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