For some odd reason, I decided to only take pictures with my Droid today.  I just didn’t feel like getting the big camera out and I wanted to see what the camera could and couldn’t do.

First thing I photographed? Lunch.

Vegan Pizza with the rest of my Roasted Tomato Soup.

I’m so sad that soup is gone 🙁

For some reason that ^ picture would not email and I had to load it to Facebook.  That was annoying.  Overall though I will say that I’m happy with my phone and that it takes pretty good pictures.  Don’t worry, the big camera will be back out tomorrow!

This afternoon I made another tea latte.  This time with chocolate hazelnut tea and vanilla soy milk.

It could have been foamier-I’m learning!!!

Lastly, I made myself some banana with PB and granola.  I’ve had too much PB AND banana today.  Oh well, such is life 😉

I miss my coconut yogurt 🙁 And after looking at that picture, I miss my big camera 🙂

Tonight, I’m going out to Tapas with a friend-girl’s night out!  I probably will not be taking my camera or taking pictures because I really just want to spend the night talking with my friend who I haven’t seen in nearly a year 🙂

Talk to you tomorrow!

I was listing to NPR this morning when the “Perspectives” series came on.  It’s a series where local people share their perspective on any topic. Today a daycare teacher of 20 years shared her perspective on making kids say “I’m sorry.”  Her stance was that we shouldn’t make them say sorry if they’re not actually sorry.  Instead we should explain how their actions made the other person upset and have them say that they won’t do it again.  “I’m sorry” should really be used when the child is actually sorry.  Her example was if one child legitimately gets hurt by accident and you can tell that the offending child is actually sorry that that is a good time to tell someone “I’m sorry.”  Her point was that it makes it clear that you can’t just make things better by saying “I’m sorry.” That you need to consciously think about  your actions. It was a great perspective and it made me think.  I love NPR.  It looks like the audio won’t be available until tomorrow but I’ll link to it when it’s up.

I’m not feeling 100% and decided last night to get an extra hour of sleep, instead of working out.  Unfortunately, Lu had other plans and decided that 5:30 would be a FANTASTIC time to wake up this morning.  I think she was hungry.  No extra hour for me!  I did stop at Jamba for $1 Oatmeal Wednesdays and look at what they gave me:

Wha?  In contrast, here’s what I got last time I ordered the banana oatmeal:

Quite a bit different, eh?  I came into work and had to doctor it up a bit.  I added a spoonful of PB and some agave.

That’s a soy tea latte up there too :)  I got a tutorial (after I made that one) and so now my steamed “milk” will look much better.

I have a headband on today and Lu was fascinated with it so I put one on her.

How cute is that?  It didn’t stay that way for long though.  She went a little Star Trek on us.

Ah LaVar Burton, whatever happened to you?

Well, Natalie, the amazing photographer who took these, will be in the Bay Area February 26th-March 1st.  If you want an AMAZING photographer to capture some pictures of you and your family, then you should contact her.

I actually need to get my pictures framed and up.  I love them so much.  Maybe this weekend?  That would be a good Valentines Day present 🙂

Now onto today.  There was a company wide meeting so I couldn’t get on earlier to post lunch and snacks.  I did get my monthly menu up though! If anyone wants me to email it to them, just let me know (Michelle!).

For lunch I had leftovers from last nigh.  OMG, it was just as good the second day.  I could eat this soup everyday I think.

(that’s a Droid picture-isn’t it pretty awesome?)

For snack today, I had some (unpictured) granola and then a banana with pb.

Tonight, for dinner I had bought some Bool Kogi from Traders this weekend.  Shaun LOVES this stuff.  It’s pretty darn good.

I served it with white rice (Traders didn’t have brown rice that wasn’t wild rice?!?!?!) and some sautéed green beans and mushrooms.

Some sort of chocolate is going to go down the hatch before the night is over.  That? I can guarantee!

I was going to stop at Starbucks today when I realized that I really don’t need to spend that $3.  I have an espresso machine at work AND soy milk.  I also didn’t pack a breakfast and thought that I should stop at Jamba. Guess what? We get cereal at work too.

Behold-the FREE breakfast!

A decaf English Breakfast soy latte and some Honey Nut Cheerios. 

The espresso machine always intimidates me but I think I did a pretty good job:

There’s no excuse!  I should NOT be going to Starbucks!

I wasn’t ravenous like I expected to be today.  Hooray for that!

I had some mandarins at about 2:30.  Look how small they are.

At about 4:30 I had some coconut yogurt with my Mom’s granola.

The quote today is awful:

What’s MCFA’s? The VUI designer in me is screaming “SPEAK the eaters language!!!”  I don’t even feel like looking it up I’m so bitter.

On my way home, I had a MAD craving for tomato soup and grilled “cheese”.  I have some goat cheese that I want to use up.  It’s having the same affect on me as regular cheese but I decided to eat it tonight 🙂 I decided to try and make roasted tomato soup.  It was so good.  Check out the recipe.

