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!

New York, New York, here we come!

Woohoo! I'm so excited! I have 3 days in a row coming up with no gigs or teaching (which is highly unusual for me! There have been streaks where I've taught at least one lesson and/or played a gig for over 50 days in a row!) and my boyfriend was able to request off from work. So we're going to go to NYC for a mini-vacation! I'm so excited! We're driving up there and planning on seeing all the "tourist-y" things because I've only been there twice and both times it was to play a show, so there was really no sightseeing time. So we're going towards the end of May and I'll let you guys know all about it! I'm so glad my boyfriend enjoys traveling because so do I and I really want to be able to do more of it!

What's your favorite place you've ever traveled to? How long were you there for? What was the coolest thing you saw? What was the best meal you ever had while traveling?

I had a great breakfast today:


With Komodo Dragon coffee:


-1/2 C oats
-1/2 C pumpkin
-2 tsp flax
-2 tsp noni juice
-1 TB trail mix (finished it)
-3 cashews (finished them--must buy more soon!)
-sprinkling of soy nuts
-4 strawberries (plus many more eaten plain! One of the absolute best parts of summer! Fresh, relatively inexpensive strawberries! Woooo!)
-Chocoholic strikes again, AKA chocolate covered espresso beans and carob chips
-small spoon of PB

Hah! Does anyone else go a little overboard with oatmeal toppings?

I didn't get to the gym yesterday, but I really want to go today and fairly soon! I have a busy afternoon with teaching from 2:45-6:30pm and then driving roughly an hour to play a Cinco de Mayo gig (on ses de mayo--haha!) from 7:15-10pm tonight! (They know that I'll be running late and they're OK with that.) So this morning I need to workout but I also need to get some good practicing in. Yesterday was productive in the I caught up on some blog reading (*wink*), tried this new product from WFs (which was a little too runny for me, but it smelled great!)

did laundry, and set up an escrow account at my bank for my taxes (since everything I do is independently contracted, I have to make sure I'm basically withholding taxes from myself.) before I taught all evening. I made this for dinner/snacks:


Tuna sandwich with Miracle Whip and avocado on amazing whole grain bread! I ate one of these on Monday night also and it's INCREDIBLE! I've always loved canned tuna! :)

Seriously, are you jealous yet?

Tomatoes and brussel sprouts.


I ate this before I left my house. It was about 1/2 a carton of Greek yogurt with maybe 1/2 C MixMyGranola.


On my way home I also ate an apple, several chocolate rice cakes that I picked up at the grocery store and I had a Clif Z bar. My grocery shop was mainly for fresh produce and I got:


-strawberries
-hummus
-kale
-green onions
-1 cucumber
-green cabbage


-4 sf/ff yogurts
-ff cottage cheese
-whole grain pretzels (these Herr brand are THE BEST pretzels I've EVER had and they have flax seeds and lots of fiber in them! Seriously, if you find them in a store near you, BUY THEM!! Maybe I'll have to do a giveaway of them, because they are THAT good!)
-chocolate rice cakes (made with brown rice, at least!)
-gum!


-hair gel
-hair spray
-deodorant

Almost too exciting for words. Haha, not really, but at least my deodorant smells pretty! ;-)

In the world of giveaways, there are a couple going on right now.

Don't forget to enter my PB Loco and bars giveaway!

Megan is giving away some Mighty Maple and Dark Chocolate PB plus some dark chocolate and two bars. Umm, this is SOOO my kind of giveaway!

Danica's Daily is giving away Annie's Mac and Cheese! I love Annie's! :)

Jen at Prior Fat Girl is giving away Holey Donuts! I want to try these so badly but they don't fit into my budget!

You can also request some free Playtex Sport tampons here. Hey, free is free!

I haven't posted a gymnastics video for a while, so here's one of my favorite gymnasts from the 1996-2000 era, Yelena Prudunova from Russia. I love how strong and powerful she is! She has some great tumbling in this routine from the 2000 Olympics team finals. Enjoy!

MIA blogger has returned!

