So YOU think you can dance?

I’m having a “catching up on TV” night. When I don’t see a show as it airs, I watch it online later. First tonight I watched last night’s Gossip Girl (holy COW), and now I’m watching last week’s So You Think You Can Dance. I’m a whole week behind. But I love performances at any time.

Two facts about me:

1. I was a dancer in my younger years! Yes! I was in ballet for a couple years, then did a little tap and jazz afterwards (I was good at tap, TERRIBLE at jazz). I also learned to swing dance a few years back.

2. I cry at performances quite often. I have literally cried at COLOR GUARD PERFORMANCES. Yeah. I also cry at weddings (both ceremonies and toasts). I saw a proposal last week, people I’d never met before, and I teared up. HUGE SAP ALERT. So um, I may be crying at my screen later. Just sayin’.

On to yesterday’s eats….

I started the morning off right with a lovely yogurt and crushed granola bar:

This next snack was sent to me by a reader, Lindsay. It was DELICIOUS. Everything should come in Pumpkin flavor:

Look what’s inside:

My nursing home was having a bake sale. For $1 (benefiting their Christmas party) I got this delicious fudge:

And oh yes, I ate it all. And enjoyed it.

I did partake in some nursing home food for lunch:

The residents got spaghetti, but apparently they were out of noodles so I just got the meatballs. Hahahahah! I only ate half the zucchini (part was too mushy) and half the bread.

And then it was off to the city for the blogger meetup! Here’s the much lesser quality group shot I took on my camera:

You can see the token male, Mike! He took the other photo and I sat in his spot.

For dinner I had their California Veggie Burger. It was made with beets and lentils! It was really, really good. Soft and squishy as opposed to crunchy. SO to me, I would have loved to have the mixture on top of greens even more than on bread. But it was delish!

I also ordered some mango spring rolls and shared them with Kath and Chelsea:

Chelsea ordered a hummus plate, and I tried a smear. SO GOOD!

Before we left, I got a photo with the star of the night, Kath:

She was really friendly, had a cute accent, and chatted it up with everyone. (Ok, let’s be honest, I chatted her ear off. Plus Chrissy, Chelsea, and everyone else near me. What can I say, I’M a “Chatty Cathy”, more than Kath herself!)

All in all, a great night! I became friends with some new bloggers, like Amber and Lauren, ate delicious food, and met a blogging celebrity. What more can you ask from a Monday night?

Afterwards, I drove over to my friend Justine’s house in the San Francisco ‘burbs. We had tea, I showed her Kath’s blog and we watched her pomegranate video, and we watched How I Met Your Mother, which is always a good time. We stayed up chatting until we were both yawning our heads off — it was a work night! So off we went. Night!

KERF Blogger Meetup!

Here I am with a bunch of new blogger friends (I’m in the back right corner):

(photo courtesy of Kath)

I had a delicious dinner, met some cool ladies, and now have full on camera envy! Full food recap when I get home tomorrow night. Sweet dreams!

Missing weekend

Well, it looks like until I get a laptop, weekends will be a black hole in this here journal! I’ll plan on catching up on Sunday nights!

So here’s Friday:

Delicious Banana Nutella wrap!

Inside.

They ran out of nursing home food, so I walked to Jamba Juice for lunch. I got a wrap:

Once at my mom’s house, I made a delicious carb filled pre-run dinner:

Blurry pasta, chicken, and broccoli with olive oil & parm.

Saturday – 12 mile run! I arose early and ate some granola:

And a peanut butter cookie my mom had baked:

The run went pretty well, I did 4 miles on my own and then 8 more miles with one of the SacFit groups. Funny that 12 miles was a “shorter” run. Aaaah, marathon training. I have to be honest, I think the half marathon distance is more my style. But this is my shot to do the full marathon, just this once. And do it I will. So, after that 12 miles,I had two cups of chocolate milk and a small piece of poppyseed cake at an after-party. I didn’t have much of an appetite for all the other stuff they had.

When I got home, I FINALLY got to go to the post office to pick up my Glo Bars!! I ordered them from Angela the morning she opened up US shipping, and I had them sent to my mom’s house because of my move. Well, little did I know they’d require a signature… and my mom works 8-5 every day. They got attempted to be delivered twice and then went to hold at the post office, which she couldn’t get to during business hours either! I finally had a chance to get them. I immediately dug into a Renew bar, which she developed for after-run recovery:

Look at this deliciousness:

It did not disappoint! Expect to see lots of GloBars in upcoming posts!

I also had a good post-run meal (my hunger had returned):

And THEN… a 4 hour nap. Aaaaaaah.

Dinner was quick and easy, prepared in the microwave:

It’s just a can of clam chowder, with an extra can of clams added to it. Plus some sourdough to dip in it.

