs. Tomorrow I’m going to face the dreaded treadmill to get a faster paced 3 mile run in. What type of intervals do you guys do to work on speed? I may also add in some sprints- In the past, I was used to doing sprint-centered conditioning 2x a week for softball, which I am sure helped my running.

Ok, now that that all is out of the way, on to the fun stuff! The advantage of running with someone with a car, is afterwards, you can go out to frozen yogurt. We went to Wildberry, which is BY FAR my favorite fro-yo place. I haven’t gone since I had mono, and I’ve been dreaming about it all quarter! Salted caramel pretzel=the best thing ever. That alone won me over.

I didn’t have my phone with me, but I really wanted to share this all with you guys, so I borrowed my sister’s. Right side is salted caramel pretzel, left is plain tart. OMG SOOO GOOD.

My evening was spent in the library ~~learning~~ studying for Chem. Unfortunately, my brain was finished studying before I was. I tried to revive myself with some tea, but alas, I was done for the night.

I am kind of in love with this mug…

The tea was Strawberry Lemonade. The ingredients were all fruit and flower petals. Is it weird that I was wondering whether the leftover tea leaves would be good in oatmeal?

This morning I had a “final.” We played jeopardy…for 3 hours. The brought us breakfast from an awesome cafe, but I must say, jeopardy with dog toy squeakers as the buzzers is not the most conducive environment for studying for a Chem final! Talk about stressful…

Once it was over, I realized I only had 4 hours to completely master Organic Chemistry. Hah. So it was off to the library again, where I saw this guy:Then it was on to lunch.I ended up eating the insides out of the sandwich since I was having the other bread, and didn’t want a carb crash during my test. And as the title of this post says, I am slowing solving the mystery to this Mystery bread. I cam across something online the other day talking about how sunflower seeds undergo a reaction with baking soda (or was it powder?), causing them to turn green. So that explains that. I really took some time to think about the other ingredients today.

Here’s what I’ve determined that this contains: raisins, sunflower seeds, carrots, coconut. And I have no problem solving this mystery one delicious piece of bread at a time. 🙂

Also, I’ve been trying to figure out what to fuel with for before my runs. In the past, I ate pb and banana on toast. However, nuts cause my skin to break out. And I’m not a big fan of working out on nuts- the fat in them kind of messes with my stomach. And I’m a little hesitant to have grains given my sometimes weird reactions to them (which I plan on getting tested about this summer). Any other suggestions? Also, my sister wants to eat sour gummy worms to fuel during the race. Would there be any problems with that?

I would love some long distance running advice!

Miracle Socks

Date: April 8, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey all! Looks like I have 2 days to recap, huh? FIRST. Let me just say that after practicing soccer Friday night, I was expecting my calves/front of my shins to be SUPER sore. After I was done practicing, I immediately put on my compression socks and wore them all night. I woke up Saturday morning amazed. Zero pain. My dad wore them for his soccer game for the first time today, and he is a fan as well. I just can’t say enough about how wonderful they are.

Here’s Friday Night’s dinner:Chicken curry salad. It was alright. There was one spice that was really strong that I wasn’t a huge fan of. And it ended up being chock full of walnuts, which my face suffered from. Boo.

Saturday morning was yet another yogurt bowl with sunflower seed butter and cinnamon apple bread. By the way, the cinnamon apple bread is just Whole Foods Gluten Free Cranberry bread, but we didn’t have cranberries, so we used apples. After breakfast, my dad picked me up for one last tune-up before tomorrow’s practice (eeeee). It was actually really painful. Not kicking anything for a long time mixed with lots of kicking all at once is not good. The heel/achilles was starting to hurt, and I bruised my ankle from kicking so much. I went to brunch afterwards for a Mexican feast. No guac yesterday though. 🙁 That’s the only reason I like brunch on Saturdays!Yes that is a biscuit on top of my salad. I have a weakness for biscuits…The salsa was SUPER spicy. I really should remember this…I had to move it out of the way and my mouth was still on fire. Also not pictured was half a waffle with blueberries. It looked something like this:Sorry, this is a disgusting picture. For some reason all my waffle pics are pre-blueberries. Which is boring. I obviously didn’t have peanut butter though.

Saturday was my rest day. It was a pretty low key day. I started a new book, “Homer’s Odyssey.” It’s about a little black cat who is blind. I’m a sucker for black cats. And I decided an inspirational and heart-warming book is just about what I need right now. Still working on that whole “changing my life” thing. And not going to lie, I checked the ending to make sure it doesn’t end with the cat dying, like so many “heart-warming” stories do. It cannot be qualified as heart warming if I am bawling my eyes out!

