What I’ve been up to

Hey guys!

So my camera batteries died yesterday morning, boo. I have literally no pictures to share with you right now but I did want to tell you what I’ve been up to the past couple of days.

Yesterday, I went back to work feeling much better from the cold I caught over the weekend. Thank goodness for healthy eating, rest and vitamin C. I swear, it works wonders.

I also ate a piece of cake! A co-worker of mine celebrated 30+ years of service, so there was a small celebration. Wait, I did take that pic with my cell! I tried to take more throughout the day but they were all crappy and blurry so this is the only one.

The cake was huge and it had a section of the book “Ethan Frome” written out on it. Someone spent a lot of time on that!

I know this cake had to contain eggs and dairy so it was sort of a sayonara to such things as October 1st is tomorrow. It also held me over so well (I ate it after lunch) that I was not hungry again until dinner time 🙂

I also took a nice hour plus long walk with a friend last night, first real exercise I’d had in a while. It felt so good. I’m off work today (had a dr. appt earlier) and think I’m going to check out some of the Exercise TV programs I saw the other day.

I’m really feeling yoga today so it will likely be something like that.

I’m also currently baking some Vegan Pumpkin Chocolate brownies that I’m taking to girl’s night tonight. If you are a vegetarian or vegan, or if you are just looking for some really great animal-free recipes, Happy Herbivore is a must!

If they taste half as good as they smell and look, we are all in for a treat later.

Tomorrow is the big day, the moment of truth. I’ve definitely been able to eliminate meat from my diet with absolutely no problems. But dairy has been showing up in interesting places and I’m also concerned with inconveniencing my family and friends a bit.

But this is a change I really want to make, for my health, because I don’t want to put anything in my body that I’m not completely confident in.

And I know eventually the inconveniences will fade and it will become my way of living, second nature. Here we go…

Hope you are having a good day too!

p.s. Today I also tried the new Starbucks VIA instant coffee. I got a sample a week or so ago when I stopped there with Mom. I have to say, it was quite tasty and I liked just being able to add hot water to it instead of loading up my coffee maker. Definitely convenient. I may have to look into it, at least for the weekends 😉

13 months

That is how long I made it in between colds. I slept really well on Friday night and then Saturday morning I woke up feeling amazing! Rest is the best.

But then I tried too hard. I did a 3 mile walk, went to the grocery store, cleaned and then this cold reared it’s extremely ugly head. But let’s take a step back.

Saturday morning, I had some 5 grain cereal with peanut butter and banana.

I also stopped on the way and got some coffee at a gas station with some International Delight creamer, which I learned contains caseinate so it is not vegan. Sad 😦

After the walk, which was great, I snacked on a Nature Valley bar. I’m really getting hooked on these. Is that bad?

For lunch, I had the last serving of the falafel I made along with a big carrot and creamy Italian dressing to dip it in. And ketchup 🙂

I snacked on some nuts (about 1 tbsp left in the jar) and half a PB sandwich in the afternoon. I tried to take a nap but when you can’t breathe through your nose it makes sleeping interesting, at least for me.

Luckily, I had an easy-going girl’s night on the agenda! Getting out of the house for a while actually did me some good I think.

We had dinner at Penn Station where I got an artichoke wrap with no cheese or mayo and added mushrooms. And fries sounded so much better than chips!

After dinner, we went to a book store and then stopped at Starbucks where I got a tall soy chai tea latte. It was so good! This may be my favorite now. I’m still bummed that the pumpkin spice syrup contains milk.

At Court’s house, we watched some TV including the season premiere of Saturday Night Live. I wasn’t too impressed but at least U2 was the musical guest. Next week is RYAN REYNOLDS! I need to write that boy a letter to thank him for all my blog stats 😉

I drank lots more tea and had some chocolate too. The 60% Ghirardelli has milk fat, boo!

This morning I woke up feeling just okay but definitely still sick. I only had one thing on my mind when I woke up…PUMPKIN.

My stores have been out of this stuff forever, but I managed to find this HUGE can lurking on the shelves over the weekend. How can pumpkin be out of season? I thought they kept it year round. I’m sure I will use this though, so no harm.

