Off for the weekend...

...No, not off from work! Rather, out of town to play two shows tonight and tomorrow night! (Getting home laaate on Saturday!!)

So I'll leave you with a quick post. Here's what my lovely breakfast is to start fueling a long day. My dilemma is that I want to get a workout in but I always wake up hungry, so I'm just eating now and then hoping a short run/workout won't bother me too much.

-oat bran bowl with grapes, a chopped fig, flax, pumpkin, cottage cheese, and PB.

Some of yesterday's eats included:

My wonderful, sweet, amazing boyfriend brought this home to me on Sunday when I had been having a rough weekend:

Letting the pictures speak for themselves....


I can't figure out if it's prettier with or without the flash, so here's with the flash:

You *know* you want some!

This is by far THE BEST gelato (or ice cream or really any other frozen treat I've ever had. Just throwin' that out there! And it probably isn't long for this world, seeing how it's sitting in my freezer! People, seriously, I can't describe how incredible this is!)

OK sorry, back on topic!

Or rather, going back to being grateful for all of the things my bf does for me, including little surprises he picks up for me without telling me. Like this Halloween Smiley Cookie. There's a restaurant in town know for their original smiley cookies and they do decorations for different times of the year. He and I split this, and yes I know there's probably 400-500 calories in this, and yes, I'm also totally OK with that! :)


A random snack.

Yesterday, I also went out to lunch at a Greek food restaurant with my former roommate and had pita and hummus and a whitefish with tomatoes and spinach topping and rice. And later after teaching, I went over to my friend's house and sipped Gentleman Jack and had one slice of pizza while talking and playing Trivial Pursuit on the Wii! So much fun and I was out until 2:30 then I woke up at 8:15 with my alarm! Not enough sleep but that OK!

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For a chance to win some Chobani love go here.

And for the chance to win some healthy and delicious cereal go here.

Alright friends, I'm off to finish up a few things and play two shows. I'll be back on Sunday!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Good run! And a horrible meal!

Yay! I'm pretty proud of myself. I went out tonight around 7:30pm, just to get a run in, no matter how short, since I really wasn't in the mood to run at all. Well, for some reason I was able to run much longer than I usually can and I ended up being out for 1 hour and 20 minutes, including two 20 minute running segments (plus many shorter ones, in fact most of tonight was running!!) I don't know how far it was or my speed, but I do know that I ran farther than I ever have and I'm honestly really proud of myself for not giving up, even though it doesn't come naturally to me! I'm trying hard not to compare myself also, because I know that running for 20 minutes at a time in the blog world isn't very much! I had made a new play list (Caitlin inspired me to mix things up!) and in the words of Jimmy Eat World (one of my favorite songs ever!):

Hey, Don't write yourself off yet.
It's only in your head you feel left out,
Or looked down on.
Just try your best,
Try everything you can.
And don't you worry what they tell themselves
When you're away.

[Chorus]

It just takes some time,
little girl, you're in the middle of the ride.
Everything, everything will be just fine,
Everything, everything will be alright. (alright)

Hey, You know they're all the same.
You know you're doing better on your own, (on your own)
So don't buy in.
Live right now.
Yeah, just be yourself.
It doesn't matter if it's good enough (good enough)
For someone else.

[Chorus x2]

Hey, don't write yourself off yet.
It's only in your head you feel left out, (feel left out)
Or looked down on.
Just do your best, (just do your best)
Do everything you can. (do everything you can)
And don't you worry what their bitter hearts (bitter hearts)
Are gonna say.

This part is my very favorite of all, because it's so true and such a good reminder:

Live right now.
Yeah, just be yourself.
It doesn't matter if it's good enough (good enough)
For someone else.

Anyway, before the run, I had a lot of carbo-licious good eats. Hah! The first part of my day wasn't exactly the healthiest ever. Here we go.

Breakfast was a bowl of two kinds of cereal with half a banana and a spoon of PB.

The dry mix, with ground flax sprinkled on top:


And with 1/2 a banana, PB, and milk added--much better!


And with my beloved coffee. Better still!


After church I had a wheat-ish (they're never actually whole grain, are they?) bagel with cream cheese and a Luna bar in my car. I have had WAYYY too many of these--like 5 in the past 3 days! (All this flavor which is my favorite!) I don't do moderation. But I don't feel too bad about these, especially because they're low glycemic, so they really don't adversely affect my blood sugar. In fact, they keep me full for a long time!)


