A Mediterranean Feast

Hey bloggies! Whew have I had quite the day!

Internship

My intership was only two hours today! Yippee! Though I absolutely LOVE it and love everything I’m learning, getting to enjoy the sun isn’t bad at all.

Lunch

I originally packed my lunch to be eaten at the office of my internship, but I got off at lunch so I was able to eat it at home

An absolutely delicious peach from the local produce stand and two slices of Stairway to Heaven Pizza from The Rock.

The description for the pizza (in the words of The Rock):

We start with garlic butter brushed dough, topped with fresh mozzarella and baked. We then top it with fresh baby arugula, diced tomatoes, prosciutto, parmesan cheese and finally, a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. Ooh, it makes me wonder…

Both were sooo yummy.

Workout

After letting my lunch digest, I headed to the local state park for a nice run in the sun. However, I died after two miles. I guess sun + humidity + not having run long distance in 2 months will do it to you unfortunately.

I felt ok right after the run, never actually reaching the runner’s high but now I feel great that I went on the run! My body feels very light and just very happy.

When I got home I grabbed the Grantster for a walk in the neighborhood.

We were both happy to spend some time together. He has a hard time with fireworks, so the past few nights have been very rough for him. I’ve also been out of the home a lot since I got back to the cabin, so there has been a lot of missing Grant and Michelle time.

Dinner

Since it is such a beautiful day, I decided a Mediterranean feast was in order.

Prepackaged gnocchi from the produce stand, with pesto and parmesan cheese

A mini Caprese salad, both the mozzarella cheese and tomato’s from the produce stand (I’m really loving the stand if you can’t tell!)

And a wildcard Greek Salad thrown in. I wasn’t originally planning on making this, but I saw it on the Fitnessista’s blog today and had almost all of the ingredients.

I used Champagne Wine Vingear instead of white wine vinegar (we didn’t have the latter), minced garlic instead of garlic gold and basil instead of parsley. I just used what we had. My mom couldn’t stop eating it! She asked me to make it for tomorrow. Looks like I’ll be having another trip to the produce stand! Oh darn

Weekly Goals

Last week I made a set of goals , the Contract, after pondering about what I want to be in life when I got a break at Convention.

I kept most of it, but I did make just a couple of changes:

• Instead of going on a pure dessert detox, I’m allowing one dessert per week. When I first got home I had dessert with every meal and I blew up like a balloon (Imagine that!). I also usually feel pretty horrible after a dessert too, so this will help keep my body in check
• Instead of drinking green tea when snacky, I know that I’m just dehydrated so I will drink water instead. The green tea makes my metabolism speed up like crazy to where I’m never satisfied. I’m trying to limit my intake to only one cup of green tea due to my body’s reaction to it.
• Instead of saying hard cardio 2x per week and light to moderate cardio 2x per week, I’m just saying doing cardio 4x a week. I will just listen to what my body can take.

My new contract!

What is your favorite Mediterranean dish?

Contract

Good Evening bloggies! Today I had the first day of my second internship of the summer with an architect! It’s a bit more like a job shadow since I’m just going to meetings with them and they are teaching me the design program they use. Today was an introduction to the office. I sat with one of the architects for 3 hours as we discussed the project he is working on, how the program works, how he got to where he is, what he wants to do, what my future goals are, and just a bunch of topics. It honestly didn’t feel like three hours. I also got to visit the site of a job that is almost done. It was cool to see the 3D models they did, then see the project realized.

Breakfast

Before all of this excitement I fueled up with a oatmeal that I had to shove down my mouth.

In the mix:

• 1/2 c. oatmeal
• flaxseed meal
• chia seeds
• goji berries
• almond milk
• water
• So Delicious Coconut creamer

Topped with:

• blackberries
• raspberries
• macadamia nut butter
• coconut flakes

Not an OMG mix, but definitely yummy.

Lunch

The principle architect of the firm took me out to lunch at The Keg. I didn’t want to make a fuss over the food, so I just ordered a half French dip sandwich with a Caesar salad.

Hike

After I got off, I called up Best Guy Friend to hang out. He wanted to find this great outdoor rock climbing area out in the woods, so off we went in search of this area.

After about a mile walk we found it and goofed around a little bit

Dinner

By the time I got home (& forgot my cell phone in BGF’s car) it was about 7. I played around with Grant for a bit who was looking bored. There was an unfortunate dog poop in the running shoes accident, but otherwise it was fun.

I’m trying to clean up my eats a bit, so I went for an Asian-inspired salad today.

In the mix:

• Spring greens
• Tangelo
• baked green beans
• goat cheese
• raisins
• Annie’s Asian sesame dressing

It was definitely yummy but it didn’t sustain my stomach. I ate an (unpictured) bowl of mixed cereals: puffed millet, Kashi honey puffs and Cascade Raisin bran with almond milk. Oh so typical me.

