An Afternoon with 4 year olds

I’ve had such a wonderful Wednesday! But first just a couple things from yesterday:

I tried to get my coworker to try hummus. She ran away ;)

I walked by Miss Mae West hiding amongst the canned food. Still makes me giggle.

Delicious dinner – chicken, spaghetti w/ parmesan, and broccoli & carrots

I also watched Biggest Loser Season 11 Premiere last night. I wasn’t too thrilled with it but maybe it will get better.

Now for today! This morning after my cup of coffee I headed to the gym for a great full body strength training workout. Too bad my Zen (not an Ipod!) had a dead battery. Gotta charge it tonight so it’s ready for tomorrow morning. Anyway I didn’t give myself enough time to fit in a cardio workout too before heading home to eat and get ready to go to pre-school. Yum that’s right, I went to pre-school this afternoon. I had asked last month if I could come in and do some lessons with the kids at the pre-school I used to go to (and where my nephew currently goes!) Today I did a lesson on physical activity which isn’t really a problem for these youngin’s although at one point they diverged onto how they loved to play video games (!). Next Wednesday I’ll be heading back to do a nutrition lesson! Can I just say that I LOVE LOVE LOVE spending my time with pre-schoolers. I really want to work with kids when I’m an RD :)

I also got my scraggly hair cut this afternoon.  Probably about 4 inches off. I love long hair it just gets so tangly and messy that I had to get rid of some. And then I came home to my mom’s awesome homemade mac n’ cheese. I’ve convinced her to switch to whole wheat pasta now too :)

A great day off indeed :) Happy Hump Day!

Hello 2011 – Looking Forward to a Great Year!

I didn’t exactly have the most exciting new years eve. Originally I had planned on hanging out with Eva but we were both exhausted from working so we cancelled.  Both Thursday and Friday were extremely long days for me.  In fact I didn’t get home from work on NYE until 9pm!  That’s about 3 hours later than I was expecting. I scarfed down some Chinese food that my family had bought and went to bed right after the ball dropped. Like I said, not very exciting. And Saturday? I spent most of the day sleeping and watching the Twilight Zone marathon. It was a completely lazy day after two ~12 hour work days.

Today was a little more productive.  I slept in again instead of going to church (bad me) but I just couldn’t pry myself out of bed still. When I did finally get up I made myself a nice healthy brunch. It’s time to start fresh and stay away from the holiday goodies!

Omelet (1 egg + 2 whites, spinach, basil, & oregano), Sandwich thin w/ Teddie unsalted p.b. & banana

Then I finally sat down and thought about my goals for 2011. Goals, Resolutions, Tomayto, Tomahto. You know. I finally settled on these:

• Finish paying at least half of what I owe for my Invisalign (I get them in about 2 weeks!)
• Don’t spend more than $50 per month on non-essentials (Essentials are things like gas, medicine, school books, etc)
• Read the Bible for 10 minutes every morning (It’s always been a goal of mine to read the entire thing and I figure this way I can do it)
• Meditate for 10 minutes every night
• Do 1 hour of yoga at least once a week
• Continue running! (at least 3 days per week)
• I’ve picked 4 races that I want to do so far:
• 2011 Margaritas 5k in Exeter, NH on May 1
• 2nd Annual Spring May-Hem 5k in Hudson, NY on May 15
• Dirty Dog Dash in Boyne, MI on June 11
• Warrior Dash in Windham, NY on August 13

We’ll see how well each of these go hehe.

Today I also tried out my Garmin!!!! I love it :) And having the heart rate monitor with it is even better.  I ran/walked 3.13 miles but got hit really hard with my exercise-induced asthma today. It sucked big time and it took me forever to be able to breathe normally. I hate that I just developed this within the past year!

When I got back I refueled with a Green Monster – 1 banana, 2 handfuls spinach, 1/3 cup pumpkin, 1 cup skim milk.

That’s my daddy’s Nascar cup haha.

I also got a lot of new year cleaning done today and donated 2 bags of clothes and another bag full of shoes, hats, and purses.

Dinner: 93% lean burger w/ onion and tomato on a sandwich thin, sweet potato fries w/ ketchup, and fresh string beans

And now finally – my review of the Food Should Taste Good Chips I received!

The only flavor of the 5 that I had before was the Multigrain and it is one of my favorites! I could eat an entire bag in one sitting. Seriously. My boyfriend and I did that once so I guess I ate about half the bag ;)

The next flavor I tried was Olive. Now I’m not a fan of real olives anyway so it was no surprise that I wasn’t really a fan of this chip either. But my mom likes olives and she liked the chips, so I guess it just goes hand in hand.

