You are here: Home / Archives for 2009

Archives for 2009

Still Adjusting To The Time Change

November 6, 2009 by

Hello Everyone!

I don’t know about you but I felt like I could have slept all day today. Between the time zone change- going from Pacific to Central – and Daylight Savings time ending, my sleep schedule is all out of whack. I’m hoping I’m back to normal on Monday – my first day back in the office in about a week and a half.

Despite being super tired, I headed outside in the brisk air to run my Friday 4-miler. Although it was nearly 50 degrees, it felt much colder with the wind and the fact that I had just been running in 60 degree weather for an entire week.

Breakfast was a bowl of Kashi Go Lean, which I haven’t had at all in over a week. The closest thing I could get to Kashi out in San Diego (at the hotel anyway) was Raisin Bran, which was not great, but adequate.

11.6 breakfast

With the time change and just being plain tired from working 70 hours this week, I was moving in slow motion all day. Browsing through Target seemed like it took forever. I didn’t even want to attempt to go to the grocery store.

Lunch happened to be leftover chicken soup that Scott made a few days ago…

11.6 lunch

I guess you could say this was my first home-cooked meal in over a week. Ahh, chicken soup really does soothe the body and soul. 

I spent the afternoon cleaning and then rewarded myself with an hour’s worth of reading a bunch of new magazines that were delivered right after I left for San Diego. Woo-hoo! I love holiday issues of magazines. They are always so thick – granted a lot of those pages are ads – and they have such colorful, creative, and festive photos.

Tonight, Scott and I went up to our local outdoor mall to see holiday fireworks. I know what you’re thinking – holiday fireworks? It’s only the week after Halloween! Well, I didn’t make this year’s fireworks schedule, but every year the mall welcomes the holiday season with a visit from Santa followed by fireworks. It seems that this day gets earlier and earlier every year.

Prior to the fireworks, we headed to Go Roma for dinner. I was really NOT in the mood to go to yet another restaurant. However, on the night of the fireworks, if you don’t get there by 5 PM – dinnertime – you may not get a parking spot.

For dinner, we started with a little toasted ravioli…

11.6 dinner1

I seriously eat toasted ravioli probably every two years. It’s not that I don’t like it but, in most cases, it just does nothing for me. However, I had the toasted ravioli once or twice in San Diego and it was really good. So when I saw it on the menu tonight, I thought, why not?

We then split a full plank of pizza – 1/2 cheese and 1/2 pepperoni/veggies.

11.6 dinner2

I am really surprised I didn’t have pizza at all in San Diego, with how many times I went out to eat. 

After the fireworks, which were rather short this year due to the strong winds, we headed to Barnes and Noble for a little book browsing. I also topped off the night with – guess what? Another cupcake!!!

11.6 dessert

I really have to stop this cupcake obsession! But I just can’t get past the cream cheese frosting – soo goood!!

Ok all, I need to get some sleep. Stay tuned for a some exciting things in the next week or so!

Filed Under: Dinner Tagged With: , , , ,

Home Sweet Home Chicago

November 5, 2009 by

Wow – it’s GREAT to be home in sunny Chicago! Sorry my posts have been so short and sparse. However, now that my big meeting is over, I’m hoping to go back to my regular twice daily postings.

Well, after being away from home for a full week, I’ve come home to a fully-cleaned house, lots of paperwork, and leftover Halloween candy. After walking in the door and unwinding for an hour or so, I realize that there several things that I’m going to miss about being away on business.

10.30 lunch-Seaport

Things I love about Business Travel:

  1. Running in new places – Exploring news cities on my daily runs is probably one of the very best things about business travel – at least for me. Can’t wait for Vancouver next year!
  2. Not having to clean up after myself – I am by no means a slob, but it’s definitely nice to not have to worry about making the bed or cleaning the bathroom.
  3. Not having to deal with the mail and other paperwork – I dread sorting and filing paperwork at home. So, if nothing else, business travel is a vacation from the giant paper mound at my house.
  4. Spending other people’s money – Want a magazine? No problem? Need a Starbucks? Go for it. As long as it’s not my money, I don’t think twice about these little luxuries – although I don’t take advantage of it either.
  5. Having “people” – Aside from the great hotel staff who are always willing to help with a reservation, etc., we regularly hire vendors to help us with our meetings. This allows us to spread the craziness across many more people and take some of the pressure off of us.
  6. Taking the elevator downstairs to work – With a 45-minute commute, each way, from my regular office, going 8 floors down to work is a bonus I will greatly miss!