Contract

Moving on to the main point of this point: The contract. I got a nice hour break during convention where I reflected on what I want my goals for the summer to be. I wrote out my main goals, then listed ways I am going to acheieve them.

I signed the contract by stating that I will try the above suggestions for a week, then adjust as I see necessary for my lifestyle.

I’m excited to see how this goes. Hopefully it will get my off my booty and start getting me to do some cardio!

Have you done a contract like this before?

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?

A Great Day of Rebelling

Sorry I have been slack-a-lacking on the posts lately. School decided to finally pick up and be time consuming again.

Field Trip

Yes, I went on a field trip today. Yes, I am in college. The architecture program actually has a couple of positive points to it.

We went to the Mt. Angel Library designed by Finnish architect Alvar Aalto. Not many pictures of the library in here though.

The gorgeous church. Not the library

Walking around outside...away from the library

The three girls all wearing Windows 7 sunglasses even though we're all macs on the other side of the campus from the library

Just thinking about how we should have brought a frisbee to play on the athletic fields at the bottom of the cliff.

Gorgeous bells not even close to the library.

Oh hey, found my only picture of the library. This natural lighting in there was executed so well.

Don't mind my hair. Moments before this I attempted gymnastics on the monastery lawn. whoops.

It was a great day of rebelling. I spent about 90% of the time outside of the library and not drawing the library like our assignment told us. Good thing there is a zero to none chance of them collecting the assignment.

Goals

One thing that I did not rebel on though was my goals.

That picture was taken as of Friday. I got them all done by Sunday though. I decided to keep the same goals for this week. I feel that they make me a more well rounded person by 1. Keeping a social life (going to my sorority) 2. Keeping my room clean for my sanity 3. Improving myself as a blogger.

So we’re back to square one.

What do you usually rebel against? I used to always rebel against authority. Teachers and parents especially. I was quite an obnoxious kid

Hungry-Hungry Giraffe

For dinner I knew that I had to feed my hungry-hungry giraffe. Despite his leaf-eating siblings, he prefers Indian food.

Leftover Punjab Choley on brown rice and Tandori naan.

He finished it off quite well. I think he may be getting fatter by the bowl

I followed up with a very familiar So Delicious Coconut Milk Chocolate Chip Ice Cream with mesquite and strawberries

I swear that there was a lot more than it looks.

Goals Update

As we’re heading into Friday I thought I’d do a check of this week’s goals.

As you can tell by the filled in boxes, this week’s goals are going very well. I’m actually about to partake in a 10 minute clean of my room after I finish this post. I love having the message to slow down while eating! It’s actually working! I’ve stopped munching down on my meals while exploring other blogs and just sat at my dining room table desk and focused on my food. It makes the meal feel like it lasts longer and I really enjoy all of the flavors a whole lot more. I highly encourage you to try this, if you already don’t do it!

Do you sit down at a table and eat, or are you usually on the go? Or are you a college student whose apartment is so small we don’t even have room for a table?

Goal Keeping

So you know those naps that you take and you feel even more tired and crummy afterwards? Yeah, this nap wasn’t one of those. I bounded out of bed and felt fantastic. It also helped that this nap was on this bed with the sun hitting me.

I decided to go with the “au natural” look of my bed

I felt absolutely amazing and even more driven to pursue my goals.

Goals

I have my weekly goal of drinking 3 Green Monsters and drinking 60 oz of water a day (I’m currently at 50 oz fyi )

I keep track of it using a whiteboard sitting on my desk. I just love filling in the squares

But I also set my goals for the term 5 weeks ago and posted them up on my corkboard squares by my desk (can you tell I’m at my desk the most?!)

I love keeping my goals list short and sweet.

I’m proud to say that I’m well on my way to making Dean’s List! I found out I got a 100% on my psychology midterm!

I’m also very close to getting an internship and once we hammer out the details I’m considering getting a job at Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s if I will have time.

I love having my goals constantly in front of me and keeping me driven.

Dinner

I was super excited to go to my sorority for dinner tonight since I dreamt about food the entire time during my nap!

They offered the healthiest meal I have seen in a very long time

Chicken Marsala, green beans, roasted red potatoes, garlic bread with salsa on top and a little salad with feta, carrots, cucumbers and Italian dressing.

It was soooo good! I also ate dessert this time around. An (unpictured) chocolate pudding pie. I resisted just a bit and only had half a slice but it was absolutely delectable. I was definitely scraping the bowl and getting everything I could

Question of the Day: How do you make sure you follow through with your goals?