Flexing My Runner Muscles

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Hello Everyone – 

Hey All! I’ve got to make this quick, because I have another early class tomorrow.

I had to be at class (45 minutes from my house) at 8 AM today. Ugh, getting up that early on a Saturday is NOT fun unless you are on vacation in Hawaii or Europe. I attempted to go to Starbucks for a pick me up, but after driving around for 15 minutes, I couldn’t find ANY! What’s up with that – I thought they were on every corner! All that work and I was 20 minutes late for class with no coffee to show for my efforts. Bah – humbug.

12.12 starbucks: http://www.flickr.com/photos/66208256@N00/2092989435

Well, I realized today that I really need to get back into my yoga routine. At class today, we learned all about resistance training and flexibility. I actually did the testing and was tested on. When the flexibility portion came around, I could barely reach past my feet – yikes! Granted, I am only 5′ 1” and have a very short torso, but I really think I should be more flexible than that 🙁 It kind of makes sense though – I read somewhere that distance runners are some of the most inflexible athletes. Hmm…I guess i would fall into that category – although I’m not proud of that factoid.

12.12 Yoga

But I really kicked a-s on the crunches test – I did the max you can do – sweet! 

I was soo exhausted by the time class ended. I am really thankful that Scott had a little stir-fry action going when I arrived  home…

12.11 Chicken Stir Fry

I didn’t think I was that hungry, but I just couldn’t stop eating tonight! I had two servings of stir-fry plus a bunch of ice cream (not pictured). I guess talking about exercise all day can actually increase your appetite – he he!

OK, gotta run. My class goes from 9 AM to 4 PM tomorrow, then it’s time to clean house – my big sister, her husband, and my nephew are arriving on Thursday night to stay with us for the weekend. Woo hoo! We have so much planned – I’ll share details later in the week 😉

Have a great night everyone.

Please, No Jelly-of-the-Month Club

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Hey All!

OK, did anyone else but Chicago get slammed with snow today? I really should be used to the snow by now after living in the Midwest my whole life, but the first big snow of the season always seems to catch me off guard. 

I didn’t know what to expect from the roads this morning, so I ate a quick breakfast of cereal and granola and headed out the door…

12.8 Cheerios with granola

Almost forgot, I enjoyed a lovely pear too…

12.8 Pear 1

It took me about an hour to get to work – which is not extremely long given that it usually takes me about 40-45 minutes. Of course, when I arrived at work, everyone was talking about the snow. It seems the only things that we can discuss at work are the weather and people’s kids. We eat a lot of food – but we don’t talk about it – it’s the unwritten rule. Strange, I know.

The rest of the day went like clockwork with me trying to get ahead before I take my 10-day vacation at Christmas – woo hoo! Can’t wait for that! 

Dinner was a makeshift meal – a concoction of Newman’s Own Mushroom Marinara, Italian sausage, and broccoli…

IMG_0876

Not too bad for dinner on the fly. Scott’s contribution (other than shoveling all of the snow this morning!) was some awesome Texas-toast style garlic cheese bread…

IMG_0878

Ahh Yeah! It was so good, I had two pieces!

Tomorrow is my work’s holiday party. Each year, a different department plans the event, which is usually held off site at a restaurant. The party typically includes entertainment – a game, a slide show, a crazy gift exchange, etc. The plans are all very hush hush until about a week before the event – don’t ask me why, that’s just the way we roll.

I’ve mentioned before how my office loves food. Well, we also love to drink – and not soda if you know what I mean.

Cosmopolitan: http://www.flickr.com/photos/94537838@N00/2749705651

I have yet to attend a work party that did not include alcohol and lots of it. Hmm…are they trying to tell us something?? The problem is, the holiday parties usually start at 11:30 AM and go until 2:30 AM. I haven’t started drinking that early since College – or at least when I’m on vacation in Hawaii. I usually only have a drink or two – after all, I DO have to drive home after.