I finished off the night later with some hot chocolate and possibly another cookie or two. 😉

Sunday – now here’s where the black hole REALLY took hold. I kept forgetting to photograph things! Ack.

I got breakfast:

Coffee and instant oatmeal

But when I went out for lunch with my friend Sammi, who totally would have thought it was awesome I was photographing my food, I forgot! Boooo. We ate at Mimi’s Cafe, and we split an Asian appetizer, and then I got a chicken sandwich from the Light & Fit menu. It came with fruit.

We ran some errands, I came home and helped my mom around the house, and then I was suddenly starving again! I had my leftover pasta toppings (sans pasta) but threw in some olives and some vinaigrette:

And in the car, I busted out another Glo Bar:

Now here is where the real tragedy occured. See, Sunday nights are going to be “my” nights to cook dinner for Brooke and Robert. Tonight I made an awesome lettuce cups and cold noodle salad dinner from scratch, we all ate it, and then I realized I DIDN’T TAKE ANY PHOTOS!! What??? It was even a Cooking Light recipe! And I cooked from scratch! Complete food blogger FAIL.

Oh well, I’m still learning. Right?

——-

Tomorrow I get to hang with the big girls though, as I’m going to a blogger dinner with Kath and a few of her other San Francisco area readers. I am very excited! And I will get to see how food blogging is DONE. Heh.

Expect to see that post Tuesday night, as I will be staying in the city Monday night and heading straight to work on Tuesday morning. Signing off until then….

~ Holly

Carrots and peanut butter?

Well, you know I couldn’t resist the Nutella for breakfast:

There it is on an English muffin with a banana mushed on top. I also ate the rest of the banana.

I packed my lunch from work, and it was a very Meghann inspired creation:

That’s peanut butter, carrots, and dried cranberries on a Flat Out Wrap.

All wrapped up:

It was actually really good! I need to get some almond butter and try it with that, true Meghann-style.

I also had a Trio bar with it, which I threw in my bag and forgot to photograph.

For a snack, I had a bunch of carrots and hummus:

Then I went out to meet the Solano Stampede runners for a speed workout. They are mostly all training for the Vegas marathon, which is the same day as my California International Marathon, so their speed training worked great for me. We did mile repeats on the track. Like the Empire Runners, they are a all MUCH faster than me, but they were also very encouraging and it was great to be out there with them. I did 3 mile repeats with a couple minutes rest. They were supposed to be “marathon pace” but I don’t even know what that is! Some of them said they were doing 10k pace (basically, these were not sprints, but good effort).

My mile splits:
Mile 1: 9:30
Mile 2: 9:28
Mile 3: 9:38

I am very happy with those. Yes, that’s much faster than my marathon pace will be. That’s close to my goal half marathon pace though! And it IS my 10k pace. So I’m happy with it. Also, MAN WAS I SORE during these runs!! Crossfit was Tuesday night, so this was right at the 48 hour mark. This morning I am already feeling better and less sore than last night. I am planning on Crossfit once a week until my marathon, by the way. Then I will bump that up to twice or three times in December and take a bit of a running break. But for now, I need to only be sore HALF the week, and be recovered for my long runs on weekends!

I came home to dinner which was a mix of a bunch of leftovers my roomies left for me:

On the plate is a marinated chicken breast and half a polenta disk from Wednesday, and a manacotti noodle they’d made on Thursday:

And I added a side salad with low-fat balsamic:

And after dinner, while watching Grey’s Anatomy, Brooke baked a pie. She does that. I could not resist hot out of the oven berries:

And there was my Thursday!

If you’re a fan of beautiful beaded jewelry and delicious icing on cake, you could win them at Megan’s Muchies giveaway! I love the beadwork! ❤

Over the weekend, I'll be at my mom's house. If I can upload to her computer, you'll get a post. If not… see you Sunday night!

Crossfit the third

I started the day off right with a home brewed coffee and English muffin and peanut butter:

I went grocery shopping today! I got some great healthy foods to add to the rotation. I got home and promptly made a salami sandwich and a side salad:

After a few errands and getting my room more set up, I broke into a great snack:

I love Nutella with all of my heart. I don’t buy it often because I love it so much. 🙂

I then tried to demonstrate how I eat this creation, which came out kind of inappropriately. And I shall share it with you, because I’m classy like that:

Hahahahah. I’m so awesome. Anyways.

Then I made a yummy bean salad for a potluck tonight. It’s very simple – black beans, corn, red pepper, orange pepper, green onions, lime juice, and pineapple juice. It was a hit!