On the other hand, there also many things I miss about home when I’m away on business:

Things I love about coming home after Business Travel:

  • Eating home-cooked meals – I love going out to eat but eating at restaurants twice daily for a straight week is a bit overkill. I’m really looking forward to some of Scott’s great cooking!
  • Having a normal sleeping schedule – Ok, I admit it, I just can’t hang with the college crowd anymore. Getting up at 5 AM and not getting to sleep until 11 PM or later is tough, especially when you do it for 7 days in a row. I’m sure I have a bunch of new wrinkles to show for this crazy sleeping schedule.
  • Not having junk food around every corner – As I have explained in the past, my organization never does anything small, especially when it comes to food. This year at our meeting the food was fairly good, and somewhat healthy, although there were still plenty of unhealthy items to balance it out!
  • Sleeping in my own bed – We generally stay in very nice hotels with equally nice beds, but no matter how nice the hotel bed is, I never sleep as well in a hotel bed than I do my own.
  • Seeing my husband – Although we talk on the phone and video chat, I’d much rather prefer relaxing on the couch, chit-chatting with Scott after a long day.

    • Now I am back to reality and looking forward to a clear sense of normalcy – for my life at home, work, and as a blogger. 

    Thanks for hanging with me this past week, I hope to catch up with you all soon!

    Filed Under: Leisure Tagged With: , ,

    San Diego Recap

    November 5, 2009 by

    Woo Hoo! I am finally done with our big meeting and it went fantastic! For 4-6 months, the meeting pretty much consumes my life and the lives of everyone in my office. Now, after 7 days, it is finally finished. There is definitely a huge sense of accomplishment seeing the whole meeting come together. 

    On that note, let me give you a recap of my week…

    • 4 days of running (about 15 miles)
    • 7 days of walking about 2 miles a day
    • 1 1/2 Starbucks consumed
    • 10 minutes of television watched
    • 4 glasses of sangria drunk
    • 3 visits with my brother
    • 3 Gourmet cupcakes eaten
    • 6 receptions attended

    When I look at this list, I realize that …I’ve had one hectic and exciting week. And, to top things off in true RWC style, I grabbed a night cap with my brother and a little dessert…

    11.4 dessert

    This is a pomegranate mousse layer with chocolate crunch cake. This dessert looked mighty fancy, but quite honestly, it was just ok.

    But now, onto bigger and better things, such as trying to remember how I got all of my clothes to fit into one suitcase!!

    I’m outta here for the night. See you tomorrow evening!

    Filed Under: Dinner Tagged With: , ,

    San Diego: One Cupcake At A Time

    November 4, 2009 by

    Hey All! I’m going to make this short and sweet (how appropriate for my post below), so on your mark, get set, GO!

    I think I am slowly eating my way through every flavor of cupcake in San Diego. Well, it’s really not that bad, but I have officially caught the bug – not H1N1 or avian flu, but the cupcake bug. Today will mark my 3rd cupcake in 4 days from ….

    11.3 cupcake sign

    Heavenly Cupcake in San Diego. What started out as a novelty has become a challenge – a challenge to try all of my favorite flavors before I leave on Thursday morning. I guess you could say I’m making my way through San Diego, one cupcake at a time! So far, I’ve tried the red velvet, the chocolate peanut butter, vanilla (a taste), pumpkin (a taste), and now today…

    11.3 cupcake

    Tonight I had a strawberry cupcake with strawberry frosting. And on the cupcake menu for tomorrow is Lemon! They only offer lemon cupcakes on Wednesday, so I hope I get there in time to try one.

    OK, that’s short and sweet enough – even for cupcakes! I have an early morning run planned along the bay then it’s back to work for me. Tomorrow is my last day here – woo hoo! But, I will miss the absolutely gorgeous weather we’ve been having here – boo hoo!

