My Baby

ARG! Today has been monsterously heartbreaking. Today my baby stopped working. My baby being my beautful Macbook pro. One minute I put her down, the next her screen won’t turn on. The computer itself was running, but the screen was blank. I went to the mac store where the geniuses tried to fix her, but to no avail. She is currently being sent to the mac super genuises in California where hopefully she will be patched up and she will be back in my life in 5-7 days. However, they said that there is a chance that they might have to give me a new hard drive, and not give me back my old one. I don’t have any of my food blogging pictures or my final archicture projects backed up on it! I’m really nervous about that, but it shouldn’t be a hard-drive issue so hopefully my baby’s memory will return.

Well I am now going to be blogging from one of the slowest computers on the planet, but at least it is a computer.

Breakfast

Today actually started off well (obviously before my baby died)

A bowl of oatmeal topped with half a coconut quinoa cookie.

In the Mix:

• 1/2 c. quick cooking oats (I was too hungry when I woke up to deal with the steel-cut stuff)
• 1 T chia seeds
• 1 T flaxseed meal
• 1 1/2 T goji berries
• 1 T raisins
• 1/2 c. almond milk
• 1/4 c. So Delicious Coconut Milk Creamer
• 1/4 c. water

Topped with

• Coconut Butter
• 1/2 a Coconut quinoa macaroon cookie

I think there was enough coconut to last me a very long time. The only sad thing was that the cookie absorbed a lot of the moisture from the oats and got rather soggy

Lunch

Well, after breakfast my baby died. Thankfully I had a mommy and me massage right after this so I didn’t quite panic yet. After the massage it was time for some lunch.

Tempeh sandwich with laughing cow cheese, pesto and red bell pepper

Carrots and celery dipped into some TJ’s original hummus

I had a delayed dessert (about an hour or so) because I was trying to revive my baby.

I thought cottage cheese and carob nibs sounded like a great combo

It sure looked like a great combo. But it was nasty. Maybe I’m just not a huge cottage cheese fan or something.

Dinner

My mom, my best friend and I were going on a great shopping trip for more clothes for convention. I knew we were going to be coming home around 7 or 7:30, so I chopped up all of the makings for shish kebabs before leaving

Then put them in their own containers

When I came home I just shish kebobed all of the makings on and my dad put them on the grill.

Super tasty. I also made Krista’s Coconut Quinoa recipe for the parents and my mom absolutely could not stop raving about it. They said that the dinner was a keeper.

Whew. I just got done putting on all 8 dresses that I am going to wear at convention. My mom and I even coordinated all the accessories to each dress. I am so exhausted. Time to catch up on some blog reading, take a shower and sleep!

Have you ever had your baby die on you?

America Oats

Happy Memorial Day to all the American! I hope you all are enjoying your extra 24 hours to the weekend. And sorry Canadians, happy Monday, but I hope you all had a wonderful Victoria Day last week.

Breakfast

In honor of Memorial Day I wanted to make some America Oats.

Oh yeah. I just went there. An American flag on oatmeal

In the ‘merica mix:

• 1/2 microwaved nana
• 1/2 c. oatmeal
• 1/2 c. coconut milk
• 1/2 c. water
• 1 T flaxseed meal
• blueberries

Topped with:

• So Delicious Coconut Milk
• shredded coconut
• one giant strawberry

So good. I’m thinking I should do this for Independence day too.

Are you doing anything special for Memorial Day?

It’s the last day before my project is due. I’m actually really relaxed about it too! It is such a nice change from my incredible stress earlier in the week.

Greek Yogurt is so in

Good evening everyone. I hope all the Americans are having a fabulous Memorial Day weekend (woohoo another 24 hours!) and all the Canadians had a good weekend. I’m going to make this post short, cause I just need to sleep.

Breakfast

I woke up feeling fantastic this morning! I’m so happy to be over this bug! I think the workout last night also really helped.

I just can’t get over this raspberry-coconut oatmeal.

I followed this with a foolproof half a naner dipped in sunflower seed butter.

It was a nice, hearty breakfast for sure.