Then I tried both the Blue Corn and Yellow Corn on the same night (you may remember from Enchilada night). I LOVED the Blue Corn. It’s in the same arena as the Multigrain for me. The Yellow Corn was just okay for me. Much more bland than the Blue but if you compare the ingredients you will see why. Yellow corn is just made with yellow corn while the Blue corn is multigrain (as I mentioned in taste).

The last one to try was the Cheddar.  This was also like the Multigrain but with a hint of cheese. Absolutely delicious! I’m a big fan of all things cheese anyway hehe

So final results: LOVED Multigrain, Blue Corn, and Cheddar. NEUTRAL about Yellow Corn. DISLIKED Olive.

Just wanted to say thank you to Food Should Taste Good for sending me these samples!

Counting down to the end of 2010

I can’t believe 2010 is almost over. It wasn’t exactly a big year for me but I’ll recap some significant happenings:

• Went to my first baseball game
• Went to the 2010 Massachusetts Dietetics Association conference
• Went to the Food For Your Whole Life Symposium in NYC and saw Dr. Oz!
• Went to Lake George for my grandparents 50th anniversary
• Peach picking for the first time
• Worked at NuVal over the summer
• Did my first “modeling” shoot
• Went to Saratoga Raceway for the first time
• Started my thesis this fall
• Got my lipid panel checked for the first time
• Saw Jason Michael Carroll in concert
• Got CPR certified
• Went to my first live comedy show
• Went to ADA’s FNCE
• Got my first massage
• Road tripped to Michigan
• Ran/Mostly walked my first 5k!

So that is kind of a lot I guess :)

For my last Wednesday of 2010 (and my parent’s anniversary!), I had a pretty leisurely day. I woke up early but hung around watching the Today show for a little while with a cup of coffee and a green monster.

Wednesday’s are my days off from work which is nice. I made it to the bank today finally. Then I headed off to the gym for a 45 minute total body strength workout followed by 45 minutes on the elliptical. Great workout today! I was starving by the time I got home though.

Tuna melt on a sandwich thin (topped with goat cheese), carrots and celery with hummus

I had some bananas that needed to be baked with so I made Banana Pumpkin muffins this afternoon as well.

My brother thought they had no flavor but I thought they were good. Very moist!

I was hoping to go snowshoeing with my mom again today but she didn’t get home until it was near dark so that didn’t happen. :( Oh well. It’s my parent’s anniversary though so my mom decided we would have a nice meal of filet mignon, mashed potatoes, and green beans with almonds. I chipped in and made the garlic mashed potatoes.

It was quite the delicious meal!

I’ve got to be at work early tomorrow and Friday since my coworker is taking her vacation days. Two long last days of 2010 ahead of me!

Are you ready for 2011? I’ve still got to come up with a list of goals for the year!

A Blogger’s First Christmas

I’ve been away from blogging and my computer in general for many days now. I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!

Tuesday

Last Tuesday was my grandpa’s birthday so after work I went to Red Lobster with my family. I had only been there once a couple years ago! Happy Birthday Grandpa!

  1/2 Cheddar biscuit

Tossed salad with Oil & Vinegar

Garlic Shrimp with Rice Pilaf and Asparagus (I finished half and took the rest home)

Wednesday

Wednesday was yet another busy day. In the morning, my mom and I headed down to the spa for pedicure’s and facial’s! Remember we went for massages a few weeks ago? Well we had to finish up the rest of our gift certificates before they expired so we squeezed it into our schedule hehe. Then in the afternoon we finished up some very last minute christmas shopping. All that running around required re-fueling with an applie pie larabar :)

My mom had also planned to have our annual “kids dinner” that night so there was no rest for the weary! She likes to have a dinner with all of us a couple days before christmas so we have time together that isn’t hectic.  My brothers requested enchiladas so I helped my mom make them plus I made guacamole which as usual turned out delicious! I love love love guac. I broke out 2 bags of Food Should Taste Good chips to try out (full review of the flavors I received coming soon).

That’s not sour cream! It’s plain greek yogurt! (Perfect sour cream substitute)

Thursday

Back to work. Oh I also forgot to mention that Monday-Thursday last week I made sure to go to the gym every morning! Making use of that 1 month membership :)

OIAJ for breakfast

Spinach and Bell Pepper salad for lunch

Pineapple with Yogurt for lunch (Chobani hidden underneath!)

Leftover shrimp, cauliflower & carrots, + a huge pile of sweet potato mashed with cinnamon

Raf came around dinner time so afterwards we headed to the movies to see Black Swan. It looked so good in the preview and had a great rating on IMDB. However, I found it to be too predictable and Raf hated it. Oh well………

Friday

Christmas Eve! I had to start the day off right :)

I was making homemade presents this year and finally got all my pieces together to start making them. Lavender bath salts for the girls and a spice rub + homemade thin mints for the guys. (Whoever brought the homemade thin mint recipe to the blogger cookie swap – thank you! they turned out great!)

