Okay ladies and gents…we are back to your regularly scheduled program!

Friday Fun Facts

• Mackey has never seen a vacuum/sweeper before.  Well that is just an educated guess considering he chases it and tries to eat it as I am sweeping the rugs.

• I came up with a new low-calorie cocktail recipe this week!  Fruit Splash Cocktail:  1 shot orange vodka, frozen fruit, lemon-lime sparkling water, and ice.  Fill glass halfway with ice cubes, top off with frozen fruit.  Add shot of orange vodka and top off glass with sparkling water.  Stir and enjoy.  For even better taste let the drink sit in fridge before enjoying.

• I finally have the red couch I have always wanted.  Okay…I got a red loveseat-sleeper that is in the office/study (formally a dining room).  Either way it is big, red, and awesome!
• I am considering cutting my hair.  I told my husband and he shook his head and reminded me that the last time I cut my hair I cried for 2 years as it grew back out.  Whatever…may do it anyway.
• Hermann Park Trail Run–I did a trail running video awhile ago for a film student in Houston.  It was really nice that all my running was actually useful for something!

My husband and I have spent the majority of our winter’s in Northern Indiana and Michigan…we are pretty experienced snow-stormers.  Therefore we did the only smart thing:  stock up on liquor.  We hosted a nice little liquid brunch here yesterday to celebrate our “snowday” and my friend’s birthday.

Our little “Arctic Blast” (as the stations here called it) did not start out well for me.  I was scheduled for an all day mediation on Thursday morning, it was about 20 degrees, and my car would not start.  Great. After 20 minutes of trying to locate my battery in the dark I was more than happy my mediation canceled.  By this time I had finally pried off the bizillion plastic covers that hid my battery, my hands were covered in oil, and I couldn’t feel my fingers.  Needless to say, I literally just shut the hood and walked back to my apartment.  I managed not to get any oil on my suit!

I spent the rest of my Thursday on the couch clearing out the DVR and carb-loading for the impending weather.  On the menu:  Cookies N Cream Luna bar, pretzels, warm chocolate chip cookie, and Cinnabon cereal.  (Cereal is so addictive)

Both lunch and dinner were breakfast food.  Like I said….carb loading.

Friday morning I woke up to the Houston “Winter Storm” aka some ice on overpasses and Interstates.  I wasn’t surprised the least bit that we didn’t get any bad weather but I had a day off school nonetheless.  I hit the gym for 3 miles of intervals, 30 minutes of elliptical, and about 15 minutes of weights.  Then I decided to make some fried banana sandwiches for breakfast.

Fried Banana Sandwich

1 banana

butter/Smart Balance

Ground flax meal

cinnamon

peanut butter

2 pieces of bread

Cut the banana in half, then cut halves lengthwise.  Heat skillet to medium, drop spoonful of butter into pan, roll banana in ground flax meal and cinnamon.  Place in buttered pan and cook until lightly brown on all sides.

Spread peanut butter/nut butter of choice on bread, top with fried bananas, spread thin layer of butter on outside of bread and cook like a grilled cheese sandwich.

Once bread is slightly toasted, cut in half and enjoy!  ***If you want to cut down on butter, simply toast the bread before putting sandwich together and skip the grilling part***

The rest of Friday involved mimosas, screwdrivers, chips, salsa, and dinner at TQLA. I will be back to recap the evening once I feel better.

Reminder to self:  I am not 21 anymore.

This morning when I put my camera card into my computer all these pictures showed up that I have been looking for the last couple of days!  I swear that they weren’t there yesterday because I spent 10 minutes looking for them!

Anyway, here are the magic disappearing photos:

A photo of my plate full of cookies I mentioned in yesterday’s Fun Facts.  This is Plate 1.  Plate 2 went unpictured but included 3 more of the Anna’s Cookies sandwiches.  As you can see, I was not exaggerating when I said plate-full.

Up next a magic photo of my new bagel find at Kroger!  These are Nature’s Grain Carb Check Bagel.

Bagel Stats: 1 serving=1 bagel

Calories: 150

Total Fat 3.5g

Cholesterol 0

Sodium 450 mg

Carbs 36g

Fiber 19g

Sugars 2g

Protein 14g

The best part?  They are a legit bagel! I enjoy the taste of bagel-thins but honestly, it is nothing like eating a big, chewy, soft bagel.  The Nature’s Grain bagel is big, doughy, and not too sweet.  (I don’t like my breads overly sweet). I was also very impressed how soft and doughy they were for not technically being a fresh-baked bagel.

