Tuesday: Operation Find My Desk

Hi All -

Hope everyone is having a great day so far. I am not quite sure what has come over me this week! I was up early again this morning – 5:45 AM to be exact. I was out of the house by 6:20 AM and at my desk at work by 7:15. What!? I am certainly not going to think about it all that much – I am just going to go with it!

I truly love leaving my house early in the morning. The earlier I leave, the less traffic (usually) I have to deal with on my commute. The earlier I get to my desk, the earlier I can leave and miss the evening commuting traffic.

Today’s breakfast came in two parts. The first I ate at 7:45. A little less than half of a whole wheat pita with a tablespoon of Teddie’s all natural Peanut Butter.

The second half of breakfast came at around 10 o’clock. It was half a cup of Chobani Greek yogurt, vanilla flavored with a teaspoon of PB2 and a few dashes of cinnamon stirred in. This is such a wonderful combination!

At 12:30 I was fairly starving for lunch and just past the half way point in my day. I had lunch with my friend Kate, we had a great time catching up since it had been almost two weeks since the last time we saw each other.

My lunch was in a few parts today:

A spinach salad with about half a cup of baked chicken, sliced almonds, and croutons and two tablespoons of Newman’s Own low fat sesame ginger dressing. This was a great salad and the protein from the chicken helped me get through most of the afternoon.

I also had whole wheat “everything” crackers, a light Babybel cheese, and a piece of Dove dark chocolate:

After eating lunch we had a few minutes left of our lunch break – so we went outside for a quick ten minute walk. It was so much nicer than I was expecting. It was cool, in the forties, but there was no wind off of the water – so it felt warm!

At 3:30 this afternoon I needed a snack. Thankfully I had a Kashi granola bar in my work bag:

I was home a few minutes before 5 this evening. Reading Jenna’s blog today really inspired me to try and clean some of my room. I have a beautiful antique desk in my room, which I really love. It has been covered with clothes and other “things”. At times I get totally overwhelmed when my room is a wreck. But today I decided to start in one corner of the room, and see what I could accomplish in an hour.

Before:

Goodness. Can you see how this could be a little overwhelming? Well, here is what I was able to accomplish in less than an hour of work…

Seriously! I still have a long way to go in the room – but at least I can sit at my desk, and set up my office / blogging area now! Tonight I decided to oil the desk (which is over one hundred years old!), so I will not be able to set things up until tomorrow, but I cannot wait. I am sort of inspired to do more work in the room, too. But I feel like doing this much in the space was a huge accomplishment (especially for a week night). I did not get to the gym tonight – but this was well worth it.

Dinner tonight was another taco with the fresh salsa, guac and a bit of Mexican blend cheese. It was really great. Oh – and a glass of Pom / seltzer, too!

Hope you’re all having a great night. See you tomorrow!

Thursday dinner and Friday lunch…

Hi All -

In order to get more blog entries done, I’m trying something new. Blogging during my 15 minute afternoon break! I brought my computer and accessories to work with me today to see if this was something that could be worth while.

Last night for dinner I made a huge salad with lots of veggies and two homemade pizzas. The first pizza had mushrooms and turkey pepperoni on it. The second pizza had green peppers, mushrooms, turkey pepperoni, garlic and red pepper flakes! I tried to eat a lot of salad so I would not fill up on the yummy homemade pizza…

Both the salad and pizza turned out well. I almost forgot about the first pizza being in the oven and got it out just in the nick of time! Phew! Another dinner disaster averted! For dessert Mark brought an amazing fruit tart from Dave’s (one of my favorite markets in Rhode Island). It was beautiful:

I tried to get a little bit of every fruit option on my piece of tart:

I had a mug of tea along with my tart. We enjoyed dessert and played a few rounds of Rummikub. A fun time was had by all.

I think I laughed when my alarm went off at 5:30 this morning. I spent most of my day yesterday thinking it was Friday instead of Thursday. That made it really tough to get up and go to work this morning. For some reason this week has seemed very loooooooong to me. I have been super busy at work, which makes it a little strange for it to seem like such a long work week. Usually when I am really busy at work the week flies by. Not the case this week. I think it could be because I am very excited for Thanksgiving next week – and I am only working two days next week. I am truly looking forward to a few days off.

