Planned & Unplanned

I'm getting closer and closer to the gym on a week day morning. This time when I got out of bed to shut off the alarm, I at least seriously contemplated staying in an upright position. Instead, I set my treadmill-at-home appropriate alarm time, actually got up then, and did a 35 minute workout. So, the end result is comparable: I win.

Breakfast was exactly what I  planned the night before:

honey wheat Alt bagel with a fried egg & new-to-me salsa cream cheese. Usually I buy Philly veggie cream cheese, but decided to try the Great Value store brand. While the salsa variety was the most comparable, it was not an exact match. I still like the veggie better, but this was good, too. It had quite the kick to it from the jalapeno.

 

I also made an iced vanilla coffee with coconut milk & chocolate flavored stevia. 

I'm trying out the multiple small meal thing to see how that works for now since my appetite is all over the place. I'm hoping small, but consistent is the way to keep my energy levels up while staving off hunger. It didn't go exactly according to plan, but close enough.

What also didn't go according to plan? I wore a cute-ish outfit and then almost nobody showed up at the office. I should have just worn workout clothes. Or a big sweatshirt and pj pants if I had my way. It was 90 degrees outside and miserable, but inside I was shivering all day. I had to go find a big blanket to curl up with. I guess that's better than last year around this time when it was so hot we had to cancel patients and groups because we couldn't get the a/c to comfortably regulate.

  

sup stray hair?

I got those pants at Tar-Jay yesterday. The real color isn't showing up on camera, but they're a dark teal. My brother said it's the ugliest color he's ever seen. Rude. I also wore nude patent, open-toed stilettos. I haven't worn heels to work in forEVER (except wedges, but even then I've cut way back. Heels are my drug). I used to wear them daily for over 12 years. I kinda missed 'em.

What do you think about sleeveless in the work place? I know it annoys the "boss man,", but I say be realistic! This is Texas heat, people. As long as it's not a tank top or cami, I think it's fine, right? Like a sleeveless blouse? To be fair, he never mentioned he didn't like it until I outright asked, YEARS later. My mistake (for asking-ha).  He also doesn't mention anything when I wear Lululemon cropped workout leggings instead of pants. You can rest assured I will not be asking for permission on that one! Best (sort of) "pants" ever.

Ridiculous. Covered in a blanket when it's 5 million degrees out. Who does that? Never mind the fact that I argued above for sleeveless. We're not in July yet. Might as well show up in a bikini then. But no one wants to see that. TRUST ME.

Back to why you're mainly here: food. For lunch part 1 I ate a toasted english muffin with half of a small avocado & sliced compari tomato (one small tomato per half muffin).

I shouldn't have pre-sliced the avocado last night. There's no way around it,  avocado just isn't nearly as amazing as it is immediately after you slice it. Practically the second it hits fresh air it's already tainted. You'd think I'd learn my lesson after the sub-par guacamole wrap last week. *shakes head* A pinch of sea salt & pepper would have gone a long way as well.

On the plus side, this surprisingly held me over for a long time. But when I started to lose energy near the end of the day I decided on an (unplanned) cup of coffee & to heat up a leftover grilled sweet potato with maple almond butter.

Made an office bank deposit on the way home, which always means one thing:

Worthers. Score! I always get two: eat 1, save 1, so I'm creating quite the little sugar stock pile in my bag. You never know when it might come in handy.

Maybe it was because I ate my sweet potato so late, but I didn't snack my way through cooking dinner! I tested out the meal components a bit (for quality control purposes...suuure), but I didn't dip my hand in 10,000 chip/nut/cracker/etc. bags and end up stuffed (in a gross feeling way) before I even turned off the stove.

For dinner I made green bell peppers stuffed with taco-seasoned chicken, whole grain rice, and a small piece of monterrey jack, topped with (unplanned) dollops of greek yogurt, salsa, and a little avocado. Plus 2 kinds of hot sauce, of course. Yum.