I was busy busy all day! And the best part?

Lena in her Christmas outfit!

The sweater was a little tight but that’s because she’s gained 5 lbs this fall. eek!

We had dinner at my grandparents like we do every year. It was so sad to be just us though. We used to have such huge family celebrations on Christmas eve. Now it’s just my parents and myself (plus Raf this year).

Grandma’s meat pie (It’s a french thing)

Bowl of fruit

There was also a deli platter so I had some meat and cheese (no bread).

Mass was at 10pm and not many people came. What do they expect from older people? They don’t want to come out that late. My church is mostly elderly which shouldn’t be a surprise. There really is no one my age and only a handful of younger people. I sang “Oh Holy Night” and even with the few people there I could feel heat radiating from my face because I was so nervous. I love to sing but get nervous every time! I just can’t help it. After all was said and done though, I was fine.

Saturday

Merry Christmas! We opened presents at my house and then headed over to my brother’s for our family gathering.

Breakfast smorgasboard! French toast strata, Egg strata, homemade hash, etc.

I got some really awesome gifts this year including:

Did everybody get what the wanted for Christmas? I sure did!

Sunday

Most of my day was spent babysitting my nephew. No pictures snapped! Also the blizzard in the northeast started!

Monday

Snowed in! I was supposed to go to work today but there is so much snow blowing around. The wind is a big issue today causing all kinds of drifts. I’m now home and haven’t quite decided what to do with my day. Work in internship applications perhaps?

Banana oatmeal with almonds for breakfast

Maybe I’ll even pull out the snowshoes for this afternoon!

Never a minute spent at home

I’m so ready for Christmas right now.

Saturday

Saturday morning I headed to the gym before work where I did 45 minutes on the elliptical. I haven’t used an elliptical in a while so it was nice. I love them! I never snapped a pic of breakfast but I ate it in the car between the gym and work. Larabar + string cheese. I worked from 9-3 and don’t even remember what I had for lunch! The exciting part happens after work though. I headed up to my first blogger meet-up!!! Heather invited me to the CDNY Eat Drink Blog Cookie Swap. Except that it was kind of last minute and I didn’t have time to make cookies or a dish to bring up for dinner. I felt bad for not bringing any cookies so I didn’t take any home but I took a bunch of pictures of all the goods!

Heather was such a great hostess and I has so much fun meeting other bloggers! Hopefully there will be another meet-up while I’m home for winter break. :)

Sunday

Back to the good old usual breakfast:

Then church. When I got home I started making some Bean and Barley soup to have for the rest of the week. It wasn’t ready for lunch though, sadly. Instead:

Chia bread w/ Teddie unsalted p.b. and cinnamon

Plain 0% Chobani w/ ground flaxseed, blueberries, and strawberries

I wasn’t home for long before I was once again out the door. I swear lately all I do at home is sleep! I headed down to my friend Eva’s to spend the afternoon with her since I hadn’t seen her in forever. We watched Rudolph and Santa Claus is Coming to Town and drank tea. Her parent’s also made a delicious dinner: Roast chicken, sweet potato, acorn squash, zucchini, and her dad’s creation: greek enchilada (= awesome!)

Monday

Oh how the weekend passes so quickly. Well obviously when you work on Saturdays, then the weekend isn’t really a weekend. I was so tired from all this driving around (both the blogger meet-up and Eva’s house are over an hour drive for me). So this morning I forced myself out of bed (slowly) and headed to the gym. I ended up getting there a half hour after I planned to and thus was a half hour “late” for work. I say late in quotations because I don’t really have to be there at 9 but I like to be. My schedule is pretty flexible which is great!

I did 45 minutes on the elliptical again. And forgot to take a picture of breakfast, again. This time it was a banana and a slice of chia bread. Lunch also went unpictured but was a bowl of Bean and Barley soup, a string cheese, and a bunch of strawberries. Today was a pretty good day, uneventful, which at this point I was glad for.

I had to inhale dinner in about 10 minutes when I got home. Egglplant parm and salad.

Then once again I was out! This time for a couple hours of church choir practice. It was long. Too long. I basically can’t function at this point I’m so tired. To make matters worse tomorrow is the long day at work. We are open until 7 instead of 5:30 so I will be working a 10 hour day. I think I need some gel insoles for my shoes because standing all day is killer on my feet!

Alright I’m done whining. Goodnight!