Friendly Strangers

Everything here is frozen, quiet and covered with a thick, wet blanket of fluffy puffy snow. I wish I could say that I like it but I hate it. I'm a Spring and Summer girl at heart. I guess I picked a bad place to live? I picture myself moving out West sometimes. It's one of my many fantasies. Nothing wrong with dreaming right?

After the miserable and slick drive to work I warmed up with a large cup of coffee and what will soon become the very boring and ritualistic bowl of oats. I did add preserves to the mix this morning though. You know, to SPICE it up. LIVIN ON THE EDGE!

• 1/2 Irish Oats
• 1 1/2 cup water
• 1 banana, sliced
• dash cinnamon
• 2 packets splenda
• dash salt
• 1 tbs of apricot preserves

I LOVE oatmeal. It warms me through straight to the core. Good stuff!

With my breakfast I also consumed a bottle of water. I'm doing pretty good on the water intake so far. I will update you every Friday about my water consumption as well as how I'm doing on my other 2010 goals and weight loss. I figure if I have to update you I have to DO GOOD right? It's like turning the pressure on to stay motivated. I love you guys and blogging. Something about having to share your daily eats, workouts, slips, joys and struggles with others makes you want to try harder. Like a support system of friendly strangers who provide great ideas and motivation. YAY!

It was freezing at the office today so I tried to warm up with some tea a bit later. It didn't work. Probably because of the smooth, cool draft oozing in through my office window. BAH!


Lunch today was super simple and delicious! I made a wrap with a wheat FlatOut, ham, baby spinach, spray butter and spicy mustard. On the side I had three bread and butter pickles. MY FAVORITE! I love pickles. ;)


The most amazing event took place after I ate my lunch. Ann and I actually left the office WILLINGLY and drove in BAD SNOWY WEATHER to Wal-mart. Now let me explain why this is amazing.

MIRACLE #1 - Ann hates driving in snow just as much as I do yet we decided to leave.
MIRACLE #2 - We both LOATHE Wal-Mart yet we decided that NO OTHER place would do.
MIRACLE #3 - We both hate being cold and it was FREEZING OUT. Yet we left. WOW!

Okay, you get the idea. She needed a new coffee pot because hers was cracked and I needed a new can opener because the last two I purchased broke after the 1st use. I have a can opener curse!!! I knew we would be able to find something cheap at Wal-mart. I didn't want to pay a lot since you know, it would probably break in a week anyways. HA!

For my afternoon snack I had one of my favorite healthy little treats. I toasted a 100 calorie English muffin, topped it with a wedge of light swiss Laughing Cow cheese, sprinkled Splenda and cinnamon on top then added a few thin slices of apple. YUM! I ate the rest of the apple on the side. SO TASTY!


When 5:00 o'clock rolled around Ann and I ritualistically followed each other SLOWLY on crappy side roads all the way to the gym. Somehow we both feel safer if we follow each other. Why? Because she is OBSESSED with her car and I know she would never rear end me so I always make sure that she is behind me. HAHAHA! ;)

Here it today's workout.

Situps with 10lb ball
x20
x20
x20
Crunches
x20
x20
x20
Plank (hate these)
20 seconds
20 seconds
Reverse Leg Raise Crunches
x20
x20
x20
Oblique Twist with 8lb ball
x20
x20
x20
Elliptical - Interval Training
20 minutes, Levels 6-8, 245 calories burned
Stretchy Cord Session (2 circuits back to back)
Tricep extensions x15
Bicep curls x15
Bent over row x15

After the gym I snailed home in the snow, took a nice hot bath and decided to make myself a special little dinner. Nick was visiting his mom for dinner so I was cooking for one. I was in the mood for some Asian flair. I came up with a delicious little recipe. It included the following...

• 1 bag of steamed green beans
• 2 cups of steamed cauliflowers
• 1 large yellow onion, chopped
• 2 tbs soy sauce
• 2 tbs teriyaki sauce
• 1 heaping tbs Thai chili paste (for heat)
• Fresh cracked black pepper

I had all of these ingredients simmering in a pan while some Thai Rice noodles were soaking in boiling hot water.

For these rice noodles you don't add them to boiling water and keep boiling it. You bring the water to a boil, remove it from the heat and let the noodles soak for about 10 minutes.

Once the noodles were done with their hot bath, I added them to the pan and tossed them with the veggie mixture. This dish was SO simple. It turned out very tasty.


I think next time I might add some or even all of the following to the mix. Fresh peas, broccoli, shrimp, chicken, pork, water chestnuts. MMMM!

For a bit of a snack later I had a cup of Stash double spice chai tea. I love this brand.


