ffw>> 08.01.10

Ummm...  yeah...

It turns out blogging is slightly more difficult than I had imagined- it makes me really in awe of the folks that post three times a day.  Or even once a day for that matter...

What have I been up to since April?  If anyone is reading or I can just use this as my high-tech diary of sorts- a lot I guess!

Most exciting news is that I got a new job!  And I didn't find it myself, I was recruited for it!!!  That's right- they found me!  Very exciting.

Now that I don't work at my old job I feel much more comfortable saying that I was working for the state of Texas as an inspection surveyor for nursing homes.  Not so much fun.  Very high stress, kinda sad at times.  Good benefits though...

New job is awesome!!!  I'm actually working as a dietitian now!!!!  (Could I use any more exclamation points in this post?  *cue Chandler Bing voice*

I'm travelling a ton, ie 500 miles a week more or less, but I really love what I am doing and the pros of this job far outweigh the cons.  I do really miss my old coworkers though.  We were (are) family.  I've gone to happy hour with them once since leaving and a few phone calls here and there- I know I'll be keeping in touch.  They are the best!

The saddest news is that my grandma passed away.  I feel ok writing that on here 'cause I know only a few folks are reading and not that I want everyone to know but I feel like I should acknowledge it just so I have a written record if that makes sense.

I was insanely lucky to have one of the best grandmas ever.  I grew up a few blocks from her and we were really close.  She was a wonderful, amazing woman.  I will miss her immensely and always wonder if I caught on to everything she had to teach me...

Onward-

The house is slooowwwly coming together.  As in we have 5 things hanging on the walls...  It's hard to commit once you own it and will have to deal with filling and repainting holes!  But the kitchen, dining room and my workout room are pretty much done and that's all I need for the most part!

Scott just finished up his tv show that he was working on- FNL if anyone watches.  It's finally done- whew!  We can have our life back!  We went to the wrap party last weekend and it was bittersweet.  Scott had been working on the show since the beginning (5 years!) and I guess working 12-16 hour days makes you kind of attached to your coworkers...  It was a good time but the emotions were pumpin'!

A few days before the end of the show Scott got a call to work as assistant locations manager on a 5-week indie film.  It's a great opportunity for him since it's 2 steps up from where he was on FNL.  I'm not too sure about the story but it's a true story about golf or something.  He says "the only thing more boring than watching golf is watching a movie being made about golf"!  I told him my grandma was frowning at him...

So far this post has nothing to do with health or fitness or food... hmmm...

One of the benefits of my new job is that I will actually have a set schedule!  Which means I can plan things!  I think Tiffany (my only reader) said today "failing to plan is planning to fail"- so true!

I've been at my new job for a month and it has been great for the planning side of my brain.  Sundays I make my meal plan and head to the grocery store.  I should devote an entire post to meal planning because it has changed my life and I will never go back.  I love not throwing away food.

I've been packing my lunch to take to work everyday so I don't have to take a lunch break.  Normally I would poo-poo on this but considering that most of my job sites are 1.5 hours away from my house means I want to get on the road faster!

Interesting fact- since I started my new job I have not been working out.  At all.  seriously.  Unless you count mowing the lawn.  Then I've worked out once.  seriously.  But I've lost 3 pounds.  I contribute this to the fact that I am packing my own healthy lunch, eating a good dinner when I get home and I'm not eating chips and salsa everyday with my coworkers.  (My old job was right next door to a tex-mex place).  Wow!  Kinda scary!

But the workouts re-commence this week people!  My girlfriend Rachel has been motivating me from the Eastern coast and I know she expects me to send her an update so I gotta get this booty movin'!  I see ellipticaling in my future!

Thanks, that felt good to get out!

Tagged Tuesday

Whew!  Finally sitting down and catching my breath!  Where is April going?  And while we're at it- where did March go???

I have not been doing a very good job of getting exercise in at all!  But today I managed to fit in a 20 minute walk around the parking lot at work and I walked CutCut for 30 minutes when I got home.  Granted I let CutCut set the pace (slow!) so he could sniff everything he's been missing while Scott and I have been busy being bad parents.  But it was nice for sure!  I also ran to the store for a real groccery shopping experience besides just picking up random items here and there.  It was a major produce run! 

Today I had a low-sodium V8 and a pb & j larabar for breakfast.  Meh.  Tomorrow?  I'm thinking a blackberry mango green monster!  Yum!

