I’m a survivor.

I rode the damn stationary bike again. It was either that or try a Bosu class, and, honestly, if I tripped and almost broke my toe just putting shorts on, I’m pretty sure it’s not in the cards for me to bounce around on half a stability ball in front of a bunch of 20 year olds in small clothing.

Anyway, I’m trying to be positive, because I got a lot done at work today, I had a halfway decent hair day (literally - the left side looked great, the right not so much), I made it through 40 minutes on the bike, and I polished off an issue of Self while I did it. I’m not a big Self fan, because it’s all about which eyeshadow is in season and women working out in bikinis and such. But, I bought it in the airport a few weeks ago because, when I travel, I really want to buy things I usually don’t like so much: weird women’s magazines and drinks from Starbucks. Anyway, so I had this magazine laying around and I feel like I learned so much about Anne Hathaway and I didn’t cry on the bike. Score one for me. No, score 80 billion for me (I need a lot of affirmation today).

Then, I did an abs class where I think I may have actually died a little bit, and came home not interested in cooking anything at all, but very much in the mood for beans. So, I had a big salad. With a lot of beans. And some tomatoes, spinach, chips, cheese, and a heaping helping of salsa that made me sneeze:

I hope you like that artistic diagonal shot. I did that for you.

I also had some more chips with cheese. Known in some cultures as “nachos.” But, these chips have flaxseed in them, so these were healthy “nachos.”

I’m still hungry, so I might go for some cereal.

Okay, I have to stop here because we’re being energy efficient and the laptop is dying.

I survived Anaheim.

But just barely.

No, not really, it’s nothing that dramatic. I’m just recovering from four and a half packed days of librarianliness. And a month or so of very little sleep.

Southern California is just like on TV. Palm trees everywhere, really terrible traffic, sunshine all the time. I took my running shoes and workout clothes like I do to every single conference I attend, but this time I actually used them, which was novel. It was so nice outside that it was hard not to go running (not my usual problem). That, coupled with the fact that I pretty much lived on energy bars, trail mix, Kashi crackers, and instant oatmeal, meant that I came home feeling normal instead of bloated and gross. Though, I was ready to kill someone for a vegetable. Or some peanut butter. I didn’t have to, but I was ready.

I am now 25, by the way, and that means that I am more insightful and responsible. That came in handy when I almost had to rent a car since I booked my return flight from San Diego. Which, in case you’re as unfamiliar with Southern California geography as I was, is not that close to Anaheim. I was too worried about the honking drivers and the carpool lanes and the no space between cars, though, so I signed my soul away to take a shuttle. And when I finally got home, after that shuttle, a flight, and a two hour drive back from the airport here, I was exhausted. Luckily, I was greeted by this when I opened the front door:

Presents! Matt got me three of my favorite cookbooks to own (Eat, Drink, and be Vegan; The Food You Crave; and Veganomicon). And his mom got me many things, several of which were food-related, including dried cherries and fancy granola. Thanks, Matt and Debbie! I also opened cards from my family. Thanks, family!

Matt took me out to dinner last night, so no pictures of that. We are leaving again on Friday morning, so I didn’t want to buy food. I had a Greek salad with no olives (because they’re gross) and a few of Matt’s french fries. And maybe a beer? I can’t remember. Like I said, exhausted.

Today I had a surprise birthday cake at work. Here’s an artistic representation of it, captured with my MacBook.

It turned my mouth blue. Also, my nose, but that was unintended.

Tonight I made a quick dinner before Matt left with a few random things I knew we had in the house.

Whole wheat pasta with roasted red peppers, spinach, feta, and a light lemon vinaigrette. Delicious. Looks just like what we ate last Wednesday, but tasted different.

When Matt left for work, I immediately fell asleep and I just woke up a few minutes ago. I was planning to go to the gym, because I’ve broken my no cardio = no dessert rule two days in a row, but I think I have too many things to do around here. Read: I am going to attempt to unpack my suitcase and then fall asleep again soon. Also, I’m planning to milk this birthday thing for all it’s worth.

I may have some more cake first. Yoga was pretty tough today.

99% local

Well, we ate local and I have the bruises to prove it. You’ll see.

I was really productive today and checked off maybe 42 things from my to do list. Granted, I’m one of those people who adds things they’ve already done, just to check them off. But, whatever. I’d say that 47 or however many things is still a lot.

After kickboxing, I had to go to Target to get a new prescription filled and to pick up some absolute essentials like conditioner and Now and Laters. By the time I got home I thought I was going to die, and Matt was wasting away on the couch so I made my quick local dinner. Things got thrown off track when the local cheese I already had on hand turned out to be bad (which I didn’t know until I ate some of it). I had to run to the grocery store. I literally ran. I was that hungry. And still in my gym clothes so it looked normalish.

Anyway, here’s what we had:

Spinach/tomato/cheese/egg scramble with a strawberry salad w/ honey dressing and kale chips. The 1% non-local food was a little olive oil. I need to do research, but I’m guessing we don’t have olives here.

What would have made this perfect would have been some goat cheese. I know there are goats around here, so I’m going to have to look into that.

I went back for seconds on the kale chips and the salad, and while I was eating the salad, I also, inadvertently, ate half a bug. The other half is on the floor somewhere, where I threw it, screaming. I was screaming, not the bug. That would have been horrifying.

Matt was in charge of washing the greens. That’s all I’m going to say.

