New Feature: Chocolate Reviews

Good morning! I hope you all had a great weekend! I had a very busy week, hence the lack of posting. This weekend I played an awesome show with a guitarist and drummer that didn't even start until 10pm! So needless to say, I was up very late both for the show and to hang out afterward, as is the custom in the rock performance world! Went to bed at 4:30am (LATE, even for me!!) and woke up at 9am to watch Office Space, which I had never seen (it's great!) and then went about my long (but fun!) work day. I taught all afternoon and then my kids (aka students) at one of my studios had their big concert of the year and the orchestra that I have helped start performed at that event. Anyway, I am back posting today, obviously.

"They" always say to blog about what you know. I love food blogging and the wonderful bloggers I've gotten to know through it! So a new thing I'll be doing on here is regularly reviewing all the kinds of chocolate I eat. (Because I do eat A LOT of it!) Chocolate doesn't make me gain weight easily and doesn't screw with my blood sugar levels the way other desserts do. Probably because of the fat in chocolate and for the fact that I buy reasonably dark chocolate which has limited sugar + fiber! SCORE! So without further ado, I present the first chocolate review. Consider it my contribution to your taste buds! :) I know, I'm sooo helpful!

"Beaucoup Berries. Rich Dark Chocolate, Cranberries, Cherries & Vanilla"

7 Grams of fiber and 50% DV of iron! Cool!

Dagoba gets major points for a cute label! Above reads "You can deprive the body but the soul needs chocolate." Amen!

And "The Art of Chocolate Alchemy." I really enjoy it when companies put cute little slogans/interesting trivia/funny paragraphs on their packaging!

Look at that beauty!

I had a coupon for it at Whole Foods so I think I only paid around $1 for it. (Can't remember--sorry. I will start including the prices of the chocolate in these reviews.)

It is excellent! I like the very slight tang that the cranberries give it, among the hints of cherry and vanilla and mainly exceptionally smooth chocolate! And all of Dagoba's chocolate comes from organic sustainably grown cacao beans, which I can definitely support!

I can't wait to try their other chocolate bars! Also, I have two more kinds of chocolate to do reviews on, but for now I should get to the gym and then practice, before teaching, so I must end here. More posts coming soon though! :)

What is your favorite brand of chocolate? Any recommendations for me?

Running Music, part 1

Good morning! Yay--I'm actually posting 2 days in a row! Thanks for all the recent comments by new readers! I really love getting them! It totally makes my day, so I just wanted to say thanks!

So I wanted to share some of my running/workout music with you and I would LOVE to hear your workout play lists! Please share them with me! Do you have separate lists for different activities (running, strength training, yoga, etc)? Any other themed play lists? Do you have any particular favorite artists or genres? Especially lesser known artists that I can familiarize myself with. I always enjoy discovering new music, so comment to your heart's content!

Here are some of my favorite songs/artists, specifically for running. I have blogged before about how I am working hard to improve my running (although right now my shin is in serious trouble and I'm staying off of it for the next 2 weeks to even have a shot at running my first half marathon on March 27th!) But ordinarily, I was trying to run 4 days a week between 3-5 miles, plus a long 10-ish mile run once a week. So that's a lot of time and good music makes it so much more fun! I thrive with good music and it really motivates me so much more than if I had to run without it. It also provides the energy to keep pushing through (all of my songs are quite upbeat) because at this early stage in my running, with my extremely limited abilities, I am pretty much dying after the first 1/2 mile and anything thereafter is simply a mental and physical battle.

So without further ado, this is my all-time favorite songs list (part 1):

-Viva La Vida by Coldplay As a violinist, I am immensely biased toward excellent songs with strings in them!

-Lose Yourself by Eminem Always inspiring. It gets me just angry enough to keep pushing!

-Kick Drum Heart by The Avett Brothers
A peppy piano-driven song!

-Drunken Lullabies by Flogging Molly
And many other songs of theirs! I'm pretty sure I could do an entire long run of Flogging Molly songs! They are extremely upbeat Irish punk rock, for those not familiar! Other favorites include: Kilburn High Road, Rebels of the Sacred Heart, Requiem for a Dying Song, What's Left of the Flag, Tomorrow Comes a Day Too Soon, From the Back of a Broken Dream, and many more.

-Erasers on Pencils by Ceili Rain (a lesser known, but incredible artist) -These Things Have a Way of Workin' Out by Ceili Rain
Hard to find these songs, but worth buying the CD for. They are uplifting both lyrically and musically. I could loop these and be content for a long time. -Henrietta by The Fratellis
Another indie-punk band. I think maybe I have a large inner punk kid in me! :) Seriously, high energy and fun. Also recommended by them: Flathead, Chelsea Dagger, The Gutterati and Creepin' Up the Back Stairs.

-Plasti-Queens by Geoff Byrd
Nice and funky, with cool lyrics.

-Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous by Good Charlotte
This was popular when I was in high school, so I listened to it a lot. Good beat.