The holiday party is also the time when everyone gets his/her holiday bonus. Unlike the for-profit world, this does NOT mean thousands of dollars. But, it is a nice surprise to open your holiday envelope and find crisp cash inside 😉 There are talks of cutbacks in bonuses due to the recession, etc. I just hope they don’t pull a Clark Griswold and give me a jelly-of-the-month club membership instead 🙁

OK, gotta hit the sack to get some Beauty Rest!

Have a great night everyone!

Holiday Wrapping Anxiety

Evening everyone!

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Around 11 AM, I was soo wanting a little something sweet. I walked into the staff lounge to find not 1, not 2, but 3 big coffee cakes! Apparently, it was a coworker’s birthday (the woman who sits next to me to be exact – shows you how much I’m clued into those things 🙁 ) Anyway, I debated on whether to have a sliver of the apple, the pecan, or the chocolate.

12.7 Chocolate Coffee Cake

And Chocolate it was! Oh so yummy, especially with a big cup of Tazo Awake tea to wash it all down…

12.7 Tazo Awake Tea 2

For lunch, I brought a salad that I premade last night before going to bed. I love to make my lunch ahead of time because it saves me SOOOO much time in the morning. And it also prevents me from going out to eat, aka spending money.

12.7 Chicken Salad

I think I overdid it on the lettuce a bit because this salad turned out to be HUGE! However, the chopped parmesan-crusted that Scott made last night tasted awesome in the greens!

I made it home from work first so I was in charge of making dinner – Turkey Tacos!

12.7 Turkey Tacos 1

I did most of the chopping and prep work last night, so making dinner was snap. I accidentally filled my tortilla WAY too full and could barely pick up the monstrosity up without having it fall apart…

12.7 Turkey Tacos 2

My ONE monster taco was enough to fill me up – along with a few chips and guac. 

Post clean up, I debated on whether to completely throw myself into my personal training book to study, or tackle the mound of presents that I need to wrap. Hmm. maybe a little of both.

12.7 Crate and Barrel boxes

I started with the gifts for coworkers – all from Crate and Barrel. I obviously like shopping there if you can’t tell. It was very dangerous when they opened a huge store 5 minutes from my house! Anyway, having C&B so close does come in handy around the holidays. I was able to pick up a duo of these shiny tealight holders for everyone on my list…

12.7 Crate and Barrel tealight holders 2

They came in a bunch of different colors so I made sure everyone had a different color set – pretty snazzy I think 😉

Does anyone else buy their coworkers gifts? 

Well, I got through two of the presents and decided I just wasn’t in the wrapping mood. I don’t actually mind wrapping presents – sometimes I really enjoy it. But around this time every year I have wrapping anxiety – where I’m afraid that I’ll wait until the last minute to do my wrapping and then have to do it ALL on Christmas Eve.

12.7 Green Present with red ribbon

I can always tell when I’m getting tired by how lax my wrapping gets. This one didn’t turn out too bad, despite being so wiped out from the day.

Now, I’m off to study. I need to get up extra early tomorrow to run because Tom Skilling – Chicago weatherman extraordinaire – is predicting quite a bit of snow in the early morning. That means a rough commute for me!

Have a great night!

His and Hers Wines With A Chocolate Mousse Ending

In a continuation from yesterday’s post, Scott and I literally shopped ALL afternoon yesterday and ended up dropping some semi-serious cash-ola on holiday gifts. Good thing this only comes once a year! For us, the key is to buy most of our gifts using our debit card so that we are not shocked when we see our credit card bill in January.

Toward the end of our shopping excursion, we had a totally fabulous dinner at a chic French bistro…

12.5 L'Eiffel Bistro

The restaurant, L’Eiffel Bistro & Creperie, is a little out of the way for us to drive, but it was well worth it. It was our first time at the bistro but we read great reviews online so I was super excited! We arrived for our dinner reservation at 7 PM and were promptly seated near the window. Then, it was time for le vin…

12.5 wine

His and Hers wine – Hers would be the chardonnay, naturally, and His the cabernet. A perfect toast to our Christmas shopping marathon!

