Cheese Needed...

...because I have plenty of whine.

I think that as soon as I get sick, I turn into a big baby.  It's ridiculous.  I'm 27 years old.  I've been sick before.  I can handle it - yet as soon as my throat starts to hurt or I cough even a teensy tiny bit, I call my mom and whine to anyone and everyone.

Pathetic.

And because this is my blog, I'll whine here, too.  :)  Today sucked.  It was a really long morning at work because I felt like absolute poop; I even typed up sub plans because I was sure I wouldn't go in to work tomorrow.  Thankfully, I started feeling a little better as the day progressed; however, a cough and headache recently picked up again.  Lucky me.

Obviously calories don't exist when you're sick, so I don't have photos of food or a "today's grand total" to do for you today.  I can tell you I ate a yummy smoothie for breakfast (healthy), leftover Mexican for lunch (not-so healthy), a Kashi granola bar for a snack (healthy), four mini chocolates for snacks throughout the day (unhealthy), and a smorgasbord of leftover sweet potato/black bean salad and pesto pasta for dinner (healthy and unhealthy).  Granted, I made quite a bit of pasta, took about five bites, and threw the rest away - I did have some sense and knew I shouldn't be eating much of that.

After my random dinner, I decided I should probably do some sit-ups.  After all, Key West is in 30-something days.  Things have to change before this girl gets in a bikini!  I grabbed the exercise ball and went at it!  While it was not a hardcore workout, at least I did something.

On a completely separate note, one of my students loaned me this book to read:

This is not something I would've picked up on my own, as I know I'm going to bawl like a baby.  However, my girl was adamant that I read it, so I promised I would.  I started it the other night and cannot put it down.  It's told from a dog's point-of-view as he reflects on his life.  It is beautifully written, and I can totally see my Mandy writing it - although this doggie might be a smidge smarter than my old girl...

I am going to sob my eyes out.

And now, I'm off to read and fall into a NyQuil-induced slumber!  Ciao, bellas - hopefully tomorrow I'll feel better and can actually write something interesting for ya!

SN-OMG!

Today was a snow day!

I'm very thankful it was because I woke up not feeling so well.  My throat was itchy and dry, and I was just way too groggy for having a full night of sleep.  As the day progressed, a hacking cough started accompanying the scratchy throat, which made my head throb with every hack.  And now - thanks to Mucinex DM - the cough has somewhat subsided, but a huge lump is growing in my throat.

I thought I had managed to avoid sickness this year.  Ugh.

I'm most likely going to work tomorrow - I have nothing done that needs to be, and being absent would be a lot more work than just toughing it out.  But, if I don't feel better by Friday, I'm definitely taking a sick day.  I know that strep, tonsilitis, and some sort of respiratory ickiness have been going around, and I'm crossing my fingers that mine is just a 24-hour bug.

The NyQuil I'm about to take should help - and will most likely make the rest of my paper-grading quite interesting.  :)

I'm not even going to get into details about eating today.  Suffice it to say that I failed...miserably.

I wasn't hungry for breakfast so didn't eat anything.  Then I went to lunch with my guy friend and his cousin - sushi, naturally.  I had a squid salad, two rolls, and about 12 glasses of water.  The guys are heading to Denver as we speak for my guy friend's fight - MMA, UFC, something along those lines.  It was a really nice lunch.

I came home, called my mama to whine, took a nap, and then sipped on two mugs of hot, hot tea.

Then BFF, another good friend of ours, and I headed to a Mexican restaurant for dinner.  I had a handful of chips and salsa, half an avocado tostada, half a vegetarian enchilada, and half a thing of fried ice cream - again, along with 25 glasses of water.  While it doesn't sound all that bad, just imagine for a second how much cheese and grease I most likely consumed.  Sickening.

Especially since the only working out I did was scrubbing my kitchen and floors.

Being sick sucks.

Let It Snow!

As with much of the country, Des Moines is currently under a blanket of snow - with the blustery wind making the snow drifts absolutely huge.  If it were better lit outside at the moment, I'd take some photos.  But alas, you'll have to wait until tomorrow.  For now: trust me.  Wow.

Because of the weather, we had an early-out today!  While I was super pumped to get out of school early, in retrospect it would've been better to go until 2:35 - now one of my classes is behind all the others.  :)  Oh well...I got a lot done!

Let's start with breakfast, though:

It looks like a yummy cappuccino, right?  Wrong.  It's a chocolate and tropical fruit smoothie!  In the mix: one cup UVAB, one cup Dole frozen fruit (mango, papaya, pineapple, banana), one tablespoon chia seeds, one scoop chocolate milk whey protein.  I think this is my favorite combination thus far.

