Happy Monday!

Usually Monday’s are pretty bittersweet with the end of the weekend and all, but today has been pretty good as far as Monday go. Steady workload and beautiful weather. I think Piper has a walk in store for her when I get home!

I am happy to report that I did manage to work in some 30 Day Shred after blogging last night. I think I was motivated by the new workout pants I bought yesterday! The workout was great, but it threw me back on bedtime, which also meant that Jessie did not get up for an AM workout today.

I actually prefer and evening workout, when I can peel myself away from my laptop, because I like sleeping in the mornings. Unfortunately I let myself get distracted by my to-do list, and  often working out gets pushed too low on the priority list. So from now on I am going to aim for AM and PM workouts and just see what works out. Some days I will hit one, some days both, and (hopefully) only every once in a while none. When do you prefer to workout? Why? I want to hear from you, please let me know!!!

This morning I somehow managed to start running late even with all of the snack prep work that I did yesterday. Not sure how that happened. I was sad when I realized that I was out of sweet tea and had no time to make more. I really have a hard time drinking plain water 1st thing in the AM.

No sweet tea @ home = stop by Chic Fil A on the way to work. I like the 1/2 sweet/unsweet tea when I can’t have my own.

I wasn’t planning on picking up breakfast but I couldn’t resist.

3 pack of Chickin minis.

These little guys kept me full all morning. No snack needed. Shocking, right?!

Lunch was pretty ho-hum. I had a conference call over my break (I am totally jumping on the OpenSky bandwagon!) and was distracted while preparing. It turned out very under-seasoned and flavorless.Wilted spinach, quinoa, refried beans, salsa, plain Oikos, and jalapeno slices.

I think it was really missing a crunch or chewy factor. I totally forgot to grab a handful of tortilla chips. That what I get for cooking/eating while distracted.

After my disappointing lunch I wanted a great dessert, and decided to give chocolate Oikos another try. Chocolate Oikos with Bear Naked vanilla almond granola and butterscotch chips.

This was a great combo! And I liked the chocolate Oikos much better than last time.

Don’t forget to enter my Yoplait Greek Yogurt giveaway. I will be announcing the winner on tonight’s post!

Have a great afternoon!

Yet another day with no afternoon post. Boo. My job has always been an all or nothing situation when it comes to work load, and right now my cup is overflowing. So much so that B and I have decided to take a half day on Friday and head to Myrtle Beach.

Thank you all for your encouragement on my work situation.  I am so sorry to keep venting to you all and thank you for continuing to read. My work is directly related to my work-life balance, my mood, and stress level and therefore my health so I don’t feel like I can leave it out.

I did get out of bed this morning for a workout. I tried 30 Day Shred and was excited that my performance was slightly improved. It wasn’t much but enough to keep me from being discouraged. Pre-workout I was starving so I grabbed a little Agave Plus granola and a few almonds.

Like the rest of this week I did not have time to eat breakfast before leaving for work, but I busted it out as soon as I got to the office.

I finally got to try a Glo Bar!!! I will be honest that it was not love at first bite. At first I thought it really had a “healthy food” taste. But the more I ate the more I liked it. I think that my initial taste was just because my palette was completely unfamiliar with some of the ingredients in the bars. I definitely am looking forward to trying the other flavor that I ordered.

My morning was psycho. I was hopping from meeting to meeting, each overlapping with the other, plus I had a lunch appointment and was having to make sure I left in plenty of time to get there on time. It was this appointment that had me feeling so torn about my job yesterday. Can you guess what it was?

Anywho, I managed to grab a handful of peanuts in between meetings to keep my stomach from grumbling.

Lunch was eaten on the road. It was  wrap that I made this morning before work with a really old La Tortilla Factory wrap, smear of Miracle Whip, slice roasted turkey, and tomato. I really wasn’t feeling it so I only ate about 1/3 of it.

I also had some pickles but didn’t take a picture because I was driving. This picture is of the leftovers that I ate later in the afternoon. These guys completely satisfied my stress induced salt craving.

My appointment went well and as expected. I was kind of dreading going back to work because I knew the craziness that was waiting for me. When I got back I had a surprise on my desk.