Other fun from yesterday: I went out to dinner with my sister. I wanted to steal the car, which requires her bringing it to me, so we decided to get something to eat in the process. We went to my FAVORITE restaurant in downtown Palo Alto, Lyfe Kitchen. If you live in the Bay Area, TRY THIS PLACE (Gina). It’s super healthy and delicious. I’ve gotten something different every time, and loved it each time. There are a ton of things I want to try as well.(How cute is this? They have an indoor herb garden.)(Me being a good blogger and taking tons of pictures.)

I went with a quinoa wrap, which included veggies, edamame hummus, and avocado. It was served with hot sauce, which I surprisingly really liked. (I’m not a huge fan of spicy things.)My sister ordered a goat cheese flatbread pizza, which was delicious as well.It had notes of pomegranate, which added a touch of sweetness and extra flavor.

My sister’s boyfriend lives in an apartment with a full kitchen, so I kept hearing stories of all the amazing things they were cooking up on a regular basis. “Oh, today we made scones.” “We had the most delicious quiche yesterday.” “We made the most amazingly rich gelato.”

Needless to say, I invited myself over to crash one of these baking parties sometime. ANd last night was just the time. I didn’t technically invite myself over this time, but it was probably implied. So what was the culinary delicacy on the menu last night? Lemon basil cakes. My sister has a couple of lemon trees outside her dorm, so we picked a bunch beforehand. Somehow I got stuck squeezing all the lemons (although somehow I expected this). My sister was in charge of ordering us around. How perfect. Haha. Me and the sis. SUPER old picture. This is from when I visited her at her freshman dorm! (Ok, so 2 years ago…)

The recipe made cupcakes. We had muffin cups, but no muffin tins. #Collegeproblems. SO we improvised. Good idea?You tell me.

They were still delicious though! It was a lemon cake sprinkled with sugar and lemon zest (zested by yours truly), resting in a basil lemon syrup, topped with fresh whipped cream. Not too shabby!

This morning I was up bright and early to go to spin. I had a quick breakfast before leaving. Since I had to get there early to sign up, I did some ab workout beforehand. Spin was really tough today! i was panting the whole time.

Afterwards, I made a mango run. To Whole Foods.Mangos on mangos on mangos.

Another thing I picked up at Whole Foods? Vanilla Chobani. Can you guys believe I’ve never had Chobani before? For some reason I was under the impression it was higher in sugar than other yogurts, but that’s not true. Whoops. I can’t wait to try it tomorrow! I also picked up a post-workout snack. French toast and scrambled eggs with guac. Let’s be honest, I got teh eggs just so I’d have a vehicle for my guac. More veggies when I was back on campus.

So I had a fun afternoon. When I returned the car to my sister, I somehow managed to lock myself out. Yippee. I got people to let me in the building, but all the RAs were gone (they have a master key) and my roommate was gone for the weekend. Yay. Alllll my homework was in my room. And my phone had very little battery. So what do I do in a situation like this? Walk across campus for froyo. Yes, my bike key was on that keychain. Ugh. I don’t know if I’ve ever had chocolate yogurt at Fraiche, but it was amazingly good. Like it actually surprised me, it was so good.

By the time I got back to my dorm and did some work in the computer cluster, someone was there to let me in. YAY! I was locked out for about 2.5 hours. But it wasn’t the best time to get locked out, because there were very few people in or around my dorm. More veggies. 🙂 Brussels sprouts with garlic and herb laughing cow. Kefir with cereal and sunflower butter.A square of raw dark chocolate.

That all was supposed to be dinner, but it was kind of early and I wanted to see my friends, so I ended up going to dinner later, so now I’m basically stuffed. Social eating is probably not the best for the waistline!

As strange as it is, I have no workout planned for tomorrow morning. Soccer practice/tryouts in the PM. And given my current stamina, I’m gonna need all the strength I can get! See you all later!

