After 4 long years, tonight was my last night as the Homeowner’s Association President!!!  I got guilted into doing it 4 years ago (and basically every year since).  I tried to step down last year-ya know, I had a newborn?  But, this year it FINALLY worked and I am NO LONGER ON THE BOARD! Wow, what a thankless job that has zero perks. ZERO.  All it is is other homeowners calling you on Christmas Eve asking you to come sweep their roof for them-that got a big “NO”. Anyway-I’m DONE.

Dinner tonight was some tri-tip that I had in the freezer.  I threw it in the crock pot this morning with some Bone Suckin’ Sauce and chicken broth and cooked it on low.

I’m all out of my Bone Suckin’ Sauce 🙁

I served it sliced on buns with Trader Joe’s BBQ sauce.  I LOVE this sauce!

Shaun and Lucy got regular mayo, but I picked something new up to try. Garlic-Herb Lemonaise:

It was really good.  There’s eggs in it, so it’s not vegan, but it’s made with canola oil and has a nice tang.

I also put some vegan cheese on it.  I’m trying to use this stuff up.  I’m not a huge fan of processed crap, even if it’s vegan.  Here’s my non-photogenic dinner:

The brussel sprouts were frozen ones that I threw in the oven with some balsamic.  I wouldn’t recommend trying to roast frozen brussel sprouts.  The weren’t very good.  Thankfully my sandwich was.

Shaun usually hates meat that I cook in the crock pot but he REALLY enjoyed this and gave it a 3.5 out of 5 stars.

After my meeting Shaun asked if I would go get him some dessert.  It’s been POURING rain, thunder, hailing-basically the worst storm we’ve had ALL YEAR and he gave me the pouty face about dessert.  So I picked some stuff up:

(I think I deserve an award for wife of the day today).  Guess which one I had?

You’re right 🙂 Some more processed junk.

It was DEEEEEE-licious though!

Alright, off to go watch some Idol.  See you in the AM!

I went to the gym this morning and did a modified version of Tina’s 45-Minute Treadmill Workout. I did the running portion but had to alter it a bit because I’m not as fast as her 🙂 Here’s what I did:

Here’s what the treadmill had to tell me after I was done:

According to my HRM my average heart rate was actually 146.  My face was beet red for a good 20 minutes after that.  It felt great!  My butt is already feeling it.  While I did that I watched part of Regis and Kelly and part of The View.  I normally don’t watch tv during the day and when I do watch tv it’s on Tivo so I don’t watch commercials.  I was shocked at the amount of weight loss commercials!  Wow.  No wonder we’re a nation obsessed, it’s all we ever hear!

After the gym I got some Jamba-I really wanted a smoothie so I got a Pomegranate Paradise (100% fruit-no dairy) and some oatmeal.

I ate half the oatmeal and almost all of the smoothie.  It was delish.

For lunch I had some leftover Tofu Stir Fry.

Om. Nom. Nom.  I ate it while on a meeting.  Shaun is home because he’s sick (poor guy) and so I took the meeting in the bedroom.  I turned on the mattress warmer (best invention EVER) and had a nice toasty 2 hour meeting.  I think all meetings should be taken from a warmed bed, don’t you?

I mad my poor sicky some soup with oyster crackers (his favorite when he’s sick):

Served to him on the couch where he’s watching Man vs. Wild. He said that I’d better be careful or he’ll be sick more often!

Now it’s off to do some very exciting work!

What’s your “sick food”?

Mine is tomato soup and crackers, 7-Up, and popsicles.

I just had the most amazing thing happen to me.  I was getting ready and as I pulled off my shirt I though thought, “You look good.” Holy shit!  As soon as I thought it I was like “Whoa? What? That’s awesome.”  It made my day 🙂

Maybe the 9+ hours of sleep last night helped?  I took a loooong bath and then got in bed at 8:30 and was asleep before 9.  I woke up naturally at about 6:15-it was fabulous. 

Shaun isn’t feeling well so he’s still in bed sleeping and I’m letting Lu sleep too.  It’s just me, the kitty, and the birdie hanging out this rainy morning. Once Lu wakes up, I’ll take her to daycare, hit the gym and then I’m working from home. 

