Blue Browed Bozo

Well hello there my lovelies. Hope you're all having a wonderful Saturday. Mine has been an eclectic mix of fun, sweat, exhaustion, annoyance, anger, frustration and "clown-like" humor. I woke up early and enjoyed a quick breakfast which consited of a banana smeared with PB2 love (I'm addicted) and an iced coffee.


After I inhaled this quick fix I changed into my gym clothes and ran out the door to meet Ann for an early workout. Less then a mile down the street I found myself tailing the fluffy white butts of a BOLD pair of deer. Out of nowhere they jumped out in front of me and proceeded to prance down the centerline for about a quarter mile before disappearing. Good times!!! A few seconds later I realized that I forgot something at home so I turned around (now annoyed) and drove back to the house to pick it up. I then attempted to leave, again (now running late), to meet Ann at the gym. At least the workout was a good one. :)

Leg Extension (cable)
80lb x 15
80lb x 15
80lb x 15
Hack Squat (plate loaded)
30lb x 15
30lb x 15
30lb x 15
Seated Leg Curl (cable)
80lb x 15
80lb x 15
80lb x 15
Single Leg Press (plate loaded)
90lb x 15 (each leg)
100lb x 15 (each leg)
100lb x 15 (each leg)
Squats
x15
x15
x15
Ab Machine (cable)
80lb x 20
80lb x 20
80lb x 20
Situps w/ braced feet
x20
x20
x20
Floor Crunches
x20
x20
x20
Elliptical - Interval Training
Resistance 6-8
20 min., 245 calories burned

My legs were shaking. I think it was the leg press! With WOBBLY thighs I climbed into my car and drove over to Ann's apartment to have breakfast, change and head to Cleveland for our Trader Joe's shopping trip. We decided to have oatmeal. SHOCKING I know. HA!

• 1/2 cup old fashioned oats
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup vanilla Almond Breeze
• 3 tsp wheat bran
• 1 1/2 tsp ground flaxseed
• cinnamon
• allspice
• 1/2 banana, sliced
• 4 frozen cherries (roughly)
• 1 tbs PB2 (for added love)

YUM! The cherries were a nice and tart addition.

After breakfast we cleaned up, changed and hit the road for the 45 minute drive to Cleveland. It was SO gloomy out. YUK! Upon arrival I think we both almost immediately decided that visiting Trader Joe's on a Saturday afternoon may have been a BAD idea. The parking lot was off the hook crazy. There was nowhere to park! When we walked inside we got even more annoyed. The amount of people crammed into the somewhat small store resembled sardines in a can. Pushing the cart through the madness was next to impossible. But what TRULY angered us both was how RUDE the customers, and sadly, some of the staff was. Cutting in front of you, reaching past you, damn near elbowing you in the face while grabbing at things like wild animals. WHAT HAPPENED to our glorious Joe's? The last time we visited it was a BLAST and a great experience. Had we not driven 45 minutes to get there, we would have left the cart and walked out. Sigh! We suffered through the insanity though and got the hot heck out of there as quickly as we could. The cashier was super nice, which sadly, was the highlight of the entire shopping experience.

After walking a 1/2 mile (with heavy bags) back to the car, we climbed in and damn near collapsed from exhaustion. It was at about this time that I flipped the visor down to check myself out and realized, to my HORROR, that I had blue crap smeared ALL around my eyebrows. Let me explain lol! While getting ready at Ann's I dug into her makeup and decided to apply a light dusting of her dark blue shadow before leaving. After applying it I used my fingers to blend it in. The last thing I did before we left was groom my eyebrows (they tend to get a bit out of control) with my damp fingers. CLEARLY they still had blue shadow on them. OMG. HAHAHAHAHA! I don't how it's possible but Ann never noticed that I looked like a freakin CLOWN! There was an obvious blue line above and under my brows and on both sides sweeping down towards my eyes. No wonder the cashier was all smiley and friendly. I thought I caught him looking at me a bit weird. I'm so special! So, so VERY special! I just didn't notice when we left. The lighting in her bathroom is horrible. HILARIOUS!

When we got back to Akron I loaded up my car, said my goodbyes and hustled home. I was was worn out and starving. It had been a long day by that point. I quickly made myself a salad with leftover chicken breast, spinach, egg whites, cherry tomatoes, spray butter and Trader Joe's cran-apple butter. On the side I had a bit of edamame and an iced coffee. Ahhhh, so good!


After lunch I immediately started on dinner. I had planned on making my cabbage soup a few days ago and had been looking forward to it for days now. I did have a new version in mind though. I love altering recipes to see if they work and I had high hopes for this one. Into my absolutely LARGEST stockpot went the following...