Just curious, do you ever feel that a particular drink or food is more male or female? For instance, I usually associate white wine more with women and red with men; or chicken with women and steak with men. 

I was so hungry by this time in the evening that I didn’t hesitate to break into this tasty duo…

12.5 bread and tapenade

A little somethin’ somethin’ of crusty bread and sun-dried tomato tapenade. Oh my, I would definitely buy this tapenade if it was available in a bottle – so good!

By the way, all of these photos were taken in extremely low light, but my new, handy dandy, Canon S90 camera just so happens to take GREAT low light photos – how conveeeenient!

Next came the salad…

12.5 green salad

…a super fresh green salad with some awesome dijon vinaigrette. For my entree, I ordered a classic French dish – a warm and fluffy crepe…

12.5 Pancetta and Brie Crepe

I ordered the “country” crepe with pancetta, brie, spinach, and mushrooms. I honestly picked this crepe for two reasons: 1) brie cheese – love it, can’t get enough of it!, and 2) pancetta – close enough to bacon for me to crave it upon seeing the name in the ingredients. The crepe was good, but it had way too many mushrooms for my liking. 

And finally, what Scott had been waiting for all evening…the quintessential French dessert – none other than chocolate mousse…

12.5 Chocolate Mousse

This mousse was so thick and creamy, it reminded me of a very smooth frosting, only not as sweet. It was a fantastic way to end a meal.

One thing I must also add is that the service was amazing!! From the server right down to the gentlemen who cleared out dishes – they were all extremely polite and prompt. I think this restaurant is now my new favorite date-night spot 😉

Have to run for now. Must read over my new and more expensive insurance plan from my work -there goes $300 more a month from my paycheck – blah!

I may see you all again before the day is through 🙂

What I May or May Not Have Eaten Today

Let’s play a game – It’s called, What did Jennifer eat today?

1) Breakfast = Oatmeal with walnuts or Kashi?

Answer…

If you chose Kashi you would be correct! I enjoyed a nice size bowl of Cheerios topped with a little bit of Kashi Go Lean Crunch. This was a super energizing breakfast after another hard and sweaty run on the treadmill. I keep pointing out that it was sweaty because, for some reason, it is exceptionally HOT in our basement. You think it would be cold down there – after all, it’s a basement in Chicago!

12.1 Kashi Go Lean

2) Lunch – A small salad or a bowl of minestrone soup?

Answer…

And the salad is the winner!! Around 1:10 PM, I was contemplating what I would have for lunch. Because I did not bring my lunch, it was very obvious that I needed to actually leave my cube to get something to eat. Then, I realized that we had an all staff meeting at 1:30 PM – oh s–t!! I ran out of the building so fast all you could see was my hair flying in the wind. First, I headed right across the street to Go Roma – super convenient I thought. Until I saw the line! My God people, it was nearly 1:30 PM, why haven’t you eaten lunch yet – I thought – not out loud of course. So, I made a side trip a few doors down to a local deli where I threw together a quick and health salad…

12.1 Salad with egg

Although, I walked back into the building JUST as the meeting was starting, so I threw the greens in the fridge and didn’t eat them until around 2:30. I was starving by this time, but a crisis was averted.

3) Dinner – Leftover chicken and dumpling soup or peanut butter and jelly?

Answer…

Yes, I was so lazy tired tonight that I didn’t even feel like warming up soup. So, it was a PBJ kind of night…

12.1 Peanut butter and jelly 2

It was rather tasty and looked kind of fancy – as fancy as PBJ can get – on my sparkly placemat from Crate and Barrel.

4) Dessert – Ice cream or chocolate chip cookies?

Answer…

Ding, ding, ding – you are correct if you guessed ice cream – Edy’s Slow-churned Butter Pecan ice cream to be exact. I swear this had lower calories for the simple reason that they added fewer pecans. They were definitely few and far between in this quart, if you know what I mean. You might as well just call it butter ice cream, with a few pecans. Maybe I’ll have better luck at the end of the quart. I will be happy to find out 😉

12.1 Edy's butter pecan 2

5) But, the real question is what did I eat today that I did NOT take a photo of:

a. Starbucks mocha frap

b. Chocolate log cookies

c. M&M’s

d. All of the above

I am embarrassed to admit it, but answer D is correct. I was a junk food eating machine today. I guess that’s what happens when you only eat a bowl of cereal and a small salad all day. Blah! I guess I really am human like everyone else.