-The Middle by Jimmy Eat World
"It just takes some time, little girl, you're in the middle of the ride, everything is going to be alright." Great lyrics, great beat, so uplifting! One of my most comforting songs!
-Leave Me Alone by Hanna Pakarinen
Another artist who is harder to locate. But totally worth it. She's Finnish (I think) and has an excellent voice plus catchy almost rhyming music. Also check out Go Go and Stronger Without You by her.
-Jesus Loves You by Stellar Kart
I know it's a Christian song, and I don't want to offend anyone, but it's high energy and string-driven, so I love it! I can't say I'm a huge fan of the name, though!
-Fatima by K'Naan -Wavin' Flag by K'Naan
K'Naan has a cool voice and excellent instrumentation! I mean, a sampled trumpet riff? How many songs can boast of that? And his lyrics are great, but sad. Especially Fatima; you have been warned.
-Face Down by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus
A very sad song that deals with domestic violence. But it handles it maturely and it helps me push through!

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I don't want to overwhelm anyone, so I will end this post here. While I was typing, I noticed how long it was getting and I decided to break it into two (or more) posts. There are many more artists on my running play list, so I'll try to post that in a few days.

Before I go, want to leave you with a few more snow pictures!

My street!

You can barely tell where the cars start!


Big foot. Or just me being silly. :)

My poor little car! I hope the poor thing starts when I need it to!


A cleared sidewalk.

Most of the city is still shut down and most of my evening students have canceled. So I'm just staying at home all day, practicing and blogging. I do need to get some major practicing in, due to that Missouri gig that is coming up!

I might try to walk to the gym again. I ventured there yesterday and got a decent 30 minutes on the SciFit machine + 60 minutes of strength training. (Trying to stay off my shin!) Plus the walk which should have been 20 minutes was 45 minutes each way!

In the meantime, if you're snowed in (or even if you're not) here are two CHOCOLATE giveaways! (Hook me up! You know how much I love my chocolate! Wheee!)

-The Voracious Vegan is giving away some awesome Sweet Earth organic vegan chocolates!
-Mambo Sprouts is giving away fair trade organic chocolate!

I hope everyone is staying safe and warm! Spring is almost here!

Snow-pacolypse!

Holy Snow!! Geez, we got about 18 inches dumped on us overnight! As in, in one night only. As in, on Friday at 2:00pm, it was totally dry and snow-free outside! Here's what I woke up to:

My front steps!

And the view from my back porch.

Do you have snow where you are? And if/when you are snowed in, what's your favorite way to spend the day?

I had a very productive day! ALL of my lessons at both studios were canceled, and pretty much the entire city was SHUT DOWN. (Bars, the symphony, even STARBUCKS!, etc.) So I took advantage of it and slept in! (I slept from 11:00pm to 10:30am on the first day in forever that I haven't set my alarm!! Gosh, what's wrong with me? How can I possibly need that much sleep?!) I also did 2 loads of laundry, changed my sheets, dusted a bit, organized my room, vacuumed, and got a lot of practicing in!

In the morning, I talked to my parents for a long time and made breakfast:

A virtuous yellow pepper with avocado, parsley and hummus + 2 eggs with organic ketchup!

And for some carb-y deliciousness, I snacked on...ahem...several chocolate chip cookies that I made yesterday.

(The letters LJ are on many things above so that my roommates don't eat my food!)


Plus a little baking =

(I have been overdosing on these cookies which are SOOO good! Also, my workouts have been drastically cut, due to the weather and a VERY sore shin all week. I have barely worked out at all, so I'm counting on the old metabolism to keep things going! Woo! Yay for a 23 year old metabolism! Lol!)

And apparently I was in a baking mood all week, because several days ago I made these:

Neither the cookies nor the brownies have an actual recipe! I just sort of threw some stuff in a bowl, mixed it together and baked them. Being thoroughly prepared to throw them both out if needed, I was pleasantly surprised to taste both of them and find out that they were excellent! Maybe I will try to recreate them next week and actually write down the recipe...what a novel concept, I know.

Anyway, onto the non-sweet foods.

Power snack extraordinaire:

-peas
-broccoli
-PB
-reduced fat swiss cheese
-avocado

Another classic snack:


And some excellent meals:

-sauteed veggies as the base (cabbage, onion, red bell pepper, spinach + EVOO)
-avocado
-tempeh
-hummus

**I had a bunch of food pictures on my camera, so I apologize for having to go through these quickly.**

Some random lunch this week:


Tuna, avocado and hummus sandwich.

Close up of the veggies:


Last week a friend invited me over for dinner, and he sent me home with leftovers which fueled me for a long day of teaching on Saturday (a week old...what a bad blogger!)

This was a mixture of shrimp, veggies and a teriyaki sauce over noodles. It was extremely delicious!

Back to sweet stuff now. It always cracks me up when bloggers say "I'm such a chocoholic. I usually have at least one piece every day!" Pfff! Assume that I *regularly* eat between 100-300 calories of chocolate daily. Or more. Oh yes I do! I'm not at all sorry and I do not regret any delicious bite.

Here's proof, although these were not all eaten in the single day.


(From a local bakery...love supporting local businesses!)