Sal got me some new Triscuits and Laughing  Cow to try. I wasn’t hungry quite yet and saved them for later.

I felt pretty useless the rest of the afternoon. I had a ton of work to do but my mind felt so scattered and I was having a hard time focusing on all of the tasks at hand.

I had a chocolate craving this afternoon and decided to pull out a snack I have been dying to try, chocolate Oikos.

I tried it by itself and was honestly disappointed. Then I added some chocolate chips, granola, and coconut and still wasn’t feeling it. I ended up throwing away close to half of it.

I am not sure if it was my mood or the fact that the yogurt was close to room temperature that it just didn’t hit the spot. I have 3 more in the fridge and I will definitely be giving it another try.

As I am posting I am realizing what a snacky afternoon I had. After my chocolate craving passed a salt craving hit me with a vengeance. I ate my last three pickles and then some almonds. I packed apricots with the almonds because I was going to try a snack that Katie posted, but I just wasn’t feeling ‘em so they are still sitting in my lunch bag.

Then I busted out the Triscuits and Laughing Cow that Sal got me. I went and got him and we had a quick snack time at my desk. These crackers were good, but a little more of an acquired taste. I only think they are okay on first taste, but think I could grow to love them. Thanks Sal! You spoil me.

As soon as I got home I called B and told him I wasn’t cooking dinner and that he had 2 options. He could either cook or pick something up on his way home. As you can see he opted to stop by Subway. Really easy and filling. Thats all we needed.

I promise dinner will be more interesting tomorrow because we are having dinner guests so we can’t cop out on dinner…or as Jillian Michael’s says, we can’t “phone it in”.

And to make the whole day better I ate the last bit of Samoas ice cream out of the tub with a Samoas cookie.

Now that I have a full belly, empty dishwasher, and somewhat empty sink I am off to do some ready, soaking, and then sleeping.

I hope you all had a great day! And goodnight!

Happy Friday! This has been one of those weeks when Friday could not get here fast enough. Whew! I am so glad it finally got here.

I started my morning all anxious over work and had a rough morning. My appetite was pretty much gone but at 9:30 I decided to eat a little something anyways.

I ate the leftover yogurt and granola from yesterday morning with a gold nugget orange.

Since I was feeling down I seriously considered eating the cupcake that Sal brought me this morning.

Somehow I resisted the urge and saved it for lunch.

When lunch time rolled around I still wasn’t really hungry but I made myself some lunch anyways. I had some leftover black beans to use up, which of course means I will be eating taco salad. I am so glad that I bought some quick cooking brown rice earlier this week because I love the brown rice/black bean combo. This salad included wilted spinach, mashed black beans, brown rice, salsa, and sour cream with blue corn chips on the side. Delicious. And it turns out that I was hungrier than I realized. I would have regretted coming back to work without eating something.

I couldn’t resist the cupcake any longer and ate about 3/4 of it before heading back to work.

The weekend is almost here. It is so close I can almost taste it! 5PM here I come.

Ahhh! Today has been a relief. I don’t think I could have gone another day with such a big cloud over my head. Although I am going to have to have a serious sit down with the hubby about possibly making some changes. I am tired of feeling like I am suffocating all of the time. There are always days like today that are like a breath of fresh air, but it doesn’t take long for the stifling feeling to return. Does anyone else out there know how I feel?

It seems like the mornings that I don’t get up to workout (which is most mornings) are so hurried, and I never seem to have time for breakfast at home.

This morning I packed some blueberry Oikos, Agave Plus granola, and a Cutie. Once I got to work one of my healthy living coworkers brought me a Kashi granola bar to try.

I have tried other Kashi granola bars in the past, like almond flax and trail mix, and thought they were really bland. This flavor was cherry dark chocolate and it was delicious! I am officially in love with dried cherries. I ate half the bar on its own, because I wanted to make sure I really tasted it, and then I crumbled the other half in my yogurt.

I tried something else new this morning too. I put PB in my yogurt mess! I loved how the PB took away some of the tang I usually taste with Greek yogurts.