So, I had a late start to work this morning. I had a cup of coffee in the car and a granola bar which was a bit too sweet for me this morning. Between breakfast and lunch I snacked on a couple of small rice cakes. At 12 o’clock Katherine and I went for a beautiful walk. It was in the 60s at work and sunny. I had expected a cold and rainy day… I guess someone got the forecast wrong today (me!?).

Lunch was great – leftover salad and two pieces of the spicier pizza:

The dressing on the salad was a light honey dijon, which was pretty good. I love having a salad with lunch because it usually helps everything I eat stay with me for a long while.

Well, my 15 minutes are about up – so I will be signing off for now. Hope everyone is having a great Friday. TGIF!

Fall is in the Air

Hey All -

Happy Hump Day. I feel particularly proud after surviving a sort of long day! Because of a decent exit off of my train car, my awesome and new short cut, and the fact that the bus was RIGHT THERE when I got to the stop – I got to work five minutes earlier this morning. Sweet!

My overnight oats were even better this morning! I remembered to add cinnamon and nutmeg into the mixture last night – I cannot believe I forgot it for Tuesday’s mix. It was missed! The fresh strawberries and blueberries were so great. I added another spoonful of Barney Butter to the mix too. I think the almond butter gives the oats just a little more staying power.

Yum:

Breakfast was particularly satisfying today.

Lunch was at 12:25 this afternoon. This is when I realized how dull my nightly blog post was going to be… because I was eating basically the same thing as yesterday. But the eggplant parmesan was really good today, too!

But it looks pretty disgusting. As I was packing my lunch bag last night, it fell off of the kitchen counter – so things got a bit mixed up – thankfully the leads were on my little containers!

At four o’clock I had a trail mix bar from Trader Joe’s and it was really good. I did not realize that there would be a few mini-chocolate chips in the bar… it was really good and knocked the afternoon munchies right out of me

I walked my 1.2 miles to the train station after 5 o’clock tonight. I was on the train by 5:40 (it only takes 15 or 16 minutes to walk to the train – but I had extra time to get a new train pass this afternoon). Tim and I sat together during our trip back to Prov – thank goodness because we had a few delays along the way. We [finally] got off the train at 6:50. During our delay I snacked on a small handful of peanuts. I was so happy to have a snack in my lunch bag still!

After getting home I had to head back out to run some errands. I finally got home and prepared a great spinach salad and sat down just in time (right at 8!) to hear President Obama give his speech to the nation tonight!

Here is what my salad looked like:

Spinach, hard boiled egg, tomato, carrots, cucumber, croutons, and a gross salmon burger leftover. I am so sad that I do not like these salmon burgers. Here is what was left after I was finished with my salad:

Eww. Everything else was great though! To make up for some lack of protein, I had a glass of organic 1% milk and a spoonful of protein powder I think that will give me another 10 grams of protein…

Well, that is about all I have for you guys tonight. Tomorrow I will be back at the gym. I am packing my gym bag tonight, because I am driving to work I can make myself go right to the gym after work tomorrow. We shall see!!

Catch ya’ll tomorrow.

Tuesday: Work, run, salad

Hi All -

Hope you all had a good day back to work, for those of you who do that sort of thing I actually felt well rested this morning as I got ready to head out to the train this morning! I was so happy to have my breakfast and lunch already packed from last night, it was such a time saver. I also had all of my clothes picked out for work today which was a huge help.

I drank my iced coffee with chocolate soy milk while on the train this morning. When I got in to South Station I was the third person off of my train car and I discovered a short cut out of South Station that leads me right to the bus stop to get to my office. Sweet! And then I waited (well over) a few minutes for my bus to come… you have got to love the post Labor Day traffic. It makes all commutes longer – even when you are not actually driving!

I got to work at 8:30 this morning and dug into my over night oats with fruit right away – I was starving! I had a to go pack of Barney Butter which was awesome on the oats and fruit, it really made breakfast perfect!

