Thank goodness it’s Friday afternoon!  I get to go home and hang out with my 2 favorite people all weekend-YAY!  I feel like I haven’t seen Lu enough this week and I miss her.

I had a haircut today over lunch-I need to get a picture of it.  Well, I did take an iPhone picture but it wasn’t flattering so you don’t get to see it ;)  It’s just a bit cleaned up.  Before I went, I had some coconut milk yogurt.

Not very exciting quote:

I REALLY got chocolate this time:

I added some of my Mom’s granola:

I’ve had the vanilla, chocolate, blueberry, and mango version of this now.  Vanilla is by far the best-YOM.

After my haircut I picked up some greek food.  The vegetarian platter from the Gyros House:

Their bread is to die for!

I was pretty hungry, here’s what I ate:

I always try that red stuff and never like it.  I wish they wouldn’t give it to me but this “platter” is pre-made. 

I had a hankering for chocolate:

My co-worker got Thomas Keller’s newest cookbook Ad Hoc At Home.

It’s BEAUTIFUL.  I immediately ordered one for myself and one for my aunt-who reads cookbooks for fun.  I’d love to go to Ad Hoc one day.  Well, actually, I’d LOVE to go the French Laundry but I don’t think a $400 per person meal is in my immediate future.  I got to go to Le Bernadin when I was on business in New York a few years ago but I don’t think I’ll swing that for French Laundry.  I think getting to go to a 3 star Michelin restaurant on business is probably a once in a lifetime event.  I also got to go to 1 star Michelin that trip-Gramercy Tavern.  It was the first time I had pork belly!  Who knew 4 years later, it’d be all the rage? 

I digress.

This afternoon I got hungry around 3:45 and had an apple-a Fuji-it was good:

And then my co-worker offered me a “peanut butter puck”:

It tasted JUST like the peanut butter filling from a Dewar’s chew. Dewar’s was a local candy and ice cream (the BEST ice cream) company in Bakersfield-where I grew up. They are known for their chews which are kind of like salt water taffy but the peanut butter and almond ones have a filling.  This thing brought me right back to childhood  I ate 3/4 and was sad that I didn’t have a peppermint chew to cleanse my pallet.

Now? It’s time to GO HOME!

We’re having sushi tonight-yippee!

Do you have any fun plans this weekend?

I had to finish out the week with a song quote from my morning workout, dontcha think?  I woke up before my alarm at 5:26 this morning (I’m sure Kath would get a kick out of that) but I such a hard time getting to class. I really don’t enjoy this teacher.  I used to really like her but 5 years later, she still tells the same jokes and says the same things and plays the same songs and I’m over it.  I did get there though and guess what?  She had new music and a brand new profile.  I want to say that it was a GREAT class, but I can’t :(.  The music was fabulous-Black Eyed Peas, Train, Kings of Leon, etc. The workout was awesome-interval training-super challenging-fun.  BUT the teacher WOULDN’T SHUT UP.  She talked or SANG (!?!?!?!) 90% of the class.  So it would have been a FANTASTIC class had she been quiet. *sigh* I DID get a good workout and now I want to go buy Train’s new album. 

Before class I had a half a banana with PB:

And while I was procrastinating getting there, I noticed that my food scale is organic!

(it made me giggle).

After class I really felt like a Jamba smoothie and so I got one (giftcards are so dangerous!).  I got an all fruit Sixteen Mega Mango with banana added in-next time I would add 2 “shots” of banana (yes that’s what they call it):

It was okay, it left a weird feeling in my throat?

This morning I put on boots that I haven’t been able to wear since about halfway through my pregnancy and they fit!  I’ve got muscular calves so they wouldn’t zip before.  I paired the boots with a dress that I picked up yesterday at Target.  I just grabbed a medium off the hanger and didn’t try it on, hoping it would fit.  Guess what? It did.  When Shaun saw me he said, “Woah. Wait a second? What are you wearing? You look HOT! Where’d you get that?”  It seriously made my morning.  Thanks honey!

You wanna see, don’t you?

It’s blurry but you get the idea.  The dress is blue with green and white detail.  It’s not online for some reason.  I also paired it with my new trench (also blurry):

Lucy says, “Hi!” If you notice she has a shoe and a banana in her hand, shortly after this picture she was trying to eat out of her shoe.  Daddy did some investigating and it seems she put banana in there and was trying to eat it out.

In that blurry picture you can see a Lucy with cheeks stuffed, trying to get the last piece of banana from Daddy and he won’t give it up because it’s in her shoe.

She’s 16 months old today.  I can’t believe it.

Lastly, I have a confession. As Marissa defined it yesterday I have, schizoscaleia.  I weigh myself everyday.  I have very defined times when I can weigh though. 