For dessert, I finally tried the Kozy Shack flan I bought on impulse last week topped with Ghirardelli dark & white chocolate chips. The flan tastes good, but is a little watery?? I think it's the caramel part. It should be gooey, but it's more like brown sugar water.

 I also had a mug of Stash mango passion fruit tea. It's also a little watery for my tastes.

Time to finish watching Kris Jenner be a bitch to everyone and catch up on teen moms being, well..., teen moms. Very important stuff.

xo,
Amanda

Happy Memorial Day

Like I said yesterday, I had to work today. But, I didn't start until almost 11 and went out for an hour lunch midday, so that was nice. I couldn't even get myself out of bed until 9:40, which is usually about the time I'm supposed to leave. Guess it was good luck that today that was (sort of) okay.

For a quick breakfast I finished up the last of the Lucky's breakfast and also added in an english muffin topped with vegan "butter" and lingonberry jam. I also had hot water with lemon squeezed in. I always mean to have this every morning, but rarely do for some reason.

Luckily this held me over for far, far longer than I anticipated, as lunch was delayed until 2:00.

On the way to the office I picked up a venti iced coffee with soy (no sweetener, though I did add a wee bit of my own stevia after awhile).

We decided to use one of our groupons for one of our fave (but slightly pricey for lunch at full price) Mediterranean buffets. I always fill up my plate with 80-90% vegetables, but it still always gets a little out of hand.

 

I cannot tell a lie. About 5 or so of those creamers may have made their way into my purse.  I can't convince myself it's okay to buy that faux cream product, but if I happen to pocket a few I can't very well let them go to waste, now can I? It only makes sense. (Also: the first beverage pictured is unsweetened iced tea, just fyi).

 Soo yeah. Aside from that center pictured dessert bite which was not my thing, I ate pretty much everything and more. 

 

Even good buffets (or should I say especially good buffets) are evil, evil things!  I have to say everything was extra good today too. And SO SO busy, even though we went at an odd hour. Hopefully that means they won't be closing anytime soon! (And will continue to pump out Groupon offers!)

I was full for the rest of the day and night, but I promised to grill when I got home, so grill I did. I only had a sample plate, though. I likely would not have even had that, but I spent a lot of time and energy making everything, so I wanted to see how it turned out. 

Before, during, and after, I also kept the sangria I made last night flowing.

It was slightly too citrusy and oddly not strong at all, but it was good enough to drink!

Steak with mushrooms & half of a small sweet potato with a pinch of whipped butter & a shake of cinnamon

For dessert I finished off the last of the chocolate cake, unpictured.

Happy Memorial Day all. And a special thank you to all of the men and women for your service.

xo,

Amanda

Weekend Eats

Saturday I had my aforementioned breakfast meeting at a new-to-me restaurant in the Highland Park area called Lucky's Cafe. Online it's mentioned that they're "noted by the Abercrombie & Fitch catalogue as a 'must see' Dallas dining spot with 'perfect pancakes and awesome omelets.'" Sounded promising.  I'm not sure when A&F became known for their critiques, especially of food, but I must say in the parking lot everyone appeared to have stepped right out of an Abercrombie catalog. Unfortunately, once inside mostly everyone just looked "normal." Darn. 

I started off with coffee and water, as always. 

But after looking around and noticing what I suspected were mimosas, suddenly I *HAD* to have one too. Just a feeling.

Intuition, baby. Always trust it. That was the best damn mimosa I think I've ever had. Oddly, at first sip I thought it tasted like orange juice and beer, but then it mellowed out. Yum, yum. Definitely worth $4. That was the one thing on the menu with no price, so I was a little cautious. I hate restaurants that charge $10 for a mimosa. C'mon. But this was just right in every way.

I had decided my meal the nite before when I was perusing the menu. 

