Weekend at Home + Vet Student Things

Date: October 15, 2017

Author: astottler

With all the fire starting this past week, I never got to recap my weekend at home. Before I get into that, I want to share a little bit about my weekend.

One of the most heartbreaking parts about the wildfires are all the animals that are lost/injured/killed when owners have little to no warning to evacuate. Some amazing people have been doing great work to evacuate, rescue, and save countless animals. Here at the vet school, we are starting to get patients. I finally got the chance to help out, and I jumped at the opportunity. I spent Saturday morning helping out with some burn victim kitties, and I’m on call Monday night in case we get lots of patients.

The only bright spot in all this tragedy is seeing the community come together to help. The spots to help out with the fire victims at the vet schooled filled up SO fast. My classmates raised money to take donations into Sonoma Country. Many businesses and organizations are donating money and items to help the victims.

And through all the tragedy, we are starting to see traces of hope; dogs that stayed behind to protect the farm animals, and all emerged safe. People who returned to find their houses gone, but their pet, healthy, waiting for them. People doing incredible things to save lives.

That being said, the fires are still burning, so my thoughts go out to those affected.

I spent my Sunday morning volunteering at a pop-up clinic. It’s an amazing experience, because we get to work with clients in need and practice taking the lead on cases. This morning was my first opportunity to take the lead myself, without the aid of an older student! Things like this weekend make me so happy I’m going into this field.

Also this weekend: I played intramural soccer. I haven’t played soccer in 8 years, but I grew up playing it from the age of 5. WHEW. I consider myself a fairly fit person, but soccer running is a different kind of fitness. We ended up playing a shortened game, and I don’t think anyone was complaining about that!

ALSO this weekend, I tried out Davis’s newest brewery, Super Owl. I like it, but 3 Mile is still my favorite beer in this area!

Back to my weekend home. I drove Chloe back Saturday morning after a final walk around the neighborhood.

One of the first tasks was visiting the GF bakery for Saturday donuts! These are great because they’re baked, not fried.

Maple donut, orange donut, chocolate donut, and apple cake and a cinnamon roll.

That afternoon, I snuggled with kitties and then met up with a friend at Stanford who just transferred there. It reminded me of how hard undergrad was. It’s somehow easy to forget that…

On my way home, I picked up dinner to celebrate my dad’s birthday, a bit late!

I had salmon with a baked sweet potato and broccoli.

We also broke open the growler that we brought home from Kansas in January! That was a definite upside of vet school interviews! Even all these months later, it was delicious and fizzy. This was Reindeer Sweat, which was a holiday-themed stout. I believe it had notes of chocolate and cherry. This was one of the best stouts I’ve had in a while. Totally worth braving icy temperatures!

My mom made a German Chocolate Birthday cake:

My sister made Gelato and brought dulce de leche to put on top, so I had a bowl of that! Yum!

Sunday morning, I ran 4 miles at one of my favorite places ever.

I’ve mostly been running 3 miles over the past year, and it’s amazing how different it feels with that extra mile…overall it went well though!

For lunch, my dad grilled peaches and chicken (I took lots of leftover grilled chicken back to school with me…) and we made grilled chicken and peach salad.

I also brought a zucchini with me and backed another loaf of zucchini pumpkin bread.

People who let their bread cool, I understand you the least.

That afternoon, one of my friends from home (the one with the puppy!) came over for a little dog walk. They’re officially friends, which was such a good feeling after Chloe’s behavior the previous week. They were both pretty tired, so when they played, it was sort of in slow motion.

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Then, it was time for me to return to school. When I got back, I had a text from my sister waiting, saying she has just adopted a kitten! Um, excuse me, you couldn’t have done that a few hours earlier?? Look how cute she is though:

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Ok, I’m back to studying!

New Uses of Zucchini+Stepping Outside My Comfort Zone

Date: August 28, 2017

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hello! Random Monday night blog post because I am TIRED. I was going to get ahead on some work, but my brain isn’t quite where it needs to be in terms of functioning. Since it’s not too late, I figured I’d pop in here and share some adventures.

I think we left off on Friday.

