Remaining positive

The last couple weeks have been tough. Not gonna lie, they've been two of the hardest weeks I've been through recently. I found out that an ex-boyfriend is dating someone else, and I realized I definitely never got over him. I feel so silly for even typing that out...it seems like such a junior high thing to be sad over. But I've been working on truly moving on, not just saying I have moved on, in my mind and I'm ready to let it go.

Another reason this week sucked is that I had won Brooks running shoes and shorts via No Meat Athlete's giveaway but then I put the award certificate postcard in my outgoing mailbox and it got ruined by rain/wind/storms!! :( Talk about an epic fail!! I contacted Matt (the author of No Meat Athlete) and I hope desperately that I'll be able to get a replacement. But I understand if I can't. Lesson learned: put the damn thing in a REAL mailbox or better yet send it freaking certified mail. Right. Got it...1 pair of running shoes and cute shorts too late! :(

Anyway, because my heart had been set on a new pair of Brooks, I decided to just suck it up and buy the pair that I had wanted. In having won them, I went to a local running store to try on the different models and see what might work the best. I am VERY hesitant to wear any running shoes other than Vibram FiveFingers, as my pair of Mizuno Wave Riders gave me a horrible shin splint/most definitely stress fracture that required me to stop running for over 4 months this summer! Annnyway, it turns out that those motion control shoes weren't the right kind for my feet. GREAT. Just my luck...the owner of the running store who had fitted me with them was confused as to why he had suggested those and 3 employees said these would be a better fit; my feet weren't rolling either way as I came off the ground in these. So, I bought them, after realizing the chances of getting the free shoes and shorts (which were cute-I would have selected these!) were essentially gone.

Here they are in all their glory. They're the Brooks Ghost 3 model.

And now it is time for me to take them out on a test run. And also try to get some happy endorphins from said test run!

Sitting in traffic on a Saturday morning

Well, it's Saturday morning and I canceled two students after sitting in traffic for an hour due to a freeway closure. Oh joy...don't you wish you lived such an exciting life as mine? You were probably doing something like sleeping in and then eating homemade pancakes, or running, or shopping, or well...I guess it wouldn't have been hard to have a better Saturday morning than mine.

But, on the plus side...now I have time to blog! :)

I am the most excited about the same breakfast that I've been eating every morning for a few weeks now! It's an egg sandwich with melted cheese (your choice--I've been eating a lot of cheddar but also mixing it up!), avocado (super important!), spinach and ketchup.

I've been trying lots of cheeses for fun. I love them all! If you really want to send me cheese, I won't turn it down. :)


And with coffee, of course. Yeah, I totally took a bit before I took the picture. Oops. And yes, that is a monster coffee cup! Kind of perfect for me. :)


As Fall approaches is here and it's getting to be ridiculously cold for this California girl, I've been eating lots of soup. This is Amy's lentil, and it's basically the least photogenic food there it. Sorry.

There's an amazing cupcake shop in town that just came out with their new Fall flavors menu. So when I saw Pumpkin Maple, it took a lot of begging and pleading from them to get me to try one I just had to try one.


It didn't disappoint. The frosting is all buttery and rich and delicious.

Lastly, I have a visitor who lives under my house!

OK, well I'm off to study Algebra and Nutrition and make some banana bread and some lemonade. But not the kind you can drink. I hope you're having a lovelier Saturday than me!

Of only two things I'm sure

I hate the confusing times in my life. I am being hit HARD by the quarter life crisis which I wanted to believe that I avoided so delicately, by being focused on my goals from the time I was little girl. I have (had?) always wanted to be a violinist. I practiced hard in high school. I practiced through rough family times. I played the violin through the worst years of my anorexia. I went to college for violin performance. And grad school, too. At the age of 21, I received my masters degree in violin performance. By that time, having worked through grad school, I had enough students and gigs to support myself with the violin.

I should have lived happily ever after.

Except that I didn't.

For about 4 years now, since about the 2nd semester of grad school, I have been BURNT OUT. Big time. Ever since graduation, I've kept hoping that that would go away eventually. That I would start to love the violin again. That I would look forward to practicing. And that hasn't happened. To clarify: I still LOVE certain aspects of playing the violin. I love teaching students who care and who practice, but that's about 4 out of roughly 30 students I see weekly. In many of the other lessons I teach, we mainly just sight read because they haven't practiced, yet again. I also still enjoy playing with the rock band I play with. Their shows are exciting and deeply fulfilling to see so many people truly enjoying themselves. Lastly, I enjoy certain weddings. I d really love being able to provide music for a glowing bride and to make the musical aspect of her wedding easier on the bride and groom.