Of course these bagels were going to be the star of my brinner Friday night!  Toasted with butter, jelly, peanut butter, and cinnamon!

One of my other new finds made a guest appearance as well.  Laughing Cow Queso Fresco & Chiptole!

SouthWest Egg Scamble

1 cup Egg Beaters

1/2 cup dice tomatoes (I used canned)

1- 2 Tbsp corn

1 Tbsp black beans

1 wedge LC Queso Fresco

Cook eggs over med heat until nearly done then add in tomatoes, corn, and black beans.  Finish cooking.  Divide LC wedge into chunks and mash throughout egg scramble. Season to taste.

All together now.

My eggs were topped off with some Tony Chachere’s and I paired my brinner with a homemade ice latte.

Since I was technically carb-loading last night I snacked on a 100 calorie bag of popcorn, a lot of grapes, and one spoonful of ice cream.  [I only ate one spoonful because my husband bought a new kind and I didn't like it].

In other news I received my compression socks in the mail yesterday!  They felt great on my legs yesterday because I ended up ellipitcizing for 30 minutes yesterday to relieve stress even though I should have taken the rest day to prep.  I will do a full review after my big run today.

Time to run 20 miles!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Friday everyone!  Don’t you just hate when people are all chipper and say crap like that to you at the beginning of a long work day?  Or maybe I am just a bah-humbug year round.  Who knows!

Today’s Friday Fun Facts will be all about FOOD!!!!

Friday Fun Facts

• I love sweet breakfast food. In fact, I don’t remember the last time I had eggs or bacon or something like that for breakfast.  I enjoy having savory breakfast items at other times of the day, but in the morning I need some oatmeal, waffles, or cereal.

• Case in point:  I ate this concoction for breakfast today

Hominy Breakfast Bowl

1/2 cup leftover hominy

half apple-diced, cinnamoned, and cooked

1 muffin crumbled on top

cinnamon

Splenda (tasty chemicals)

I poured a splash of Silk so I could mix it all up.  Reheat in microwave until warmed thru.

• Apparently all that spinach I eat is good for my joints. According to this eating your leafy greens (Vit K) helps prevent arthritis in hands and maybe knees.  My husband should probably start an IV of spinach straight into his knees then.  Old man can’t walk down the parking garage stairs without hobbling a bit.

• I have never eaten a brussel sprout. Although my parents used to make me eat peas and scalloped potatoes (both things that literally make me throw up a bit in my mouth) there have never been any brussel sprouts in my home.  Honestly, I think I might like them.  I love about any roasted vegetable.

• Finally, if you cook like me (channeling Sandra Lee’s Semi-homemade recipes) you can do all sorts of things to make your food appear homemade!

For instance, make your cornbread (I couldn’t find a small baking dish so I made muffins) from a Jiffy box then sprinkle a little bit of canned corn on top (or mix into the batter)! My cornbread looked way more legit than just the blue box stuff!

Since the commenting is pretty slow on my blog (probably because I never comment on anyone else’s blog–although I do read them–in class) Leave me a Friday Fun Fact about Food!

This morning the hubs had to be into work super early so I had planned on sleeping in a bit as a Friday treat.  Trooper planned on being up before 6am.  You can all imagine who won that battle.

Trooper was also already back in bed before I even got my coat and shoes off.  Luckily, he is cute or I would have been mad.

Since I was up I decided to make a old favorite: banana split oats! I varied the recipe a bit because I didn’t feel like chocolate this morning.

Peanut Butter Split Oats

1/2 cup oats

1 tsp flax meal

sugar to taste

1/2 banana chopped

1 scoop peanut butter

1 scoop strawberry jelly

nuts optional to top

Cook oats & flax in microwave as usual.  Top with banana pieces, scoop of peanut butter, scoop of jelly, and sprinkle chunks of pecan on top!  Yum!

In other Trooper news, he has moved on to squirrel # 3.  He received this new squirrel for Christmas just in time because #2 had strings and stuffing falling out of it.  As usual, he took new squirrel to meet his other toys.

Then it was attack time.

I spent most of my afternoon yesterday in my Purdue Snuggie catching up on computer work, e-mails, financial aid crap, etc, etc, etc.