• 1 head green cabbage, chopped
• 1 large purple onion, chopped
• 2 stalks celery, chopped
• 1 cup chopped carrots
• 1 can black beans (new addition)
• 1/2 cup uncooked brown jasmine rice (new addition)
• 2 Trader Joe's Jalapeno Chicken Sausages, chopped into small pieces (new addition)
• 16oz can pureed tomatoes (new addition)
• 32oz can tomato sauce (new addition)
• Enough low sodium, low calorie chicken stock to cover everything
• 2 tbs black pepper
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp red pepper flakes
• 1 tsp cayenne
• 2 tsp oregano
• 2 tsp sweet basil
• 2 tsp sea salt
• 1 bay leaf

I gave this all a good stir, turned the burner to low-medium and covered it. I usually let the soup simmer for about 2-3 hours.

And here it is. My very tasty, low calorie, low fat and SUPER SPICY concoction. Served in my very adorable and new Cutie Pie bowl. LOVE IT!


I enjoyed it with a slice of buttered bread. I used calorie free Spray Butter of course. ;)


It was delicious (HOT) and I think I like this tomato, sausage, black bean and rice version MUCH better. The original recipe is nice with its simplicity but this version had much more depth and flavor. Excellent! I made SO much of it too. I think I'll make this my lunch tomorrow when I visit the folks. Get ready Papa, I'll bring you some as well. I know you LOVE my cabbage soup. THIS ONE IS EVEN BETTER than the original!

For tasty treat later I made a yogurt mess. I have been craving this since yesterday!

• 4 oz plain Oikos
• crumbled Kashi cherry dark chocolate granola bar
• 1 Trader Joe's Lady finger (only 20 calories)
• 1 tbs PB2

I think Nick and I are about to watch The Road. Should be good and depressing. And NO, I will not disclose how we obtained a copy of it. ;)

Enjoy your Saturday night!

Short and Sweet...

Just like me because I am indeed both short AND sweet. ;)

No, seriously though, what the title means is that today's post is going to be a quick one. To make a looooooong story short, today has been busy day mixed with a sprinkle of mental exhaustion, drizzled with a dash of stress and topped off with sickness. Sounds FUN right? Yeah, not so much! I was very busy at work and found myself staying over to try and get things done. So in turn I go to the gym late, got home late and to top it all off, I'm not feeling all that hot. :(

I will however do a quick recap of my daily eats with pictures. Now matter how busy I am, somehow I always manage to make time for picture taking. It's truly sort of amazing. Especially on a day like today.

Breakfast was the usual... Irish oats with cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, banana, coconut flakes and apricot preserves. Yep, I still love it!


Lunch was a tasty roast beef sandwich on an Ezekiel 4:9 sprouted whole grain bun with arugula and a tomato. On the side I had some tomato wedges and a sliced honeycrisp apple. DELICIOUS! I am now officially hooked on these Ezekiel buns!!


My afternoon snack was Oikos Greek yogurt, POM arils and a Kashi dark chocolate cookie crumbled on top.


When I finally managed to get out of work it was off to the gym. I decided to go even though I wasn't feeling well. NO EXCUSES right? Since it was late I only did a hard hitting 30 minute session on the Elliptical. I did the interval training at level 3 and burned 361 calories. Not bad, not bad at all.

When I got home I whipped together this delicious and QUICK salad. I was not in the cooking mood and Nick was at his moms for dinner anyways. Here is what went into the mix.

• Sweet Butter Lettuce
• Arugula
• Cherry tomatoes
• Green onions
• Chick Peas
• Morning Star Farms black bean burger
• Spray butter
• Red pepper flakes
• Salt & pepper

It was so good! I ate every last bite.


I was also craving pop so I made a quick bottle of diet cola on my FANTASTIC SodaStream pop maker. So EASY! I filled a bottle with water and screwed it onto the pop maker.


I pushed the button repeatedly with short little bursts until I heard about 5 beeps. I like to make the pop supper fizzy. LOOK.... BUBBLES....


Then I filled the measuring cap with the cola flavored syrup like so...


Then I poured it into the fizzy water bottle...


Then I made this mess...


And there you have it, tasty pop! :)

Even though I was feeling funky, my appetite was in FULL force tonight. About an hour after dinner I couldn't stop thinking about yogurt. Weird right? So I made up a tasty little bowl to banish this craving.

• Oikos
• Banana
• Golden raisins
• Kashi granola
• Trader Joe's Pumpkin Butter

MMM. I love OIKOS!

Well that's it folks. Now I'm going to curl up on the couch for a bit and then take my butt to bed. I NEED MORE SLEEP so I can get better!