By 10:30, though, I could hardly wait for my snack:

I had a 100-calorie thin bun (only half of it is shown here), topped with two tablespoons of almond butter and one sliced banana.  This is generally more than what I usually have for a mid-morning snack, but I am so glad I brought it today.  For lunch I had yesterday's dinner's leftovers: still disgusting.

I thought maybe I just wasn't in the mood for it last night and that's why it tasted disgusting, but I was wrong.  It's actually just straight-up disgusting.  So I ate about half of it and tossed the rest.

And then when I came home for the day, I was famished again.  I ate five ginger snaps and half of a Special K bar.  I definitely could have had something much more nutritious and full of protein, but those were fast and ready, so I inhaled 'em.

That is something I really need to work on: impulse-eating.  I'm not going to starve to death if I wait five minutes to actually put together a nutritious meal.  Ugh.

After my snack, I had a wonderful, way overdue conversation with one of my best friends from my non-profit agency; I love her to death and miss her like crazy, and we had such a great chat.  We're hoping we'll be able to reconnect sometime within the next couple of months...

I then tried to take a nap - after all, it was an early-out!  Unfortunately, I was unable to sleep and instead watched Jeopardy! and Ellen - two of my favorite shows.  And then I decided that my apartment was too cluttered and needed to be cleaned.  And by cleaned, I actually mean "torn apart and scrubbed from top to bottom."

Except the scrubbing part is actually going to happen tomorrow.  Today was the organizing, dusting, throwing away part of the process.

My mom and my sister always joke about how all of my possessions are either books or treasures.  As much as I hate to admit it, it's true.  I love little trinkets that remind me of different things.  And many of the "treasures" are framed photos.  However, as of late all of this stuff has been making me kind of crazy.  I'm nowhere near "hoarder," but it felt like it.  So, I cleaned everything out!  I kept a few photos out, the most special of the "treasures," and piled everything else in storage - and threw a lot of it out.

About halfway through this process, I decided I should probably eat dinner.  Thankfully, tonight's - unlike last night's - was a winner.  Not-so-shockingly, it was another of Angela's recipes:

It looks absolutely disgusting, but I promise it's AMAZING: warm sweet potato and black bean salad, accompanied by a 100-calorie thin bun topped with I Can't Believe It's Not Butter spray.  This meal was also super easy:

• Peel and chop up two sweet potatoes
• Dice one red onion
• Toss the potatoes and onion with olive oil, salt, and pepper
• Roast for about 37 minutes, tossing halfway through
• Mix with cumin, olive oil, salt, pepper, cilantro (which I didn't have), and lime juice
• Serve warm

YUM.  I have three servings left, but I already know I'll be making this one again!

After dinner I continued my cleaning spree because it was announced that SCHOOL IS CANCELLED tomorrow!  As my living room and bedroom were done, I moved on to my hall closet.  Here's the before picture:

Yeah.  It actually looked worse in real-life.  Essentially, that picture equaled three kitchen-sized trash bags.  Clearly this was in order:

After all, it is a snow day tomorrow!  I can have wine tonight!

An hour-and-a-half and three garbage bags later:

I'm not sure if you can tell a HUGE difference, but I totally can.  I love organization.  And if it still looks like a hot mess to you, keep in mind that I live in a one-bedroom apartment and have this for storage.  :)

As I was cleaning, I found this awesome picture frame, perfect for the card that has been hanging out on my bookshelf, waiting patiently to be displayed in the entrance to my kitchen:

Do you love it?!  "A good cook knows that it's not what is on the table that matters.  It's what is in the chairs."  (Sorry for the poor picture quality - I totally need photography lessons...)

Anyway, I'm off to finish my glass of wine, see if I can catch the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills reunion before I head to bed, and then crash - and sleep late!

I'll see you tomorrow!

Today's grand total:

Calories: 1,600
Fat: 50 grams
Carbs: 218 grams
Protein: 87 grams

Exercise: ...oops.  Cleaning counts, right?!
Water: 50 ounces

Granny Em

I've always gotten "Auntie Em" because of The Wizard of Oz.  Clearly, though, I should really be "Granny Em" because of my bedtime as of late.  Last night I was zonked no later than 8 p.m.  Granted, the Tylenol P.M. probably helped, but I don't think I'm going to beat that time by much tonight!  My body is just telling me that bed is the place to be!  I hope it's not also telling me that I am getting whatever virus half the country has right now!

Check out the resemblance:

Uncanny, I tell ya.

But I digress.