I had a BBQ after class (black bean burger), and afterwards all I wanted to do was drink lots of water, eat a chocolate chip cookie, and hang out on the couch. And that’s exactly what I did.

I went to Nugget market that evening, which was the local competitor that drove Whole Foods out of business here. It looks identical to Whole Foods inside.

Saturday, I did a high ropes course. So, so not my thing but we all know I’m all about character building. I did some things, and certainly not other. I scaled a tree and jumped off a very high ledge (with a harness) which I did not enjoy at all, but I”m glad I did.

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After the redwoods, this is what I came home to:

Hah. If only I knew what was to come.

For dinner, I had a simple veggie burger, kale and nutritional yeast salad, and microwaved sweet potato with cheese.

After pushing myself and exhausting my adrenaline stores, plus spending all day outside, ice cream was necessary. I’m currently loving the chocolate Halo Top+sunbutter combo.

The fun part about Saturday was we were dog sitting an Aussie. We all know I have a soft spot for Aussies. It’s crazy how similar their mannerisms are!

Sunday morning, my friend from back home visited me with her pup. She came early, because of the projected scorching temperature. He got so big!

We went out to brunch and coffee, and then walked around downtown before it got too hot. For my meal, I had a delicious spinach frittata with swiss cheese and avocado.

After she left, I planted myself inside as the temperature was climbing well over 100. I decided to try out a new use of zucchini. Have you ever made those 2 ingredient cookies, with a mashed banana and oats? Well, I had an idea. I’ve had GF maple brown sugar oatmeal for a while, and I rarely eat oatmeal. I thought I would try that in cookies.

I mixed together one mashed ripe banana, one grated zucchini, and 2 packets of the oatmeal. I formed them into cookies, and baked for 12 minutes at 350.

The final result was delicious, and actually a really good texture! I packed some for a school snack today.

In the early evening, I headed to the gym for a short workout. I want to keep up with my squatting. I took a break from my squat program, but I’ve been doing some other squat-based strength building since. I’m planning on starting it again soon, with the goal of maintaining strength. When I left for the gym, this was the situation:

I warmed up with slow descending back squats, then did 8 minutes of 2 squats every 30 seconds. I used a moderate weight. Enough that the volume made it difficult, but I still got good depth. Then I did a few sets of single leg squats and pistols, and finished with some abs. In and out in 40ish minutes!

I stopped at Trader Joe’s on the way home and picked up a citrus chicken salad for dinner, plus some cheese puffs. I try to limit impulse buys to one item per trip, and I have sure been enjoying these since!

Right as I was finishing dinner, things started to go south.

We lost power, along with the entire neighborhood. It quickly started getting hot and dark, with no end to the outage in sight. When I attempted to go to bed (it was SUPER warm), the projected time the power was supposed to return was the next morning at 10am!

THANKFULLY, it came on just before midnight and the cool air was restored. Also thankfully, I did all my classwork ahead of time before I lost power and therefore wifi!

Monday morning, I went for an early run and then ate a yogurt bowl with blackberries, honey, and sunbutter. I’m trying to eat more fruit (plus hydration), so I had some pineapple on the side.

As hot as yesterday was, today was worse.

You know how when you get into your car when it’s hot out and it feels like an oven? That’s what the air felt like. Just for fun, when I turned my car on at first, this is what it showed:

Obviously the car has been baking, but even so, I’ve never seen a temperature like that! And then this is what it was when it normalized:

Honestly not so much better.

Finally, I want to share my dinner with you guys because it was surprisingly amazing! I made zucchini soup. And yes, I realize I made soup in 111 degree weather.

For the soup, I sautéed 2 chopped zucchinis with garlic and butter. After those softened a bit, I threw in some riced cauliflower, fresh sage, fresh chives, herb blend, salt and pepper, and onion powder. ( I accidentally bought 2 onion powders so I add it to pretty much everything.) I sautéed that up, and then wilted a few handfuls of spinach on top. Then, I pureed all that in a blender with some vegetable stock, and had a delicious, herby, fresh veggie summer soup!