    Filed Under: Dinner Tagged With: , , ,

    Top 5 Reasons Healthy Eatings Habits Fail While Traveling

    November 3, 2009 by

    When I’m traveling, in most instances, I will choose healthy over nonhealthy foods. However, during our big meeting ever year, I find this extremely challenging. Everywhere – and I do me everywhere – I go there is food. Not just a little food, but a LOT of food. And, unfortunately, much of this food is the unhealthy version that on any given day would remain right where it was and never reach my lips.

    In regard to healthy food choices, today was not a good day for me. Although I started with a great 3-mile run (I could have run way more but I didn’t have time), I proceeded to eat probably twice the amount of food I would normally eat on a regular day. OK, maybe not twice the amount, but quite a bit more food than I’m used to, especially in the “junk” food category. Take a look at what I had:

    • Breakfast: 2/3 of an egg white omelette with ham, veggies, and cheese; one slice of bacon, a muffin top, and fresh fruit
    • Snack: a small bag of potato chips and a chocolate chip cookie
    • Lunch: a small salad with lettuce/veggies and a scoop of chicken salad; 2 slices of salami; 1 piece of chocolate cake (as if the cookie wasn’t enough)
    • Snack: a small bag of potato chips and a chocolate chip cookie
    • Dinner: 2/3 Mediterranean salad with chicken; 1 potato skin; a few fries
    • Dessert: Fried pound cake (I’m not kidding – it really was fried!) topped with caramel sauce, butterfinger candy, and whipped cream

    11.2 dinner2

    I know, I know, I can hardly believe it either. How in the world can I eat this much junk food in one day? Well, that is a very good question. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that there really are definite triggers for making me eat this way…

    1. Convenience – when I’m crazy busy at work and especially during the annual meeting, I sometimes grab whatever is closest, whether it’s chips, candy, or cookies.
    2. Variety – When I’m at home, I eat, for the most part, many of the same foods each week. My food is sort of reliable that way. But at our annual meeting there is such a wide variety of food to choose from that, unconsciously feel like I have to sample everything.
    3. Abundance – Again, the annual meeting is never at a loss for food. There is always food and plenty of it. And, when you’re faced with food around every turn, it’s hard to always say no.
    4. Stress – When I’m tired or stressed – and I am currently both – I find that I have poorer judgement when it comes to food choices.
    5. Reward – So, after working through the stress and the craziness all day, my subconscious tells me that I need to treat myself. But seriously subconscious – did you really need to have 3 desserts today?

    So as you can see, despite all of my efforts to maintain a healthy lifestyle, I am very human, just like everyone else. No matter how hard we try to live out our ideas – be it healthy living or anything else – our plans and ideals are not foolproof. But the key is to recognize that we’ve strayed from our plan and try to get back on the path to being healthy. Sounds perfect – But I may need to postpone that thought until after the annual meeting 😉

    Night everyone!

    Filed Under: Leisure Tagged With: , , , ,

    The Traveling Runner

    November 2, 2009 by

    One of the best things about traveling is the great opportunity I have to run in fun and exciting places. I have been fortunate enough to run along a tiki-torch lit path in Maui; in balmy weather in Mexico; in and around Kensington Park and Palace in London; and along a Mediterranean beach front on the coast of Spain.

    And this week, my job has been kind enough to indirectly support my travel and running habits because today, I ran along a fantastic pathway along the Pacific ocean. My 4-mile journal took me along cobblestones, gravel, and pavement, but all among the fresh, clean, and salty sea air. Not only did I have an amazing view of the water, but everything that comes with water, including sailboats, naval ships, and pelicans! Being away from home due to business is definitely hard. You’re not sleeping in your own bed, you live out of a suitcase, and you have to deal with airport hassles. Yet somehow, running in the cool, crisp air along the Bay in San Diego –  hearing the waves hit against the rocks, makes being away from home that much easier.

    And, on my way back from my glorious run, there just so happened to be a Starbucks across from my hotel. Perfect timing and a perfect convenience…

    11.1 breakfast

    If you can’t tell, I tried to take a photo that incorporated my lovely latte with the perky palm trees below. However, this was not the extent of my breakfast. Raisin Bran Crunch awaited me in the staff lounge, taunting me a little because I arrived too late for the hot breakfast.