 

The Lotto omelet aka pick your own 4 ingredients. I chose spinach, mushroom, chicken, and cream cheese. I asked for egg whites only, but they used the whole egg. I love whole fried eggs, but usually hate scrambled, cooked yolks. I didn't want to cause a scene, so I just ate it and it was pretty good. Woulda been better just whites. I had planned on wheat toast, but read rave reviews about the biscuits and these did not disappoint. And I'm not much of a biscuit person either. YUM. VERY dense, yet fluffy and mmm. I filled the middle of mine with apple cinnamon jam (LOVE when places have any jam besides grape or strawberry-yuck) and drizzled a little honey on top. Pefection. I ate about 1/2 of my meal and took the rest to go.

I didn't eat again until dinner, except for a couple samples at Sam's Club. I went the gym in the late afternoon and did a quick chest & back weight routine and then headed around the other side of the building and picked up Chinese takeout :). A friend had mentioned eating Chinese the evening before and I couldn't get it out of my head! 

 

Half an order of moo goo gai pan with brown rice. Topped with low-sodium tamari sauce & sriracha

An hour or two later I went back and ate the rest plus a frozen egg roll I remembered we had in the freezer (with sweet chili sauce). My muscles needed fuel! (Or that's what I'll keep telling myself).

I finished off the night with a slice of leftover cake, a lil frozen yogurt on the side, & a fortune cookie. Sugar fest!

 

I slept in embarassingly late today and headed straight to "breakfast."

That gingerbread pancake was so good

While running errands, I needed something to pick me up and quench my thirst. Starbucks to the rescue! And it was my 15th drink (I swear it was my 16th, but my 'Bux app swears it's the 15th), so I get a free drink postcard soon. Thumbs up to that.

Unsweetened iced green tea

And my dad grabbed me a sample of my favorite dark chocolate covered honeycomb at the grocery store

For dinner I finished off my brother's chinese from yesterday. I ordered him orange beef with fried rice (though it looked more like brown rice, so I'm not positive which it ended up being). I'd NEVER order that for myself, but I didn't want it to go to waste. He's SO picky with Asian food. He said he'd eat it, but most of it was left behind. 

 

It tasted only slightly better than it looks. I mean it was okay, but not my thing. I didn't know that (aside from chicken fried steak) people breaded beef? Weird. After taking that coating off each piece it was good enough to finish at least. 

A little bit later I tried out one of my new Sam's Club finds:

I wish I had a better review, since this has great stats, but it wasn't very tasty. Bummer. Here's hoping the strawberry is better, but I don't have high hopes. I also don't understand why the first ingredient is skim milk and not greek yogurt. Maybe another company will do it better. If I had my say, I'd make a plain greek yogurt flavor with chunks of frozen fruit. That would be so good. Or maybe with honey. A chocolate one might be interesting too. Hmm.

THEN, I ate half of the half (got that?) of my leftovers from Lucky's breakfast. Well, all of the second biscuit. Even reheated it was awesome. It didn't photograph well, so just look up if you must :). 

Hope everyone has a great third weekend day tomorrow! Unfortuately I'll be working, but we'll still bbq when I get home. I just put together some sangria, so here's hoping it tastes good!

For now I'll leave you with my besties. 

 

Ohhhh that smile

LOL he'd just gotten out of the bath. Silly boy. 

xo,

Amanda

Happy Birthday, Lovie!

 honey wheat alternative bagel with a fried egg, slice of white american cheese, and blueberry jam + a side of fresh blueberries

 iced gingerbread coffee with coconut milk. No almond milk this time and it still didn't taste like coconut at all. I don't get it!

You'll have to excuse the bite mark in the bagel sandwich. I got a little too excited to dig in. It only ended up on a plate because I eventually remembered to take a pic. Truth be told, I'm kind of a savage when I eat breakfast most mornings. Picture this: a paper towel serves as my plate and I tilt my upper body forward over the stove for each bite. I'm not too proud to admit there have been a couple egg yolk incidents using this not-so-fail proof method. And no, I did not change my shirt after, oh no.  A little sprinkle of water is good enough for this hot mess. Half the time I walk into the office with my hair still in a bun from how I slept the night before or how I tied it up before I put on my shower cap. I'm sexy and I know it...