…which I served with cheese puffs. And salad. I accidentally bought an extra bag of lettuce, so I need to eat salad at every meal for a while. I made my healthy thousand island with greek yogurt and ketchup.

I spent the rest of the evening cleaning, doing laundry, and setting up my new iPad! Apple actually owns my life now. I’m currently surrounded my 2 laptops, my iPhone, and iPad. I’m excited to try it out for notes! I’m probably going to do handwritten notes on the iPad for some classes, and typed notes for others. I’ve never done electronic notes in my life, so this is definitely new!

That’s all for now; my sister’s wedding is THIS WEEKEND, so I’ll probably check in after that!

Fake Christmas

Date: December 22, 2015

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

I hope everyone is having a great pre-holiday week! I have a few days of recaps to go through but I wanted to start with Friday. Since my sister and her fiancé are going to be gone for real Christmas, we celebrated “fake Christmas” last weekend. This began on Friday with dinner at Benihuanas as we usually do on Christmas Eve.

Since I can’t eat a lot these days, for my meal I ordered a salad and fried rice. There were able to make it with gluten free soy sauce which was awesome!

Then, we returned home to make Christmas cookies and watch the Polar Express. I had only seen it once before, but I was in the mood for a different movie this year and really enjoyed it! For cookies, I made my healthy polka dot cookies.Since my sister was eating them, I threw in some honey for extra sweetness, and made about 1/3 of the cookies with normal chocolate, not mint, chips.

I started “Christmas” (Saturday morning) with a Crossfit workout. I worked on power jerks, and the then WOD was an ascending ladder of double unders and a descending ladder of kb swings. My double unders were actually really good that day for some reason!

Then, it was time to put on our fake Christmas best and head over to see my grandma.

For lunch, I had soup (shockingly)—Manhatten clam chowder—and then some of my dad’s sweet potato fries. It was nice to see my family, but unfortunately we had to run out of there after dinner to take my puppy out of her crate.

At home, we ate homemade desserts (this is cranberry apple cobbler) and made mimosas—both with fresh squeezed orange juice and with crane-raspberry juice.

Chloe enjoyed her first Christmas! She loved opening her presents from Grandma.

Rain has been in the forecast all week, but we got a reprieve from it on Saturday night so we decided to take the opportunity to visit a nearby neighborhood that goes all out for the holidays. We decided to bring Chloe to enjoy the sights and sounds!

Fake Christmas was fun, and it’s only drawing out the celebrating!

Now It’s Christmastime

Date: December 15, 2015

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

It’s my first full week of break! The first part of this week has been spent doing not so fun things (I was on call for jury duty today), but this weekend was fun and definitely put my in the holiday spirit!

Finals over=champagne.

Friday night I went to my dad’s company Christmas party. I’ve actually been to more of my dad’s company Christmas parties than anyone in the company!

It was a lot of fun and the food was of course delicious! After appetizers and drinks, we had salads and then a family style meal.

I apparently missed snagging a picture of the meal, but of course I captured the flourless chocolate cake for dessert!

And then Sunday was the day of the Silicon Valley Santa Run! This is my 4th year doing it, and the race’s 5th year.

The race was at 3pm so eating beforehand was different. I had my typical yogurt bowl for breakfast.

And then oatmeal plus some chicken for lunch. Plus a couple of these guys: AMAZING. I’m obsessed with glutino’s regular yogurt covered pretzels and the peppermint ones are just perfect.

Then it was go time!

The weather report was not too promising, with rain threatening at the start.

We also brought psycho puppy for her first race experience!

It was maybe a bit cold.

I goal time was under 27:00, which I knew was very doable given I had hit that pace during a longer run earlier in the week. Unfortunately, my garmin couldn’t find me! I was running blind. In multiple senses, as about 5 minutes into the race the sky just opened up. It started pouring like crazy, and given it was already so cold, I couldn’t feel my legs or hands! And then the rain started to hurt more as it hit my skin than it should have. I couldn’t tell if there was hail on the ground or not, but then I noticed there were little balls of ice all over my shirt. There was nothing I could do but push through it; it was definitely the crazier race I have ever done because the weather just felt insane. Meanwhile, I had no idea of my pace but I think I was around where I wanted to be. From the ice, I couldn’t feel most of my body! My garmin finally found me with just over a mile to go, and the mile it clocked was right where my pace needed to be.