Well friends, I’m off to study!

Breakfast in the Cube

And now a line from one of my favorite Christmas movies in honor of its 20th anniversary…

Clark: Can I refill your egg nog for you? Get you something to eat? Drive you out to the middle of nowhere and leave you for dead?

Eddie: No, I’m doin’ just fine, Clark.

If you’re not sure what movie this is from, keep reading to find out 😉

******************************************************************************************************

Hello There! It never fails, the Monday after a long weekend seems to go by sooo SLOW! And, although it was the so-called Cyber Monday, I had absolutely no desire to shop online. With 80 percent of my holiday shopping complete, I am just about shopped out! I can’t believe I just wrote that.

My morning began with a fast and super sweaty treadmill run. I probably could have toughed out the cold 30 degrees but it was still too dark at 6:15 AM for me to run outside. 

I had a cubicle breakfast today – complete with a cup of creamy Trader Joe’s vanilla Greek yogurt with walnuts…

11.30 Trader Joe Greek  yogurt

Funny thing about walnuts – I used to hate them when I was a kid and pecans too. But as an adult, I just can’t get enough of them. Good thing they are full of MUFA and are super good for you! Along with my yogurt, I had some hot and steamy Tazo Awake tea…

11.30 Tazo Awake Tea

I’m not a big fan of eating breakfast at my desk, but sometimes it just needs to be done. I don’t mind eating lunch at my desk, although I do prefer eating out of the office. I’m usually playing catch up at lunchtime so it’s just more convenient to eat in the cube – just like today…

11.30 split pea soup 

I had some very thick and tasty split pea soup leftover from Saturday night. It was perfect for a chilly afternoon. Later in the day, I desperately needed a chocolate fix and I just so happened to have a few homemade chocolate-log cookies courtesy of my father-in-law..

11.30 chocolate log cookies

Unfortunately, I do not have the recipe for these festive babies, but I know that they are supposed to resemble logs with moss growing on them – hence the name chocolate-log cookies. My F-I-L makes them every year around Thanksgiving and Christmas and then distributes them among the family. How wonderful is that – a husband who cooks and a father-in-law who bakes!

I arrived home pretty late from work so I was in a rush to make dinner. I am so glad that I remembered to take chicken out of the freezer – it makes it so much easier to decide what to have for dinner when your chicken is ready to go. I drizzled some olive oil over the chicken then doused it with a mesquite rub and grilled it on the indoor grill. I’m tellin’ ya, having an indoor grill is pretty sweet in the winter!

11.30 mesquite chicken

I also made some awesome mashed sweet potatoes by steaming the potatoes, mashing them, and adding a bit of warmed milk, brown sugar, and butter. So easy and incredible!

11.30 mashed sweet potatoes

The rest of the night will be spent studying for my personal training certification. I have a feeling that this certification process is going to be consuming quite a bit of my free time in the next few months.

By the way, if anyone is interested in trying an super awesome Dutch cheese, try Beemster Classic cheese – the taste is a mix of parmesan, asiago, and cheddar – so yum! To learn more, read my review!

By the way, the movie mentioned above is National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation – I can’t believe it’s been around for 20 years!

Have a great night!

Thanksgiving Meals On Wheels

A Quick Thanksgiving Recap

Hello Everyone! Hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving! I had a fantastic holiday, eating great food and spending time with my family in Michigan. Thanks to my cousin Dave, we were able to have one of our family’s “old fashioned” Thanksgivings with 19 people there. We had all of the standards – turkey, ham, potatoes, stuffing, carrots, sweet potatoes, and French fries. Well, fries are a standard at our holiday events – don’t ask 😉 One of my favorite things about seeing my family is listening to all of the odd things they say. Here is a new classic:

  • Jen: Mom, do you have a tray I can put these cookies on? I think they’d look better on a tray, don’t you?
  • Mom: I have yams. 
  • Jen: (Pause and strange look) Okay.
  • Mom: You like yams don’t you?