For lunch I dug in a little early and started with half of my wrap.

 

Whole grain wrap with homemade guacamole, diced compari tomatoes, organic mixed greens, and a last minute addition of spicy mustard

It was pretty gross. It was one of those things I could tell would have been great when it was freshly made, but sitting in the fridge overnight sucked the life out of it. Shortly after I went ahead and finished off the other half just to get it over with. You know that's a bad sign, when you want to eat it just so it's gone. 

B-T-Dubs, If I'm a savage eating breakfast, I'm a beast when it comes to lunch, Or any office snack really. You would think that my brain would conceptualize the work place environment as public domain, but alas that is not the case at all. I at least have the common decency to wait until no witnesses are present. This sometimes means hours of starvation before consumption. But once the food comes out, I am an animal. Case in point, popcorn. This eating technique is the opposite of the morning bend-forward tilt. You see, with popcorn one must dig into the bag to grab as much as your grip allows, tilt you head back, and stuff as many kernels in your mouth as humanly possible. Only then do you commence chewing. Usually this also entails digging some runaways out of the old cleavage at some point. You do what you gotta do. 

  

I also made some coffee to accompany my kettle korn. I mixed the last of the Godiva pecan (which I had already mixed with the last of a random Aldi bag of gingerbread flavor) with the rest of the Godiva chocolate truffle. My coffee beans get around. 

 

I never ended up eating the rest of my lunch (a small sweet potato + the last of the leftover mashed cauliflower), so I was famished by the time I left work at 6:30. I try to get in a weights workout at the gym on Friday nights, but I knew I had to eat first today.

vodka soda with a splash of cranberry

Fried mushrooms. I did not encourage this decision, but I did eat about 10,000

I had ranch on the side, but it was pretty tasteless, so I used the bare minimum. I should have opted for balsamic. I thought it would be the real-deal ranch. Come on, Snuffers. Get with the program!

Remember that cake I mentioned in my last post? It was for none other than Bella's 9th birthday! Yes, Bella is my dog. Also known as the best dog in the universe: past, present, and future. 

For the humans, I made a chocolate butterscotch gluten free cake with homemade half vanilla-buttercream/half cream cheese frosting. It wasn't the best I've made, but it was pretty tasty. 

 Lazy man's way of frosting only the top and between the layers. Hush.

And for the puppers?  Banana oat cake with carob chips topped with peanut butter as their frosting+  a side of frosty paws dog ice cream. Yep, I went there. Actually, I just so happened to have one lonely frosty paw in the freezer for the past year, but whatever. The humans didn't even have ice cream lol. Although now that I think about it, the frozen yogurt I bought yesterday would pair perfectly. Next slice! 

 

I just mashed banana, oats, and carob chips and nuked it for 2 minutes. Almost exactly like a version I make for myself (but mine contains stevia and cinnamon). Yum, yum. 

I think they approved. Bella wolfed hers down in less than 5 seconds flat, while Buster savored his.

 And yes, we did sing Happy Birthday to Bell. And you're fooling yourself if you think she didn't know what was going on. She danced along and even smiled. A lot. She knew it was her day. SHE KNEW, OKAY? I watched a dog show recently that said bichons are known for smiling and being expressive. I'm not crazy!

After stuffing her with food, she wasn't too interested in her present like she normally would have been. She loves clothes, I swear. But after we settled upstairs I made her put it on anyway and she didn't protest.

 

My little 9 year old baby. Where does time go?

Oh yeah, before I forget: here's my crappy quality shirt-of-the-day mirror pic(s).

 Photo take one. Then, I realized my hair was blocking the flower-thing on the side. Because for some reason it was imperative you saw that.

Eh. Blurry, but you get the gist

 P.S. No,  I did not make it to the gym. Shoulda had a pre-dinner snack and gone first. Oops. 

Aaaaaaand now it's after 1 am and I have a business breakfast early tomorrow. Double Oops. Why must I always do this to myself? No sleep for the wicked.

xo,

Amanda