Feeling Like Summer: Baseball, Vet School Prom, Zucchini

Date: April 15, 2018

Author: astottler

Last week was behavior week, which is one of my favorite things ever. It was technically part of Neuro, which meant that this weekend after our Behavior final, I had zero school obligations. It was glorious.

Last weekend I had minimal school obligations and watched maybe 8 hours of baseball? This weekend was a mix of relaxing and fun!

It kicked off with vet school “prom.” Not entirely sure what that means other than an excuse to dress up!

A lot of times I put pressure on myself to get up and get stuff done/workout on the weekends. Saturday I took that pressure off. I slept in until 8 and was shocked because that is unprecedented…I don’t think I’ve slept that late all year! I had a lazy day consisting of chores, reading, time soaking in some sun with my friend, and then a minor league baseball game! I love baseball. The Giant’s AAA minor league team is in Sacramento, so it’s really easy to catch a game!

Sunday morning, I had a great plan to find somewhere nice to run in Sacramento, and then to go to the GF bakery for their Sunday morning donuts. I found a really nice looking trail by the river in a park. Well, I couldn’t find an open entrance to the park. I spent 30 minutes driving in circles before giving up and driving to the bakery and just running around the neighborhood there. Despite that, the 3 mile run went well and my ankle actually felt good! The donut line took FOREVER but I couldn’t complain too much given I had very little to do that day!

I got a chocolate cruller and an apple fritter. Both were SOO good but I think eating 2 donuts at once is a lot for me because I didn’t feel the greatest the rest of the day…

My other big activity for the day was a slow pitch softball game! It was fun but I’m definitely rusty, and have some random aches and pains that are now more achy and painful…I swear I feel myself getting older every year…

Since my full days of eating last week were sort of repetitive, I wanted to share some from this week because of course when I’m not tracking full days of eating I actually keep it more interesting…

Breakfast:

It’s no secret I’m obsessed with these protein muffins, so I was thrilled that they recently came out with a bunch of new flavors. I love the lemon poppyseed for spring!

On Crossfit mornings getting out the door is a mad dash, so here’s a breakfast in class (it was a lecture that didn’t require much note-taking). Plain Greek yogurt, blueberries, vanilla cereal, sunbutter.

And another one.

I love the blueberry muffins with fresh blueberries stirred in, and blueberries recently started being amazing.

I decided to mix it up with a savory breakfast on Friday when I had more time. I was actually not a fan. I don’t like the way eggs make me feel in the morning.

This was my pre-run breakfast on my donut morning. If you can get your hands on these, you need to. I recently saw them on Amazon.

Lunch:

This salad is nothing new.

…and again.

My lunch pretty much every day at school. Salad with chicken and pear and goat cheese.

Weekend salad from Trader Joe’s—the Citrus Chicken.

Dinner:

Zucchini noodles tossed with fresh basil, fresh mozzarella, and heirloom tomato.

Stir fry with zucchini and frozen veggies over brown rice. I used a GF orange sauce that is good, but the orange is subtle.

Similar stir fry but with soy sauce and half orange sauce.

Zucchini noodles with pasta sauce, mozzarella, fresh mozzarella, and basil. One night I was out of mozzarella so I used a combo of parmesan and cheddar and it wasn’t bad!

Salad with egg whites and cheese puffs on the side.

Subway turkey salad before baseball since I was craving something on the healthier side.

Dessert and Snacks:

I discovered these and not only are they delicious, but they’re a really nice size for something small!

I never have celery so when I got it to put with turkey, I had to have the “ants on a log” snack. Sunbutter and dried cranberries (raisins are better but I didn’t have any).

I made GF brownies for a vet school bake sale, and naturally I had to do some quality control.

My most common dessert of late has been chocolate or vanilla Halo Top with chocolate mint sauce and whipped cream. I tried the Breyer’s Halo Top equivalent and it’s not bad! I maybe SLIGHTLY prefer Halo Top.

And as always, I’ll end with a kitty picture.

Olympic Fever

Date: August 7, 2016

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Has anyone else caught the Olympic Fever?

Here’s a throwback: does anyone remember when I trained at the Olympic Rowing training center?

They had a countdown clock down to the seconds. Crazy how that seemed insanely far away then, yet here we are!

All the plates in the cafeteria had the Olympic rings on them!