I survived until 12:15 for lunch. I loved my leftover eggplant parm, with a few whole wheat pastas and a can of Polar seltzer, which was really satisfying.

One of our art conservators is recently back from a trip to Moscow. She brought my colleagues and I a great “bar” of chocolate which we were able to enjoy today as an after lunch snack.

Wow – this was so interesting and fantastic. It was a ‘bitter’ chocolate, but the bitterness was not overwhelming. There are air bubbles locked into the chocolate which makes you feel like the chocolate dissolves right in your mouth.

I had three or four pieces of the chocolate through out the day! It was soooo good. At three o’clock I needed an apple to get me through until the end of the day. I did not realize it was actually going to get me through until 8 o’clock tonight!

I walked to South Station from the office which is 1.2 miles. It was a really nice walk today because it was sort of cool and still sunny this afternoon. I was home a few minutes before seven this evening and somehow I had enough energy to get my butt to the gym. I was not there for long, just long enough to run 2.2 miles in just over twenty minutes. It was not a stellar day – but I covered 3.4 miles, so not too bad for the first day back into the exercise groove.

After the run I popped by East Side Market to get a bunch of spinach and a tomato to incorporate into my dinner. Before doing the food shopping I enjoyed a few peanuts to keep me going until I got home to make dinner.

I had a large salad, 1/3 cup of brown rice, and half of a salmon burger. It was a fairly colorful meal!

Well, that about wraps up the day. I’ve got to get back into the kitchen to pack everything up for tomorrow. See ya’ll tomorrow!

Sunday: Amazing Ratatouille

Hi All -

Wow, Sunday night’s dinner was a success… but let me recap the rest of the day first.

Katherine and I had a fun time watching Julia Child on pbs.org (link here to episodes on the web!)  The episodes were inspiring and I can’t wait to try a few of her recipes.

It is hard to watch Julia Child cook when you are hungry! I really wanted to make an amazing omelet for lunch – but since I had eggs last night and pancakes this morning, I decided to make a beautiful salad for lunch.  The salad consisted of spinach, tomato, red pepper, cucumber, tuna, a few croutons, and a drizzle balsamic dressing (less than a tablespoon).  It looked very pretty and it was filling due to the fiber and protein.

Here is my beautiful salad:

Along with the salad I had three small pieces of the Seven Star french baguette from yesterday with half of a wedge of ‘light’ laughing cow cheese.

After lunch I went over to see my friends Tim and Nicole.  Tim and I played about a half hour of tennis – it was definitely the best tennis I had played in years!  I guess I had a lot of aggression to get out on the courts – it was a lot of fun!

Later in the day I started the ratatouille. There was a lot of chopping involved!  I love chopping and prepping vegetables.  Here is the link to Jacques Pépin’s recipe for Ratatouille.  I made a few alterations (I am never one to follow recipe’s completely, as you might realize by now). My alterations were using 1 1/2 Japanese eggplant and 1 1/2 small zucchinis and one sort of larger than normal cubanelle pepper… I used two entire cloves of garlic and exactly two cups of onions (like the recipe calls for) the onions definitely had me tearing up today! I also added an eight ounce can of 100% natural tomato sauce because I think I had more vegetables than the recipe called for – and I definitely want some left overs for the next couple of days!

Here is the Ratatouille while on the stove:

The ratatouille cooks for 30 minutes and then you are supposed to bring it down to room temperature.  But because I live in the real world and needed to eat before 9 o’clock on a Sunday night, I served the mixture while it was still hot…. I almost feel guilty – but the recipe simply tells you to heat up the ratatouille again once the pasta is ready… so I just made both of them so they would be ready at the same time.  Here is what the final plated dinner looked like along with the garlic bread my mom put together:

Whole wheat rotini pasta, ratatouille and freshly grated parmesan cheese.   I rarely put parmesan cheese on my pasta, I am not a huge fan and I think it is really strong and can be overpowering.  But a little bit (a teaspoon or less maybe?!) was a nice touch.

I definitely had seconds tonight!

The meal was very beautiful and reminded me a bit of what it was like eating in France when I was there.  Ratatouille is a vegetable stew in Provence and is served on its own most of the time.  I definitely could eat this as a stew – but I also loved it over pasta.