Today started off bright and early (thanks to my early night).  I woke up at 4:40 to head to the gym for what I thought was going to be an invigorating spinning class.  When I arrived at the Y to meet a friend for our workout, however, she informed me that Monday was one of two days that spinning is not offered at 5 a.m.

Oops.

So, we settled for a treadmill workout.  In 30 minutes, I ran/walked two miles (at a snail's pace, obv) and burned 270 calories.  Apparently I should've done the elliptical because I burn way more calories and "run" a lot farther than on a treadmill.

I have a gym announcement for y'all before I go any further: four of our treadmills and four of our ellipticals (the gazelle-looking ones) got new TVs - like, individual TVs for the individual machines.  So today I was able to watch MY news - Channel 13 - and cross my fingers for a snow day, all while working out!

I then came home to a scrumptious bowl of Apple Pie Oatmeal, again courtesy of Angela.  I swear: I cook something from her at least once a week, if not once a day.  Like last week, I was full from half a bowl of this oatmeal so took the rest of it to work for my morning snack: and proceeded to dump it all over my pants.  I'm not going to lie, though: I scooped it from my lap into the bowl and still ate it.

That's just how I roll.

Especially when I'm hungry.

And more specifically when we're talking about Apple Pie Oatmeal.

For lunch, I whipped up a quick batch of what was supposed to be guacamole but instead turned out to be, um, not:

It was more like chunks of avocado mixed with one Roma tomato, way too much onion, some cayenne, cumin, and salt.  I mean, it was good...oniony but good...and not at all guacamole-ish.  I ate it on top of a toasted 100-calorie thin bun.  I think I'll make it again, but next time I'll skip the onion.

After school we had our second PROUD meeting of the semester.  We called this our "PROUD Planning Party" and invited lots of students and catered in pupusas.  If you've never tried a pupusa, you are totally missing out.  It is an El Salvadoran food: essentially, it's a flat, thick tortilla, stuffed with cheese and meat or beans, usually topped with a slaw and salsa.  OMG.  They're delish.

I forgot to take a picture of mine, so I stole one from here.

I opted for a cheese and bean pupusa and feared for how unhealthy I was being.  Shockingly, it's only around 200 calories.  I should've had ten.

After scraping sleet off my car (UGH!) and navigating the slippery slopes home, I proceeded to cook a horrible dinner: shrimp with Trader Joe's curry simmer sauce over jasmine rice.  I was less-than-impressed and even considered throwing the other half of it away.  I decided against being wasteful, though, and will be suffering through the same meal for lunch tomorrow.  Thankfully I discarded most of the sauce and kept half a bag of sugar snap peas to satiate me.

I made this while on a conference call with the non-profit for which I work.  It is always so great to hear everyone's voices, and I can't wait until a reunion comes to fruition.  I could definitely use some time in Long Beach and some rejuvenation from teachers and other supporters of education who have the same pedagogical ideologies as I do.  Even though this is a great year with phenomenal students, it's also been a bit rough, and being back with those amazing people would be so wonderful.

Anyway, I'm off for the night.  It's nearing 8:00, which is, as we know, my bedtime!  :)  'Til tomorrow, friends!

Today's grand total:

Calories: 1,378

Fat: 48 grams (I ate an entire avocado, okay?!)

Carbs: 185 grams

Protein: 62 grams

(I'm loving Fit Day!)

Exercise: 300 calories

Water: not enough!!!

And let's not kid ourselves: dinner was awful, so I'm most likely going to tear into some graham crackers before long!  I'd better just go ahead and add another 120 calories to that total!  Ciao!

An Early Night...

I haven't posted since Thursday.  Oops.

Friday was kind of a crappy day, but it started off with my normal, everyday meals:

Yummy oatmeal with UVAB, bananas, and almond butter.

Italian-style vegetable soup (100 calories!).

Strawberry-banana yogurt and two string cheeses.

I had already planned on attending the YPC Kick-off party with some friends, and due to the crappiness that ensued throughout the day, I may have been a little over-served.  So, my wonderful day of "being good" ended with a few too many vodka tonics, potato skins, and late-night QT taquitos.  Yep.  I sure made some solid choices.  :)

Needless to say, Saturday was spent in bed.  I finally was productive around 8:00 when I decided to do my taxes.  Other than that, I had lunch with some girlfriends - and slept the day away.

Today was much different.  I woke up at 8:00 this morning, finished Portia de Rossi's memoir, ate some breakfast:

...and went to the gym.  I did 25 minutes of cardio on the elliptical, burning 400 calories, and then did an hour-long yoga class.  I feel really good but know I'm going to be a sore cookie tomorrow!

