Quiet on set June 12, 2009

My new office has been so quiet this week, which is a complete 180 from my last set up.  I no longer have a talkative office mate, loud laser printer, drawer-slamming staff member, busy hallway right outside my (interior) window, noisy door, or anything else that my old shared office had.  Phew! I cannot express how much of a relief it is to move on and no longer be in that suite   Yee-haw!

Today was a nice wrap up to my first week in the new space–quiet day, not many people there, got a lot done, had a good client meeting, good dinner, great workout, and now a great snack.  Only bad thing is I can’t stop reaching for the roasted almonds at my side!

Let’s recap the eats for the last few days.  How about a new style–meals side-by-side from both days?  Sounds good to me

Breakfast: Kashi Go Lean Crunch with soy milk both days.  Add ins varied from banana to strawbs, bluebs, and ground flax. 

Lunch:

Thursday’s salad (Romaine, Boston, green leaf lettuces with avocado, pickle, grape tomatoes, balsamic) withwas a little sad after having sat in the fridge for over a day, but still tasted great!  I ate some leftover veggie lasagna on the side, and munched on the carrots, cherries, and apple mostly during the afternoon.

Friday’s salad was scrumptious! I nuked a portabella Gardenburger and put it over the top of the aforementioned lettuces, avocado, grape tomatoes, pickle, and balsamic.  I think the burger has cheese in it, which I don’t really like, but it tastes good nonetheless.  Chris tried a bite (total skeptic) and said it was really good!  I snacked on my fruit and carrots over the afternoon.

Dinners: a Mexi marathon; shocking I know.  Thursday I had my leftover dinner from Wednesday, even though I knew it would be rich and overly cheesy.  This time around I didn’t get the upset tummy; I think it may have been more from the onions, so I didn’t eat most of them in the quesadilla.  Fresh avocado on top.

Friday we visited Si Senor again, but this time I had the Pollo Azado Burrito, sans pollo   Tasty goodness involving flour tortilla, rice, black beans, grilled pepp/onion/celery/zucchini/carrot, topped with verde sauce and pico de gallo.  I also added some guac and jalapenos fritos.  Wooee, those were some spicy peppers

Don’t let that picture fool you, the burrito was HUGE.  I ate half and was waaaay too full.  And don’t shit your pants, but I ate a small piece of meat tonight.  Chris was like, “Here, eat this” when he thought he found beans on his burrito, but no, it was beef.  Oh well, no biggie I suppose.

Snackins:

The first pic is actually from Wednesday night after I posted.  Chris broke into the PB and I joined in for some of that goodness.

I went to Freddy’s and Costco to stock up on fruit, including grape tomatoes, pineapple, strawberries, cherries, and a nectarine.  Lovin’ it!

Can you read “yum” on the rim of my b’nut plate?  I thought it would be cute to try to write with ketchup, but it was a tad tougher than I realized.  LOVED these “fries” and can’t wait to make more soon.

Almonds are tasting sweet to me suddenly!  I’ve never noticed that before.  Oh, and shhh, don’t tell my dentist I’m eating them whole.  I told her I love almonds and other nuts and she said to chop them up before eating them to prevent cracking my teeth.  That’s no fun! 

Workouts the last few days have been good, but for forgetting my towel Thursday.  When I realized it I was in the locker room, and thought WTF, I probably should skip cardio today.  I did a good leg workout and called it.  Friday was an upper body extravaganza, including two exercises for each back, biceps, chest, triceps, shoulders, and abs.  I followed that up with a super sweaty 50 minutes on the stair mill.  Mercy!

While doing lateral raises I noticed how my forearms have become defined and my veins are coming to the surface.  Good signs in the fight against excess body fat!  Now if I can just get the abs to cooperate…

Hope you’re keeping it real out there

You’ll never believe… June 10, 2009

…where I found my keys.  I looked high and low, asked security and property management, scoured the house and car, and then today found them IN MY PURSE.  Yes, you read correctly, they were never lost to begin with.  WTF?? I was shocked to pull them out of the side pocket of my smallish purse today, and cannot believe I somehow missed them after looking through it like five times over the last three days.  WTF?, I say again.  Oh well, I guess at least I found them and don’t have to change the house locks.  I feel like a total do-do though!

Breakfast today was a staple with some new add ins–steel cut oats with honey, frozen mixed berries, soy protein, ground flax, cinnamon, and soy milk.  Coffee with Silk vanilla creamer on the side.

Yes, I know, soy soy soy, but I’ve got the stuff and plan to use it up.  I’ve read a lot more about soy over the last few weeks and am scared to eat too much of it, but I’m not the type to pour a half gallon of it down the drain or chuck a pile of protein powder.  One thing I don’t plan on stopping is the Silk creamer–love it too much and hate the alternatives.

This mix was pleasantly yummy, and the sweetness of the honey countered the berries’ sourness just perfectly. 

I ate rather late, so when Chris suggested lunch at 12:15 I wasn’t very hungry.  I ate my fruit and veg over the next hour or so.