    After setting up my meeting room and doing “work” things, it was time to head back to the staff lounge for a bit of lunch…

    11.1 lunch1

    I started with my version of a cosmopolitan salad, which was a mix of green leaf lettuce, squash, roasted veggies, tomatoes, cheddar cheese, and bacon. It felt sooo good to eat a salad today, especially one with tons of goodies. My salad was quickly following by a cup of bake potato soup with a few fixins’…

    11.1 lunch2

    Hmmm… good, incredibly tasty and filling. 

    There was no “dinner” per se tonight, only a series of buffet lines and pasta stations at an evening reception. I ended up having a little pasta with side of huge green olives and aged cheddar cheese. The food was actually really good – too bad I had to eat standing up – a situation I hate nearly as much as I hate eating in the car. But, when you’re tired, hungry, and are threatened with a group karaoke song, you just have to eat and then get the hell out of there!

    On the way back from the reception, I stopped in our staff lounge and found that there were still 3 cupcakes left from yesterday! How fantastic because I just so happened to be craving a cupcake – a chocolate peanut butter cupcake to be exact….

    11.1 dessert

    This was definitely NOT as good as it would have been last night when I actually bought it, but it was still a melt-in-your-mouth, peanut buttery cupcake.

    Now I must leave you for the evening before I fall asleep. 

    Night all!

    Filed Under: Running Tagged With: , , , , ,

    Cupcake Heaven

    November 1, 2009 by

    Hola Todos and Happy Halloween! California is still sunny and beautiful, and I still have 4 days left here!

    I started my Halloween with a super fast 4-mile run on the treadmill. I woke up around 6:30, jumped out of bed and was in the hotel fitness center by 7 AM. About 5 minutes into the run, as I was staring out the window at the ocean, I thought, why the hell am I running inside? Duh – I don’t know what I was thinking.

    Due to a few work issues that came up, I had a late breakfast, which ended up being a very small bowl of blueberry yogurt with chopped walnuts…

    10.31 breakfast

    I spent the morning working on a few projects that I should have finished last week, but just didn’t have time. Through all of the work and chaos today, I did actually find time to eat lunch. However, because I was so hungry, I completely forgot to take a picture of what I ate. It would have also helped if I would have brought my camera to the restaurant. Anyway, I had a huge turkey and brie sandwich – the sandwich was serious 6 inches high!! I only ended up eating 1/2 the sandwich, but I polished off the fries in record time.

    Later in the afternoon, as things were winding down for today’s activities, a colleague and I walked to a nearby pastry shop that specializes in cupcakes. Heavenly Cupcake is located in the Gaslamp District of San Diego. They sell AMAZING cupcakes. They have different flavors of cupcakes each day, such as pumpkin, carrot, vanilla caramel, and lemon coconut. I had one of the best cupcakes I’ve every eaten…

    10.31 Heavenly Cupcake2

    A red velvet beauty with cream cheese frosting. Oh my, absolutely sweet and sinful! Obviously, this is not the actual cupcake I ate (photo from Heavenly Cupcake web site) but you get the idea of how gourmet these babies are. We were so excited at our new found dessert heaven that we purchased a dozen cupcakes to put in our staff lounge at our meeting. I highly recommend this boutique dessert store (although the staff were NOT very friendly) although you may need to save your pennies to eat here.

    Tonight, I attended a special VIP dinner. I did not pick the menu personally, so therefore there were very few things that I ate at the dinner. However, I did start off with a very nice salad…

    10.31 dinner

    It included what looked like bibb lettuce, grape tomatoes, and hearts of palm – all topped with lime dressing. Very good, although I wish my salad had been bigger. When the entree came out, I was give the beef with a side of sweet potatoes and asparagus. Hmm, who needs beef when you can eat pureed sweet potatoes?

    Having a lighter-than-normal dinner made it easier to say yes to the super awesome dessert that was served at the dinner…

    10.31 dessert

    This dessert was cross between chocolate mousse and a white chocolate torte. So yummy indeed, but I only ate about 1/3 of it because of the cupcake I had earlier today.

    Once again, I am falling asleep as I’m typing away. I must go recharge my battery with a good night’s sleep.

    Happy Daylight Savings Time!

    Filed Under: Dinner Tagged With: , , ,

    Pinkberry on the Pacific

    October 31, 2009 by

    Hey there! 