In prep for my visit to the gym, I had this:

Half of a very small nanner with some PB.  Lu will get the other half when she wakes up.

After my workout, I’m going to go get some $1 oats from Jamba.  My friend gave me a $20 giftcard to Jamba so they’re actually free-SCORE!

What’s your pre-workout snack?

As I mentioned on Saturday I sampled some lemon chicken at Whole Foods and liked it so much that I bought the marinade.  I decided to try it out tonight for dinner.

I marinated some chicken breasts overnight and then grilled them for dinner.

The chicken was incredibly tender and flavorful.  I served it with a side of the marinade as sauce for dipping-it was delicious. 

I really like the ingredient list:

It’s local too :)  The nutrition is pretty good too-look at how low the sodium is!

I would definitely use this again. I think it would be fabulous with fish or as a dressing for roasted potatoes.

I served it with roasted vegetables.  I did potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, parsnips, and a fennel bulb with canola oil, salt, pepper, and fennel seeds roasted for ~30 minutes at 425*

The fennel was the highlight for sure.  Both Lucy and Shaun liked it too.  A quick and tasty dinner.

Earlier in the day I had some (unpictured) sorbet.  A little lemon and a little raspberry.  I also ate this really juicy pear with some mint tea:

Now I’m headed for a soak in the tub followed by a very early night.  Here’s to sleeping soundly.

Lunch today was fabulous!

Beet Burger and carrot ginger soup part deux.  The soup was very good and I ate that first.

Then my new obsession:

They are very beet-y so if that’s not your thing you could totally omit the beets.  I wish my tummy were bigger because I didn’t want to be done when I got full.  BUT I DID STOP-YAY!

I ate all the pickles though because it’s sacrilege to leave pickles 🙂

Off to Whole Foods in about 15.  See you tonight with a review of a new marinade!

I fell asleep by 10 last night but had to get up at 12:45 to use the bathroom.  I didn’t fall back asleep until after 3 🙁 Yesterday I felt really achy and my throat hurt and it wasn’t much better this morning.  I don’t know if it’s the lack of sleep or if I’m coming down with something BUT when the alarm went off at 5:30, I made the wise decision to sleep for another hour.  I’ll today as my day off and go to the gym tomorrow. 

I made a nutrient packed juice concoction this morning just in case I am coming down with something.

I used 2 carrots, 1/2 apple, 4 leaves of kale, peppers (full of vitamin C), and a meyer lemon.  It was seriously delicious.  I know it doesn’t look yummy, but it was!

It is coming down out there and I had to drive today :(  It took me 30 minutes longer than normal.  It’s a coworkers birthday and I volunteered to pick up his cake-there’s a trip to Whole Foods in my future.

My lunch bag:

Is full of yummy food today.

Leftover Beet Burgers, a few fries, and leftover carrot ginger soup.  Oh and some cuties.  I forgot to grab yogurt but I figure I can pick something up for myself when I go get the cake.  I won’t be able to eat the cake because of the dairy but I was thinking of getting some coconut ice cream-we shall see 🙂

What do you do when you think you may be coming down with something?  And, any tricks for insomnia?

OMG. Dinner was fabulous. OMG.

Wow. Just wow.  I outdid myself tonight.  See the recipe here.

A beet burger with sweet potato fries (that were not good) and some potato wedges.

Here’s what I had left:

I got tired of the bread and DID NOT like the sweet potatoes. I have yet to make good sweet potato fries :(  I was so excited cut them that way in the food processor too.  I even took pictures just in case I was going to do a tutorial.

View Full Album

Yeah, not so much. Oh well.

I actually ate a little too much because the burger was so dang good.  I probably should have stopped about 3/4ths of the way through but I didn’t and I’m okay with it.  Guess what I’m having for lunch tomorrow?

On tap for tonight? A VERY early night and some of The Wire-Season 3.

It looks like a lot of people took the day off-it’s been so quiet today.  I didn’t get one email from my client so I’m assuming they had the day off.  It was nice.  I got A TON done and that’s always a good thing.

I almost forgot to take a picture of my lunch but remembered halfway through the veggies:

I ate it all except about a quarter cup of rice.  I need to dig into my camping gear and get a fork out-I accidently threw away my old stainless fork and have been using plastic ever since-oops!