I had a really orange dinner last night.  I roasted up a large sweet potato and a few carrots all topped with a bit of cinnamon!  Unfortunately this lovely dinner was ruined by the Boilermakers loss to Minnesota!!!!  Massive mood kill.  I get so emotionally involved in my sports it probably is unhealthy.  Case in point:  I opened my cabinet this morning (after last night’s loss), grabbed my Purdue coffee mug, then huffed, shoved it back in the cabinet, and told my mug I was mad about the loss.  Haha!  Yeah….no comment.

Anyway, it is FRIDAY!  And I will be back later today with the usual Friday Fun Facts Post!

You read that post title correctly.  I had leftover Chinese food and it was delicious!

Leftover Chinese Breakfast Rice Bowl

1/2 cup leftover rice (or 1 cup if you are hungry!)

1/2 cup Silk/milk

1 small banana

1 small granola bar, muffin, or cereal

cinnamon and sugar

Mix rice, milk, cinnamon, and sugar in small bowl.  Microwave approximately 1 minute until milk is soaked up a bit.  Crumble your bar/muffin and mix into rice.  Top with banana pieces and a splash more of milk if desired.  Microwave approximately 30 secs to 1 minute until warm.

Enjoy!  You could be real cute and pour said mixture back into takeout container but I already dirtied this bowl so I said no to cute.

I have pretty much revamped my marathon training.  I really don’t even want to talk about the failure that has been training or how terrible of an idea it was to sign up for a marathon when you are loaded down with bar classes.

I am also considering giving up denial and buying my books since class starts next week.  Maybe.

Say what?  Click here to read the study. Basically it says that everyone–adults, children, midgets, giants–walk in the exact same way, thus short people take a lot more steps, burning more calories.

All I have to say is HA to all you genetically blessed long-legged people who can actually buy jeans or long dresses.  Ha.

Okay enough with my short people rant.

Last week I made up a bunch of pasta and an alfredo sauce based off Hungry Girl’s recipe.

Cardio Foodie Alfredo Sauce

2 wedges Swiss Laughing Cow Cheese

2 Tablespoons Parmesan Cheese

1 tsp garlic & herb seasoning

fresh ground pepper

milk

Heat small sauce pan to low-medium.  Add in cheese wedges, parmesan, and enough milk to form sauce-like consistency.  Whisk as sauce heats, add in seasoning, heat additional 2-3 minute stirring often.

I then tossed in a bunch of pasta with spinach and mushrooms.

Stir to coat pasta mixture and enjoy!  I garnished mine with a little more Parm.  Honestly, you can never have enough Parm!

Here is another plate that I ate for dinner on Friday.

Saturday night we did something we don’t usually do:  Eat fast food.

Some Chipotle.  Sorry for the terrible photos–my apartment is not lighted well.

We had a buy one, get one free coupon (the only reason we ate out). I had a blurry vegetarian burrito bowl.

My hubs got the beef burrito.

The burrito was so heavy that I could do biceps curls with it.  Seriously.

Saturday night we went out for a friend’s birthday and I enjoyed an unpictured Woodchuck Pear Cider.  It was okay…I prefer the Ace Cider.  Ladies, if you aren’t big beer fans and you are at a pub/beer joint they likely have ciders–maybe even on tap–they are a great beer alternative!

Sunday we got up to run, opened the door, and SMACK!  Heat and humidity slapped us right across the face.  We had a scheduled 12 miles, but within about 2 miles we knew it wasn’t going to happen.  I was completely sweat through my tank and shorts by mile 4 and my body was just not prepared for it.

We kicked out 7 miles (regularly scheduled for Tuesday) and decided to run the 12 on Tuesday when we were better prepared.

The rest of Sunday was spent tackling old ladies and mom at the grocery store trying to pick up stuff for Thanksgiving.  Oh yes, did I mention my hubby volunteered our apartment for a Thanksgiving meal?  Haha….oh yes…again with the 5 sets of finals and still not getting it.  Poor guy hasn’t celebrated since I started law school, but goodness.  I have already made it clear that he is responsible for all of the cleaning, turkey cooking, and after I eat I am leaving everyone to go study.

Oh, did I also mentioned our friends he invited over included a chef?  Haha, yes!  Talk about adding some pressure for cooking!  Right now I am trying to figure out dessert–I have 3 pumpkin pie recipes but I am considering just making two of them and letting everyone pick their favorite so that I have the pumpkin pie recipe from now on.