Meals on Wheels

Earlier in the morning on Thanksgiving, my father, older sister, and I volunteered to deliver meals to the elderly. It was such a fulfilling, yet sad experience. Some of the seniors were very cheerful about the holiday, while others seemed depressed. Yet, all of them seemed very excited and grateful to have us delivering their meals – for many of the seniors, we would be the only people they would see all day. Sad. Seeing them made me very thankful that I still have my youth, health, and all of my family with me.

Back to Normal

Today was back to business as usual – however usual it can be during the holiday season. Because I already ran 5 days this week, today was my day off. It was VERY nice to sleep in a little! Breakfast was a crunchy bowl of Honeynut Cheerios with walnuts…

11.28 Cheerios1

11.28 Cheerios 2

Shortly after breakfast, Scott and I ventured to Costco. We made it there about 45 minutes after they opened so the warehouse crowd had not hit its massive level yet. I was so incredibly tempted by the baked goods today. They had several sweets that I had not seen in the store previously, including little red velvet cupcakes and a pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting – you can see why I was so tempted!

For lunch, we ate at Chicago’s own Portillo’s. However, I didn’t exactly eat Portilo’s. I stopped at Corner Bakery ahead of time and grabbed a Mediterranean salad, then ate it with Scott at Portillo’s while he enjoyed his beef sandwich…

11.28 Mediterranean Salad

It is a little strange bringing outside food into a restaurant, but you gotta do what you gotta do when you’re trying to eat healthy.

The afternoon brought more holiday shopping with trips to Hobby Lobby, Bed, Bath, and Beyond, Barnes and Noble, and Target. It is amazing how much money we spend around the holidays and not even on gifts!

Dinner was homemade split pea soup, compliments of Scott and the Williams Sonoma Soup cookbook.

11.28 Split Pea Soup 1

Each time we make this, and we’ve made it quite a few times, I am amazed at how easy this recipe is and how awesome the soup tastes! It is seriously as good or better than any split pea soup I’ve ever tasted.

11.28 Split Pea Soup 2

It especially tastes good topped with crunchy croutons or paired with crusty French bread for dipping…

11.28 Fresh bread

For the most part, we follow the recipe in the book. Although instead of bacon, we typically cook the soup with a ham bone. I’ve made it with bacon before and it makes the soup taste very salty. Thankfully, we saved the ham bone from Thanksgiving and drove it back to Chicago with us – hey, anything for split pea soup! And really, can  you think of a better way to get the most use out of a leftover ham bone than to make soup?

11.28 Split Pea recipe

Another difference is that we add in more chicken or vegetable broth at the end, as needed. For some reason, this time we had to add at least 3 cups of extra broth – the juice just seemed to keep evaporating! At one point, the soup was so extremely thick that it was similar to the consistency of stew. The extra broth definitely helped :-).

11.28 Split Pea Soup Recipe 2

Now, it’s time to get to work making wreath bows for the outside of our house. I have never made a wreath bow (they are typically much larger/wider than gifts bows), so this should be interesting.

Have a great night everyone!

'Twas The Night Before Thanksgiving…

And all through the night, people were chatting and plenty of food was in sight. That is exactly how my evening has been!

Hi All and Happy Thanksgiving Eve! I need to make this a pretty quick post. I’m with the fam now and need to spend some quality time chatting and preparing food – I’m sure you all understand!

This morning started with a fast 4 mile run – on the treadmill because it was raining 🙁 Breakfast was a combo of some juicy sweet pears…

11.25 Pears

Plus a small bowl of Cheerios and walnuts….

11.25 Cheerios with walnuts

11.25 Cheerios with walnuts 2

Then we packed up and headed to my parents for the day. On the way, I snacked on my first Chocolate Peppermint LUNA bar which was totally yummy!