So then I went to Crossfit. This was my third intro session. We practiced all types of dips, kettlebell swings, box jumps (I mastered the 14″ one but not the 20″, I was scurred). Then we did half of “Cindy” – as many rounds of 5 pullups, 10 pushups, and 15 sqats as possible in 10 minutes (the full workout is 20 minutes). My modifications were: green rubber band on the pullups, knee pushups. I did 5 rounds + 5 pullups into the 6th round. I’ve got some rugburns on my poor knees — and not from a fun activity! (Oh man, I am so raunchy tonight!) Guess I’ll just have to get stronger and be able to do full pushups! Anyways, great workout.

Afterwards we did a running clinic and I got a t-shirt from the gym:

And my eats at the potluck. Salad:

Chicken veggie soup on top of some quinoa, with a sushi on the side (and I had about 4 total of those sushis, they were YUM).

And dessert — two chocolate truffles. Here’s one in my hand:

I also just had a cup of decaf before bed. Night!

The first Monday of my new life

Today I arose at 5:00 am to get to my job on the new schedule. It was dark in the house, I wasn’t prepared to make my breakfast here yet, so I resorted to my old standby:

I swear that will be the last time in a LONG time. I now have access to brewing coffee at home, I will grocery shop and get stocked up on yogurt and oatmeal, it is time to back off the crack!

By lunchtime, my body was SCREAMING, “vegetables! nutrients! healthy things! please!” So in between my work and Girls on the Run, I hit up Whole Foods:

Delicious salad things! Green drink! My body is happy. 🙂

After our practice 5k at Girls on the Run, I came back to Vacaville and opened an easy dinner: vegetable chili. I paired it with the leftover salad:

I also had two small cookies:

And my evening snack was more cookies, with a decaf coffee:

Tonight I go back to CrossFit! I am looking forward to getting my healthy life on track.

Playing catch up

My computer is set up! Wooo!

Let’s flash back in time to Friday:

Coffee and oatmeal with banana

Pirate Dietitian!

Trick or treat!

Nursing home lasagna and broccoli

Festive snack

Bar food! I got a 1/2 salad and an order of calimari. With beer. I drank half of it, and later drank half of a pomegranate cider.

Also, there was a “birthday” apple cobbler type dessert that someone photographed, but it wasn’t me, so I don’t have it yet!

Then like I mentioned, there were no photos and complete mayhem as far as food was concerned. No photos on Sunday either, but it went like this:

– Ham & cheese scrambled eggs
– 2 slices of leftover Papa Murphy’s pizza
– Flipz! chocolate pretzels while driving
– Penne pasta with tomatoes and stewed meat sauce, garlic bread
– One chocolate cupcake

And now you’re caught up! I’ll resume the morning posting tomorrow. 🙂

My first acupunture!

Yesterday went pretty well, actually!

Started it off with the rest of the Fage and a peanut butter Nature’s Valley granola bar:

I worked a half day at the nursing home in the morning. I actually left before I would have been served lunch, but I’d prepared for that, bringing the other half of the hummus sandwich with me:

I added some Nilla wafers and a mini diet cola to the side.

At 1:30, I gave a presentation on diabetes at Santa Rosa Senior Center. I did have a few pieces of fruit and veggies with hummus from the table, unphotographed.

I was all done at 3:30, early day! It was lovely! I came home to an empty house (no ex husband or roommate!) and managed to take about an hour nap. Aaaaah.

When I awoke, the Halloween Healing Event at my chiropractor’s office was already going. I got dressed and headed over. I had a couple mini size candy things and a quarter of a cupcake:

I got signed up for the free healing treatments and then spent my time perusing the haunted house they’d set up and checking out the cute kids in costume. My favorite was a monkey! He was about 2.

Then I got an adjustment by Dr. Lana, one of my favorite people ever. It was wonderful to reconnect with her. I hadn’t seen her in months, ever since our financial situation really tanked. Felt great to get adjusted. I followed that up with a chair massage, which was lovely and really released some tension in my shoulders/neck.

After that, I got my first acupuncture! She felt my pulse and said I had disturbances in my lungs. That doesn’t necessarily mean my lungs are weak (heck, training for a marathon, not weak!) but she said it feels like that when you have trouble “letting go”. Bingo!

She put some “seeds” on my right ear, which I am supposed to leave on and press on for 3-5 seconds about 3 times a day. They are in three spots: a spot for my spirit, a spot for my lungs, and another one for stress.

They are held on with tape so I can pull them off when I’m done.

Also she gave me a teaser needle in my left ear. It’s in the spirit spot. 🙂

I left it in for close to an hour. When I pulled it out, it bled a bit! Didn’t expect that.

I’ll have to report back on if I feel any better or more centered from the experience, and how the seeds work. Remind me in a few days, k?

I came home to another frozen meal. This one I prepared in the oven:

It was simply delicious! I love lentils, and cilantro flavoring was fantastic. The little breadstick spoon was cute AND tasty.