Some of this 90% bar went into this bowl of oats:

And one more:


I have been drinking red wine most nights at home. Currently enjoying this bottle:

Which I bought for one reason only: the cute penguin on the bottle! Some people buy wine based on taste, or brand, or year or price...I buy based on how cute the label is!

I am again sorry for such a long post! Bear with me. I will try to do more frequent and therefore shorter posts!

I'm off to read for a bit before bed! I'm skipping church tomorrow because I honestly don't want to drive anywhere that's not absolutely necessary! So it will be another day to sleep in! Goodnight!

On opportunities and life.

Wow, the title sounds super serious, and I guess to a certain extent it is. I've had a lot on my mind recently (partly responsible for the running) and I've been doing a lot of thinking.

On the good news end of things, I had an AMAZING opportunity presented to me, as a violinist! I will be performing some works that a colleague of mine wrote at a university in Missouri in March! It's going to be very exciting, and I definitely have my work cut out for me in learning the pieces! (They are quite difficult!) I am super excited!

On the other end of things, I broke up with my bf over 2 months ago and we were going to remain friends, but now he is acting less and less like that's going to be possible, at least not for a very long time. I don't get it! You know who I am...why did you say that you were committed to remaining friends if you really didn't mean it? I know that I am partly responsible, because I've gotten a little emotional a few times and he feels like he's hurting me. But seriously, I'll be OK, even if I did miss him a little in a boyfriend way, while we are hanging out as friends. Whatever. I DON'T want to be that whiny little ex-girlfriend, so I'm giving him as much space as he needs. He knows my number whenever he wants to call.

Whew. Felt good to get that off my chest.

One of the (many) reasons I know that I am 100% over my eating disorder is that I haven't felt any need/urge to engage in any unhealthy behaviors over the break up and/or the general male population being slightly infuriating in the past few months! Yes, true, I'm exercising a lot to take my mind off things, but I'm eating plenty to make up for it, and I'm approaching exercise from a positive mental standpoint of "let's see what I can accomplish today" and/or training for my first 2 half marathons and I can honestly say that the thought of how many calories I've burned really almost never crosses my mind, except to make sure I'm getting enough calories. (I.e. extra large breakfasts before long runs, energy gels and/or honey packets during exercise, extra sleep to help my body repair, etc.)

OK, onward to one of my favorite topics: FOOD! :)
(And just a note to any new readers, this is NOT EVEN CLOSE to all of what I eat in a given day. I simply don't have time or inclination to take pictures of absolutely everything. Maybe one of these days it would be a fun project for the blog.)

Here is breakfast today, *x2* (as in 2 bowls roughly this size)

-frozen blueberries and blackberries on the bottom (hence the purple milk!)
-skim milk (unmeasured)
-Kashi GoLean original (unmeasured)
-PB (probably a bit more than a TB-not exactly sure)

*This bowl times 2* I was hungry after yesterday's workout which made me feel really bad ass:

I did all three triathlon sports! *What's the best workout you've gotten in recently?*

At my first day of swimming in God knows how long (like at least 4 years!), I was dying after just one time across the pool. I kept at it for 12 laps (300 meters) and then called it good. :)

So then I did about 30 minutes of arms and abs conditioning. **The former gymnast in me actually really loves sit-ups, push-ups, strength work, etc! Yes, I know I'm strange!**

Then, with a lot of extra time on my hands (I was barely teaching yesterday!) I hoped on a stationary bike and rode an easy 7 miles in roughly 33 minutes.

Got home (ate a Luna bar on the way home from the gym), grabbed this lunch of grilled cheese (full fat, of course!), avocado, hummus and spinach:


And drank this mixture:

Then I was off running, literally.

My church has a (small and informal) running group so I decided to check it out. Keep in mind that it's ~20 degrees here, and there was snow and ice all over the track! It made me feel very hardcore, like Dean Karnazes running over Antarctica! :)

I ran roughly 4.3 miles in a 55 minutes. My pace is slow. I'm OK with that. It was just cool to do all three triathlon events in the same day! My sister is a much better swimmer than myself, and we've talked about doing a sprint triathlon together. I think it would be super kick ass and I'm hoping that it'll happen over this summer! Nothing official yet that I'm training for! (Especially since I have A LOT of ground to make up in the swimming department!)

Anyway, onto some other food that was eaten recently.

Several breakfasts that are all quite similar. (I go through nut butter like it's my JOB!)

And lunches or snacks:


Lentils over sauteed veggies.


Much better when topped with hummus!

(I top PB bread with frozen berries--doesn't everyone?)

Finally, some recent running gear purchases:

(Super excited about this top! And by the way, Marshall's and T.J.Maxx are excellent for finding cheap but good workout clothes!)

And on a random note, I found some awesome washcloths at Target there's 6 of them for just $10! My roommates seem to have absconded with the ones that I had, so I bought these, as I can't find the ones I had!

Sorry for the really long post! Hopefully you made it through the whole thing!

Here's a few giveaways to enter:

Marlene's Lift Your Sole giveaway.

Oh Nuts giveaway.

Nathan's Hydration Belt.

Have a great day! I've got to get some practicing in!