Then I bought a frozen yogurt from a new shop in town on a whim just because. It was OK, but it was very plain and really over priced. ($3.20 for a small without mix-ins--definitely not worth it!) It said it had live and active cultures, so I'm going to take that and run with it, at least in terms of how I didn't waste my money.


And I went to a local Italian street festival with a friend where I had a HUGE slice of thin crust cheese pizza. It was sooooo good! :) No picture of that either. Sorry.

After running tonight I was craving brussel sprouts. Go figure. I'm so weird! But I had probably about 8 of these.


And a few minutes later when the real hunger set in, I had (yet another!) rice bowl.


Same basic idea as the ones I've already blogged about:

-brown rice
-zucchini w. tofu
-1/2 can of tuna
-rest of the avocado (but I have another one! Woo! Expect more of these! :)
-cheddar cheese
-salsa

Seriously, this is the easiest, most customizable meal and it's really healthy (and cheap!), too! You might be seeing more of these, just to warn you. ;-)

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Now for the weekend recap. I had a busy day on Saturday. After teaching in the morning (9-12:15, including driving times during which, yes, I had another Luna bar!) I could have gone home but I only had a little time and it would have been extra driving, so I decided to stay out and hang out killing time at Starbucks and Whole Foods. I'm terrible. Hehe! I got a large black coffee at Starbucks and for some reason drinking it was even more pleasurable than usual. I got tingles through out my body and goosebumps all over my skin. Who knows?! But I seriously love coffee. It's like a spiritual experience for me, and very calming!

Onto Whole Foods, where in addition to picking up a few groceries, I also bought myself lunch (which I need to STOP doing simply for budget purposes! But seriously, this came to a little over $8 and I'd spend at least that much getting a Quizno's sandwich. When I'm out and about this seems like a reasonably good option, even as far as price as concerned, as certainly superior in the nutrition department!)

-tikka chicken (lower left)
-curried chick peas (far right)
-Indian tofu (upper left)
-lemon cilantro tofu (upper right)
-steamed broccoli and peppers (throughout)

Anyway, I then taught from 2:30-4:45 and came home to make work-related phone calls from 5:15pm to 7:15pm non-stop. (I had like 9 people to contact!)

And finally, on Saturday night, the bf had a show from 9pm-1am and we got there by 8pm. (I didn't want to be out that late and definitely should have driven my own car!) But I was HANGRY at that point and I needed to eat, but the place said it would be a super long time for our food. Well, this wasn't an option for me, so we politely told them that I was with the band and eventually I could order a salad.

It looked promising:


But honestly, it was HORRIBLE! It's never a good sign when you're expecting to be sick after a meal! The veggies were soggy, the dressing was way too heavy, the goat cheese seemed old and worst of all: I think I saw two gnats in my food!!! I should have sent it back at that point (diseases? Hello?) but I'm the ever way-too-polite girl who didn't want to make a fuss, so I choked down as much of it as I could and luckily got full because it had a lot of fat in it. But it was nasty! (And by the way, I didn't get sick!)

What about you? Do you have a hard time voicing needs, especially complaints?

I am NOT good at this, obviously from the above example and I am trying to work on it. I even have a hard time bringing up issues to my roommates, like if they owe me money or something. I rarely ever send back anything at a restaurant because I feel bad, like I'm being rude.

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Well, I got another sample in the mail this weekend:

I can't wait to try them!

Finally, check out this rockin' giveaway of some really delicious food stuffs!

OK, it's 2am. I should go to bed. Good night, all!

Moderation is not my strong suite.

What do I mean by my title? Well, I've always been a bit of a black and white thinker. When I was younger, I'd either not practice for a few days or practice for 5 hours at a time, never taking a day off. I wanted to "lose weight" and was diagnosed with anorexia. My eating fluctuates from quite clean to pretty unhealthy every few days or weeks. And when I exercise, I either don't do it for a week at a time, or I do it every day for an hour or two. Case in point, yesterday I wanted to go out for a 30 minute jog/walk (which I am now calling a wog!) and it turned into about 1 hour and 45 minutes. Haha, I did the 30 minute wog, but I also did 25 minutes of expresso bike (racing--so sweaty after this!), 20 minutes of leg strength training and another 25 minutes of walking.

I need to work on being able to do more things in moderation. Even the little tiny things that I catch myself doing, such as only setting my A/C in my car to either be THE coldest or THE hottest (when I get too cold). I never set it in the middle, until I've made myself start doing it (for moderation practice!) and it was actually very uncomfortable for me.
What about you? Are you and all-or-nothing thinker? If so, in what ways does that manifest itself? And how would you like to get better at that?