This was seriously tasty yet again.  I’m not a huge fan of zucchini-it tastes fishy to me (anyone else get this?) but it was good today.

Around 3:30 I got hungry and I had my coconut yogurt-the mango kind this time:

Seriously yummy.  The top had another great quote:

About halfway though I was sad that I didn’t have anything crunchy to go with it and then I remembered that my Mom made homemade granola for Christmas and I had some at work.

My Mom’s granola is seriously good.  She’s vegan, gluten free and does NO refined sugars oh and she has sensitivities to soy-vegetables anyone?  I think this has oats, coconut, pepitas, almonds, cashews, pecan, sunflower seeds, pine nuts, currants, honey, coconut palm sugar, cinnamon, and I don’t know what else.  I should get the recipe.

I’m now on my way to get Lu in this awful weather.  Instead of getting MLK day off, Shaun’s company did landscaping at the beach for Habitat for Humanity today. He’s at home warming up and nursing his knee that he hit with a “big iron thing”.

It looks like there’s a break in the torrential downpour so off I go!

Do you ever have a song that comes on and it just hits a nerve and gets you going?  Today in spin it was Pink’s So What? I didn’t lose my husband and I’m not going to start a fight but I’ve got a brand new attitude and I’m having more fun!  It was awesome.  I needed it too.  I got in bed at 10 last night and didn’t fall asleep until after 2 am.  Yes you read right, 2.  That means I got about 3 hours of sleep-isn’t that awesome?  But! I got up and I went to spin and it was GREAT!

Before class I ate this nanner with PB:

The cutie is for later.

After class I had half of the other half:

Lu saw me eating it and BEGGED for some, so she got half.  That girl LOVES her nanners.

I also made some juice!

I guess I was so excited to drink it that I couldn’t get all of the glass in the picture?  In that was a beet (including greens), half an apple, and a lemon.  That’s a drink that’ll put hair on your chest!

I put a ziplock in the pulp container:

So that I could easily store it for tonight’s dinner:

I’m going to make some veggie burgers and I think that will be a nice addition, plus LESS CLEAN-UP!  It worked really well.

So the goal for today is NO caffeine.  I think that Sencha tea I had yesterday at 11 aided in the insomnia last night.  I may be dragging later but hopefully that means I can get to SLEEP at a reasonable time tonight so that 5:30 is A-OK tomorrow.

I think Lu’s about to do some growing.  She slept 13.5 hours on Friday night, last night she did 12.5 (and we had to wake her up), and then she took a 4 hour nap this afternoon. And then? She went to bed at her normal bedtime of 7 PM.  She’s not acting sick (knock on wood) but she did have some immunizations today, so that could be part of it.

I think, I’ve also grown like a week this weekend-mentally that is.  I’ve gone down this path before but I always get derailed.  I think the blog will really help with this.  I’ve read Victoria Moran’s Fit from Within about 4 times cover to cover and I always try and fail.  I think part of that failure is that a diary is a really important part of the journey and I HATE paper diaries.  I’ve never been good at keeping them up-ever. But! I’m great at blogging, so I think/hope/know it’ll stick this time.

Guess what? My stomach issues? Have resolved themselves.  I think stress does it to me (and dairy).  I’ve been eating sanely and only limiting dairy and I feel 100% better.

My friends didn’t end up being able to stop.  They got a later start to their day then they thought and they had a 6 hour drive ahead of them so we decided it’d be better to visit the next time they were coming through (miss you Callie!).

I decided to make some seriously amazing baked tofu:

To go on some stir fry:

It was great and I ate all of it 🙂

It gave me a chance to use the new knife that my Mom got me for Christmas:

How fun are these veggies?

Now, I’ve got 3 lunches for this week:

I had an incredibly productive day.  I got all my work done, I cleaned out my kitchen drawers, I cleaned the kitchen, did some filing, and put away some odds and ends.  Plus I deep cleaned Lu’s high chair-it needed it!

I also had fun with my munchkin.

Lastly? I had a great eating day.  I ate a lot less than I normally would and I feel 100% satiated.  I call that a success.

Overall, it was a good week.