New Beginnings

Date: March 25, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Yeahh so guess who is behind posting again? Me! I swear I planned on posting Friday. And Saturday…Here’s what ends up happening. I usually like to post at night to recap my day. Makes sense, right? But see the thing is, when I am at home, my family likes to watch TV episodes at night, so we end up getting really into it and watching until late (we have the shows on DVD). And then it is late. And since I’VE BEEN ABLE TO WORKOUT (yay!) I have to wake up at a reasonable hour. So I don’t want to stay up even later…yeah let’s just say I should not try to wait until late to blog because at that point it just doesn’t happen. So since I’m a bit behind…I was really sore from yoga on Thursday! I have now found my downward dog muscles…It’s amazing what a month off can do to you! Friday I ended up decided to skip my planned run, especially since I was planning on running on Saturday. I’ve been trying to have SOME type of activity to do each day, and I ended up decided Friday would be baking day. I wanted to make something complicated, and the winner was…Boston Cream Pie! For those of you that aren’t familiar with it, it is 2 layers of sponge cake with pastry cream between the layers and a thick chocolate glaze. I just used the recipe from our America’s Test Kitchen Cookbook. I’ve made the recipe once before, and it’s pretty complicated although not terribly difficult. It is just a lot of steps. And hey, it was the perfect opportunity to use the new mixer! (Note: I’ve misspelled “the” every single time in this post…) Here’s the process:Yes. It was delicious. I like how this isn’t SUPER sweet. I think I could have taken the cakes out a bit sooner though. Eek looking through my pictures, I realized I’m getting ahead of myself on meals! I had some good eats! Guess what? I had my first yogurt bowl! I know so many of you swear by them, so it was time to try it! (Sidenote: Kefir and cereal is seriously delicious as well, for all you yogurt bowl lovers.) Plus, I got some sunflower seed butter, which doesn’t seem to make my skin break out. I’m pumped. These guys, plus some pumpkin bread I found in the freezer, which I swear we didn’t have any left of, but hey, I found basically half a loaf, so I’m not complaining!Yogurt bowls? I’m a fan. I’ve been dying to recreate this since but I have had to eat really lightly because I’ve had morning workouts. Lunch was also good on Friday. Apparently we had some whole wheat tortillas hiding in the fridge. I filled it up with rotisserie chicken, jack cheese, tomato, spinach, and pesto, and then popped it into the microwave. Yum! Plus half an artichoke.

Dinner was a scramble filled with veggies, plus some oranges. I wanted to keep it light to save room for my day’s work!

Saturday morning I head over to the track for a workout (!). I did some running, mixed in with some abs and sprints. I ended up running 2.5 miles, which were broken up into miles chunks (plus the half mile). Given this was my first time running since I got so sick, and the first time in over a month, I’d say it went pretty well. I have a ways to go to build up my stamina, but I felt pretty good, and my legs didn’t really feel tired at all until the final half mile. It also occurred to me while I was running how much better running is than erging! However, I’m REALLY sore today. I’ve never been this sore from running. Even my arches are sore. So once again, I have a ways to go! After my workout, I cleaned myself up and my parents and I drove over to Berkeley to have lunch with my grandparents, since we won’t be seeing them on Easter. Their new favorite place is a Korean restaurant called Bowl’d, so we all went there. I got a chicken bowl, and here’s what it looked like:It was really good! The bowl had various types of rice, noodles, and vegetables. Topped with a citrus soy sauce, which was vaguely sweet (almost like a teriyaki sauce). I liked it! But the bowl stayed VERY hot the whole time, and I was constantly in danger of burning myself!

My whole family was ready for a nap by the time we got home, so I read in bed with this little guy:I love my cats. We ended up ordering a quick dinner from a local diner-type restaurant, and I chose huevos rancheros.Hey, anything with avocado and I’m sold!

This morning I headed over to one of my favorite spin classes. I had to get there early to sign up, so I did some crunches while I waited. It was a great class, I was able to push myself more like I normally do. My stupid bike seat started sliding back towards the end of class though, even though I tightened it. I got off my bike once to fix it, but when it slipped a second time, I just gave in and finished the class. 4 hills! Whoop! Which, I must say, is way better than 1 30 minute hill…

I didn’t snap a picture at breakfast because I was in a hurry, but I had a sort of yogurt bowl: kefir with peanut butter puff cereal and sunflower butter, plus a mango (of course). We still have like 8 mangos, which are all starting to be ripe. This will not be a problem.

After spin, I went to the farmer’s market.My best find? Avocados! They were 6 for $5. They also had mini avocados, which I naturally had to get.I think I am going to try to sprout the pits, and see if I get a mini avocado plant! I’m not sure they will sprout though; they are so tiny!

Have you guys ever gotten kettle corn at the farmer’s market before? It is by far the best kettle corn out there. So naturally we bought a reasonably sized bag (as opposed to giant. See? Showing restraint). We also bought an apple pie from a stand that came from a local pie restaurant that we used to always go to when I was little. My mom and I have both been dying for apple pie lately because it keeps coming up in the books we are reading. It cost just as much if we bought slices as to buy a whole pie, so a whole pie it was!

After the farmer’s market, I began this blog post and then went out to Indian food with Jessica, one of my best friends from High School.