Snack

I recieved a box of Kardea samples last night, and I was super excited to try one today

I went with the cranberry almond (sorry, no picture) which was really good! I will do a full review later though.

Lunch

After working in studio for a few hours, I was excited to come home for lunch. Since the only veggies I have in the fridge is bell pepper, spinach and salad mix I topped a piece of naan with organic marinara, red, yellow and orange bell pepper, spinach and goat cheese and put it into the oven at 400 degrees for 10 minutes for a homemade pizza.

As I was devouring this, I stopped by Tyler’s blog and saw his homemade “Frappe-Tyler”

I seriously could not resist. My blender was currently in the dishwasher, so I patiently waited for it to finish and got to make this.

A chocolate homemade frappe filled with:

• almond milk
• ice
• chocolate protein powder
• chia seeds

Omg, Tyler you are a genius! I have a feeling this is going to be my new summer drink. And I promise to get a better picture, this one truly didn’t do it justice. We just didn’t have any clear glasses left

Dinner

I’m still craving veggie’s after being sick the last couple of days and like I said, I have a very limited amount of veggies so I made a Southwest-inspired salad.

In the salad:

• spring greens
• red, yellow and orange bell pepper
• leftover cheesy rice
• blue corn tortilla chips
• Annie’s Woodstock dressing

I didn’t think that I had enough calories, so I ate this times two.

I then had the worst chocolate craving! The only chocolate I had was MaraNatha’s dark chocolate peanut butter so I just stuck a spoon in there are started to eat. It was soooo good, but I felt a bit guilty. Oh well it was only about 2 tablespoons of it.

Workout

I was debating whether to work out tonight. My body was really sore from the intervals last night, but it felt so good to get into the gym again so I went on the elliptical for 30 minutes and watched Harry Potter. I still don’t know if it was worth it. I am so incredibly beat right now.

Snack

As a post workout snack I devoured some greek yogurt topped with blueberries for some much-needed protein.

This is about 100 calories. Move over 100 calorie packs of Oreo’s, greek yogurt is so in.

What is your favorite post work out snack?

And do you have a favorite summer drink?

Best Readers Evahhh

Wow, you bloggies are awesome! I was so nervous posting my story about eating this morning. I didn’t know if your eyes would glaze over, or it people would absolutely freak out over it and accuse me of having an ED or other problems, but not at all. You all are such caring and supportive people and made me feel so much better about putting myself out there. So thank you for being the best readers evahhh!

Breakfast

I was craving another bowl of coconut oatmeal for breakfast this morning, so I definitely didn’t give into it this time. I just added a naner on top since they are finally ripe enough to eat. Anyone else absolutely can not stand eating green bananas?

(I’m going to apologize for the rest of this post for the funky pictures. There was no daylight to be seen on these dark and cloudy days.)

The mix was really good, maybe even better with out the naner, but the entire bowl was so hot! I accidently put too much milk in this baby and I had to put it in the microwave for longer so that it could evaporate a bit so it just was overly hot. I tried to wait until it cooled down by keeping myself entertained with blogs, but I eventually dug in after about two whiffs of the coconut oatmeal goodness.

It was also accompanied by local, organic strawberries that needed to be eaten by today

All together.

Yum yum

A Disastrously Snack

I started feeling pretty bad around 10:30, my usual snack time, so I ate an apple. Usually this would make me feel better, but today it didn’t. I also snacked on a rice cake hoping that would help, but snack #2  failed. What started off as a little headache turned into a major one and eventually I started to feel nauseous. I left class early and called my mom who told me to immediately drink water and gatorade. I chugged 20 oz of each (40 oz total) and felt much better. I’m still not feeling 100% after yesterday’s Visit to the Volturi (aka blood bank), but I’m not getting woozy anymore at least.

Lunch

I was super hungry for lunch at 11:30. I reheated leftover spaghetti.

The sauce was made from my mom’s secret recipe, but I will tell you that I used my grass-fed beef as the meat and that it was packed with onion, garlic and mushrooms.

It’s getting pretty late here and it’s time to hit the hay.

Has anyone else had lasting effects after giving blood? I was planning on going for a run early in the morning, but I don’t know if it would be such a smart idea.