I’ve spent most of the weekend on the couch, between the Olympics and baseball. It’s been fantastic. I’m watching swimming as I type this up! Food and workouts have been good as well.

Friday morning Crossfit was heavy deadlifts, then conditioning: 1000m row, 30 thrusters, 30 dips, 1000m row.

Friday eats:

Corn chowder with white cheddar, and avocado toast. A classic.

Greek salad with chicken.

I’m sort of obsessed with halo top+leftover GF chocolate cake from the freezer.

These bars are really delicious. I like the blueberry one better, but they legitimately taste like pie.

Friday night, I got to hang out with my high school friends. It was so great to see everyone; it’s absolutely insane, but some of these people I hadn’t seen in 3 years! Time flies, doesn’t it?

Saturday morning, I went to Crossfit. The workout didn’t feel bad at the time but I’m actually pretty sore!

It was heavyish bench press, and then a team workout. For a team of 3, we split up 75 hand stand push ups, 75 pull ups, 75 GHD sit ups, and 75 pistols. We did 25 each, in sets of 5 or 10. For the push ups, I did them off a box. My shoulder still isn’t 100% from last year’s injury, and it turns out hand stand push ups are one of the few things that doesn’t feel great. For the pull ups, I went unbanded kipping and they weren’t too pretty by the final sets, because there wasn’t a lot of rest time. I did the pistols with assistance because flexibility and balance is not my forte.

I’ve been craving pancakes lately, so I finally made some for brunch afterwards.

I made them with a sweet potato base, and added oats, cinnamon, egg beaters, vanilla, and baking powder. I tried to blend them for a smoother texture but that wasn’t happening as it turns out because the blender didn’t have enough in it.

I got some greens in while they cooked up. I had a salad with ginger dressing.

Finished product! They didn’t have as much flavor as I was hoping; they could have probably used a pinch of salt, and more cinnamon. I remedied this by topping them with cinnamon sugar and Grade B maple syrup. Someday I would love to try Grade C, but you have to go to Canada to do that, as I understand it!

For snack, I made quite the throwback recipe. I don’t think I’ve made my banana chocolate chip custard in 3 years! I don’t know why—it took 2 minutes to whip up, and tasted delicious!

I had a pretty simple dinner—pizza on tortilla, some kale roasted with nutritional yeast, and a salad with fresh mozzarella.

For dessert, I finished off my chocolate Halo Top, with a dab of sunbutter. Kind of the chocolate pb ice cream.

That night, I drove down to see some of my college friends. It was so, so nice to see everyone again. I’m really trying to make the most of the 3 weeks I’m home! These people are awesome.

Also, I had the opportunity to cut a watermelon, which makes me unreasonably excited. I consider myself a professionally trained watermelon cutter, after learning at a fruit and veggie cutting workshop as part of my summer internship a few summers ago. I meant to do a tutorial post years ago. I’m not sure if I never actually wrote it (I took pictures!) or if I just can’t find it. Maybe I should try to get that up!

In the past week, I feel like all my worlds have been colliding and it’s incredibly confusing. Knoxville was totally different from college, which is totally different from high school. I don’t know what to think! And of course, St. Louis is going to be even more different!

This morning, I went to an 8:15 spin class, which felt incredibly early after a late night. I wanted to try this hour long class. It wasn’t my favorite; it was pretty traditional (no crazy choreography) which isn’t a bad thing, but I felt it could have used a little spice. We did 3 15 minute hill progressions.

Speaking of which, did anyone catching the men’s cycling race? It was absolutely crazy! I’m subbing spin this week, and I might have to do an Olympics themed class, based on the profile of the Olympic course.

After spin, I went straight to the farmer’s market with the intention of buying figs. I was a little early for most of the stands to have all their samples out, unfortunately, so I didn’t end up buying as much fruit as I might have otherwise.

I got a mild chicken tamale to refuel from spin, which was delicious!

I’ve gotten into tamales lately!

A little bit later, lunch was served in front of the Giant’s game.

My mom made bruscetta out of the beautiful heirloom tomato I bought.

On the side, I had some strawberries, plus a little experiment. I was curious what would happen if you tried to make nachos out of crackers. The result?

They just tasted like crackers with melted cheese. Definitely not a bad thing, but not nachos.

For dessert, I had another Halo Top bowl. This time, Birthday Cake ice cream over GF chocolate cake. Plus sprinkles.

Yum!

