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?

Today has been another beautiful snowy day.

I started my day with a breakfast of Greek yogurt and granola.

I have a ridiculous amount of breakfast pictures because I was enjoying all of the natural light.  Do you think I can replicate this strawberry yogurt with plain yogurt and strawberry preserves? I think  I am going to try because I have a big tub of plain (Greek) yogurt in my fridge that needs to be used.

After breakfast I took Piper outside to play and take pictures. She definitely took to the snow better today.

This is the only action shot I could get of Piper because she was moving so fast.

Okay, I had one more.

Okay, that’s all the snow stuff I have, I promise.

After playtime Brian and I decided to test the roads in effort to head to Costco. The DOT had done and awesome job of clearing the interstate and some of the main roads.

Lunch was primarily the free samples that we got a Costco, but we did stop by Wendy’s on our way home. We split some spicy chicken nuggets.

And a double stack with cheese.

Once we were home and had everything unloaded and put away it was time for some more snowy playtime.

In snowy weather I roll in pink rain boots. I had to wear 2 pairs of socks though because they are not insulated at all.

After a little TV watching I got a box of goodies ready for my bloggie valentine.

TJ’s Lovey Gummy Tummies; Fresh Market Cupid’s Cranberry Crunch Mix (I really wanted this for myself but this was the last one…I just realized that I forgot to mark out the price. Oops!); Cherry Pie, Apple Pie, and Cashew Cookie Larabars; and a cute cupcake note pas (I love these for making grocery lists or writing down meal ideas).

TJ’s milk chocolate covered mini PB crackers and TJ’s fair trade swiss dark chocolate.

I hope she likes it.

A little later I snacked on a slice of provolone while B got dinner ready.

And for dinner. Baked shoestring french fries that stuck to the fool (oops) and a special bagel concoction of B’s. The bagel was a CostCo parmesan cheese bagel with chive and onion cream cheese, sliced ham, tomato, and provolone cheese. This was very tasty and filling.

No dessert yet, but I just pulled some Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Oatmeal cookies out of the oven. Hopefully the highest bidder (from the Bake 4 Haiti bake sale) will email me tonight or early tomorrow so I can get these into the mail, otherwise my coworkers will get these and I will be making another batch later this week.

Another weekend has gone by too fast and  have a few chores to finish up before bed. Night!

I can’t believe it is Sunday evening already. The weekend flew by.

This morning I slept late again and stayed in bed past 9 AM. So nice. But we missed church….again.

I woke up starving but was not motivated enough to put much of anything together.

Breakfast was some PB toast.

After browsing the newspaper a cleaning extravaganza began. All of the cleaning I have been putting off since we got home after Christmas got done today.

At one point we took a break for lunch.

Homemade sloppy joes in a lettuce wrap and Green Giant green bean casserole.

Very sloppy and very good.

We also took some time to run some errands. We needed to pick up some 2 buck Chuck from Trader Joe’s. We grabbed a snack while we were out.

We split a 5 piece spicy chicken nugget from Wendy’s and a medium Mountain Dew. These nuggets were yummy.

Once we got back the cleaning began again…after another snack.

Hummus and pita chips. Love these.

More cleaning….another snack.

This was really Brian’s but he insisted that I eat one wedge and I did. Love that salsa.

Now it is time for dinner and a soak in the tub after all of today’s hard work.

I had to get back to real life this morning. Boo. And since I had been out of my routine all week I felt like I was really having to hustle to get ready.

Part of the problem probably had to do with me snoozing me alarm from 6 AM (I was planning on working out) until 6:45 AM. Oops!

Since there is so little food in the house right now I did not have many options for breakfast. I wasn’t in the mood for oats so I decided to change things up and cook an egg.

As I have said before I am not an egg eater, but nothing else sounded good. So I used out last egg and a slice of Nature’s Pride Multigrain bread to make egg in a basket, which was inspired by Brandi.

This was my first ever fried egg. It tasted pretty good, but

since I am not an egg person this will only be a once-in-a-while kind of breakfast.