Tonight for dinner I attempted to make a white wine sauce I saw on bites + bowls and add clams to it.  I am fairly certain I did something not right because my sauce did not turn out quite as nice as Kelsey's.  Boo.  However, it was still tasty and I ate it anyways.  Thank goodness I used canned clams and not the real thing!

So while getting reaquainted with my google reader I finally got caught up on my SimplyShaka and had the very pleasant surprise of discovering I was tagged!  Pop!  (that's the sound of my tag cherry popping in case you didn't know)...  It totally made my day (week, month?) and I've been looking forward to posting my answers for forever so without futher adieu...

1. Who is your style icon?
Hmmm.... starting out with a tough one, are we?  Austin is pretty casual so I wear alot of jeans and tops.  When I'm in the office I try to wear clothes that most closely mimic pajamas without actually being pajamas.  Even though I'm short I hardly ever wear heels because I like to be comfortable.  If I could steal any famous person's style I'd pick Jennifer Aniston.  If I could steal a real person's style I'd pick my gal pal Abby because she always puts together something cute.

2. What is your favorite book?
On the Beach by Nevil Shute.  I read this when I was in 6th grade because it was a "big" book and I wanted to look smart.  It's set in Australia and is about the end of the world as nuclear fallout spreads to the southern hemisphere in the late 1950's.  I re-read it a few years ago and still loved it.  It was made into a movie in 1959 with Fred Astair, Gregory Peck, and Ava Gardner.  It was only ok.  I'm currently reading a book called The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein on the reccomendation of a coworker.  It's written from the perspective of a dog and makes me cry on almost every chapter.  It is good though.

3. Favorite party theme?
I think I have to go with Tiffany on this one and say Ugly Christmas Sweater Party.  I won two years ago with my polyester puff-sleve blouse and Christmas ball ornament vest.  If I can find a picture I will post.  It was rad.  Also at the same party a gal was sporting a 12-days of Christmas sweater which sparked a lovely round of the carol.  Nothing beats an impromptu sing-along!

4. Favorite outdoor activity?
Camping and/or hiking.  I'm very excited to go camping in a few weeks!  Note: very tempted to put "happy hour" in this category.

5. Something you cannot live without?
My Kavu Rope Bag.  This bag is so awesome that when I lost it with all my stuff in it I was most sad about losing my bag, not my wallet.  I immediately purchased a replacement so now I have two, my old one in green (my fav) and the other in tan as a backup.

6. Living person you admire? 

My good friend Mary.  She is always a good sounding board when I need advice and will tell it like it is.  She also has a very strong work ethic, put herself through school to become a nurse, and can do awesome things with a hula hoop.  Everyone should know her- she is the best.

7. Greatest fear? 

Being caught in a car while it is on fire.  Very specific and irrational.  I hope it never happens to me.  

8. Go to favorite meal?

At home: Black bean tostadas.  Tostada, veggie refried black beans, cheese, avocado, tomato, lettuce, fresh and pickled jalapenos with chipotle tobasco sauce.  Hells yeah.  In a restaurant: Verde Chicken Enchiladas.  

9. Which talent would you most like to have?

Hmmm...  I would love to be awesome at hula hooping.  It is so much fun!  I can only do one trick though.  But it's coming along... 

10. Greatest achievement?

I have to go with getting into UT and the coordinated program in dietetics.  I had a pretty pathetic GPA and I brought it up and got in.  The coordinated program only accepted 20 students so I felt really honored to get in.  I decided to go back to school when most people my age were graduating from college on a five-year plan and I pretty much had to start at the beginning.  It was really intimidating and scary but I did it!  

Tommy: You know, alot of people go to college for seven  a million years.  

Richard: I know, they're called doctors. 

Now who to tag... 

lisa eirene from 110 pounds and counting so inspirational- she makes me want a bike!

diana from my marble rye a fellow Texan dweller and keeps me up to date on celebrity gossip

stephanie from cookingfanatic such a positive vibe on there!

allison from eat clean live green she sparks some really good discussions!

Hopefully one of those lovely ladies will stop by and pick up the torch!

Have a good night!  Oh my- sooo past my bedtime!

Well my to-do list is taking a hint from Alice in Wonderland and is shrinking and growing like crazy!  Let's see...

179  225 google reader posts to weed through!

Get house in order for college roommate + baby for Friday visit!  Check!

Get mom a gift for her birthday!  Check!

Make pie for Easter!  Sort of check if by "make pie" I meant purchase cake...