My rules:

-first thing, right after I go to the bathroom
-naked
-If I mistakenly have even a sip of water, all bets are off-no weighing.

or

-right after a morning workout-again naked

Since September 30th my weight hasn’t really budged.  This week?  The week I decided to stop obsessing about calories in and calories out and to eat when I felt hungry and to not limit anything (except dairy). Yeah that week?  Well I lost 4 pounds.  I’m at my lowest weight since having Lucy.  I’m 2.5 pounds away from where I was when I had her.  All exciting stuff right?  Yes BUT I’m ready to step OFF the scale.  Not 100% ready.  I’m still going to weigh once a week because I do need that checkpoint (either I need it or I’m not ready to give it up yet).  I AM NOT going to step on the scale until next Friday.  I don’t care how much she beckons to me.  I’m not going to do it.

So there!

Do you weigh yourself?  If so, how often?  Do you have weird rules like me?

We at leftovers tonight and the 3 of us had 3 different meals. 

Lu’s:

She had chicken breast and roasted root veggies and then some raviolis (from Daddy’s lunch this week).  Unpictured was a banana, Cheerios, and rice milk. I got her that plate today-isn’t it cute?

Shaun had a meaterific BBQ beef and cheese sandwich with chips and salsa (and a blurry picture):

I had a salad:

It has roasted root veggies, spelt, chicken, spinach, and the last of my peppers with some Annie’s Goddess dressing. The fennel was the star again.  One of my friend’s commented today that Goddess dressing is like crack and that she could just drink it straight.  I have to agree.  It’s good-my favorite.

I also had about 5 of these chips.  Casa Sanchez is a local company and their chips and salsa are so yummy! Especially the thick cut ones!

It was my turn to put Lucy to bed tonight (yay cuddles!), which means it’s Shaun’s turn to clean up the kitchen.  I came out to my clean juicer parts looking like this:

That’s one way to put it up 🙂

Tomorrow’s Friday!  You know what that means?  The Office is on tonight!  And it’s new! 

I’ve got 6 am spin in the morning so after The Office it’s off to bed for me. Have a great night.

It’s still raining and dreary out there.  Oh well, we need it 🙂

Today I had a meeting from 11:30-12:30 and I got hungry at 11:25 :-/.  So I had some coconut yogurt topped with my Mom’s granola:

I thought I had grabbed the chocolate one this morning so imagine my surprise when I saw this:

Mango not chocolate.

The quote today wasn’t very good though:

After my meeting, I had a beet burger with avocadoes from my parents tree, the mayo from last night, and TJs BBQ sauce-all on a whole wheat bun.  Sadly, I’m out of pickles :(  I also had a few potato wedges with the leftover BBQ sauce:

It was quite filling and I ate all of it. YOM.

I got hungry around 3:30 and had a very deceiving pear.  It looks not very good but it was ripe, juicy and delicious!

What are some of your favorite afternoon snacks?

Evidently it’s the week of song lyrics here at the blog :)  That song was on during bootcamp this morning and it had the same effect as P!nk the other day.  Bootcamp was RAD this morning-totally great.  She loves to do yoga for strength with music and weights. LOVE IT.  I do need to incorporate actual yoga as well.  Maybe this weekend? 

Before bootcamp I had some sprouted grain bread with PB and my pumpkin butter:

After my awesome class I made some juice.  I threw this stuff in the Breville:

That’s a beet, half an apple, peppers, and a meyer lemon.  It created this beauty:

Yom. Seriously.  I think this is my favorite combo yet.  They always say not to use liquid as a meal because it doesn’t fill you up-I completely disagree.  When I lost 75 pounds 8 years ago (OMG I can’t believe it’s been that long!) I drank a smoothie almost every morning.  I drank that at 7:45, it’s now 10:15 and I’m not hungry.

I had some fun with my little monkey this morning.  Shaun is still sick so I didn’t have to rush, rush, rush to get out of the house.

What Mommy?:

Can’t you see I’m HONGRY?!?!?:

And then she got into the forbidden keys-but she was having so much fun I let her have them.  I told her it was a “privilege”. 

When I asked her to give them to Mommy, she did happily-YAY for that!

She’s developed 3 new words this week-“Daycare,” “Banana,” (rather than just “nana”) and “Diaper.” She’s getting SO big!

After I dropped her off at daycare, I stopped at Target to look for some rainboots.  They didn’t have any but they did have this cute jacket and scarf:

Yes, I am in Target’s bathroom.  Amber would have been so proud!  While looking around the store I was looking at clothes and knowing  how Amber would put them together.  It was incredibly exciting.  One problem? She’s got a completely different body type than me. I need to find a stylish chic out there (that blogs) that has a similar body type to me-short legs, super muscular, and broad shoulders (I like my shoulders and I think broad makes them sound bad but I don’t know how else to describe them).  Anyone know of a blog like that?

If you’re interested, here’s the link to the trench.

I also got Lu some skinny jeans (!) and a very cute dress to wear with said skinny jeans.

And now, I’m off to work!

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!