11.25 LUNA bar

It tasted very similar to the Girl Scout Thin Mint cookie – a very fresh and cool taste!

We had a pit-stop lunch at Panera which included a hearty bowl of potato soup. It completely hit the spot on this very cold and rainy day.

Dinner was a Scott specialty – homemade pasta sauce with some crusty garlic bread…

11.25 Pasta

We brought a bunch of Scott’s famous pasta sauce to my parents – enough for about 11 people to eat. Maybe this will become our Thanksgiving Eve tradition!

Tomorrow, we’ll be heading to my cousin’s house for a traditional Thanksgiving meal with a Polish twist – we’re having all of the typical things – turkey, ham, and sides, but we’re also having kielbasa (Polish sausage). We’re so Polish!

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Starbucks is open tomorrow! We’ll see 😉

Have a great night all!

The Five C's of Running

Hello Everyone! 

This morning, I did a couple miles on the old treadmill (which has NEVER had any clothes hanging on it – thank you very much!) then jumped off, threw on a running jacket, and headed outside for the remaining 2 1/2 miles. After my run, I did a few stretches and a 15-minute ab workout. I used to be a really hardcore runner, thinking that anything less than 6-7 miles was not worth my time. But after overtraining for a 1/2 marathon, I cut back quite bit and found that my body and I were much happier. This got me thinking…why have I been running for over 10 years and why do I keep running? The answers are simple  and can be explained in just five words – control, convenience, cost, calories, and challenge.

Running With Cake: The Five C’s of Running

  1. Control Factor: Running makes me feel strong and in control. If I can run for miles and miles, I feel like I can do anything.
  2. Convenience: You can do it anywhere/anytime. 
  3. Cost: For the most part, all you need are good running shoes and running clothes.
  4. Calories: Running is a HUGE calorie burning exercise – need I say more!
  5. Challenge: Distance running can be grueling at times, but it’s the utter satisfaction of finishing a race or achieving a personal record that makes it all worth it!

And the question is…Why do you run? If you don’t run, what is keeping you from starting?

By the way, overtraining is one of the most frequent mistakes made by runners. If you’re curious about the other common running mistakes, check out this Quiz from Women’s Health magazine which lists the top 11 running mistakes. I took the quiz, applying it to my current running style, and scored 100%. 

As for the rest of my day…Breakfast was a big bowl of Honeynut Cheerios with a handful of walnuts – gotta love that MUFA crunch!

11.24 Honeynut Cheerios

I only worked a 1/2 day today because I had a ton of errands to run before heading out tomorrow for our Thanksgiving feast! I am seriously amazed at how efficient I was between 1-5:30 PM. In just 4 1/2 hours, I managed to go to:

  • Go to Hobby Lobby
  • Do Laundry
  • Make 3 1/2 dozen chocolate chip cookies
  • Tidy up the house
  • Put away the Fall decorations
  • Go to Kohl’s
  • Go to Crate and Barrel

And somewhere in that marathon of errands, I managed to eat a bit of lunch…

11.24 Salami and Ham Sandwich

A salami, ham, and cheddar cheese sandwich – the RWC standard these days, particularly when I don’t feel like cooking.

Dinner was a tad more exciting – Italian sausage on our indoor grill. We invested in Italian sausage a few weeks back – I say invested because we bought it at Costco, where the food (and everything else)  comes in huge quantities, which causes you to invest a lot of time in eating it. To accompany the sausage, we had some very creamy Trader Joe’s shells and white cheddar cheese (aka. fancy mac & cheese) along with grilled bell peppers and onions.

11.24 Trader Joe's Macaroni and Cheese

Scott actually made the shells and cheese using the exact recipe on the box. I assured him that a standard box of mac & cheese is not difficult and that you don’t need to follow the recipe exactly. But, he’s a stickler for following recipes – most of the time 😉

11.24 Grilled Italian Sausage and Peppers

Hey, how did that Go Roma business card get in the picture?? I think it wanted its 15-minutes of fame – but don’t we all?