But onto the food. My recent love is eggplant. It's so easy and so good. I slice it width-wise and rinsed the discs in saltwater then stuck them in the oven with EVOO for 20 minutes (?? I don't remember how long I baked them--sorry!!) But afterwards, I almost used them like bread (loving the texture!) and topped them with lunch meat (free range, grass fed, humanely raised turkey meat). Like this:


And this:



(with butternut squash fries)

I finished the eggplant, but I bought another one, so expect to see it soon. :)

I had my go-to snack of PB and carrots at some point. (On my camera, maybe from Thursday?)

And for the past two nights I've treated myself to the WF salad bar because it's the ONLY thing that has sounded good and (confession) I was tempted to just skip dinner, which I knew was NOT a good option. So I figured that spending a few extra bucks to be good to myself was definitely worth it.

Here's the first night's salad and the second one was similar.

-spinach
-organic dandelion greens
-red bell peppers
-Parmesan cheese
-2 chunks of vegan chicken stuff (mid left)
-balsamic tofu (upper right)
-curry tofu (lower right)
-quinoa salad (bottom middle)
-and my FAVORITE, poppy seed tarragon (??) chicken, the purple-ish stuff on the right! This stuff is sooooo good! It has almonds in it to and I'll probably be picking some up just to make sandwiches with.

Now for three different mornings' breakfasts:

Which is:



And the second day was similar, with half a peach:


Diced it and saved the other half.

Then I decided that bowl of cereal and yogurt needed something else...Carob chips!!

Much better! :)

And my breakfast today was DELICIOUS!


I had one slice of healthy homemade banana bread (recipe follows!!) with ~1/2 C cottage cheese and the other half of my peach from yesterday.

Here's the lovely loaf of banana bread, with the inaugural slice already having been cut and shared by me and my boyfriend. :)

And here's the recipe:

3/4 C honey (the recipe called for Splenda)
3/4 C flax meal
5 ripe bananas
1/4 C skim milk
1/4 plain yogurt (the recipe called for 1/4 C sour cream)
2 tsp eggwhites (I used one regular egg's egg white)

2 C whole wheat pastry flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Pre-heat oven to 350.

Mix together the first 5 ingredients.
Combine the next 3 ingredients in a separate bowl, then stir into the wet mixture.
Pour into a regular (large) loaf pan and bake for 1 hour, 10 minutes or until a knife comes out clean.

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There you have it. It's super easy!! I'm not exactly a baker extraordinaire, so if I can do it, I'm sure you can, too. :) And it's delicious! Even my bf liked it and I didn't tell him what I had done to make it more nutritious!

OK, check this out for a free sample of Dandy-Lyon bites, an impressive raw foods snack.

I know there are several giveaways happening in blog land, but I don't have time to hunt them down. I'll try to post again tonight with those. Right now though, I'm off to shower then go to and help with the registration event for one of the music programs where I teach and I'm teaching a private lesson at home later today.

I hope everyone is having an excellent Saturday!

It's 09/09/09

Woohoo! We only have three more times like this (10/10/10 next year, 11 and 12) before such dates are gone for a very long time. I'm such a nerd--why do I find this cool? ;-)

My days have been busy getting for my first ever studio recital which is coming up this Sunday! I'm so excited to have 15 of my own students performing and we're having a reception afterward that many of the parents were eager to help out with. It should be a great event!

I know it's been a few days since I've posted, but I've had some lovely eats recently.

Two of my very similar breakfasts. I eat a lot of cereal in the summer months. I usually mix high fiber cereal with a little granola, fruit and milk. Plus coffee. :) And yes, the meals are eaten in front of my computer with messy papers all around. Sorry! I get so jealous of all the bloggers that have such amazing clean and beautiful houses and computer desks!


This salad was a highlight! (I had another one just like it the next day!)

This had:

-spinach
-tomato
-avocado
-sauteed cabbage/onion
-tofu
-turkey lunch meat
-a little dressing


A random snack. I've been figuring out that --for me--eating a higher fat and lower sugar diet is really working! I've even been cutting way back on fresh fruit, in addition to most processed stuff. (For meals at least. Chocolate is the exception to this rule.) I feel so much better ordering sandwiches with cheese and sauces with fat in them (think like Subway with Chipotle dressing, rather than their fat free honey mustard--which I also like, but I'm just thinking in terms of how it makes me feel). I really relate to a lot of what Heather says and I love the way she eats. In fact, I kind of admire her and I would love to adopt more of her nutritional habits!