As you can see I ate my egg in a basket with an orange and I topped the cutout piece of bread with some PB. I started getting full so I only took 1 bite of the PB bread before giving it to Piper.

I am happy to say that this breakfast did a pretty good job of holding me over. I didn’t get hungry until almost 11! And then I was able to hold off on snacking until lunch.

For lunch I decided to run some errands. We needed a few grocery items to get us by until the weekend when we plan to do our big grocery trip.

I was so excited to find a 5 lb box of Cuties on sale at SuperTarget for $3.99. WooHoo!

I burned up my whole lunch hour browsing and had to rush to get something to eat. I went by the most convenient place. Wendy’s.

Since I was starving I ordered 2 Spicy Chicken Go Wraps. They were so good but 630 calories. At least I ordered water to go with.

The afternoon has been really steady as we are trying to wrap up business for the end of the calendar year. But I did manage to take a few minutes to munch on an orange.

Not too long til its time to head home and I am can’t wait. Chicken Lettuce wraps are on the menu for dinner tonight. Yum!

** Somehow I lost all of my pictures from Thanksgiving 2009 until December 22, 2009. Ack! **

It feels like it should be Friday. Actually, it feels like it should be next Wednesday and my holiday should be starting a 5. Alas, that is not the case.

This mornings snack was some more Food Should Taste Good olive chips.

I did good and counted out the chips for one serving and put them on my cute plate. Otherwise I would have demolished the entire bag. It is so small I could easily finish it in one sitting without thinking about it. Although, the one serving held me over nicely until lunch.

At lunch I completely fell of the healthy (or semi-healthy) eating wagon. I made a last minute decision to go to Trader Joe’s on my lunch break to get the few things I needed to make my potluck goodies.

I was craving Wendy’s, so I had Wendy’s.

A Spicy Chicken Go Wrap and small fry.

And a not-so-small small Mountain Dew.

According to the Wendy’s website this is a whopping 650 calories-ish.

Oh well. I really enjoyed it and it has held over all afternoon.

On top of getting my real work done this afternoon I have also created a meal plan to get Brian and me by until we leave for Florida next week. Our fridge is going to be completely depleted by the time we leave but we are going to make it. I am also trying to make a plan for the day we get back too.

I am excited to get home and get started on the cooking for tomorrow. My goal is to make rosemary bread, spinach artichoke dip with a french loaf (the Pillsbury kind), and a gigantic salad, along with our dinner which has already been started in the crockpot.

I really hope the pot luck comes together. So far we have what I am making, queso dip, and baked ziti on the list. Can’t wait to see tomorrow.

The weather has been so nice today!

Brian has been playing softball throughout the day so I went shopping. I really couldn’t find anything that I liked. Boo.

This morning I went to Marshalls Homegoods (I got a stocking stuffer for my Dad!) and then walked around a place called Birkdale Village in Huntersville. I was really enjoying walking around outside more than anything else.  After my stroll in Birkdale I was starving and decided to come home for lunch.

I had really wanted to pick up some sushi, but I wouldn’t do that without Brian since he loves it so much. We are going to have it for dinner instead! I wanted something refreshing and decided on a salad. But I did not think that would be enough so I made a laughing cow/hummus/red bell pepper sandwich too!

These really hit the spot.

After lunch I stayed around the house for a while, but started to feel blah so I decided to go back out.

This time I went to Trader Joe’s to get some 2 Buck Chuck, and other stuff, of course. I also decided to hit up Tuesday Morning and Northlake Mall. I found nothing worth buying. Sigh. Shopping just isn’t any fun when my Mom isn’t around to go with. Fortunately I will have her with me for the next 2 weekends!

Around 4 I was starving and ended up swinging by Wendy’s for a snack. Even though I feel more relaxed than I have the rest of this week I am still craving some of my go to stress foods. I got a small fry and 16 oz Dr. Pepper.

The fries were old and weren’t particularly satisfying so I am definitely looking forward to our sushi dinner whenever Brian gets done with softball.

Do you have go to stress foods that you know you should be eating but can’t seem to resist?