BUT, that's it. There are so many aspects that I no longer enjoy. I don't enjoy working 7 days a week and still barely being able to pay the bills. I don't enjoy having almost totally useless, yet still luxuriously expensive private health insurance and having no prospects of ever having better health insurance for the rest of my life. Similarly, I don't really look forward to continuing to have 0 days of paid time off, for both sick and personal days combined. And a retirement account? That's a joke. I don't feel like I'm really helping anyone at all. I don't even feel a sense of personal fulfillment most of the days that I work, AND I don't really make very much money to do it. Certainly not enough money to support a family, which I would like to be able to do someday.

And therefore, I am announcing that I am returning to school to get my master's degree in nutrition and then to study and become a Registered Dietician!!!

I have already started classes, which means that I am currently taking Algebra and Introduction to Nutrition, while still working full-time in music, subbing at a school and baby-sitting. Yes, it's busy and stressful. But, I want to do this, for me. This WAS NOT a rash, impulsive decision. I have thought about returning to school for several years and finally signed up for a summer course this past summer. I am currently paying for classes privately, which of course if expensive and sometimes I wonder if it's worth it. But I believe in the depths of my heart that it is.

Ultimately, my DREAM and my PASSION is to become an RD in order to work with people suffering from eating disorders. The years of my life that I suffered from anorexia, then bulimia, then ED-NOS were truly the worst years of it. Every day was a living hell. I was in physical pain ALL THE TIME, everything from migraines and bloating to charlie horses that were so bad that I would wake up in the middle of the night in tears. My hair fell out, especially during recovery. I was cold during the 100 degree days of summer. Additionally, I was tormented by thoughts of food and calories and weight. I assumed people were always looking at everything I ate, and that bothered me. I was mentally and emotionally SICK. I was extremely mean to myself, constantly putting myself down. I was also not a fun person to be around, as I would snap over every little thing, partially due to the fact that I was starving. Literally.

Through God's grace, He saved me both physically, and several years later, mentally as well. He sustained me through some dark times and now I can truly say that I've been living for several years! My decision to become an RD has nothing to do with my former obsession with food, and everything to do with wanting to help people. Men, women, young and old. Anyone whose life has ever been affected by an eating disorder. It will be a LONG ROAD, as I have virtually no science background, but it is one that I am excited to take. And I will be blogging about it. I'm not sure exactly what the future will look like; in fact, that brings me to explaining the title of this post. With all of the confusion I feel in my life, I am only sure of these two things:

1) God has been faithful to me, and will continue to lead me where I should go.

2) Nutrition, exercise and healthy living have become VERY big passions of mine, and I want to turn them into my career!

Other than that, I'm just going to have to have faith and hold on. I hope you'll come along with me for the ride. But in the meantime, I want to leave you with one of my favorite quotes, which is a line from a song by the band Kutless:

"It doesn't matter what you've heard. Impossible is not a word. It's just a reason for someone not to try."

In case I have any readers left

I signed up for the 2011 Pittsburgh Marathon!

The FULL one.

What was I thinking?!

Happy Father's Day to all dads!

What did you do with and/or for your dad today? Mine is across the country, so I'll probably just send an e-card and call home.

Here's my delicious smoothie breakfast, which I've been having almost every day first thing in the morning!

This one is:

-milk
-yogurt
-spinach
-hemp protein powder
-fresh strawberries
-fresh grapes
-frozen blueberries
-Peanut butter

And on Friday, I went on a bike ride that accidentally turned into 3 hours! Whoops! I definitely wasn't prepared with enough food and water (two dates and 1/2 a bottle of water doesn't cut it!)

But I came home and devoured the most beautiful sight ever:



I had three quarters of it and the remaining quartet was consumed a few hours later. Gone, just like that! But I will CERTAINLY be buying it again, because it was one of the most delicious things I've eaten recently. I only wish it had a whole grain crust and that it didn't cost so much $$$. But Amy's, you are looked upon fondly and I look forward to trying your other pizzas and really, all of your other products.