    I’m writing to you from sunny San Diego – well actually, it’s dark now, but it was definitely sunny earlier! I arrived in San Diego about 11 AM local time. But before I get into that, let’s start from the day’s beginning…

    Very early this morning I had a dream that I woke up late and the car service guy was knocking at my door to pick me up – yikes! I woke up in a sweat and realized that it was only 5:00 AM, about an hour before I really intended to get up. Well after that dream, I couldn’t really sleep so I got out of bed to get ready and finalize my packing.

    I arrived at the airport sans drama and had a pretty calm 3 1/2 hour flight. During the ride, I snacked on one of my all-time favorite airport snacks/breakfast…

    10.30 breakfast

    You can’t go wrong with vanilla yogurt with fresh fruit and granola, although I still prefer Greek yogurt.

    When I arrived in San Diego it was about 70 degrees and amazingly bright here immediately when we landed – how perfect – did they order this weather just for me, or do they do this for everyone? 😉 I would take this weather any day over the cold/rainy weather I left in Chi-town.

    After checking into our very fancy hotel, my colleagues and I lunched at Harbor House, a seafood restaurant located in a cute little shopping district on the water.

    10.30 lunch

    The yogurt was filling but man was I starving by the time I ate lunch. I ate about 3/4 of my chicken salad wrap and most of the french fries as well (I know I’ve been so bad lately with the fries 🙁 )

    After lunch, my colleagues and I had to tend to a few work-related duties, then we took a walk to a very close-by Pinkberry yogurt!! When we work our annual event, we rarely have time to do anything else but work, eat, and sleep. So today was a special treat to be able to walk around the city a little. And of course, Pinkberry was top on my list to try in my limited free time. Yes – this was my first ever Pinkberry yogurt EVER…

    10.30 pinkberry

    How cute is that! I had the small original flavor topped with chocolate chips, mixed nuts, and strawberries. It was amazing! I think I may have to venture there late in the week to get another fix before I return to Chicago.

    When I arrived at my room a small package had been delivered to me…

    10.30 goodie bag

    It was the “welcome bag” that my training team and I made last week. It has all sorts of goodies in it like gum, a lint brush, a plastic hand clapper, and hand sanitizer. What a nice touch!

    In the evening, all staff were asked to attend a special wine/cheese reception with some of our members. It was actually quite fun because I was able to see many of our VIP members who I adore and hadn’t seen since last year. 

    After some polite chit chat, my brother and his wife Liz picked me up at the hotel to take me to dinner in Del Mar. We ate at a charming bistro called Sbicca, which was again, on the water (or close enough to it!). Unless you’re really far inland, it seems that everything in San Diego is “on the water”.

    At Sbicca’s, I started with a mixed green salad with tomatoes, feta cheese, and lemon pepper dressing.

    10.30 dinner1

    Quite good, but then again, what salad isn’t good with feta?

    For dinner, my sister-in-law and I split the garlic chicken with mashed potatoes and feta cheese…

    10.30 dinner3

    This dish was fantastic! It has a ton of flavor and the presentation was equally as good. Thankfully I split this dish because I know I could not have eaten all of it.

    Plus, I wanted to save room for dessert….

    10.30 dinner5

    Pecan bread pudding in a caramel sauce topped with caramel gelato. Oh my, this was way too good to be true! Luckily, this was another split dish because, as you know, 1/2 the food = 1/2 the calories. Besides, i was too full to eat a full dessert by myself.

    Ok, I’m starting to fall asleep. It’s now 11 PM Pacific, but really 1 AM my time, which is way too late for this chica to be up and blogging. 

    But, before I go, I will leave you with a view from my hotel room…10.30 Harbor view

    Ahh, I love where i work!

    Have a great night!

    Filed Under: Leisure Tagged With: , , , , ,

    The "Glass Slipper" of Running Shoes

    October 29, 2009 by

    Hello Everyone!

    I have to make this quick because the car service is picking me up for the airport at 6:45 AM tomorrow and it’s already 11 PM!

    My day started like this…

    10.29 shoes2

    I had Happy Feet in my new 2010 Nike Air Pegasus running shoes! I have been wearing the Air Pegasus for about 10 years and absolutely love the way they feel. When I put these on for the first time a decade ago, it felt like Cinderella finally fitting into her glass slipper – a perfect fit – without the horse-drawn pumpkin.