And for an amazing superfood-filled breakfast I present to you:

-2 eggs, scrambled with broccoli
-sweet potatoes
-frozen strawberries

And for the highlight of my week, my boyfriend bought me dark chocolate covered cherries "just because." Yeah, that's right--be jealous. ;-)


I might or might not have consumed more than a single two-piece serving size! They are seriously one of the best things I've ever tasted. I believe the term "Mouthgasm" is VERY appropriate to use here! :)

*drools*

*contented sigh*

OK, I'm off to do some errands:

-Bank
-Grocery store
-Gym (?!)
-Post my first ever Operation Beautiful notes

Then teaching for an hour and playing a church service tonight.

Hope everyone's having an awesome 09/09/09!

And so the hiatus ends...

Hi everyone!

I am so sorry for being gone SOOOO long! It's been over a month since my last blog! Wow, talk about negligent. What have I been up to? Well, I've played 3 weddings and prepared for 5 more coming up in August, played 8 shows, taught more lessons that I can count (~50, maybe?), moved to another house and mostly unpacked all my stuff, went camping with my boyfriend and his parents, finished three books, and started some others. There's been some other stuff of course, but that's most of it.

I'm mostly going to catch you up on a few blog-worthy meals that I've had on my camera for a while now.

Cold Uncle Sam's cereal with strawberries and raisins. So good!



I also had several amazing bowls of oatmeal. Here's a popular one:

-oats
-one chopped fig
-raisins
-cottage cheese
-P B (you can't see it, but I always have some kind of nut butter with most meals. I'm discovering how much better I feel consistently with a fairly high fat diet. Who knew?!)

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Some sort of ww pasta, zucchini combo topped with feta cheese. I make wonderful "bachelorette style" meals...aka, throw together a bunch of healthy ingredients that I like and I'll probably like the finished product! :)


With an apple.

One of my more favorite snacks. :)


Tuna and spinach salad. Kind of plain, but delicious. I mixed the tuna with light Italian dressing.


And had these on the side. They are SOOO good; quite addictive actually. They are a new product and come in many different varieties including almond, cashew, mixed nut, and the honey roasted peanut shown below. Sorry about the blurry picture. I REALLY wish they were slightly less expensive because even on sale they're $2.50 a bag and the bags are small (I.e. no where near 5 servings that it says it has!)


As a self-proclaimed chocoholic, I had to try this when I found it at an out-of-town market.


It was quite good, and yes, I ate the whole bar.

I went to the Warped Tour, mostly to check it out (and my ticket is tax-deductible because I'm a full-time musician (job perks!) I unfortunately missed actually seeing Flogging Molly perform (the reason I went!) but I snapped a few pictures afterwards at their autograph table. They are an Irish punk rock band and I love them! They are one of my favorite bands ever and their music has powered me through more workouts that I can count.


Here are a few of the books that I've read or I am reading:


Purple Cow is an EXCELLENT book on marketing one's self especially in today's economy where a traditional advertising approach doesn't work. The premise is that if you're driving along and you see a cow by the side of the road, that's kind of cool. But if you keep driving they just start to get boring or even annoying. But if you suddenly, in the midst of the brown cows, saw a purple cow, well that would be remarkable. Even though I don't have a traditional job, it made me look at my profession in a different light and to try and brainstorm ways to be different and more exciting than all the other violinists out there.


I HIGHLY recommend this book to anyone under 30 or 40, especially if you don't have a great knowledge of all things financial. I really don't know much at all, and it's been so helpful to me! It's written in plain, down-to-earth English, with helpful and easy-to-understand definitions and graphs. I've only gotten to the first 3 chapters, but I'm excited to read more.


And Complications was so interesting! I loved it! Told from a surgeon's point of view, it describes the learning experience, the medical mysteries that still remain, and most importantly, it treats all of the patients' stories with an element of humanity and compassion. It's also really easy reading (no heavy medical terminology) and I really enjoyed it!

More book reviews to come in future blog postings.

Lastly, I got to go through the lovely experience of a finger staph infection. It hurt quite a bit! It got infected on a Friday, and by Monday and Tuesday it hurt so much and was so swollen that I had to call the doctor. It started oozing pus while still at home and when I got into the office they lanced it (to keep getting the pus out) and gave me a 10 day antibiotic. Warning, gross pictures below!



I PROMISE that I will update this MUCH MORE frequently than this past month! PLEASE don't give up on me just yet! :)