I haven't run on my leg for 3 1/2 weeks now, and it still hurts quite a bit, some of the time. (For example, I feel it heavily if I take even 3 steps to run across a street!) Does anyone with experience of a stress fracture know how long I should take off? (I can't really see a doctor because my health insurance is crappier-than-crappy but I'm assuming it's a stress fracture at this point. I know my body pretty well.)

Well, I'm going to crawl into bed and read. It's only 10:30pm, but I'm ready to call it a night.

Tempermental camera

Hah! So my camera decided to give me back all my pictures today! Very funny, camera, OK? But hey, at least I have good pictures now!

So let's jump right in to some of my food over the last few days, that I wanted to show you before. A few nights ago, I made a dinner that felt fancy to me:

Sole fillet-
brussel sprouts with hummus,


chips and salsa and of course, I rocked this white wine.

(Don't mind the coffee pot in the upper left corner--my counter tops are small!)

I mixed salsa with Greek yogurt (it's REALLY good, especially for cutting the heat from more spicy salsas) and dipped multigrain Food Should Taste Good chips into it.

And my other extremely successful dinner of this week was Indian food! (Or at least, the easy but healthy and delicious kind!)

I prepped a whole pan of zucchini and mushrooms and sauteed them a bit in EVOO and garlic:

Then I dumped this Kook's Vindaloo sauce over top of them and let it simmer for a long time (~20 minutes?)


The sauce is quite spicy, but lucky for me, I like spicy! :) What's your opinion of spicy food?

Isn't it beautiful?!

Over top of brown rice I made that was a sample in my Pittsburgh Half Marathon goody bag. It came in the most adorable little single person, 4 oz bag.

I think I had 2 or three (small) platefuls of this:

'Twas delicious!!

And most of my breakfasts lately have included smoothies, as I discovered the appeal of the Green Monster. (I'm only like 3 years late, I know...!)

Full fat cheddar (I don't buy lowfat cheese any more!) on whole wheat, with a blueberry green monster and coffee! Most of my breakfasts have looked exactly like that, except for sometimes I put Peanut butter on the toast if that sounds better on any given morning.

And one slightly different breakfast (on Monday before my 40 mile bike ride) was:

Slathered in ketchup
OK, I'm off to shower and then go teach. Tomorrow I'm taking my car in to get the brake pads replaced! They are SOOO worn down and desperately need to be replaced!! Here's to hoping that I get to both teaching studios safely today! Luckily, I really don't have to drive all that far (probably a totally of 15 miles today) so I should be OK. UGH though--not fun having your car shudder as you try to stop!!

Have a lovely day!

Dying camera

Ugh, my camera is either at or near the end of its life! :( Not cool camera, not cool. I swear, I've been taking great pictures of amazing food, and it just deletes them for no reason! Grrr!!

I will try to resolve its issue soon (or just buy a new camera!) so that I can show you some delicious food! I mean, today I went on a 4 hour and 11 minute bike ride, so I obviously had to eat some good fuel. On the actual bike ride I just had a Nugo bar (a locally made protein bar that's delicious!) and 2 dates.
(sorry it's so small; it's courtesy of Google Images, and they are all small)

But for breakfast I had a lovely egg/veggie/cheese scramble, a slice of toast with white chocolate dreams PB.
Magic, right there. :)

When I came home I inhaled a leftover tupperware of brown rice with sauteed zucchini and Indian sauce of some sort (forget what it was called). Plus a bowl of puffed kamut and Optimum blueberry with skim milk and a big blob of peanut butter. Plus some more strawberries and a banana with PB. What can I say, I was hungry, and I had to immediately start teaching violin for 3 hours, so I wanted to stay nourished through it.

After teaching, I had dinner with my friend: 3 (smallish) slices of bread with EVOO and spices for dipping, a bit of fish, whole wheat pasta, corn and a small side salad. Finished off with a small bowl of frozen yogurt.

It was delicious and I feel GREAT! (It's amazing how many calories biking requires, while being much easier on my body than running!)

OK, while I'm lame and have a dying camera, you should check out this giveaway for Tanabars.
And this one, for cute workout towels.

And hopefully I'll be less lame soon!

For now, I'm one tired girl, so it's bed time. Good night!