My friend called while I was at the gym and begged asked me nicely to come to the mall with him and help him pick out new jeans.  After I remedied my hot messiness and chugged a carrot cake smoothie (OMG so good!), I headed out there, and then he took me to Bang Bang for dinner.  I'd never been there, but it was really yummy - very much like Hu Hot, if you haven't been there.  I ate one-and-a-half plates of seafood, veggies, and a rice/noodle mixture.  While I could've eaten less and could've passed on the carbs and the soy sauce, I don't feel like I made horrible decisions.

However, now my "today's grand total" is going to be impossible to calculate.  Oh well.

I've been battling a massive headache all day long for some unknown reason, so I think I'm going to hit the sack early.  Like...now.  :)

Plus, I'm waking up before the crack of dawn, too, for some spinning.

Ciao, bellas!

In for the Long Haul

I'm so sleepy that I don't even know where to start today!  Let's start, I suppose, with a quick photo-recap of yesterday:

Breakfast: 1/3 cup oats, 1/3 cup water, 1/3 cup UVAB, one banana (half mashed in while cooking, half sliced on top), 1 tablespoon chia seeds, 1 tablespoon almond butter.

Morning snack: blueberry Chobani and two string cheeses.

Lunch: L#2 of pasta.  (Still good!)

Now, prior to the next set of pictures, let me explain my evening.  After school I had a lengthy meeting at which dinner was served.  I had a healthy helping of salad (topped only with healthy things), and one slice of olive bread (yum).  There were several decadent-looking desserts, but I used some self-restraint and took one cookie and ate half of it.

Then, BFF invited two of our good friends over for dinner, and the hubs brought homemade dumplings. They were delicious.  I had about two-and-a-half of them - and totally want the recipe!

And BFF cooked the main course: chicken with a brown butter and sage sauce (Cooking Light) and asparagus with a lemon-vinegar sauce.  I also had a chunk of French bread (oops), several Meringue cookies (double oops), and two glasses of wine (triple oops).

So...after that evening of "oops," let's move on to today.

This morning I woke up after a great night of sleep and attempted a delicious smoothie.  And this is, instead, what happened:

Please disregard the wine bottles...this is the (now very messy) "recycling center" part of my kitchen.

Yep.  I totally spilled ALL OVER the kitchen.  Let me tell you something about chia seeds: they pretty much SUCK to clean up because they turn to gel when they hit liquid and stick to absolutely everything.

Finally, though, I made a delicious-as-usual smoothie.

In the mix: one cup UVAB, one tablespoon chia seeds, one cup frozen fruit, one scoop chocolate milk protein powder.  Yum.

School today was pretty darn boring.  I am giving yet another benchmark assessment, but this time it's a writing assessment.  So essentially, I sit and watch kids write silently all day.  I HATE that; I'd much rather be up and interacting with 'em.  Oh well: days like this don't happen too often, so I guess I should appreciate 'em...

For a lunchtime appetizer, I broke into my new favorite snack:

It is so yummy (like a chip dip!) and goes perfectly with my other favorite snack: carrot chips.  Mmm, mmm good!

And then actual lunch was pasta L#3.  Shockingly, I wasn't sick of it yet!

The afternoon was much like the morning: sitting, watching kids write, trying to think of ways to be productive.

And again, since it was a white day, I was famished by 3:00.  Thankfully, I had another favorite: two string cheeses.

Right after school I headed to the Y.  Unfortunately it was a little later than I had anticipated (Hot Mess crisis situation at work), and I didn't get to do as much as I wanted due to an evening obligation.  But, I did arm weights, leg weights, abs, and a measly 10 minutes on the elliptical.  The original plan was to do at least 30 minutes, and then when the whole session was cut short, I still wanted to do 15; however, during the entire workout, I was carrying my cell phone because I was expecting an important phone call, and that finally arrived ten minutes into elliptical.  So, I jetted off - without evening wiping off the machine (ew!) - to answer the phone, and then went home to shower.

Once at home, I ate a couple of things I probably shouldn't have.  First, I scarfed down something healthy: one of the bars I made the other night, and it was delicious.  You HAVE to go to Angela's website and check 'em out.  Every person who has tried them has requested the recipe.  And then I devoured four of these:

Luckily that only amounted to 120 calories, but they were obviously empty calories, so that's not ideal.

The evening obligation was for Planned Parenthood Young Leaders.  A couple of weeks ago, I was asked to serve on the board.  Yep: kind of a big deal.  :)  I'm super excited to get started!  (At the "meeting" I drank a huge glass of water and a vodka-tonic.  BUT, I passed on all of the greasy bar apps!)