I added a splash of cream and fat free whip and I promise you, it tastes SO good. Reminds me of pumpkin pie. ;)

I also enjoyed some Newman's Own Organic Alphabet Cookies. They were very tasty. Nice and crunchy with a mellow buttery and sugary flavor. I give them a 10 out of 10. They went so well with the tea! My tummy is happy now.


And with a lovely quote, I bid you goodnight.

Did you ever stop to taste a carrot? Not just eat it, but taste it? You can't taste the beauty and energy of the earth in a Twinkie. ~Astrid Alauda

Fruit infatuation.

Hi everyone. Hope you're all doing well. Today has been somewhat uneventful, and no, I am not complaining. It's nice to take it easy once in a while. I celebrated with something new for breakfast. I decided to try a fruity, cheesy concoction. I toasted up an English muffin, topped it with a swiss laughing cow cheese wedge, splenda, cinnamon and slices of an Asian pear.


HOLD THE PHONE! This tasted amazing. So good in fact that I made Ann taste it. JUST A LITTLE BIT THOUGH! It was precious to me and I didn't want to give to much of it away. HA! I will be having this again. Probably tomorrow!!

After breakfast I set up some new projects, cleaned some work off of my desk and did some filing. I love a clean office SO much! It felt good to see my office organized! Before I knew it, lunchtime arrived. I packed the leftover roasted veggies from last night and had that with a wrap. I CLEARLY love wraps and leftovers. The only thing I had in the wrap was spinach and a Morning Star Farms black bean burger. Simple yet delicious! I slammed on this goodness till it was all gone. My belly was FULL!


Before Ann and I left on our break to visit Halloween USA, I had to do something very important. Something very urgent. A sort of MISSION if you will! I had to thoroughly study this piece of paper, given to me by Nick. HAHAHAHAAA!!


I can now share his Halloween plans with you, since the original idea fell through. He was going to go as zombie Billy Mays. But you see, Billy is too HIP right now. Billy is all over the place. He found out that two other people attending the party were considering going as him. So with a heavy heart, he opted for Walker Texas Ranger Chuck Norris. HAHAHAHA! I love this idea. Chuck RULES! He was growing his beard anyway and his hair is sort of reddish like Chuck's. He already ordered a Texas Ranger badge online (he is crazy!!) and it should be here soon. My "mission" was to look for, and take pictures of the following. A wig so he could accurately portray Chuck's luscious locks. Cowboy hats so he could capture Chuck's true essence. And of course guns, preferably with an ivory handle because detail like that is CRUCIAL! Here is what I found. Please note the lovely model showing off the hats. Thanks Annie-boo. ;)


While there I also tried on 4 more dresses, ranging from Maiden, Vampire Mistress to Witch. I hated them all! Ann tried on several things as well and came up with nothing. It was while trying on the last dress that I had an epiphany. I was being retarded! I already had a plan. A good plan. A plan to dress up as something that I've been wanting to be since last year. Zombie, you and I shall become one on Saint Hollow's Eve. We will be united, in perfection, in flesh, in gore and in blood. There will be no plan B. I SHALL be a zombie and nothing else will do!

For my afternoon snack today, I had oatmeal. Yeah, that's right, oatmeal. You didn't think a weekday would pass without it did you? NO WAY! I made it with old fashioned oats, cranberries, cinnamon, splenda and a little fat free vanilla pudding mix. Not bad. Not bad at all.


Now lets fast forward to the gym. Like I said, the day art work was uneventful and I don't want to bore you. :) We decided to switch it up a bit and did chest and triceps today instead of cardio and shoulders. Why did we switch things up? Because Ann was convinced that the duo we've lovingly named Joe Pechi and his Maid would not be there today. We hate doing chest and triceps when they are howling and flexing around us. So we dove right in and were working out for maybe 20 minutes when guess who walks in. WE LOSE! UGH! We never worked out so fast before. HAHA! We were moving from machine to machine like animals. Swift and precise, slithering and crawling all over the gym to get away from them. We wrapped it all up in about 1:15 and got the heck out of there.

For dinner tonight, I wanted more CHEESE AND FRUIT! I decided to experiment again. Not a risky experiment but a new recipe to me, so it counts. I took a flat out wrap, added two slices of fat free swiss cheese, shredded turkey lunch meat and apple slices. I tossed it in a frying pan with some Pam and toasted her up all nice and crunchy. AWE MAN. ANOTHER WINNER! I had the rest of the apple on the side along with a star fruit. TASTEEEEE!!!!!


After dinner we watched a few more episodes of house. Almost done with Season 3. I love this damn show! I was craving something sweet later so I had a NuGo bar. The plain chocolate version. Tasty, chewy, sweet chocolatey. Yep, it was tasty.


And now I have to go, it's nearing midnight again. I NEED SLEEP. Buh-bye.