Unfortunately, I don’t know my actual finishing time. I’m 95% sure my official time was wrong because it clocked me crossing the start line 6 seconds after the gun start, and there’s no way that is possible. I would guess it was at least 30 seconds, as the start was super slow. It was an especially small race this year thanks to the weather, and since it was small and the start was slow I’m wondering if it picked me up too soon. Ah well. It was still fun!

There’s definitely something to be said for shorter races, especially when braving the elements!

After the race, we bought a cheese tamale and walked through the Christmas display.

Then it was time to go home. On the drive back I tried to take a selfie with Chloe but all she wanted to do was a) sleep or b)lick my face.

Now I feel in the Christmas spirit! In other news, I just found out that I got into the Cherry Blossom 10 miler in DC in April! It’s a capped race, so there’s a lottery to get in. I missed it last year but I got in this year and am SO EXCITED!

How do you get into the holiday spirit?

Puppy Photo Shoot

Date: November 24, 2015

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

My Friday afternoon was spent doing a little photo shoot in the quad with my little psycho puppy. Puppy-ish. She looks like dog now-so grown up!

For this post, I’m going to go over weekend things and then do a little puppy photo dump at the end.

Friday night, I went to my school’s annual performance where we make fun of Cal, our rivals. Saturday was our rival game. I think pretty much every group on our campus is also made fun of, and it’s a good time. So crazy this is my last one though! I also got a free facial with my sister. She won one at a bridal fair, and I got to try all kinds of new skin care products. My skin care routine is very basic-soap-and it made me think about taking better care of my skin in the future. Friday also consisted of me sort of learning to salsa (not well).

Saturday was very low key thanks to Thanksgiving break. I finally made it out for a run around noon, and did a 6.4 mile route in preparation for the turkey trot. I looked at my post from last year…apparently I ran it 2 minutes faster than I had remembered, which means I have to run it fast again this year….although we’ll see. Overall I’m faster than a year ago but I’ll see how I’m feeling. Saturday night was the big game! It was fun and we won! I also stopped by a tailgate beforehand.

^Obnoxious snap sent to Cal friends.

Sunday morning started with a quick workout-6x200m on the track, abs, and some good mornings. Quick and efficient! Then, I headed home for break. The highlight of the day was heading up to SF to watch a tree lighting a Pier 39. It was an absolutely beautiful night-not too cold!

On the way, I stopped at the Ferry Building for some gluten free goods: focaccia and ginger molasses cookies!

The lighting itself was quite festive! Beforehand, a mariachi band played which was awesome. There were disney characters there, and they along with another group sang to light the tree.

What a fun way to start Thanksgiving break!

Monday morning started with a workout at a nearby college-stairs. I did single leg hops, jumps, and running up the stairs. It’s been a while, and my legs were absolute jello, to the point it was hard to drink because my legs were shaking!

It was a pretty low key day-I spent some time with a new book, a purring kitty, and a heated blanket.

That evening I taught my Thanksgiving spin class. For Thanksgiving, I go all out. I showed up to teach in a turkey hat.

I wore it for about a quarter of the class. It quickly became sweaty and itchy, and was about ready to fly away. For the class itself, I continued with the Thanksgiving theme. I decided to simulate a Thanksgiving day. A turkey trot, mimosas, then a trip to the grocery. At the grocery, we had to battle crowds in order to grab the last turkey in the store. Carrying a 20 lb turkey, we made the heavy trek home. At home, we played a little football (we were wide receivers), and then made mashed potatoes. Finally, dinner was served and we were able to enjoy the fruits of our labors, along with dessert (I played the song Dessert by Dawin), and then it was time to slow it down. Food coma, or the calm after the storm. A chance to reflect on this special day, to let go of stress, to just be.

After class, I stopped at jamba juice for a pumpkin smash smoothie. This is like half ice cream, but it’s one of my favorite pumpkin items of the season!