With my grilled goat cheese sandwich.

Seriously, YOM.

Lu loved it too.  She couldn’t get enough.

Now it’s time to go watch HIMYM with my honey. YIPPEE!!!

This morning, instead of blogging, I went to the doctor. My old doctor is near work (and my old apartment) and isn’t very convenient for when I’m actually sick. Conversely there is a doctor that is 2 doors down from me that I thought I’d try.

In this picture, I’m standing at my door. That man in the blue jacket? He is walking right past the doctor’s office.

Dr. H is an OLD SCHOOL doctor.  I went in and sat at his desk and HE asked me about my medical history and my family’s medical history.  We talked for a good 15 minutes before he led me into his exam room which was right out of 1970 or so.  Everything was is perfect working order and extremely clean but OLD.  He did a full scale, banging on my knees, examination.  He’s sending me to a GI doctor for all the stomach issues I’ve been having.   He mentioned IBS as well.  He also gently told me to go on a diet and to walk during my lunch time.  It was kind of sweet and kind of not.  I talked to him about my eating and exercise habits and he thinks that the GI doctor will be able to help. We shall see.  Part of me REALLY liked this homey experience and the other part of me wonders if he’s up to date?  I don’t know.  As of right now, I think I’ll use him as my PCP and see how it goes.

Before the doctor, I woke up at 5:30 to go to spin.  I had half a Larabar before and half after.

Disappointingly the normal teacher wasn’t there and it was the teacher who can’t shut up. I tried to not let it affect me but it totally did.  Oh well.  I think I may start bringing my running shoes just in case this happens.  I can duck out of spin and get on the treadmill.

After the doctor, I got a “tall” soy vanilla roobios tea latte.  Different Starbucks, same phenomena-they filled my 16 oz cup to the brim.

When I got to work I was really hungry.  I had been up for 4.5 hours at that point and had had about 300 calories-it made sense that I was hungry.  I decided to eat one of my pieces of pizza.  I had 5 pieces left last night so one package got 3 and one got 2.  I grabbed the 3-er today and it worked out perfectly.

While in the kitchen at work, I saw this gem on the espresso machine:

This follows numerous emails that have been sent out over the last week.  I work with such engineers.

For lunch?

Not as pretty the next day.

Question: What do you like about your doctor?

Every 26 days I feel down and out and kind of blue.  I get really frustrated and overwhelmed with life and I get all sad and morose.  Today was that day.  I hate day 26.  So does my husband.  I went for a walk this afternoon though and I’ve been in a better mood since then.  Thank goodness!

Lucy dancing around with my underwear on her head helped too:

Don’t worry-it was clean!

For lunch I made a big salad with the leftovers from Friday night.  A bed of spinach with steak, brussel sprouts, mushrooms, quinoa, pear, and goat cheese.  Dressed with Annie’s Goddess dressing with some balsamic.

After lunch I went to Trader’s to shop for the week.  I normally go to Whole Foods but I knew that I wanted pizza tonight and I didn’t feel like making my own dough.  Trader’s has great dough so I decided to do my shopping there. I hate that all the produce and meat is from so far away.  Their products are too.  I ended up spending about $60 MORE than I normally spend at Whole Foods and it was for food that left a HUGE carbon footprint.  If that’s not a fail, I don’t know what is.  I was feeling pretty sorry for myself and I ate an entire Trader Joe’s dark chocolate bar.  A smaller 290 calorie one but still.  I woofed it down before I could take it’s picture.

Before my walk I had some yogurt with Galaxy Granola-love this stuff!

After my walk I normally eat a Larabar but decided to skip it because of the chocolate mishap 🙂

When we got home, I made pizza. Vegan for me.

A more traditional pepperoni (turkey), cheese, pepper, and mushroom for Shaun and Lu:

I ate this:

Plus one more piece.  It was really good.

While I was preparing it Lu munched on garbanzo beans (she LOVED those), peppers, and tomatoes.  At dinner, she didn’t like the mushrooms or pepperoni but liked everything else.  After dinner I gave her her first Oreo.  We have some leftover from Shaun’s Oreo Pie at Thanksgiving and this book I’m reading says to not make any food taboo.  So I gave her an Oreo. She HATED it.  She took one bite, spit it out and asked for her normal cookie.  Which is so healthy many say it’s not a cookie 😉 No refined sugars, all organic, no milk or soy, and whole wheat.  We’ll see if this sticks.

Before bed every night we spell her name to her.  It’s on her wall and we say “L-U-C-Y Lucy!” We do it 2-3 times before she gets rocked.  Tonight she was saying “SUE SEE!” when we were saying Lucy. 

Growing up my Dad always made a big breakfast on either Saturday or Sunday or we’d go get donuts and chocolate milk.  Some of my best childhood memories are from those mornings helping my Dad cook or eagerly awaiting the biscuits and gravy (among other things) to be done.  It’s a tradition that I want to carry on with Lucy. 