After getting about 2 hours of studying done all weekend [aka I will be allowing myself only about 5 hours of sleep a night from now until December 13th] the hubby and I continued our new Sunday Brinner tradition.

Lots of OJ, mainly because I feel like I am getting sick–figures.

We enjoyed French toast with warm cinnamon apples and some egg scramble (unpictured).  I might have had a little whip cream with my dinner.

After dinner the hubby and I each ate a scoop of ice cream–mainly because it was getting freezer burned and we don’t waste food in this house.

Time to study!  And possibly check out all the Black Friday sales that I cannot attend!

Now that my life is occupied 4 days a week with school I must use the weekends as a way to really punch out my workouts.

Here is my workout calendar.  I try to fill it out at the beginning of the week so I have a plan but usually I just write it all down on Friday.  Most of the weekday sessions are done in the gym so that I can read my work at the same time.  Multi-tasking at its best!

P.S. I know that my handwriting looks like that of a 13 year old boy.  So what.  Guess I should have been a doctor.

I also made a trip to the running store because I might have accidentally run my FuelBelt bottle tops thru the garbage disposal…oops!  I like the multi-color pack a lot better than my plain old red ones!

When you workout a lot on the weekends it means you deserve ice cream!  We picked this up at Spec’s and it is the best ice cream ever!  I know that it is the best because I was actually satisfied with the small 1/2 cup serving size and that does not happen often folks!

Of course there was also some iced lattes involved this weekend.  Jordan enjoys the weekend with a rum and coke…I bust out the iced vanilla latte.  What can I say.

And here is photographic proof that I  attempted to study but Trooper would not allow it.  I had barely gotten my highlighter cap off and he had already plopped down right on top of my book!

This morning I got up bright and early to make a batch of tuna salad for the hubs to eat for lunch this week.  Nothing like the smell of tuna at 6am on a Monday morning!  I have posted about my Lightened Up Tuna Salad before but here is a refresher just in case!

Lightened- Up Tuna Salad

2-3 cans tuna packed in water

1-2 large dill pickles, diced

approx 3 Tbsp finely diced onions

2 Tbsp Light Ranch Dressing (My favorite is Hidden Valley Ranch)

Lightly mix all ingredients with a fork.  Add seasonings as desired.  I use a no-salt seasoning and fresh ground pepper.  Add dressing and mix until coated.  This salad is best served chilled.

This is a great alternative for my fellow mayo-haters!

What was your favorite active-activity this weekend?

Jordan really wants to do a triathlon so I suggested we do a bike ride/run to simulate.  We rode 20 miles than ran a 5k on Sunday.  I left Jordan in the dust!  I think he realized that some training is going to be involved.

Mock Apple Crisp

1 medium apple

cinnamon

Splenda

handful of Honey Bunches of Oats cereal

1/4th cup Light Vanilla ice cream

Optional: honey

Heat small sauce pan on medium-high heat.  Dice apple and add into hot pan with desired amount of cinnamon, 1 Tbsp water, 2-3 Tbsp Splenda.  Cover pan, reduce heat to medium, and stir occasionally.  Once apples have softened and syrup has formed, remove from heat.  Pour apples into a nice bowl, sprinkle cereal on top, drop small scoop of ice cream (or greek yogurt) into center, drizzle remaining syrup in the pan on top.

Enjoy!  This is delicious!

If you follow me on Twitter you know that last night I had the baking bug.  I had a lot of lemons to use so I Googled until I found a recipe I could tweak.  I used this VegWeb Lemon Cake Recipe as inspiration.

Here are the changes I made:

• Used whole wheat flour
• Melted Smart Balance
• Used Splenda
• Zest of two lemons
• Also added juice of 2-3 lemons to wet ingredients

Baked.  Not burned.

I tried to make a strawberry design but it did not work out.

POM Wonderful Glaze

About 1 cup powdered sugar

POM Wonderful-blueberry pomegranate

Mix together until desired glaze consistency.

Drizzle glaze over slightly cooled cake and enjoy!

• This is not a light, fluffy cake-it was dense
• I added a lot of lemon to mine because I don’t like overly sweet cake, adjust to your own tastes

July 17 Daily Challenge

Strength Saturday:  Challenge yourself to 25 pushups, 20 squats, and 20 supermans

I actually kicked butt and strength trained 3 times this week!  Unfortunately I did like no cardio but I am working on getting back to healthy and getting back in my shorts!