I've missed you all (shout out to Mariposa, with your adorable comment! Thank you!), but I had a fantastic weekend and VeggieGirl had the right idea in her great video post on blogging about when you want to, versus out of obligation and I totally agree with her. I love you all, but I also enjoyed being out and about this weekend (and yesterday!) and spending time with my friends, mainly my boyfriend. *Roll eyes at me here* :)

As such, I am going to have to re-cap the weekend fairly quickly since I have a lot to do this afternoon before teaching all evening. Let's start with my amazing breakfast today.


With coffee. Currently drinking Komodo Dragon Bold roast from Starbucks, given to me by my wonderful boyfriend, who knows just how important coffee is to me! I had specifically mentioned to him that I had tried this roast and really liked it, so he brought me an entire pound!


The usual oats, pumpkin, flax, and noni juice topped with:

-goji berry trail mix (from WFs--this stuff is amazing!)
-soy nuts
-0% Greek Yogurt
-chocolate covered ginger!!! (From TJs; if you like ginger, this stuff will greatly contribute yumminess to your life! So incredible, melted over hot oatmeal!!)

(I have been snacking on small handfuls of this stuff all weekend! It's so addictive! Let's just say that I finished the container almost entirely by myself in about 5 days, which has 11 servings. Haha, oops.)

My breakfast yesterday was similar, with added blackberries, and no trail mix:

I went to TJs and WFs on Friday night while waiting for my boyfriend to finish a show he was playing. (Yes, he's another musician and composer! And he wrote a piece and dedicated it to me! It's a fantastic piece and I'm not biased at all! ;-) Anyway, I picked up quite a few things but only got pictures of some of it.
Most of it's pretty self-explanatory. I bought the feta which I'm excited about, but I'm coming up short on suggestions of what to do with it. What are your favorite ways to eat feta cheese? Any recipes you love with it?

I made a bunch of veggies on Saturday as they were starting to go bad in my fridge. I just boiled some green beans and brussel sprouts and sauteed a pan of red kale, white onion, cilantro and red pepper.


I also baked a sweet potato and ate a bit of it before I remembered to take its picture. :)

So now that you've seen my healthy food, here are the treats from this weekend. Only some of them! There were actually quite a few, unphotgraphed things, mostly eaten while out with friends! I think you all know my food philosophy by now, of never denying myself yummy food simply because it's not healthy. In fact, during my years with DE, I'm pretty sure I would have qualified as orthorexic (an obsession with healthy food) as I NEVER ate ANYTHING made without 100% whole grain flour, anything with more than 4 grams of sugar per serving, absolutely no fried foods, and quite a few other highly restrictive rules placed upon myself. Like I've mentioned before, I missed out on quite a bit of life, and I don't want to do that anymore. The treats I had all in the past 4 days included: 2 slices of chocolate cake (on different occasions), 3 martinis at a swanky martini bar downtown (I had a blueberry martini, a tropical martini and a blackberry-ginger martini! Yes, I know they were probably 300 calories each! Oops!), a couple random beers here and there, and a couple pieces of unphotographed chocolate here at home. I had an amazing dinner on Saturday night with my boyfriend after the wedding I played, which went really well! I got to play with my first choice violist which made it a pleasure, knowing he was so solid musically and my cellist is great, too! We went out and I had a grilled chicken sandwich with sun-dried tomato pesto on a whole grain ciabatta with rosemary fries on the side. And a Yuengling to drink! What a great meal!

So on a related note, here's some chocolate that did make it onto the camera, all of which was mightily enjoyed by MOI! :)


A couple random bars eaten to and from teaching on Saturday:

Plus I dumped this into a bottle of water.


And some snacks from way back on Friday, since they were on my camera:


This is a small piece of ww bread topped with a soy sausage link, FF cheese and homemade hummus!

Broccoli topped with more homemade hummus!

These were blooming in my back yard! I love them!


OK, I've got to go do laundry, go to the bank, get gas, workout and shower before teaching, so I've got to end here. I'll try to comment on your blogs tonight after teaching. Hope everyone's weeks are going fantastically well!