I hope that you have had a great weekend. I’m off to make my Sunday night preparations for my uber early Monday morning. Wish me luck!

Tuesday Part II

This morning I enjoyed a cinnamon scone from ABP… and I was shocked when my stomach started grumbling at 11:15 this morning!!  Somehow I was able to hold off for lunch until 12:15.

Today’s lunch was basically a repeat of yesterday’s. I had my (officially re-named) turkey chili and this morning I was with it enough to remember some light Mexican cheese to top it with. On the side I had more slices of green peppers and hummus.

For an afternoon snack (at 4:55!) I had a small handful of almonds. I saved the grapes for the train ride home. The train leaves South Station at 5:45 and gets into my stop at 6:45. I have a mile walk from the office to the station and a mile walk home from the station.  The grapes were much needed because I got home a little after 7 o’clock – and it was wonderful walking in the door and not being starving!

For dinner I cooked up some quinoa in 3/4 cup of chicken broth and 1/4 cup of water (1/2  a cup of dry quinoa) and 1/4 cup of chopped onion with a little bit of seasoning.  Along with this I had a wonderful spinach salad with cucumbers, tomato, red peppers and croutons and a glass of skim milk with a scoop of protein powder. A fulfilling dinner!

That is about all I have right now. It was a good day at work and I had a lot of fun commuting with my friends both on the morning and evening train rides.  I love taking the train on Tuesdays because I get to sleep in an extra half an hour in the morning… even though I get in so much later on the other end (7 o’clock instead of 5 o’clock)!

It was another wonderful summer day in Boston – and this made me really happy:

My opinion on summer this year? Better late than never!
Catch ya’ll tomorrow. Hope you’re all having a good week thus far, friends.
xo

Sunday – salads for dinner

Hey All -

Another weekend has flown by   It is amazing that it was sooo cloudy all day here, but we never had rain. It was definitely a good thing!

A while after having my smoothie, I went for a 2.3 mile run around my neighborhood. While it was cloudy, and I thought it would be a great day for a run, it was humid and there was no breeze most of the way. Oh well, I still made it through the run I had in my head… I would have liked to go a bit longer though. On the other hand I am really pleased with myself for going on the run, because it had been probably three weeks since I had run outside (all of that rain!) so it was good to get started again. My goal this week is to go for a run in the morning before work at least once this week. I think I can do it! Oh – for all of you iPhone users out there, you can now download my favorite running app for free – MapMyRun

My smoothie had amazing staying power! I did not have another snack until after 3 o’clock this afternoon! When I did it was a bit of popcorn which I snacked on while watching the movie Benjamin Button.  Have any of you seen this movie? What did you think of it? The jury is still out in our household. After the popcorn I had an apple with peanut butter:

About two hours into the movie, I stopped it because I was very tired. I went to lie down in bed and read Julie and Julia and before I knew it I was asleep.  I got out of bed around 6:30… I hope this oddly timed nap will not mess up my sleeping tonight. But I have a headache now, and I am still tired, so I think I will be going to bed shortly.

For dinner I fixed myself two salads. One salad of greens, veggies and protein (from the tuna and chick peas) which was basically the same as I had Saturday night but on a smaller scale:

The only difference with this salad is that I added almond slivers to it – can you see them?

My other salad was a tri-colored pasta salad that Ben made this afternoon. We let it chill in the fridge for a few hours and it was a really good side dish tonight! I actually didn’t eat all of this pasta salad (and there really was not much in this little bowl) so I put back the rest of it to have tomorrow for lunch or dinner…
It was good!

My Sunday went by pretty quickly. This afternoon after my run, I went out to run some errands. I had to visit the Apple store to get a case for my new (awesome) MacBook Pro (which by the way makes blogging so much easier and faster!!) and a screen cover for my iPhone.  I also bought a new lunch bag, which I will show you tomorrow!  I was so excited to find the very lunch bag I had wanted for so long (a NY Built Gourmet Getaway bag) on sale for only $15!!! They only had two colors left, black and red… I went for the red. I am so pleased with it! After a few more errands I had completed my to-do list, which is exciting!