Devoured and Devoured

Hey bloggies! Whew Hump day is almost over. All I can say is thank goodness! I always have a huge assignment due for my hardest class on Thursdays, so Wednesdays consist of scrambling to finish the assignment, while asking someone for help every .2 seconds…that sometimes my professor can’t even explain why I’m having issues.

But now I can breathe a sigh of relief.

Breakfast

Last night I couldn’t help but dream of almond butter. Today was a pretty overcast, soggy day so I thought I’d have some oatmeal to warm myself up.

Coconut Oatmeal with half a grapefruit

In the oats:

• 1/2 c. quick oats
• 1/2 c. coconut milk
• 1/2 c. almond milk
• 1 T flaxseed meal
• 1 T chia seeds
• 1 T goji berries
• 1 T raisins

Topped with:

• coconut flakes
• 1 T almond butter

The coconut milk and almond milk combo made it so creamy! It was absolutely fantastic.

Devoured and Devoured.

Lunch

Since I wasn’t going to be leaving campus anytime soon with the assignment only being 1/2 done after working on it for 6 hours, I went to my favorite vegetarian, organic cafe on campus, Holy Cow.

My roomates thought I was insane for never having Thai food, so I decided to become sane and have the Pad Thai. HOLY COW this was good! (yes, pun intended). The noodles were the perfect mix of squishy and slimy, and the peanut sauce was fantastic. I loved all the little veggies packed into it too. I’m in looove.

I didn’t take a picture of the end product, but I will assure you that this baby was devoured.

Goals Update

Halfway through the week and this is how my goals are currently looking:

So far so good! I know I’m going over to my sorority a couple more times this week so I know that basis is covered. I’m more worried about making the mindcasting goal with all of the craziness this week. Hopefully tomorrow or on Friday I will have some time and write down some winning articles for you guys

I also have a question for the most technology-challenged blogger ever… my media storage space on WordPress is running quite low. Do I have to buy more space or is there a way to get around that?

Classics

Good Morning bloggies! (Or Good Afternoon to the East Coast folks)

Breakfast

This morning was fabulous simple breakfast of toast and a smoothie

Toasted oatmeal and honey bread spread with Crofter’s raspberry spread and TJ’s flaxseed almond butter with green apple slices

Classic, yet completely hitting the spot.

And one of the simplest, yummy smoothie of:

• frozen peaches
• frozen naner
• coconut milk
• water

Garnished with shredded coconut

I feel like I have left Eugene and headed to the beaches of Hawaii for a while.

Lunch

Lunch is on-the-go today. A tuna and quinoa sandwich filled with onion, spinach, dijon mustard, and apple slices

With a side of very ripe strawberries and carrots with hummus for dipping.

Gotta run off to do a million and one things today

What are some of your classic brfasts from when you were a kid? I actually loved Maple and Brown sugar oats (specifically the dinosaur eggs ones), Eggo waffles and I used to drink a lot of Carnation Instant Breakfasts

Oi!

Hey bloggies! I hope everyone had a relaxing Sunday. I got a chance to update my blogroll earlier in the day and clean my entire apartment later on.

Smoooothie

After the hike I definitely needed some refueling. The girls and I went to Jamba Juice, but I really just wanted to create my own smoothie. I held out and created this beauty.

In the smoothie:

• coconut milk
• blueberry kefir
• frozen strawberries
• 1/2 a frozen ‘nana
• 1 T goji berries
• 1/4 of an orange
• ice

It was absolutely phenomenal! I think the bananas on top was my favorite part. I find it easier and more enjoyable to eat smoothies when they aren’t green.

Dinner

After reading In Defense of Food (and texting the ex-boyfriend and the guy I currently like all at the same time. Oi!) for 2 hours it was time for some leftovers

Coconut Quinoa and Nut Butter Parsnip Fries from yesterday with a side salad covered in nooch.

It was so delicious!

Goals

During winter term I always had weekly goals and I forgot to start doing that for this term again!