I made something I hadn’t had in forever…pumpkin oats!

This bowl contained 1/3 cup quick cooking oats, 1/3 cup water and 1/3 cup pumpkin. Topped with chocolate chips, peanut butter and pumpkin pie spice. Oh how I’ve missed you. And it’s totally vegan hooray!

Coffee with Almond Breeze was also in order.

It wasn’t my best use of judgment, but I snagged two pumpkin muffin “bites” at church because I got hungry. This cold has increased my appetite, it’s crazy. But it was just a snack so I left it at that (just not sure about the contents).

For lunch, Mom so kindly offered to get me something, so I chose Panera because I was so in the mood for some soup!

I got the black bean which I ate with the French baguette. That filled me up for a while but an hour or so later I got hungry again so I went back for lunch part 2, half a Mediterranean Veggie sandwich.

I totally forgot to ask for no feta! But I ate it anyway, still got a few days until October 1 and I’m learning from each experience 😉

I took a 2 hour nap (hooray) and then snacked on another selection from Nature Valley.

I still think this is my fave flavor. Good thing, I bought a whole box of them 😉

My diet has been rather carb-heavy but I’m chalking that up to sickness and what my body is craving, perhaps for more energy to fight off this cold. So I’m just going with it for now and when I start feeling better, things will even back out.

For dinner, I made a Boca vegan burger with spinach and hummus on whole wheat toast with carrots and more hummus.

The hummus was a new selection for me from Sabra which I found at Kroger this weekend on sale for $3!

I couldn’t really tell how hot it was but it seemed to make my nose run a bit so it must have some kick. What I could taste of it was very good and a nice change from my usual plain hummus.

Time to drink some more fluids and hit the hay early. I’m doing what works for me which is NOT taking cold medicine or any yucky stuff that just makes me feel worse.

I rely on rest, fluids, healthy food, and a vitamin C supplement (500 mg per day) plus lots of hot tea and soup to nurse me back to health.

Hopefully it will be even longer than 13 months before I get this again 🙂

Good night!

No, no, no!

I have been freezing old in my office all day long and now I’m at home feeling a little sniffly. I DO NOT WANT TO GET SICK.

Or should I say I WILL NOT GET SICK! There, now we’re good.

So, breakfast this morning was some 5 grain cereal with peanut butter and banana. Sorry I’m so repetitive this week, I’m certainly not tired of anything yet 😉

Snacked on some more nuts, surprise! Ha ha.

Lunch was something I hadn’t had in a while which is always fun! Sweet potato with black beans 🙂

It’s like Halloween on a plate!

This is so very plain and yet so very tasty. I do not need or want to put anything else on it. Yum.

Today, I did have some tea and chocolate! I’ve deemed it the perfect after lunch treat. Peppermint tea especially.

Afternoon snack was another regular this week:

Which provided the perfect fuel for my workout today!

We did 1 mile on the treadmill since it has been raining here ALL DAY LONG with no signs of stopping any time soon (so we’ll likely be on the TM tomorrow too, boo).

We did 1:1 walk/run intervals because it just seemed hard to run today. But I did 1 mile in 15 minutes and felt good about it.

Then we hit up the weight room and did some chest presses on the bench, which today hit a milestone for me – 20 LB DUMBBELLS BABY! So cool.

We also did squats, back extensions, flyes, seated rows, and lots o’ abs. Three sets of each exercise and we were spent.

Dinner was leftover falafel with veggies. Just one more serving to go – wish I had some more hummus though, that’s all it’s missing.

And I have to say, I was SO PROUD of Josh for trying something new himself. Josh is very much a meat man and when he made me a grocery list this week, it had both hamburgers and ground beef on it. Nuh uh, I said.

So I asked him to sub out one for turkey. Because really, no one needs to eat that much red meat. So he agreed to try TURKEY BURGERS!

He just ate one by the way – this is also an improvement. I am so proud of him!

After dinner, I was still a bit hungry so I had a piece of whole wheat toast dry. Who knew dry toast could be so perfect? I like keeping things simple these days.

I’d better get off here, blow my nose and go take some Vitamin C. I also believe I’ll hit the hay early tonight.

Take care of yourself, stay healthy!