Ben and I are now so excited to be watching the Next Food Network Star – we love this show! We are enjoying some Ben & Jerry’s frozen yogurt, which is really great:

OK, I’ve got to sign off for now to enjoy my foodie show See ya’ll tomorrow!

Saturday Night – Saland & Gelato!

Hi All:

Saturday night was very fun. Ann came over at around 5:30 and we had a great time catching up and drinking vanilla sparkling water – yum. It was so refreshing because it was a little hot up on the second & third floor (which is where I live!)  After about an hour of chatting, I started preparing the toppings for our salads.

We moved into the kitchen and I started chopping:

And preparing the other toppings:

The Earth Balance was for the toast points I made, not for the salads

Here is how my salad came out:

Close up:

My salad was fantastic!! I had mixed greens as a base, broccoli, tomato, carrots, red peppers, organic chick peas, organic sunflower “nuts”, cucumbers, baco-bits, garlic hummus, tuna and croutons.  I also enjoyed a couple of toast points (not pictured – I forgot!) that I prepared with When Pigs Fly sourdough bread, Earth Balance and garlic.  I was so happy eating my big salad for dinner.

After an hour or two we went for a walk to explore the local candy store. I had heard rumors from my neighbors that this store, Bon Bon, sells the most amazing gelato. I was so happy to discover that they do!  Ann and I both enjoyed some amazing gelato – it really hit the spot after our healthy dinner

This was a “medium” (their smallest size!?) and I thought there was no way I would eat this entire serving. Guess what? I did. Of course I did. It was so good!

The Gelato was a great end to a fun night. After Ann left, I read my book (Julie and Julia – I still love it!) and went to bed around 11 o’clock.

I hope everyone is enjoying their Sunday morning!

Volunteering on Saturday

Hi All -

I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend…. it sure was great to see the SUN here in Boston!  It was sunny this morning when I woke up at 8 o’clock and it was sunny most of the afternoon… I’m hearing thunder in the distance right now, so I think some storms are on the way. 

I had a busy but fun Saturday.  I woke up earlier than I normally do on the weekends because I had to be ready to go by 9 o’clock this morning.  My friend Sarah picked me up and we went into downtown Boston to spend our morning and early afternoon volunteering at the National Braille Press. It was a really wonderful experience, we were collating children’s books that had both text and braille so families could read together. In a few hours we had put together nearly 500 books!

The National Braille Press is a wonderful organization – and they are a non-profit so they are always looking for volunteers and / or donations. What a wonderful cause – I highly recommend contacting the organization to see how you can help them!

Before Sarah got to my house, I had time for a quick breakfast:

I just love Peanut Butter Puffins!! They could be my favorite cold cereal – and they go well with so many other things, too (especially Greek yogurt and some PB2!)
With this bowl I also had light vanilla soy milk and half of a banana – a marvelous combo.

In my coffee I also used light vanilla soy milk. Perfection!

Sarah and I got to the NBP by 9:20 and the project started at 9:30 with a quick orientation. Sarah and I have both volunteered at NBP before, so we were a little ahead of the game   But 12 o’clock we stopped for lunch. Sarah treated me to pizza – thanks Sarah!! I had a piece of awesome veggie pizza and a piece of pepperoni. After being on my feet for a couple of hours and working, the pizza tasted fantastic!

The veggie pizza was so good. I loved the combo of green peppers, tomato, and broccoli. So many times when I order veggie pizza if I get too many toppings the pizza can get soggy. This pizza was perfect!! No sign of sogginess at all.