I got filled up fast because I didn’t even eat half!

My morning seemed to drag on and I ended up eating a morning snack out of boredom instead of hunger.

Back to Nature sunflower and basil crackers and Laughing Cow. I love this cracker flavor!

More dragging…..

I was excited for lunch since last night. B and I had planned to make shepherd’s pie for dinner before I found out about girls night. He made it anyways and I was jealous. Fortunately there were plenty of leftovers for me!

  I left him to his own devices and made it all weird. When I went to scoop it into my bowl I found that he did a layer of potato on the bottom, meat in the middle, and a layer of potato on top. Its just not how we normally do it. It still tasted really good, especially with my side of green beans.

Cookies will be my downfall. I am eating at least  1 or 2 a day. I love with a glass of ice cold milk.

Cookies are a perfect way to start my afternoon. Mmmm.

Dinner may be boring as I plan to eat more shepherd pie leftovers. Maybe just maybe I can come up with some creative spin to put on them. We shall see.

Today has been a light eating day so I feel like I have nothing to talk about!

Breakfast was leftover roasted pears from Friday night. I just couldn’t bear to let them go to waste. We didn’t have anymore caramel Oikos so I made some vanilla flavor Oikos by stirring in a capful of vanilla (1/2 tsp?) and a drizzle of agave into about 3 oz (1/2 container?). I topped with my last crumbs of Agave plus cereal (plus some coconut and mini chocolate chips that were in the container too).

The pears were a bit mushy and the skins were tough, otherwise I think this was a pretty good breakfast. I may try roasted pear again but I will make sure to cook them less.

There was no snacking done this morning whatsoever. I remember getting hungry around 11AM but for some reason I never ended up eating anything.

Lunch was a spectacular combo of last nights leftovers. I used to hate leftovers for lunch, but now I love the delicious combos that I seem to be able to throw together. I actually think lunch today may have been better than last nights dinner! I started by wilting some spinach in the microwave and then topped with quinoa, cauliflower, crab cakes, and some tartar sauce. I was still a bit hungry so a pulled out some PopChips while watching my DVRed Kardashians episode.

And of course my sweet tooth has been insane lately so I munched on a frozen Samoa before heading back to work.

Do you have any reality TV weaknesses? I adore anything Kardashian. I also really liked the old Girls Next Door with Bridget, Holly, and Kendra.

Finally Friday! I am so excited that the weekend is here.

Apparently last night’s dinner could have used a little some thing more, like rice, because we all practically ate another meal before bed. Dinner definitely did not have staying power. I ended up making bagel pizzas with a bagel thin.

I forgot to toast the bagels before topping so they ended up a little soggy but they were still tasty. I am really a fan of the bagel thins.

I also pulled some of Ultimate Cookie dough out of the freezer to bake up because I was dying to get my mom to try them.

I baked them just the right amount of time so that they were still soft but had a nice chew to them. I definitely ended my night on a sweet note.

It turns out that I started my morning this morning on a sweet note. I had caramel apple yogurt mess.

I microwave one diced apple with a sprinkle of cinnamon and then topped with a container of caramel Oikos and some Agave Plus granola. I guess it was along the lines of last night’s roasted pears. Delish. Topping fruit with this caramel Oikos yogurt is a decadent, nutritious way to satisfy my sweet tooth!

I stayed on my sweet kick when I snagged some Tootsie Rolls from my coworkers candy jar.

I haven’t had Tootsie Rolls in forever and I just couldn’t resist.

My morning snack was a Doctor Kracker with a wedge of Laughing Cow. This cracker is huge, but the perfect size for one whole wedge of cheese. I love the seedy crunch combined with the smoothness of the cheese.

By the time lunch rolled around my Mom was tired of hanging around my house and decided we would go out to lunch. Normally we would go to Showmar’s in Northlake Mall but today she had other plans. TGIFridays is running their 3 courses for $12.99 deal! We love to get one to split. We started with pork dumplings. These are a favorite for both of us, and this is the second time I have had these this week! I have to say that these were much tastier than the ones at Yoshi’s.

