Time Flies

It seems like my days off are super short. I feel like I just woke up and now it’s almost time for bed. I did have a productive day which makes me feel good.

One of the productive things I did was make this Quick Quiona & Turkey Stew from GreenLiteBites. Holy yumminess! It was really easy to make and tastes amazing. The only modifications I made were that I left out the onion (because I hate it) and used chickpeas instead of pinto beans because it’s what I had. After a couple of bites I divided the whole batch out into individual servings and popped them in the fridge. Ta-da! Lunches for the week are now taken care of.

After that I worked around the house (laundry, dishes, prep for the work week) and watched an episode of Jon & Kate + 8. Love that show! Those kids are just so stinkin’ cute. I know a lot of people say Kate is out of control and I agree that she has her over-the-top moments. All in all though I really admire her because of her planning and scheduling skills.

I wasn’t hungry right after my workout. It just hit me all of a sudden that I was starving! My late afternoon snack was a small glass of organic skim milk and a chocolate VitaTop. My grocery FINALLY started carrying these and I’m ridiculously excited.

My husband called as he was leaving work and I popped the pork chops and baked potatoes in the oven. The timer went off at almost the exact moment he walked in the door. How’s THAT for timing?

I wasn’t really in a meat and potatoes mood so I fixed myself an alternative. I had a salad of romaine lettuce, black olives, whole wheat croutons and a little drizzle of Annie’s Goddess dressing.

I also sliced up a tomato and topped it with cottage cheese and freshly ground black pepper.

After dinner I just relaxed and read my book for a while, dreading going back to work tomorrow. Oh well. Just gotta do it. I am excited to try new oat concoctions starting tomorrow. Stay tuned for the results!

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Mid-Day Margarita

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day everyone! I have the day off which is nice. I slept in until almost 8 this morning which is a real treat because I’m normally up between 4:30 and 5 on weekdays. Obviously I needed the extra zzz. Breakfast was 2 leftover pumpkin spice muffins from the batch I made yesterday and a cup of strong, black coffee.

I’ve been reading lots of food blogs for a few weeks now and I’ve noticed a clear theme: oats. I must admit, up until now I’ve been a packaged oatmeal kind of girl. It never keeps me full and I know it’s loaded with sugar so I’d pretty much stopped eating it altogether. This morning I decided to try making a batch of steel cut oats. I bought a container of these a few months ago and just never bothered to try making them because they take longer to cook and I just don’t have a lot of extra time in the morning.

I’m happy to report that the experiment was a success! I ate a little spoonful and was surprised that I actually liked the taste, even without any “extras” mixed in yet. I wasn’t hungry enough to eat a bowl after I’d already had breakfast so I packaged them up in containers and I’ll be taking them to work for breakfasts at my desk during the week.

Shortly after I’d finished with the oats one of my favorite people in the entire world, my sister-in-law, called to see if I wanted to go out to Tumbleweed for lunch. She’s a teacher so she also has the day off. Not really a favorite restaurant for either of us, but she wanted to use the gift card she won at a Christmas party. We both had the taco salad with peppered chicken. I didn’t eat the shell and asked for salsa instead of salad dressing. They brought the chip basket, but each only ate 2 or 3. We did calorie splurge on margaritas, though. Since it’s Monday they were $1 each. I had a Coco Loco on the rocks and she had pomegranate on the rocks. They were both really good. The food? Not so much. I tried to find a picture of the dish or the drink online, but there’s nothing.

I changed clothes as soon as I got home and popped in a workout DVD. The 60 minutes went by quickly and I burned 483 calories according to my heart rate monitor. My legs were burning a little afterwards so I decided to use one of my favorite products: cooling leg gel from The Body Shop. It has a pretty strong peppermint scent and when you put it on it instantly feels cool and soothing on sore muscles. I also decided to paint my toesies and used OPI nail polish in Fondue You.

I’m going to go cook some soup to take for lunches this week. I’ll be back later to post a picture and a link to the recipe. Looks like it will be a good one!

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