Thank you to all of you who voted for your favorite foodie magazine. As promised, the magazine with the most votes would become the new Running With Cake subscription. And the winner is…Cooking Light magazine! Fine Cooking also was mentioned by more than one person, but Cooking Light seem to be the food blogger favorite. I plan to subscribe in the next two weeks, so that I can avoid getting a duplicate of the December issue that I plan to purchase tomorrow 🙂

OK ladies and gents, I’m off to bed. I need to get bright and early to get in a run before we leave.

Enjoy your evening and your Wednesday!

Who Has the Biggest Bowl?

Hello everyone! I am super tired right now because I stayed up until 12:30 AM to wrap Christmas presents (exchanged on Thanksgiving) and then woke up at 6 AM! Somehow before we went to bed, our alarm clock radio was turned up full blast. So when the radio alarm went off this morning I woke up to a blaring opera! I don’t think I’ve ever jumped out of bed so fast – it was pretty funny, now that I think about it. But it definitely was not amusing at the time.

I think the shock of the music may have given my body a jolt as well because I had a fantastic run this morning! Despite being a bit chilly outside at 6:30 AM (40 degrees), my body seemed to be in supercharge mode. I ran nearly 5 miles in 40 minutes and felt like I could run even more!  Typically, I do not run more than 4 miles on weekdays just because I don’t have the time.

I ended up eating my breakfast at work, which worked out just fine…

11.23 Greek Yogurt with walnuts

My Trader Joe’s Greek vanilla yogurt with walnuts kept me full until lunch. I also had a humungo cup of Tazo Awake tea love goin’ on today…

11.23 Tazo Awake Tea

My boss returned to the office today after being gone for nearly 10 days in Seoul, Korea on business. He was thoughtful enough to bring a little something back for everyone on our team (5 women). He gave me a very cute little orange purse..

11.23 Korea purse

I love the color and the soft, shiny texture. Because it is on the small and dainty side, I think I will end up using it as a jewelry carrier when I travel, rather than for a purse.

I didn’t end up eating lunch until 2 PM due to an unplanned meeting. I was sooo hungry by the time I ate my cream of chicken and wild rice soup…

11.23 Cream of Chicken with wild rice soup

It was Scott’s turn to make dinner tonight but he pulled one of my tricks and decided we should just go out to eat instead. We ended up at our favorite Asian bistro Big Bowl. We ordered our traditional crispy chicken egg rolls, which I promptly ate so fast I nearly forgot to take a picture. I was reminded by Scott only after I had already taken a bite – he he!

11.23 Big Bowl Chicken Egg Roll 

Next up, we split the make-your-own stir fry bar where we chose crispy chicken in a kung pao sauce over brown rice. We also added a bunch of fresh veggies from the stir-fry bar…

11.23 Big Bowl Stir Fry 1

Scott and I have this unspoken competition about who can fit the most veggies in the bowl. It’s all about how BIG the bowl (or the veggies in it) can get. To give him proper credit, Scott is a very good stacker and somehow manages to get twice the amount of veggies stuffed in the bowl than I think most people can. However, when he chooses the veggies, he usually choose the ones HE wants even though they are for us to share. He nearly always leaves out my favorites – mini corns, water chestnuts, and bamboo shoots. So today, I took over the “big bowl”, and grabbed all of my favorites and stuffed them in. I didn’t do too bad of a job as you can see above! Aside from my three favorites, I also added:

  • Mushrooms
  • Spinach
  • Zucchini 
  • Red and Green Peppers
  • Shredded Carrots
  • Pea Pods
  • Broccoli 

Tomorrow is my last day in the office until Monday – woo hoo! Plus, I’m thinking of only working a 1/2 day so that I can run a few more errands related to my Thanksgiving family dinner.

By the way, any of you who still want to vote for your favorite foodie magazine, you have until tomorrow at 9 PM Eastern. Right now, Cooking Light is in the lead!

Have a great night everyone!