Give dog a bath!  Fail

Work!  Grrr...  check

Buy groceries so I can stop eating out/eating random meals!  (ie deviled eggs, hummus and pita chips- hello?  veggies?  are you there?  no...  I think this is a fail.  I've been trying to eat up stuff since I'm out of town this coming week

Write post about awesome bachelorette party in the Texas Hillcountry Wine territory!  Fail- but still coming!

Buy new computer!  Fail but bought an awesome new phone instead that will help me with my blog addiction.  It's kind of a computer so I'll say check!

Remain calm!!!  Check!

additions:
Pack for out of town trip.

Research food options for out of town/pack cooler.

Not too bad...

 Thanks for reading my boring to-do list.  Do you make lists- I'm a list fanatic for sure... 

Rollin' with the homies!

 I just had another awesome weekend!  I am on a roll!  My old college roommate came into town with her new baby (well 7 months old) and it was so fun!  Alina is one of those people who is not a constant figure in my life but whenever we are connected it's just like old times and we can pick up right where we were.  I think it's been at least 3 or 4 years since we last saw each other but it's so comfortable and... well it just feels nice.  We had a really good time hanging out on Friday- I stayed up sooooo late I thought I might see the sun rise!  I love my peeps!

Meatless Update:

All last week my coworker kept asking me if I was excited to eat meat again.  The answer: not really.  Not excited.  I was excited to eat fish again though!  Thursday was Scott's last day from the show he was working on and he was off early so we went and got sushi!!!  So good!  We had such a fun date night- sushi, hit up our new local bar with a pal, then the two of us headed back to the casa and jammed out to the radio and had a dance party on our porch with CutCut.  Oh yeah, meatless update...  So I will be eating meat again.  I really enjoyed eating vegetarian but right now there's just something that doesn't feel right about cutting out food groups.  I think I will be more selective about the kind of meat I eat, etc.  For instance, our friends were grilling steaks last night but I know my folks are having red meat for Easter dinner tonight so I passed on the steaks.   We'll see...  I have been reading The Case for Vegetarianism and it does bring up some good points.

The things I didn't enjoy while eating vegetarian were:

*Having to explain what I was doing to everyone.

*Eating out was boring at times.

*I really wanted fish!

*Going to my parent's for dinner was the worst.  I felt excluded in some ways, I think mainly because my mom forgot what I was doing so I had to make my own food and it felt a little awkward.  Something similar happened at Scott's folk's but they rolled with it better than mine did.

What I did enjoy:

*I really felt good.  I don't really know how to explain it but I didn't feel as heavy after I ate my meals.

*I liked coming up with good meals on my own.

*It felt nice to do something for 31 days.  I accomplished what I set out to do!

*It is helping me evaluate my food philosophy.

Happy Weekend!

!!!

Aaahhh!!

179 google reader posts to weed through!

Get house in order for college roommate + baby for Friday visit!

Get mom a gift for her birthday!

Make pie for Easter!

Give dog a bath!

Work!

Buy groceries so I can stop eating out/eating random meals!  (ie deviled eggs, hummus and pita chips- hello?  veggies?  are you there?  no...

Write post about awesome bachelorette party in the Texas Hillcountry Wine territory!

Buy new computer!

Remain calm!!!

heh- I like how google reader is first...  but I will probably not catch up until next week...

in other quick updates:
I fell while running with CutCut and hurt myself decently but I'm ok.

Meatless month update to come at some point.

Thanks Diana for the vegoutaustin.com site!

Negative v. Positive

I don't consider myself a negative person or necessarily a positive person.  Of course, I try to be a positive person but sometimes negative stuff gets me down.  Particularly when those negative things keep happening and seem to pile up and up. 

This post isn't all about all the negative stuff in my life but bear with me for a moment...  I think I said in an earlier post that the last couple of months have been pretty stressful with the move and all that but then all this little negative stuff kept happening.  CutCut got out of his crate not once, but twice!  The first time he got out he ruined a bunch of blinds and we came home to a house that from the outside looked like a bomb went off.  When I raced inside I forgot to lock my car and the next morning I discovered the face to my stereo had been stolen.  Bummer.  But strange that they only took my face...  The second time he got out it was at Scott's folk's place and again, he went for the blinds.  And he got hurt!  He rubbed the skin around his nose raw trying to get out of his crate and cut one of his dew claws.  Needless to say we have postponed further crate training... 