    Avid runners know how important finding the “right” running shoe is for their performance. Runners can also tell a good shoe from a bad shoe within seconds, many times without even trying the shoe one. And, when runners finally find their “glass slipper” of the running shoe – the perfect match in their running life – they rarely stray from that style of shoe, or at least the brand. I just pray Nike never puts my glass slipper out of commission!  

    10.29 shoes1

    So, with my new shoes on, I went out to run 4 miles in 55 degree weather – again, perfection! It was just beautiful outside this morning. At one point, I ran under a huge maple tree, with all of it’s leaves still on it, and a big gust of wind blew a shower of fresh leaves on top me. I love the Fall!

    The rest of my day went like this:

    • Breakfast
    • Packing
    • Macy’s to return an item
    • Lunch with Scott
    • Hair appointment
    • Dentist appointment
    • Trip to the bank
    • Starbuck’s run
    • More packing
    • Dinner
    • More packing
    • Work/blogging

    I literally had no time to rest today, except for when I was getting my hair done. However, I am very happy to report that I am all mostly packed and ready to go. But I still have a few more emails to answer before I go to bed.

    Have a great night everyone and I’ll chat with you all tomorrow from my hotel room in San Diego!

    Filed Under: Running Tagged With: , , ,

    A Salad Duet

    October 28, 2009 by

    So this morning started off very early, or what seemed to be really early. I didn’t end up going to bed until nearly midnight and then my alarm went off at 6 AM. I really wanted to just stay in bed but I knew I’d better run today because I did not run yesterday. 

    It has not been getting light until 7 AM here in Chicago – yikes! That is way too late for me to start running during the work week. So I was on the treadmill again today. I’d better get used to it because winter weather will be here before I know it. However, with the time change this weekend, it will get light by 6 AM instead – bonus!

    I literally had my breakfast in-hand this morning as I walked out the door…

    10.28 breakfast

    There’s nothing wrong with a little all-natural creamy peanut butter on Brownberry’s double fiber bread. Gotta love that it’s a very nonmessy and portable breakfast.

    I was heads down at work from about 9 AM to 1 PM. I’m so glad I brought my lunch because I had no time to run out…10.28 lunch

    Leftover taco salad saved the day! The protein in the meat and cheese was a huge help after a full morning of work. It kept me energized all the way to dinner too. 

    Dinner ended up being a close replay of last night (and today’s lunch actually) – a salad duet if you will. Scott baked parmesan crusted chicken tonight, but I chose to have mine in a salad rather than eating it with potatoes and steamed carrots…

    10.28 dinner

    I’ve just been in the salad mood lately. This is the third one I’ve had in two days! Salads are so easy and healthy to make, especially when you have a salad spinner. I just chop all the lettuce up at once, rinse it off really well, spin it, and leave it in the fridge for a week. I take the lettuce out whenever I’m in the mood for a quick salad, or we use it for other things like tacos. Again – so easy!

    After dinner I headed out to finally get my new running shoes! And that is exactly what I did. I’m so excited that I have new shoes to run in and I’m especially glad that I have new shoes for my trip – the old ones were getting pretty bad. I didn’t take a picture of them tonight because of the bad lighting, but I’ll post one tomorrow for you all to see. FYI – I am very picky about my running shoes. I have worn the same make and model (hmmm….sounds like a car) for most of the last 10 years.

    On my way back from Dick’s Sporting Goods, I stopped at Cold Stone to pick up ice cream for Scott. I had a coupon to buy 2 ice creams for $5 so I ordered one too, just to save money really 😉

    10.28 dessert

    I’m not very fancy when it comes to my Cold Stone. I usually just get chocolate or dark chocolate and one mix-in. Tonight, it was chocolate and red velvet cake! Kudos to Cold Stone for venturing into the red velvet cake territory – it is a favorite of mine, especially when the cake is done right. I also tried a little taste of the pumpkin ice cream – hmm…not a fan – way too pumpkiny, but then what did I expect?

    I am off tomorrow as is customary the day before I travel. Then, Friday is the big day – I’ll be off to sunny California. My brother and his wife live there and I’m so excited that I get to see them on Friday night for dinner!

    OK, gotta run before I turn into a pumpkin. Have a great night.

    Filed Under: Dinner Tagged With: , , , , , ,