Now, the women’s bike race is on. It simultaneously makes me want to do a race, and convinces me I will never do one. I love the idea of it, but I’m far too worried about crashing. In the men’s race yesterday, there were some nasty crashes going downhill.

What is your favorite Olympic sport to watch?

Gymnastics and diving are always amazing. I also want to catch weight lifting and rowing (because I know a few rowers from my rowing days!)

Email Stress?

Date: August 4, 2016

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Does anyone else feel that as we acquire more methods to communicate, communicating becomes more difficult? I feel like in the past few years, even since I started getting 1000 emails a day, it just becomes so much more difficult to send a basic email. With smart phones, we have the ability to check our email every 10 minutes, wherever we are. Which allows us plenty of time to ponder, over ponder, and ponder some more on the response. That’s currently what I feel! Can anyone relate?

My day this morning started with a difficult Crossfit workout, Diane. I saw this last night and thought, “That looks terrible.” I suppose I was slightly comforted when I realized that it was one of the girls, and that I’ve done it a couple of times before. If I survived it before, I could do it again, right? The workout is:

5 rounds

400m run

30 box jumps (20″)

30 wall balls (14#)

To be honest, I wasn’t sure how my foot would hold up with all the box jumps. I only starting jumping to 20 inches a few weeks ago. I planned to do step ups or stop if it was bothering me, but it ended up being just fine! Somehow I managed to beat my best time by a whopping 7 seconds. Hey, I’ll take it!

I think the hot temperatures in Tennessee were responsible for my yogurt hiatus. For some reason, when it gets hot I never want it! However, it was 65 degrees today. (Brr!) So, I’m back on the yogurt train. I’ve been making yogurt bowls with cinnamon KIND granola and sunbutter, and having fresh fruit on the side. Today’s fruit of choice was an amazing nectarine from my roommate, and the world’s largest cherries.

The big event today was taking Chloe to the vet for her annual check up. She was particularly on edge today, I think in part because she tore up her paw pads running yesterday and was a bit painful.

I really enjoy going to her appointments, now that I have seen a lot more of the clinical side of veterinary medicine.

I’m still going strong with the Pinterest recipes. For dinner the previous night, we made zucchini corn chowder, so I had leftovers for lunch with avocado toast.

Plus more giant cherries.

I liked this recipe a lot, but we did make a few modifications. We used skim milk instead of half and half, and it was plenty thick and creamy. I also threw some grilled chicken in instead of bacon. I loved the added zucchini; it made this soup feel even more like summer!

This evening, I taught another spin class back at school. It does feel strange going back, knowing I won’t be returning in the fall. I can’t decide if I feel like I should be going back, or if I feel like I’ve moved on to the next thing. Either way, as always, teaching was a blast. I played a little bit of playlist roulette today though. I chose an old playlist based on the songs it contained, but left the choreography as a surprise. It turned out to be a fun one—we did some watts testing, which is a lot less complicated and formal than it sounds. Watts are a measure of the power, which is a function of the speed and resistance. For watts testing, we basically do short sprints, trying to get the watts as high as possible.

Dinner was another Pinterest win. This one was on my radar for quite a while, and when we had extra butternut squash lying around, I decided it was time!

This is a crispy kale autumn salad with brie grilled cheese croutons. Recipe here. This was a fun one, and unlike any salad I’ve had before. The base is kale, roasted until crispy with parmesan. Honestly, I could have eaten a bowl of just the kale. In the mix are spiced and roasted butternut squash and apple, and spiced pepitas. It is drizzled with a reduced apple cider dressing, and topped with brie filled croutons. My mom actually made this and said it was a bit labor intensive. A couple modifications that could be made to make this easier would be for one, skip the dressing. The salad had so much flavor without it, and I barely put any on. The spiced pepitas were fun, but store-bought roasted pumpkin seeds would have been a fine substitute. Also, I made my croutons by throwing my brie filled bread in the oven, instead of in a pan to cut down on the fat content a bit. Overall though, it was a bit hit in our house!

The cayenne in this recipe had me hankering for something cool to end with.

I’m currently fully on board the Halo Top train, and tried the mint chip for the first time today. It’s GOOD. I made a little sundae by thawing a little bit of plain GF chocolate cake from the freezer (left over from our grad party), and topping it with a serving of mint chip and half a serving of chocolate Halo Top. YUM.

That’s all I have tonight—off to more emails!