Quick little Monday night post

This will probably be short and sweet.  I have had the hell of an evening and I need to get this done so I can go to Union Station to pick up Mari.  I have felt a bit off today.  I ended up skipping the gym over lunch.  Are you are surprised as I am???!  That is simply unheard of for me.  I just really did not want to go to the gym, I was dreading it.  Which is also unlike me.  So I figured I would go work on my thesis over lunch.  Here is a quick back story about the thesis.  I went to graduate school, finished all my classes and was scheduled to defend.  Then my father got diagnosed with cancer 3 days before I walked at graduation.  I delayed my defense.  He was given 3 months to live, ended up living 10 months.  Needless to say, during those 10 months I didn’t look at the thesis because I spent all my free time with him.  Then I didn’t want to spend that much free time with my thoughts.  I simply could not focus.  I think a lot of people (my mother and others) were sure I would never finish this thing.  Well, some how I have kept with it.  I am scheduled to defend this semester….by December 10th.  It has been nearly 3.5 years since I was supposed to defend.  Wowzers!  So anyway, I worked on my thesis and got a chapter submitted back to my advisor.  2 more chapters to work through and then it should be done.  The day of my defense will be the biggest day of my life.  Bigger than getting married because I have had to work so hard for this.

While I was working on the thesis, I snacked on some edamame.  Sorry, no photos! 

Then this afternoon I had physical therapy.  I was starving on the way there, so I stopped by my house (and I wanted to see if my phone had arrived).  I was genuinely starving.  I used the “Am I so hungry that I would eat a plain baked chicken breast right now?” and the answer was a loud “Yes!”.  I grabbed a handful of nuts.  I changed and I still was hungry, so I had half an apple. 

Physical therapy went well.  I got home and started dinner right away because I was already hungry again.

Dinner
I boiled some gnocchi.  In another pan I cooked some red bell pepper, 1 chicken sausage and zucchini.  I then added the gnocchi to the pan with the veggies/sausage and then added some basil and salt.  It turned out wonderful and was ready in about 8 minutes!

On the side, I had a small salad with arugula, carrots, a little bit of bell pepper, a bit of zucchini and cherry tomatoes.  I topped with that heavenly Annie’s Green Goddess Dressing (the husband is now obsessed with the dressing too!)

Here is my plate all together.

Okay, time to post this and head out the door.  One other thing, the phone was here.  And it was a total letdown.  I ordered the phone on Ebay and it said it was a Verizon phone.  It got here and was a Sprint home.  I tried to hack it, no luck.  Then I talked to Verizon on the phone for about 8 days and they couldn’t get it to work either.  But they did something amazing.  They offered me to go ahead and give me my ‘free’ upgrade.  Which meant I got a free upgrade or money towards a new phone.  I ended up picking the Blackberry Curve.  So I got a brand new phone (and used) for the same price I paid for the Q.  Does anyone have the Curve?  What do you think!

Out the door.  Probably will have a glass of wine or two with Mari tonight.  It is going to be a late night and I do have work in the morning.  But these are the things you do when friends you don’t see often are in town…and that are heading out of the country for a year.

Have a great night!!

Like always, weekend was too short

And now we are back at work.  Too bad the work week doesn’t go as quickly as weekends!!  I feel like life is going to be really busy for the next few weeks.  This week is my last week of physical therapy (at least I think so) so that is nice.  This weekend we are heading to Justin’s parent’s beach house in Bethany.  Next weekend, we are going to Charlotte for the VT vs. ECU game.  The start of football season!  Be ready for lots of tailgating food and beer drinking to appear on the blog.   Then the following weekend we head to Blacksburg for the football game vs. Furman.  Then the next weekend we head back to Blacksburg for another football game vs. Georgia Tech.  This is my favorite game of the season.  My father played football for Georgia Tech so it is basically my two favorite college football teams playing each other.  Love it!

I am a bit bummed Michael Phelps is done swimming.  I loved watching him swim and now that swimming is over I sort of feel like it is the day after Christmas.  I love watching every event and every aspect of swimming (not just Phelps) and now that it is done, I am a bit sad. 