Instead of the bar food, I opted for Gateway sushi:

It was super good but, again, probably way more calories than I should've consumed.  Oh well...

I got home earlier than expected this evening and signed up on Fit Day.  My friend told me about it yesterday, and I couldn't wait to get started.  Considering my nutrition record-keeping looks like this...

...my OCD I was pumped to get it a little more organized.  The website is AWESOME, and I can't wait to start using it daily.  I love how it uses a pie chart to break down fat, protein, and carbs, tracks types of fats, etc.  There are countless positives about the website that I will enlighten y'all with as I find more of 'em!

Now, before I leave you for the evening (after the world's longest post), I have to show you my new hair.  First, here's a new product Courtney totally sold me on:

Moroccan oil.  It is awesome.  It makes my already silky-smooth hair even silkier and smoother.  It's like buttah.  :)

And now the moment you've all my mom has been waiting for: the big reveal.

Please disregard my crazily drunk-looking eyes...  It's an awful photo of me, but I think the bangs look cool.

Here the bangs look pretty similar to the last cut,  but they are a lot shorter and a lot choppier.  I love 'em.

The new Em!

I'm headed off to bed now - before Jersey Shore is even over - because I'm waking up early again for another spinning class!  Wish me luck!!!  G'night, y'all!

Today's grand total:

Calories: 1,773
Fat: 37.5 grams
Carbs: 247 grams
Protein: 83 grams

Exercise: 405 calories burned
Water: 64 ounces

You Spin Me Right 'Round

Guess who made the 5:00 a.m. spinning class?  This girl!!!  And like last night, it was killer - and yet not as bad as I thought.  I woke up at 4:40 pretty darn tired, even though I was zonked by 10:00 last night.  However, I woke up pretty quickly; going with BFF helped a lot.  And interestingly, during the entire spinning class, I kept thinking, "Wow!  I'm hungry!  I wonder what I should make for breakfast..."  It's hard for me to eat before morning workouts for fear of throwing up, and clearly my body was telling me that that was a bad decision this morning!  I was STARVING.

When I came home, I made Angela's Apple Pie Oatmeal.  She's not kidding when she says it's like dessert for breakfast.  And it made A TON.  I ate half of it at home and then brought the other half to school for my morning snack.

For lunch, I ate pasta dish L#1 (leftover number one) of three, but I forgot to take a picture before I inhaled it.  I also polished off the other half a bag of carrot chips throughout the day.  I'm pretty sure one of these days I'll be turning orange...

After school, I was famished.  On "White" days my lunch is from 10:40-11:20, so by the time 3:00 rolls around, my tummy is a-rumblin'.  So while helping students, I downed a pomegranate Chobani and two string cheeses.

Shortly thereafter, I got my hair did.  I am horrible with hair appointments - like, once-every-six-months horrible.  I was so excited for today!  Courtney - at Blush Salon off of Hickman - is amazing.  She trimmed probably half an inch off the bottom, made the layers a little neater, highlighted my hair with really pretty butterscotch and platinum colors (very close to my natural highlights), and...gave me bangs! I have bangs!  Don't worry: pictures will come soon.

I had to run some quick errands after the hair appointment, and because I thought I was going to be late for trivia, grabbed Jimmy John's.  I was totally not going to eat out at all this week, but I was starving, had absolutely no time for anything, and thought this would be best.  So, I ordered a #12 without mayonnaise.  Basically, it's a turkey sandwich with sprouts, tomatoes, avocados, and lettuce.  It's really, really good, and shockingly not too unhealthy.

Interestingly, I was driving home from the Super T (and Jimmy John's) and passed the exit for the gym.  I thought to myself, I should have worked out after my hair appointment...my errands could've waited another day.  I completely forgot that I had already worked out today!  How funny is that?!

Turns out, we didn't even go to trivia tonight.  I could've come home and cooked a much better meal than a Jimmy John's sub, but oh well.  Instead of trivia, I came home and whipped up a batch of Angela's healthy tropical breakfast bars.  I followed the recipe to a T, but I don't think mine turned out as amazing as hers did; they seem to be falling apart a little...  I'm hoping they just need to chill overnight or something.

Notice the corner one missing...oops.

My BFF thought the bars sounded disgusting, but they are actually very, very good.  And for under 150 calories each, you can't beat 'em!  The "yummies" are oats, cranberries, pistachios, and coconut.  Yum.

And now, I'm off to bed.  I'm wiped.

Today's grand total:

Calories: 1,620
Fat: 41.5 grams
Carbs: 225 grams
Protein: 90 grams

Exercise: 800 calories burned
Water: 60 ounces