It ended up being a buffet, which was just as well since neither of us would have known what to order anyways. She had never had Indian food before, and I never know what to order since I’m not exactly sure what anything is. The end result? We basically got some of everything to try.It was really tasty! It wasn’t too spicy, except for one thing, which I figured out fairly quickly and avoided. Jessica didn’t fare as well. Her plate got completely mixed together, so she couldn’t tell what anything was and couldn’t identify the really spicy item! We used the warm Naan served on the side to take away some of the kick.

After a fun lunch, we saw a froyo place that I had not tried yet right across the street, so NATURALLY, what choice did we have? And hey, it’s been over a week since my last one! It was a Tutti Fruiti. The yogurt was good quality and the toppings bar was a good variety, but the flavors weren’t especially interesting. But I guess at this point that’s hard to expect given how many places I’ve been to. It was a great afternoon; we probably stayed in the yogurt place chatting for an hour! I miss that girl!

Other than that, I haven’t done too much up until now. There’s one last thing I want to talk about though (hence the title of the post). As some of you may know, I walked onto my college’s crew team this fall after never having rowed before in my life. My school has a program for novice rowers, so the fall was spent teaching us all how to row. It was an awesome experience, one I wouldn’t trade for anything. I met some truly amazing people. Come winter, the novices moved in with the varsity rowers, recruits and Olympians alike, starting with winter camp (which you can see in my earliest blog posts). Through blogging about this, I found some other rower/former rower bloggers (shout out to Brittany and Theresa!), which is totally awesome. But then winter quarter got hectic. Rowing took up 5 hours every day, and I was only getting about 6 hours of sleep a night, and certainly not putting 100% into my classes. I can’t help but think this is part of why I got so sick. It probably didn’t help that the first day I was sick I spent a couple of hours freezing my drenched butt off in the bay…ANYWAY. These past few weeks have given me some perspective. I realize there’s no way I can keep that type of schedule up anymore. I spent a lot of time on softball in high school, but that was MY sport. I had to remind myself that while I loved rowing, I had only been doing it for a few months, and it really wasn’t MY sport. I had such an amazing experience, but I’m not up to full strength. Racing starts in less than a week. And most importantly, an aftereffect of this stupid illness (mono) is that I will need more sleep for a while. So I decided I cannot continue to row. One again, I wouldn’t trade anything for the opportunity to row at a high college level, but it is time to move on, hence the name of the post. Right now, I’m training to get back into shape for Intramural soccer, which I’m pumped for. I started playing soccer when I was 5, and haven’t played since my freshman year of high school, and I’ve really missed it. And I want to really get into running. I can’t wait to have more flexibility in my workouts and in my life. Seriously, I’ve never had this kind of freedom. For so long, anytime there was any event or activity, I automatically knew I couldn’t go. In high school, it was because I had softball, and this year it was because I had crew. I’m excited to try new things and meet new people. I feel like I have so many more opportunities now, and I think I will have a chance at not going through life as a sleep deprived zombie. (Speaking of which, has anyone done a zombie run? I think it sounds like fun!) It’s also important for me to have a good quarter academically, given I had to drop 2 of my classes because of the mono last quarter. Like I said a minute ago, a really want to get into running. I really want to try one of those “Mud Runs” where you have to go though/over all kinds of obstacles. That’s total body fitness right there! Anyway, I wanted to let you all know what is going on with me. I decided a little while ago, but i wanted to wait until everything was finalized. To end, here’s a picture of my favorite flowers, which my cats have been leaving alone so far (last year I found my birthday bouquet scattered around the house).The picture doesn’t do them justice!

What fun or interesting runs have you done?

Getting There

Date: March 13, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Ok I SWEAR I’ve been meaning to post for a really long time! Sunday was spent completely writing a 10 page paper that was due that afternoon. And then things kept coming up when I wanted to post (i.e. I was tired). And I promise I ACTUALLY have lots of food pictures to share with you guys! Yes, I’ve finally been able to eat fairly normally! After taking medication that brings down the swelling in my organs (liver and spleen) I’ve lost almost 10 lbs. It’s no wonder I’ve had zero space in my stomach these past weeks!

These are Teriyaki chicken tacos from a local Mexican place, Coyote Cafe. They are so good! They have pineapple on top and I’ve gotten them every time for years!

Here is a beautiful Vitamix smoothie with strawberries, pineapple, peaches, and mango. Not too shabby! I absolutely love this blender!

And here is the rest of this beautiful meal: leftover frittata.

Lunch that day was macaroni and cheese (this is Sunday, still playing catch up!). Plus steamed veggies. I swear I have not been able to get enough mac n cheese these past few weeks. It was one of the first things my stomach tolerated, and it feels amazing on a sore throat. Anyone with a sore throat: eat mac n cheese! Lunch was followed by a bit of a treat: trying the new froyo place in town, Menchie’s!