Tonight, I am going to pick my friend Mari up at the train station.  I only talk to two people from high school still–Mari and Allie.  Mari is passing through on her way from Vermont back to Duke.  She is staying only tonight. Then she is heading to Japan for a year while she finishes her Ph. d. through Duke.  When we talked on the phone Friday, it was decided that I will go visit her in Japan the first week in March.  I have always wanted to go to Japan and I wanted to visit her last time she lived there and the whole time I knew she was going back, I kept saying I wanted to visit.  Well, basically I knew I just needed to make up my mind and start saving the money.  So Japan here I come!!!  I really need to be good about saving money to afford the flight and everything.  No more frivolous shopping for me (which can be really difficult!)

Here is the only photo I could find of Mari and myself.  Remember, we went to an all girl’s boarding school, so we definitely weren’t normal in high school.  When you first got to school, you were assigned to be on either the purple team or the gold team.  You were on these teams for the rest of high school and competed in all sorts of things against each other.  You also get put on the same color if you are a legacy of what ever your legacy’s team was. (Many girls mom’s/grandmother’s/etc went to school here.)

This picture is taken I think the first day of our junior year in high school.  We were dressed in our gold to take in all the ‘new girls’ to the gold team.  What can I say—all girl’s school was an experience!

On to the food!

When I went grocery shopping yesterday I spent a TON of money on fruit, so expect to see a lot of fruit this week.  I was amazed how much $$ I spent at the store this week.  But I guess it was a bit higher than normal because it included food for the cookout last night and the beer for the cookout.  Anyway…

Breakfast
I have blueberries again and that makes me very happy!!!  I had 1/2 cup of dried oats mixed with 3/4 cup of water, 3T of blueberries and 1/4 cup of egg beaters.  I added about 1/2T of cinnamon and cooked this for 2 minutes on 100%.  Then I added a splash of soy milk, 1T of flax seed and 8g of granola (it was all that is left.  Thank god it is finally gone!!)

 

It was so good.  Mmmm, how I love you blueberry oats!

(And I also had my cup of GFI sugar-free mocha.  I never take a picture because my travel mug is so boring, you can’t see anything.)

AM Snack
Pretty boring.  I grabbed an orange and 4 pretzel sticks.

Lunch
I found the cutest little bread sandwiches at the store yesterday and I just had to buy them.

100% Whole wheat, 100 calories, 6g of fiber and no HFCS!  I was sold immediately.  Hopefully they taste as good as I am hoping they will.

I toasted up my bread and then added 1/2 light laughing cow cheese wedge, some zucchini slices, some carrots and some red bell peppers.

Fingers crossed these are as tasty as they look!

I also made a side salad with arugula, cucumbers and cherry tomatoes. I have about 2t of Annie’s Green Goddess dressing to add to this.

And then I will have old trusty—sugar-free Rice pudding.  I have the creme brulee flavor and I must admit, it is pretty amazing.

PM Snack
More fruit!!!  I put about 2/3 a cup of cottage cheese into a container and then added 3 sliced strawberries and some blueberries on top.  This looks like whip cream and fruit.  Hopefully it’ll taste as good too!

 

Like always, I am going to go to the gym over lunch for some cardio.  Then I have physical therapy after work tonight.  I haven’t taken a day off since August 8th and I don’t see myself taking a day off this week.  Today and Wednesday I have physical therapy, tomorrow is the only night I am free after work, so I want to lift and swim.  Then Thursday is the day before I weigh in, so I don’t like skipping working out that day.  Then Friday, I am hoping to lift and swim again before we leave for the beach.  Then this upcoming weekend I am assuming we will go for a bike ride both mornings.  So do you guys think this is okay?  I will workout every day for 3 weeks, because I know I will be taking off Friday the 29th.

And I didn’t bake last night.  I really need to do it tonight so I can get it in the mail tomorrow.  I think her treatment begins Friday but I may be wrong.  Have a good Monday, hopefully it’ll go quickly!