As our main course we had the Ultimate Sicilian Chicken Sandwich (or something like that).This thing was huge! I could barely get my mouth around it.

This sandwich was a chicken breast with pepperoni and ham with Provolone melted on top plus lettuce, Bruschetta mix, shaved Parmesan and a drizzle of house vinaigrette. So. Good. But I do refuse to look at the calorie count. At least my Mom and I split it and together only ate about half the fries.

Surprisingly I was still feeling a little hungry and ordered a side salad. Unfortunately the salad was drenched in a gingery house dressing and I only ended up eating half.

We contemplated having the brownie for dessert but decided to shake things up by having the peanut butter pie instead.

This pie had a fudge bottom layer topped with a fluffy PB layer and a whipped cream layer. I couldn’t believe how light this was! I don’t usually associate PB with lightness but this pie may have changed my mind.

The lunch hour flew by and it seemed like no time before my Mom was dropping me back off at the office. Good bye sunshine! I hope to see you at 5.

Tonight I am going to be short and sweet. My Mom is in town so I am not going to spend the entire evening on the computer for a change.

My afternoon snack was some organic gold nuggets (?) from my organic produce delivery. Two of them already had soft spots when I got my delivery yesterday so I decided to go ahead and cut them up today so they didn’t go to waste.

I only ate about 1/2 of them so I guess I will finish them off tomorrow.

Dinner tonight was one of our favorites, lettuce wraps.

I seem to make them a little different each time. Tonight I used 2/3 yellow bell pepper, 3 carrots grated, 1/2 onion, and 2 boiled and shredded chicken breasts. I stirred in some Szechuan sauce and chicken broth and let simmer. Easy breezy.

I had several pears in the fridge that were started to get old and decided to make an easy dessert. My Mom and I halved and cored all of the pears, layed them face up in a pyrex dish, and sprinkled the tops with a couple teaspoons of sugar. After they came out of the oven we put them in dessert bowls and topped with caramel Oikos. Amazing. I am going to have to get more yogurt to top the left over pears.

Signing off now to spend some quality time with Mom. Night!

Today was the big day. My first attempt at using my caramel Oikos to make a Samoas (my fave Girl Scout Cookie) flavored yogurt mess.

I was running late, as usual in the AM so I prepped my toppings for the office.

From the bottom up: semisweet mini chocolate chips, unsweetened shredded coconut, Kashi Honey Sunshine, and Nature’s Path Agave Plus. I also had some wheat berries in a separate container.

Once I got to work I assembled my creation.

Wheat berries, 1 4-oz container of caramel Oikos, and my cereal mixture above. I only used about 1/4 of what is in that container.

First of all the caramel Oikos is a bit too sweet for my taste (I may start mixing with some plain Oikos to tone down), which was intensified by the Kashi Honey Sunshine. I might have to cut my losses with the Honey Sunshine. The more I eat it the less I like it.

So my breakfast was yummy, even though it was a little sweet, but was a huge fail by way of replicating the Somoas deliciousness. I will have to just try again another day.

At some point in the day I decided to take a self portrait.

Not sure why. I think I was trying to distract myself from how bad my shirt was irritating me. I never feel like I can move in button down shirts!

Amidst my working this morning I also took a minute to create something for the Heart Yourself Campaign that Diana is doing this month.

The Heart Yourself Campaign is along the lines of Operation Beautiful and showing ourselves some self-love.

I decided that my [main] feature that I like about myself is resilience. I might let something get me down for a day but I am pretty good to bounce back and keep trucking. I think being a cancer survivor is what really made that feature stand out for me. Despite the physical pain I am living with some of the time (like yesterday) I keep going and try to keep it from getting and/or keeping me down.

I also added a few more features that I like in myself, and I posted this on my calendar at my desk so I see it all day long.

Morning snacking included something kind of new.

I have eaten almond butter and I have eaten carrots but never together. I see Meghann eat AB and carrots all the time so I decided to give it a try.