By two o’clock we were done with our project – we had put together almost 500 books!  After we were finished, we had a quick de-briefing meeting with the other volunteers and enjoyed chocolate chip cookies that our team leader had made for us – what a treat! I had one chocolate chip cookie – it was wonderful

I was home by 2:30 or a little after. I had to go straight to work, and by that I mean cleaning the house. I vacuumed the living room and bed room, and picked up my things and tried to straighten up. My friend Ann is coming over for dinner tonight.  After cleaning, I walked to the grocery store to get some things for dinner. I talked with Ann before I went, and we have decided to have big salads for dinner (and probably something else too, but we have not quite figured out what yet!)  I am really excited for a nice salad… at the store I got a few things to get us started:

For our salads tonight I bought lettuce, chic peas, organic sun flower seeds, broccoli, red peppers, a cucumber, a tomato, fake bacon bits (I know, I shouldn’t – but I like them a lot!), and I already have carrots, croutons and tuna for protein. I am looking forward to some nice salad tonight! I am also excited to try the Ben & Jerry’s frozen yogurt I found at the store – Half Baked. It is a combo of chocolate and vanilla low fat yogurts with bits of brownies and chocolate chip cookie dough.  This could be heavenly!

As I am writing this blog post I am enjoying a great drink of iced coffee, soy milk and a scoop of protein powder with a few ice cubes. It is so good and refreshing!

I am going to sign off for now. Hope you are all enjoying a great Saturday!

So many salads!!

Hey All-

One of the best things about summer is how fresh your daily salads are!! I just love salad and fresh produce. This week I cannot get enough of it!

Last night my mom and I made dinner and Ben was on clean up duty! I did a stir fry of onions, red peppers and chicken. I added garlic, sesame seeds, paprika, freshly ground black pepper, and a pinch of salt to the mix and did the stir fry in olive oil. It came out pretty well. My mom made an amazing salad and prepared three baked potatoes.

Here is what my plate looked like:

My salad was wonderful with fresh snap peas, tomatoes, mushrooms, red and green peppers and green lettuce.  I had half of a baked potato and I doctored it up with butter, pepper and a pinch of salt.

Thursday got off to an early start.  If you have been reading this blog for the last several months, you probably realize by now that I am not a morning person, no matter how much I really want to be. Due to this “condition” I was really dreading my alarm going off this morning at 5:55 AM.  To my surprise I was actually able to get up and get the morning off to an early start. I packed my lunch, jumped into the shower, got dressed and was out the door by 6:30 this morning.  I have to say – when you are in a rush in the morning, deciding what outfit you are going to wear to work the night before saves a ton of time in the morning!!

Why was I rushing to work? I was leaving from Rhode Island this morning and I had a morning breakfast meeting that I had to be at by 8 o’clock. The traffic from Providence to Boston can be horrible for the morning commute and even worse for the afternoon and evening commute…  Thankfully this morning I really lucked out – I arrived at work at 7:25 this morning.

Before my breakfast meeting, I grabbed a quick cup of black coffee which I drank at my desk while I went through e-mails and so on.

My breakfast was wonderful – but no pictures   Fresh fruit,  2 mini muffins, two pieces of crunchy bacon, and half a piece of french toast with a tablespoon of pure maple syrup. Wow! It was fantastic – but I definitely over indulged in a lot of carbs!  It was worth it though

It was yet another busy day at work… but I was able to make it outside for a 35 minute walk before the rain arrived.  I am so happy I was able to get the walk in – even though my breakfast was a couple of hours behind me, I was still full. I did not need lunch until 1:30 and even then it was much smaller than what I had packed… I had left over salad and two crackers:

I enjoyed a wonderful peach at 3:30 for my afternoon snack. I could have just smelled the peach for the rest of my work day – it smelled just lovely. But I did decide to eat it – yum!

After work I drove back to my mom’s in Rhode Island.  We had a very productive time shopping for clothes.  There is probably nothing I hate more than clothes shopping for myself. But today I had pretty good luck. Two pairs of pants, two sweaters (my office is freezing all summer – sweaters are a must!) and two shirts. I am so glad to have clothes to wear to the office that are not jeans!

Ben met us at the mall after his conference ended at about 7 o’clock. Eventually we all went to the Cheesecake Factory for a late dinner… we enjoyed a Santa Fe Salad a little bit after 8 o’clock. We all split the salad, and we still had leftovers!

There is always so much food at the Cheesecake Factory!! Oh well. It was very good, and very filling.

I think that about wraps up my day. I hope you’re all having a great end to your week! I will be back tomorrow, blog friends. Good night!