Anyways, so all this piddly negative stuff was going on all around me and I was really getting down.  A few weeks ago on a Monday, I was driving to work (not listening to the radio) and listing all the negative things.  Then I told myself "Stop!  If you keep up all this negativity it's going to keep happening and never go away.  Think positive, change your attitude and good things will start to happen." 

Forward to work.  I'm printing a ton of reports and go pick them up off the copier.  When I get back to my desk, I see a message on my phone from an unknown number.  I check it and it's some one named Neil who has something of mine I lost and to call him if I want it back.  I couldn't understand the message he left but I immediately start thinking about what I could have possibly lost.  I called him back and he says he has my bag and he works at a coffee shop in a town about 25 miles away. 

I could not believe this guy had my bag!  About 9 months ago I lost my bag in the smaller town because I put it on the trunk of my car and drove away.  Yeah, I know...  I looked and looked for it but didn't find it and figured someone else did.  I canceled my bank account on recommendation from my bank, had to go back to my old phone I'd just replaced, etc.  And this guy calls me and has my bag with everything in it just the way I lost it?!?  The craziest part of it is that the very next day I was going to be working in the same small town!  Weird...

But that Sunday before the guy called me, I had dinner with my parents and my mom told this parable about how we have two wolves inside, a negative and a positive and the one that wins is the one that we feed the most.  Later that day I read this post from Tracey at Tropical Happiness.

Same parable!  So weird. 

So I'm on a positive upswing- I feel good about how things are going and where I'm at.  I'd been considering getting a new stereo for my car anyways...

For more on positivity check out this post over at Andrea's Wellness Notes.

Hope you all had/are still enjoying a great weekend!

Impromptu Thursday

Man, I am so glad it's the weekend!!!  I've been trapped in a training class all week that has dragggged!  Yesterday I got home from work to find CutCut had been up to some serious mischief and was now in need of a bath...  So I headed over to my friend's (and now neighbor!) to chill in the yard while CutCut waited in stinky shame at our place. 

We basked in the sun and sipped on some Ska Red Stripe Ale.  So good!  This beer hails from Durango, CO and is delish.  I used to go to school up there so that's how I heard of it and they recently started carrying it down here- very glad! 

After I got home, wrestled the pup into the tub, and gave him a good scrub down, I was ready to eat!  It was a farmer's market/local feast!  I popped some cauliflower (from the farmer's mkt) into the oven to roast up while I put some sliced tofu I basted in local spicy mustard (farmer's mkt) and pepper sauce from the Silver K Cafe (in Johnson City, TX!)  This pepper sauce is seriously awesome- I eat it on almost everything and one bottle has not lasted me long.  I am dreading running out of it...  I also sauteed some farmer's market mixed greens (kale, brussle sprout leaves, chard and brocolini) in some garlic.  This meal was freakin' awesome!  I really need to start posting some pictures- I think this meal really motivated me to locate the necessary hardware!

Despite my delicious veggie-meal I had a really weird dream last night...  I was eating a huge, juicy rib that was the size of a person's leg.  For real.  I kept saying how good it was and I ate the whole thing.  It was like some sort of Flinstone's rib...  Thoughts?  I should look it up in my dream dictionary.

Happy Weekend!

Overnight oats: success! Planning well for workout: fail!

Last night I made overnight oats for the first time.  I'd been reading about them for forever and never had the nerve to try them but last night I decided I was bored of granola, yogurt and frozen blueberries.  I wanted to keep it simple my first time but I took the plunge and now see speedy breakfasts in my future!

My Plain Jane Overnight Oats had:
1/2 cup of rolled oats
1/2 cup of plain Horizon yogurt (just can't seem to join the Greek fan club!)
1/2 cup of milk
1/2 of a super ripe banana
4 or 5 strawberries

I have to admit when first looking at this mixture I thought I should add more oats and maybe a squirt of agave but resisted.  So glad!  These turned out so good!  The texture was perfect and the fruit was just sweet enough.  I used regular milk cause that's the only thing I had but I think I should try some almond milk next time.  And I want to try it with pumpkin!  Possibilities...

Last night my friend that I'm doing the training group with and I made a plan to meet up before the group.  I'm in a training all week that keeps me later than normal so I told him I would bring my stuff with me to work and go straight there.  Well...  I got all my stuff together last night, looped the bag on my front door knob, and left it there!  I mean, I touched it as I was leaving!  So now I'll be having a nice workout at home sans friend.  It's ok, I'm sure CutCut will appreciate the company...