Today I have a long commute, for the last time! Soon my Fridays will be my shortest commute (Fairfield, which is over an hour from Santa Rosa, is only 15 minutes from Vacaville!) I’m dressing up a bit for the nursing home today, I’ve got a peasant type shirt on with my black slacks, a pirate hat, a big hoop earring, and some jangly coin necklaces. Arrr, matey!

During the day, my ex will be moving out, so I will come home to a house with only my stuff left. I’ll finish throwing the last bits in boxes and then I’m having a Goodbye Bash at a local brewpub/restaurant. Hopefully I’ll get to see a few more people I’m going to miss before I go.

Exciting giveaway before I go: Zesty gives away another Blog Makeover! I would like to win that SO much! I want my new blog to get more popular and be not only snazzy LOOKING, but have all of the cool features like retweeting entries or posting it to Facebook. Here’s hoping!!

TGIF!

Day on the road

Yesterday was a heavy driving day. I woke up at my friend Brooke’s house (which is where I’ll be living after this weekend) and headed off to Concord. It’s still a 45 minute commute, over a bridge. But much better than it being twice as far from Santa Rosa!

I hit up Starbucks on my way out of town because I don’t have food at Brooke’s house yet, and she was still sleeping, and I didn’t want to rustle around in there. I got a “meal deal” which was a tall latte and a choice of coffee cake. I chose the reduced fat very berry. It was delicious.

Once in Concord, I charted nonstop for 3 hours. I could feel my tummy rumbling but I know I was going to get food after leaving. I’d spotted a Togo’s on the way in to town, so I decided I’d go there and get one of my favorites that I hadn’t had in WAY too long — the hummus sandwich!

I got it on whole wheat, no mayo, all veggies except for onions. I only ate half – the other half is in my fridge!

I had it with a diet coke and these:

I then commuted those 90 minutes back home and made it just in time to coach Girls on the Run. We finished up at 4, so I had an hour to spare to run home, get a snack, and watch Gossip Girl:

That’s a big Fage container, so I only ate down until the granola stopped and then I put the lid on and put IT back in the fridge.

I needed that big snack because I hit up my last Santa Rosa Fleet Feet fun run at 5:30. So sad! I’ll have the Vacaville runs soon enough, but this was my parting trip. It went pretty well, too, except for one small big thing — my Garmin wouldn’t turn on! I had a mini freak out, but then did the run without it. And we hauled butt, 4.88 miles in 48 minutes, so under a 10:00 pace. Rock on!

When I got home, I researched ways to reboot the Garmin. I’d heard this could be done, and last time my Garmin did this, I just exchanged it at REI, meaning I lose some of my running data. This time, I hadn’t uploaded any data since my laptop died over a MONTH ago. My 20 miler! Nooooooo! I was determined to fix it and then get my data uploaded ASAP.

Luckily, the fix worked. Holding mode and enter down and then quickly pressing power did the trick. I then installed SportTracks on this computer, which required me to install Microsoft >NET, then had to download the drivers for the Garmin, and then got my backup logs from the flash drive… it was quite the debacle!

I think some runs are missing on there (I don’t think the 15 miler connected), but most made it. I manually entered tonight’s run, and there ya go. I’m sure my yearly totals will be slightly off. Oh well. At least some were salvaged, and I had a great, fast run last night.

After all that computer tinkering and a shower, I was hungry! I got myself some frozen meals to make it through the rest of the week with no plates and no cookware. Here’s tonight’s:

It was pretty good! I lived off frozen meals for lunch when I worked in an office though, so I guess I find them appetizing. 🙂

Ok, off to work I go! Only two more days until I move!

Two meals at the nursing home

Catching up! I’m home now and the papers have been served. Only a few more steps to go.

Backing up, here’s yesterday’s eats. I had to rush out the door to be at the courthouse at 8 am sharp, so a simple english muffin with pb was the way to go:

I was there for TWO HOURS and then my commute was made longer by backtracking, so I didn’t arrive at work until 11:15. I was STARVING so I made myself a snack:

Tuna on a sourdough english muffin, two graham crackers, and a mini diet cola.

You already saw my snack – the mini m&m’s. There may have been some stray tootsie rolls as well.

I had my lunch later and reheated it. It wasn’t bad:

“Crispy” chicken, mashed potatoes, and spinach. The crispy chicken is baked. And I left 1/2 of the mashed potatoes.

And then, because I worked until 6 pm to make up for my late start, I ate the dinner there too. It’s good for me to sample a different meal, actually. And as many of the residents reported, dinner was NOT as good:

Breaded fish patty with tartar sauce, fires, and veggies. Like fast food. 😦

And at Brooke’s house I had a bowl of popcorn with garlic salt on it and a pomegranate tequila. Nice. 🙂

Ok, time to hit the hay! I’ll get caught up again with my food from today in the morning post. Night!