This morning was my morning to get up early with Lu-we trade off.  She woke up around 7:30 and we headed straight to the kitchen to make pancakes. 

Lu even helped out-she stirred the batter. 🙂

When they started cooking, I had to put her down-much to her chagrin.

Life is really hard, isn’t it?

No worries, she perked right up when she got to eat them.

BED HEAD!

She decided that Bear needed to eat too.

Lu out ate Mommy today.  She was HONGRY.  She had half a pear and 4 pancakes!

I had 3 pancakes with some PB and syrup.

Just the right amount 🙂

Let’s rewind to last night, shall we?  We had some killer margaritas. Salt for Shaun.

On the rocks, no salt, for me.

Josh and Parish made us chicken and veggies over rice.

It was delish!

After dinner, we headed to our house to put Lu down and to play some games. We stopped off and got some Yogurtouille on the way and got some unpictured frozen yogurt-non-dairy lemon with fresh strawberries, graham cracker dust, and raspberry syrup for me, chocolate yogurt with fresh strawberries and chocolate sauce for Shaun.  We finished off the night playing Bananagrams.  We had a GREAT night 🙂

I just got up from a Family Nap.  Shaun and Lu are still sleeping.  We haven’t had a Family Nap in months. It was pretty glorious 🙂

The day started with some juice:

Apple, Beet, Carrot, Lemon, and Ginger

Lu decided she loved it:

You can see the juice all the way up on her forehead:

A circle of juice:

I also had some toast that I shared with Lu.  There’s nothing better than sourdough toast.  I put some Earth Balance vegan spread on it:

It was such a nice day (after having MANY not nice days) that we decided to walk to a local museum.  On the way we stopped and got Shaun breakfast (a blueberry muffin and a chocolate muffin) and got Lu a banana.  This may or may not have snuck into our bag.  If it did? I had half.

My phone takes pretty good pictures, eh?

We walked to the Coyote Point Museum-it’s an Environmental Museum that Shaun took Lu to last weekend.  They liked it so much that they wanted to take me.  We got a membership so we’ll be going back!

Out front is a Inka Biospheric System.

It uses solar power, plants, and water to run this fish tank.

The plants naturally clean the water!

Lu LOVED the magnet gears.

They also had a water bottle wall that she thought was pretty cool.

She’s pretty shy around other little kids/unfamiliar situations and only wanted to play on the toys that were pretty unpopular.

We saw owls:

A badger:

Some fighting otters:

A tame hawk:

And a little sleeping fox:

We also saw frogs, snakes, a coyote, a ferret, eagles, and other interesting animals that I didn’t get a picture of.

It was COOL.  It’s about a 3.5 mile walk roundtrip and was a great way to spend our morning.

Lu was so tuckered she fell asleep in the stroller on the way home.

For lunch, I had some Mexican Pasta:

I’m Mexican Pasta’d out. I’m also over the vegan cheese I’ve been using.  I should have known not to buy it.  One of it’s selling points is that “It Melts!”.  *sigh*

Lastly, I’ve been craving sweets (donut anyone?). It seems it’s that time of the month or something.  Anyway, I had some dark chocolate:

Tonight, we’re off to our friends house for dinner.  I’m excited to be hanging out with them!

I had a nice day.  Lu let me work (no working this weekend-YAY!) and we still got to hang out and have fun.  We had a playdate later in the afternoon but before that, I had some vanilla coconut yogurt with Ezekiel cinnamon raisin cereal on top:

My Mom’s granola is WAY better.

We met up with Lucy’s friend Avi.  Lu and Avi have been hanging out since Lu was 6 weeks old.  Here they are in December 2008-she’s in the middle, he’s the one on the end with one eye closed:

Here they are today:

Wow :(  They were so active, it was hard to get a good picture. But you can tell-they’ve GROWN!

When we got home, I had a piece of toast with peanut butter, pumpkin butter, and cranberry jam.

The pumpkin butter was kind of lost 🙁

Tonight’s dinner was artichokes:

I did eat some mayo but mostly had mine with balsamic vinegar.

I also made steak, roasted brussel sprouts and mushrooms (with EVOO and balsamic) and quinoa.

I cooked the quinoa with chicken broth and that’s it-it was delish!  I gave this dinner a 5.  It was SOOO good.  Shaun gave it a 4 and said it would have been a 5 if I had made mashed potatoes and cauliflower instead of “fake rice”.  He said the “fake rice” wasn’t bad but it wasn’t as good as mashed tater and cauliflower.  I told him it was called “quinoa” and he said, “to me, it is fake rice”. “Fake rice” it is buddy.

I almost broke one of my own rules tonight!  Lu asked for some artichoke and I almost said “You won’t like this.” BUT! I stopped myself and gave her a leaf.

As you can see, she knew exactly how to eat it (she just copied us) and she LOVED it.  She ate 5 leaves.  She wanted to dip hers in balsamic vinegar (like Mommy) and I let her, expecting a sour face, but I got a “YUMMY” face and she asked for more.  My kid is a total foodie.