Sidenote: This post will include an embarrassing amount of frozen yogurt (sorry I’m not sorry!). This is salted caramel and devil’s food. My evaluation? Eh. I should have gotten the pistachio. I was trying to recreate my salted caramel experience from WIldberry, but this just wasn’t it. It was a bit bitter. And the devil’s food was ok, although I thought it was a bit bland, but it was sugar free, so afterwards I noticed a kind of weird taste. Oh well, you win some, you lose some. I spent the rest of my Sunday cranking out my paper. This whole time I’ve been sick, I told myself that when my fever broke, I’d make chocolate chip cookies. And Sunday was close enough, and I was so ready to bake after finishing my paper (which ironically is about how sugar is hurting our country….). I made the recipe on the back of the Nestle chocolate chip bag. Best recipe ever! Has anyone seen the Friends episode where Monica and Phoebe bake like 30 batches of cookies to try to recreate Phoebe’s grandma’s recipe, and then it turns out to be the Nestle Tollhouse recipe? Yeahh I’ve been watching that show a bit too much lately (I’m almost done with all the seasons…). Anyway, the cookies turned out great!

Let’s just say I never really make the effort to actually put them in nice balls….For some reason, everytime my mom makes this recipe, the cookies totally flatten out and run together. It is so weird that this didn’t happen to me! I also only made a half batch because a whole batch makes 5 dozen, and well, there are 3 of us.

In my opinion, there is one thing that must happen with chocolate chip cookies (and most cookies in general). They need salted butter. They have sooo much more flavor with salted butter! It’s the best!

So what was dinner Sunday night? An awesome dip from Cooking Light! My mom made it for my softball team party a year ago and we just couldn’t get enough! It is a mushroom artichoke dip, and is awesome with whole grain pita chips.

So good!

Yesterday I had class in the afternoon, and decided to stay on campus afterwards to clean up my dorm and get things squared away for break. Technically this is dead week, and next week is finals, but I don’t have any finals and I just have class up until Thursday, so I have a long break. Plus I had to meet up for a group project. After walking around campus a bit, and walking up and down stairs a few times, I suddenly realized I felt like I was going to pass out. It’s weird. I feel fine, but it’s the little things. Like apparently being on campus and living life for an hour and a half is enough to merit a nap. Luckily I have a bed there! It was so nice to see all my friends though! I definitely missed them! My mom had a class on campus that ended at 9:15, so she picked me up after her class, and I may or may not have demanded froyo. It’s embarrassing, the Internet search history on my phone is mostly frozen yogurt places. There’s a great place on campus, Fraiche, that is open pretty late, and is one of those healthy, organic places. I have come to seriously love tart froyo.

Plus mango and blue berry! Yay! So yes, after that day I basically fell into bed! I would have posted this morning but I had a project to work on. I can’t believe this was only yesterday!

Since we have extra dip, I’ve been thinking up creative ways to use it. Yesterday, I stirred some into my leftover mac n cheese (leftover mac n cheese is always so dry!), and this morning, I put it in scrambled eggs. That was certainly a delicious idea!

Tea and fruit on the side!

Lunch was quick on the way out the door. I’m realizing I’ve never posted this recipe before! I might need to make it its own post! It’s my all time favorite smoothie! Peanut butter banana!

Since this post is so long and the recipe is at the bottom, I’ll do a separate post for the recipe page, but I don’t want to leave you guys hanging, so here’s what this is: 1/2 cup milk, 1 frozen banana, a large spoonful of peanut butter. That’s it! It’s super creamy and delicious, and the more you blend it, the fluffier it gets! I haven’t had this in forever!

In class today, we skyped in with the guy who wrote our textbook, and gave presentations to him. How cool is that?

After class was a treat. My sister is sick and needed a prescription filled, so my mom offered to pick it up. Aaaand it just so happens my new favorite froyo place is right next to the drugstore, soooo….It’s not like I had a choice.

Salted caramel pretzel, chocolate, and brownie on top. YUM. Plus some tart with pineapple on the side, because I rally wanted to try it and YOWZA it was good! I might get that next time!

After that, my mom and I went to Costco, which I always love. It’s so fun to look at large quantities of stuff! Plus, is there really anything they don’t sell? And of course, the free samples!

Dinner was chili and broccoli. The turkey chili was topped with cheddar and avocado. Plus chips for dipping!

And let’s just say those cookies are as good as gone. 😉

And guess what? I am officially off medication! Hard to imagine I was taking 30 pills a day a week ago!

Have a great night everybody!

What is your favorite type of frozen yogurt?