This week has been full of so many unpictured snacks, bites, samples and desserts. Like wayyy more than usual. And not surprisingly I haven’t felt my best this week. So I’m going to make it my goal to monitor what I eat a little bit better. As in don’t start eating the trail mix because it is sitting on the desk or eating the banana bread because someone has to enjoy it before it becomes stale. I’m not going to restrict food if I’m hungry or anything!  In addition to not mindless eating, I also want to consume 3 green monsters this week and drink more water (at least 60 oz a day!). Wish me luck! It will give me something to focus on besides boys. Oi!

Do you have any goals for the week?

Trail Mix and a Hike

Good afternoon everyone!

Breakfast

I wasn’t sure what to eat this morning. Last night I was craving some french toast, but since I had pancakes yesterday I went for some good ‘ole oatmeal

Coconut-Strawberry Heart Oatmeal

• 1/2 c. quick oats
• 1/2 c. almond milk
• 1/2 c. water
• 1 1/2 T of the MIX
• vanilla

Topped with:

• 1 T So Delicious Coconut Milk Creamer
• coconut flakes
• strawberries shaped into a heart

It was delicious as always.

Lunch

Lunch came pretty soon afterwards because I had a hike during my normal lunch time

I made the same pizza I had a couple of nights ago.

The steam fogged up my camera lense!

I love how veggie loaded this thing is with spinach, red and orange bell pepper and onions! It was so amazing.

Hike

My friend invited me for a hike. It was the same one I did last week, but I was definitely not going to turn it down!

This time around the hike was SO much easier. We talked about life and politics instead of complaining about how steep it was. Plus we were actually going at a way faster pace.

I ate about half of some homemade trail mix at the top.

• Corn puffs
• Life cereal
• dark cocoa chips
• coconut flakes
• raisins

It was pretty decent. I need to work on the mix a wee bit more though.

What have you been up to today?

Quinoa, Parsnips and a Book Review

How is everyone’s weekend going?

Last night I finished Change Your Brain, Change Your Body by Daniel G. Amen. Overall it was a great read for someone just transferring into living a healthy lifestyle. The author emphasizes eating lots of fruits and veggies and exercising. I would absolutely love to give this book to my overweight dad to push him to adapt a healthier lifestyle.

However, one of the negatives of this book was that it felt like I should be a hypochondriac. A lot of the chapters went over lots of different disorders and I felt that I have about half of these I took the test at the end which told me that I might have bipolar disorder because I sometimes have mood swings (um, because I am a girl and have a period thank-you-very-much) as well as a few other disorders.

I personally found this book slightly repetitive since I already know that living a healthy lifestyle is great for you in the long run. It wasn’t my favorite book, but it was in interesting read with some great facts such as the reason women have softer skin is because of our high levels of estrogen.

I’m excited to start a new book:

In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan, a health food bloggers staple. I’m excited to start reading it tonight!

Lunch

Before heading to a track meet I pretty much screwed up my lunch.

I had a beautiful wrap planned since I need to use up the brown rice I have in the fridge, but instead I killed it by eating 1/4 of a loaf of banana bread. I actually feel ashamed with myself. I just cut off a piece, then another, then another, and then there was only a wee bit left. And thankfully I left it on the plate, but I still feel awful.

I also had a berry smoothie

In the smoothie

• 1/4 c. blueberry kefir
• 1/2 c. very cherry frozen berry blend
• 1/2 c. almond milk
• 2 handfuls of spinach
• 1 T flaxseed meal

It was a relatively good smoothie, but I hate the little seeds that are in the berry blends! They just really annoy me

I wasn’t feeling super hot about such an overall awful lunch. I’d much prefer to have a homemade pita pizza or a wrap instead a ton of banana bread and an ok smoothie.

Snack

I got pretty hungry after the track meet and going into studio for a bit and I ended up having two snacks. An unpictured cup of brown rice and then half of a banana with sunflower seed butter

The second snack finally filled me up enough for a good hour nap.

Dinner

I have been pretty adventurous since starting the blog and just couldn’t help but cook Krista’s Coconut Quinoa and Oh She Glow’s Nut Butter Parsnip Fries.