The afternoon was chock full o’ action, and I forgot to eat my main lunch!!  Suddenly it was 4 and since we were heading to an early dinner, I skipped my “lunch.”  We hit up Westside Maria (Si Senor) and I tried something new: quesadilla ranchera.  Sounds good, right?  Well, it was  

This consisted of three small flour tortillas layered with sauteed veggies and cheese, served with guac & tomatoes on top, black beans and rice on the side…along with Chris’ avocados I ate half of this and was mighty full.  Not to mention having a tough time b/c the cheese was a tad rich for the tum tum. 

After feeling a tad ill for an hour the ickiness passed and I moved on to the gym.  I only hit up cardio, which was 50 minutes on the trusty stair mill doing intervals at 100spm/90spm.  Whoo, I was a sweaty beast when done.  And I craved fruit.

Somehow this ended up being my snack:  one carrot and 1 1/2 T Maranatha PB.  I was going to have an apple with it, and then decided to try the carrot/pb combo I’ve seen.  Not sure it’s my fave; I ate the carrots first and the PB alone after that :)  Lily caught sight of this plate and was tortured watching me eat two of her favorites, so I gave her a carrot and she snarfed it down.

Reading all these food blogs now is making me hungry!  Or is it thirst and allergies?  The last several nights have been tough for me on the “hunger-or-is-it-something-else? ” front. 

Now for some random moments with Kersten

-I must confess–over the last few weeks there have been several snacks not shown/discussed on the blog.  Most of them have been handfuls of almonds, a few crackers, a bite of PB while prepping oatmeal…that sort of thing.  Oh, and a few small pieces of the possibly non-vegetarian (“animal and/or vegetable shortening”) cookies hanging around the office. 

-I haven’t had a Diet Coke for over a month (as far as I can remember).  I was usually just drinking it at Si Senor, and since we didn’t go there for like 3-4 weeks I didn’t have any DC.  Tonight and last week when we visited I opted not to have one.  Don’t get me wrong, you know I still drink caffeine in the form of coffee every morning.

-Remembering to ask if rice/beans/other items are vegetarian is difficult. I totally forgot to ask during my last two visits to Si Senor.  I remember hearing someone else asking about the bean dip in the past, but can’t remember about the beans and rice.  I’ll have to get better at that. 

-My trouble spots are troubling me, but I don’t seem to be doing what’s needed to change them.  Is that troubling?  My inner and outer thighs, triceps and lats, abs, and lovehandle/hips are softer than I’d like, which is confusing.  I say that b/c five years ago when I got all skinny and fit with Miss Erin, I was firmer everywhere and approximately the same weight.  My workout routine is definitely not as intense as it was then on the weight front, but is more intense on the cardio front.  Correlation?  Causation?  Discuss.

-There’s a bike-by groper in Salem.  Watch out, Sarah!  You may be getting more than LovIN My Tummy soon!

Time for bed, yo.  Peace out.

Where’d my keys go? June 9, 2009

I’ve never lost my keys in my whole life before this last weekend.  In the back-and-forth and mayhem of moving I somehow misplaced them and cannot for the life of me remember where they are   I also didn’t realized I’d lost them until Monday afternoon.  Booo!  At least I hadn’t put my new office keys on there yet, and I keep my car key separate (although if it was together with the others I would have noticed the missing keys sooner, and maybe reclaimed them.  Grrr.).  I shall search more tomorrow and hope they turn up.  Even though I’m pretty sure I lost them about 20 miles from home, and they had no address/name on them, Chris is obsessed with changing the locks now that I’ve lost my keys.

Tonight I shall rely on a galleryof pics for the last three days.  A few highlights/details:

• Grandma’s 88th birthday dinner Sunday ended with a HUGE serving of pie–homemade rhubarb and Lee Berry Farms marionberry (?) with a big blob (I typed ‘blog’!!) of whipped cream. 
• my first breakfast in my new office was Kashi Go Lean Crunch with mucho strawberries and soymilk.  Yummy and satisfying in more ways than one.
• no, I didn’t eat that meat pictured.  Chris thought it deserved a pic so I indulged him   It was his dinner tonight of flank steak rounds with sauteed mushrooms and broc on the side.
• a fabulous batch of roasted butternut squash tonight.  They were mixed with canola oil spray, Northwoods seasoning, and some garlic salt.  Served with organic ketchup.  Mmmmmm…. I’m excited I have another batch I can cook up tomorrow or the next day.
• I’m missing all of that fruity goodness that I had last week.  When I put together my lunch it just doesn’t seem the same without the blueberries.  Must go to Costco and get more fruit!
• I didn’t go to the gym for like 3 1/2 days b/c of the move!  Oy vey. 

Last night I was about to post when nausea suddenly came over me, and I just about yakked.  Ugh.  Not sure if it was the super-red mystery sauce that was on my burrito or ???  Today I was fine, thankfully.

My office is just about set up, but for the artwork/decor.  I want to keep it simple, without clutter, so I need to rely on a really good piece of artwork and some simple, tasteful wall decor. 

I’ve been working on a big reorganizing project for our forms and brochures, and have quite enjoyed my inner organization nerd coming out.  I’ve got to cull 200 items down to about 130, map the damn forms bank, re-label it, and make sure no one feels like I left out there favorite items.  Personally I could do with about 10 things, but many of my colleagues are old school and like to have paper forms on hand, along with tons of brochures we never use.  Oh well, it is a rewarding task

Time for bed!  Ahhh…I’m tired, and bed sounds simply perfect.  Adios!