I didn’t hate it but I didn’t love it either. Plus I am using a new AB that I am still getting used to too. We switched from Blue Diamond AB to Maranatha and we are still getting used the the difference in flavor. Also, I did not like carrying my AB in a plastic baggy because it was too hard to scoop out. Alas, all my tiny Tupperware were dirty or in use.

I was really irritated when my snack made me hungrier rather than satisfying my hunger. Although I refused to eat anything else since my lunch break was quickly approaching.

I knew I didn’t have anything quick and easy at the house to eat for lunch so I made a pit stop at Wendy’s on my way home. I ordered a small chili and a baked potato with broccoli and no cheese.

When I got home I was really annoyed to find a cheese slather baked potato in my bag! I ended up losing all of my broccoli while scooping off the greasy cheesiness. I also transferred into new bowl.

I transformed my baked potato by adding 1/4 c of kidney beans, 1/3 small Wendy’s chili, Smart Balance sour cream, shredded cheddar and some jalapeno slices.

I also threw some spinach in a bowl with some canned mushrooms I had in the fridge. It was only meh but I didn’t feel like cutting up a tomato. Next time I might just throw in a spoonful of salsa for some extra flavor.

I was really brilliant while rinsing out my dished and sloshed water all over myself.

Aren’t I bright?

And for dessert I could not resist the temptation of the last of the cupcakes. They were still really tasty and had only dried out a little bit. 3 cupcakes in 3 days. That’s not that bad, right?

I think I am going to have to cut down on my computer time. I am spending 8 hours a day on the computer and then at least another hour at home. Lately I have been getting headache around 7:30 or 8 PM. So weird. Maybe its just sinus’ though. Who knows?

I really wanted to take Piper for a walk when I got home but it was so cold and windy. I felt like i might blow away trying to walk to my car when I was leaving the office. Brrrrr.

After getting settled and changed it was time for dinner. I didn’t eat an afternoon snack so I was hungry. Since B’s parents are coming into town this weekend tonight was designated as clean out the fridge night.

I started with my leftovers from yesterdays lunch at Bravo, but B had already started picking at them. There was only 1 shrimp left! This dish was spicy and seemed a little greasier today than yesterday. Then I moved onto the last of the turkey tortilla soup and rice from yesterday. I had a tub that had 1 – 2 tbsp of plain Oikos that I decided to dump them into after I had warmed them up. Then I topped it with crumbs from a bag of tortilla chips and Jack’s Special salsa. Alas, there was no more guacamole.

Before heading upstairs to our home office I also grabbed a square of Dove dark chocolate.

Now it is time to go down stairs and sit in front of the space heater. My feet are icicles!

No, I am not devastated over my meeting. It hasn’t happened yet. I am devastated because I worked really hard to look nice this morning (for my meeting) and I ended up getting yogurt on my pants 2 seconds after I got to work. Gah!

I quickly dove into my stash of wet wipes to correct the situation. I think I am good. But now it has started to rain. Its like I am destined to not look remotely put together today.

Regardless of the pants situation my breakfast was fantastic. The star of the show was the new Oikos Caramel flavored Greek yogurt.

It was a little on the sweet side, but I am looking forward to chowing down on more. And the I get to try the chocolate. Mmmmm.

I topped my yogurt with some Nature’s Path Agave Plus granola. Great combo, and I already have plans for my next. Do you think I could replicate Somoas Girl Scout cookies with some shredded coconut and dark chocolate chips added to this mix? I am gonna try.  What’s in the white bowl you ask?

Strawberries, blueberries, and kiwi. I promise, there really are blueberries in there.

All together now.

After finishing all of this I was stuffed with a capital S-T-U-F-F-E-D. However I did start feeling a little hungry by 10:30. To snack or not to snack that is the question.

I decided to snack because I do not want to me starving by the time I get to my lunch meeting. Inhaling my salad would probably not be a model of professional behavior. Alas, neither will taking pictures of my food. Sorry folks.

I tried to keep my snack light again today.

More mini pickles and an apple. Unfortunately these guys are not holding me over too well. I guess I am going to have to start chugging water to hold me over for the next hour.

No lunch pictures today so I will catch you all for dinner! Please keep your fingers crossed that my meeting goes well.