Both recipes were absolutely mind-blowing! I have never liked quinoa until this recipe!!! I absolutely can not wait for left overs tomorrow.

I hope everyone has a great Saturday night. I think I’m going to have a nice night in.

What is your favorite quinoa recipe?

Stressed to the Max

Happy Earth Day everyone!!

The past couple of days have been stressful to the max. I have felt overbooked, ran into problems galore with an assignment, and working with some personal relationships that are some what changing (not the ex-boyfriend though! He’s great!). All have taken a pretty big toll on me and has caused so much stress.

An education presentation was made to my sorority all about stress. Despite the awful things stress can cause: anxiety, grumpiness, snappiness, nerves and an overall icky feeling; stress can be good because it makes us productive. It helps us get assignments done (like my super huge vector assignment) and gets us to do the tasks you really don’t want to do.

However, when it gets to be too much, like how it has been, stress can be the negative effect that I have been experiencing. There are a few things you can do to prevent stress by the foods we eat.

Good foods are:

• fatty fish
• whole wheat bread
• oranges
• decaffeinated tea

However, some foods to avoid are:

• caffeinated tea
• coffee
• cocoa
• egg yolks
• butter
• cheese
• shrimp and other meat
• coconut oil
• cashews, almonds and other nuts
• soda
• sugar
• alcohol

Foods like soda, sugar and alcohol really didn’t surprise me, but the fact that nuts, coconut oil and shrimp can contribute to your stress is really interesting.

Breakfast

For breakfast this morning I started off with oatmeal, and later had my second breakfast of a naner dipped into chocolate PB

Coconut Oatmeal in a margarita glass

In the mix:

• 1/2 c. quick cooking oats
• 1 c. water (forgot to mix it with almond milk again! doh!)
• 2 T of the MIX

Topped with:

• 1 1/2 T So Delicious Coconut Milk Creamer
• 1 T Coconut flakes
• 1 tsp brown sugar

I had to add in the brown sugar cause it wasn’t so yummy.

As far as being a stress-friendly meal, the only thing going against me was the brown sugar.

For the fruit part of my breakfast, the MaraNatha chocolate peanut butter went against the stress-friendly meal with the cocoa and the nuts

But naturally it was absolutely delicious!

Lunch

Lunch had to be packed this morning, so I packed a Veggie Wrap

How to make a Veggie wrap my way:

Place yummy toppings in a whole-wheat tortilla

todays toppings included:

• european blend salad
• red bell pepper
• onion
• avocado
• pesto
• Chobani greek yogurt
• laughing cow cheese

Attempt to wrap it up, and lay a knife over it so that it doesn’t unroll while I wash the tub its going to go in

Slice it up and take a pretty picture of all of the veggies inside

Then cram it into my tub and shut it quick so it doesn’t unfold. Put it in your backpack and run to class cause you are most likely running late…again.

Enjoy exactly 2 1/2 hours later

This had a little less flavor than I would have liked. I omitted the usual brown rice, just cause I didn’t have an precooked at the time, but adding that would have added just a bit more to it.

This was actually rather stress-friendly with the whole-wheat wrap and naturally all of the veggies, the only little thing was the light spread of laughing cow cheese. Oh well.

Snack

I had the most delicious Larabar ever for a snack

The lemon flavor was perfect. It made me not eat it quite as fast as I usually suck these things down. And it tasted like a real lemon square.

As far a being stress-friendly, this baby is packed with Cashews and other nuts. Sooo not so much.

Destressing

Wow, it is really hard to eat a stress-friendly meal. It’s hard coming up with a meal that doesn’t contain my usual eats such as cocoa, nuts, cheese and a maybe a little bit of sugar.

I have been taking steps to really calm myself. Yesterday I went rock climbing with friends, which was an absolute blast. I have taken time away from my computer just to read. I haven’t turned on my TV since returning home from school (a daily habit of mine) and I opened a window and let the sunshine and fresh air pour into my room.

I was planning to go to a yoga class tonight, but planning my meals around that actually stressed me out quite a bit (isn’t that really ironic?!), so I think I’ll do some yoga and strength training in my room later on.

What do you do to destress yourself?