La Vida Fresca

Well, Kevin’s off in Salt Lake City working hard and I’m here at home getting ready for the week ahead. I snuck a bag of these cookies in his suitcase last night but still had plenty left over this morning. I ate two this a.m. and wisely gave the rest away.

For lunch I had an awesome salad. I just dumped my leftover (1/4 to 1/3 of the order?) Pad Thai from Friday on top of some spring mix. Soooo good. Too bad it’s not exactly all that good for you.

Early this afternoon I also did 40 minutes of a 60-minute Dave Famar beginner level Baptiste Power Vinyasa Yoga class from yogadownload.com. I think this is a bit too long for me at this point since I’m still a beginner and I’m used to 20 and 30 minute sessions. I need to build up to it. It’s just hard to stay focused for that long.

Yogadownload.com, where I’ve gotten all of my audio yoga classes, is having a sale right now that ends at midnight tomorrow. Use the coupon code “MidSummerSale” to receive 40 percent off any of their classes or gift certificates. Or if you just want to try out some of their downloads, there are several free classes to pick from as well.

Back to the foods of the day. I had lots of these crackers I picked up while out and about.

And for supper I made a meatball pita sandwich using two leftover turkey meatballs from last night.

I also tried the berry SuperFood mixed with just water, like I’ve seen other people do, but only drank half. It’s not so bad that I couldn’t force myself to finish it, but it just wasn’t all that tasty.

I am excited to get the week started because once Kevin gets home we are going with B-rit on a mini vacation to the Bahamas (leaving Friday and coming back Monday). Yay.

This week I am going to try not to buy any groceries at all since it’s just going to be me ’til Friday. Less waste, less money spent. But I think I’m going to skip the daily blog posts until we head out on our mini vacation because I want to devote my spare time in the evenings to working on a few things at home and because you probably don’t really want to see the meals I come up with from what I have on hand right now :-) So you’ll most likely be hearing from me on Friday and into the weekend (depending on when I have Internet access) or when we get back a week from tomorrow.

Have a wonderful week!

Sunday thanks:

• hot showers
• rain
• cameras
• safe travels

I just love cooking for people. Don’t you?

The best for me is baking for someone special.  I just had one two of these white chocolate-cranberry-macadamia nut cookies straight from the oven. All in the name of testing.

Naturally, I didn’t sit at home eating cookies all day though :-)

We had a whirlwind day but it started with sleeping in. It took a while to get going today but once I did (after much coffee) my first official task was doing a quick 30 minutes in the gym pool. I think only four people saw my hideous front crawl. Zero would be better, but four isn’t too bad :-)

Then it was time for lunch.

Firsts and seconds from the Ruby Tuesday salad bar. Basically this was a little of everything, or at least a little of a lot of it. Those grapes look good, don’t they? I thought so too. Look closer.

If you can’t tell from the photo, that’s mush and mold right there. And this wasn’t the only one. Ewww. I hate wasting food and I really wanted some fresh fruit but it grossed me out and I only ate a few of the good ones.

Mmmm. This speaks for itself. Today I got cream and sugar. Usually all my hot coffee and iced coffee is unsweetened but I asked for sugar today. At first the syrupy taste was overpowering but I got used to it :-)

Dinners #1 and #2 (at 8 p.m. and 10:30 p.m.) were spaghetti and a turkey meatball (I cooked the meatballs in sauce in the slow cooker today — that’s my preferred meatball cooking method). This is the first time I’ve ever used ground turkey but they came out good.

Spaghetti is one of my most favorite of favorite foods. I could eat it every day and be happy I think. I used Barilla Plus pasta which is awesome and has 10 grams of protein per 2-ounce serving. I don’t know about y’all but I do not eat 2-ounce servings of pasta. It’s just not possible for me. Let’s just say I got in plenty of protein today. Another thing I really like about Barilla Plus is the texture. Usually I buy whole wheat pasta because it’s cheaper but if the prices are close I prefer Barilla Plus. It has a softer, smoother texture, tastes great, and doesn’t break as easily as whole wheat.

Dinner #1 also included some accidentally overcooked broccoli. Jack Lalanne would not approve (”Undercook your vegetables, students!”).

Well that’s enough for one day. Since it’s after 1 a.m. now, I may as well go ahead and say happy Sunday!

I finally got my crawl run on this morning at the gym. I did a whopping 20-minute run, er, slow jog on the treadmill that followed a 10-minute walk including heel walks which make me look ridiculous but who cares. Then I did a five-minute walk to cool down (never used to do this) and did some really quick upper body lifting and raced to get ready for work. I didn’t wake up until 5:30 this a.m. so that put me a little bit behind schedule but I didn’t mind because at least I got to run.

The only messed up thing that happened to me at the gym this morning was an elderly woman decided to go completely topless in my line of vision at the exact moment I lifted my eyes while drying my hair in the locker room. All I’ll say is that was not a pretty sight.

Unfortunately, I have tenderness in my left shin today and I think it’s residual from last week’s run. It never hurts while I’m running — it just feels like a bruise on my shin bone and it appears a day or two after a run. Grrr. I did use my Zensah compression leg sleeves and I’m going to ice tonight so hopefully that’ll help.

I also got my bake on this evening and created a batch of honey-sweetened oatmeal chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin cookies. It has been way too long since I’ve baked anything.

Needless to say, I had a few of these.

The rest of today’s eats were a breakfast of Green Monster with Green SuperFood and a second breakfast of oatmeal and blueberries with a packet of sugar,

a late lunch of leftover tuna salad with Italian dressing over spinach with a very ripe pear,

and dinner at El Toreo was a salad of lettuce, guacamole, and tomatoes (which I scraped off) with rice and beans. I put all the rice and half the beans into the salad and mixed it up. Mmm. Oh, and a few chips and salsa.

Snacks were dates and grapes. Pre-cookie dessert was a palmful of chocolate chips. Slight sugar overload today I’m afraid.

Now I’m just so thirsty. Time to chug some water and get to bed. ‘Til next time!