His response? “Like my dad always said, bugs indicate freshness.”

I’m trying to work through it.

Last night we had balsamic chicken with steamed green beans/asparagus and whole wheat couscous. See:

Tasty.

Miss Rap Supreme is on, so I’m outta here.

Cook-in

Yesterday, we registered at Target and I got to live my lifelong dream of walking around with a scanner gun thing and selecting everything I might possibly want. Seven cutting boards? Check. Sheartoku? DONE. Then we had a tornado watch last night, along with some nasty storms and a really creepy looking sky. The watch went into effect right after I got home from the gym, so I made a quick dinner to fortify us in case of emergencies.

Bulgurritos

With bulgur, chicken, black, beans, and tomatoes. And a salad on the side with mixed greens, corn, black beans, tomatoes, and a cumin-lime vinaigrette. I also had a fruit bar, because it was really hot.

The tornado never came, and I spent the night reading In Defense of Food. Which was interesting, but didn’t blow my mind. I’d imagine that most people who would be inclined to pick this book up feel similarly and aren’t all “Go-gurt isn’t just yogurt??? WHAT???” Still, it’s interesting to think about all the crap that’s in the food most people eat. I thought about it again when the kids bagging my groceries today were all “that’s a lot of vegetables.”

Yes. That’s a lot of vegetables. That’s why I’m going to live forever. Like in Fame.

I had a really long list of things I wanted to get done today, but then Matt talked me into acting like I was actually on vacation. I resisted until I realized that there was a Law and Order marathon on, and then I decided he was right. I’ll probably regret it in about five minutes when I walk into the kitchen and see all of the dirty dishes from dinner. And also, later this week when I have to wear pajamas to work and pretend they are real clothing as all of my regular clothes are dirty or embarrassingly wrinkled.

This afternoon, we finally watched Breach, which was underwhelming. There’s something about Ryan Philippe that makes it really hard for me to take him seriously. Is it his hair? His resemblance to Justin Timberlake? His entire role in Cruel Intentions? I don’t know.

Then we had a cook-in for memorial day, because 1) we don’t have a means of cooking out and 2) it was storming. We had veggie burgers, spinach, and sweet potato chips:

See how I am always creating these incredibly imaginative meals that are like nothing I’ve eaten before. The last time I had this exact meal, it was a black bean burger. And it was on a bagel square. This time, a Mushroom Lovers’ burger. On an English Muffin! I like to keep you guessing.

Oh yay, another lightning storm!

I also ate dinner

I got so involved in sharing interesting things about myself that I almost forgot to post dinner:

Whole wheat fettucine topped with diced tomatoes, garlic, basil, spinach, mushrooms, and shrimp. With some roasted tomato and basil bread from the farmers’ market on the side:

Then I decided that I wanted cookies. So I made some of these.

They look huge here! I wish they were that big. Anyway, I had to cut way down on the chocolate chips because I was almost out. So I added a little unsweetened coconut to make up for it. Mmm. Cookies.

I’m only blogging because Wii Fit told me it was time for a break.

Here’s what I had for dinner:

Another pita pizza. This one had tomato paste, a little bit of chicken-apple sausage, some pepper jack, some sharp cheddar, and a few baby bellas. And lots of love.

I had to go get my wedding dress altered after work today, and then I came home and promptly fell asleep. I woke up craving pizza, as I am wont to do after a bout of daytime sleeping, so I made this. There was also spinach on the side, but it looked like all of my other spinach so I’m going to ask you to just let your imaginations run wild. While eating, I started my long weekend by watching restaurant wars on Top Chef.

Interesting fact about Wii Fit: at a certain point, it makes you take a break. I would like it if someone came to the gym with me and told me when to take a break. “Hey, Jenny, this elliptical machine will kill you if you don’t step off for a few minutes.”

By the way, I’ve taken some flak from people (DAD) for disparaging the older community in my last post. I’d like to take this opportunity to formally apologize to the two old people at the gym yesterday, because I bet they read this blog and were very hurt. Just to clarify, I wasn’t (necessarily) being ageist. I’m not that way.

Okay, I think it’s time for more virtual hula hooping! I’ve been tagged by Glidingcalm to share five facts and tag five other bloggers. I’ll have to do that tomorrow. It’s going to take me that long to figure out what I’m going to say and come up with five people I can tag.

Pit-za

I’m a little under the weather tonight, so I didn’t have the energy to make my usual gourmet fare (ha). I’ve been thinking about these pita pizzas since I saw them on Green Lite Bites. I crashed right after work and woke up wanting pizza, so this seemed perfect. Plus, the recipe met all of my criteria for the evening:

1. bread
2. cheese
3. five minutes or less
4. toaster oven-friendly

My version had tomato paste, chicken breast, peppers, basil, spinach, crushed red pepper, and reduced fat provolone. With broccoli on the side:

I don’t have much to say about this, except that it was good. I’m really posting it for my sister, because it’s a nice alternative to english muffin pizzas, which she and I both enjoy. The pita bread is more like pizza crust and didn’t get as soggy. It also holds up better under the weight of veggies than english muffins or tortillas or other not-pizza pizza bases.

I’m going back to sleep now. And by sleep, I mean, mindlessly watching Keeping Up With the Kardashians. It’s fascinating to see how the other half lives. Plus, we’re going to cancel cable soon and I need to get my fill of these sorts of things to remember fondly when I’m forced to do things like read books.

Salad burger

I wanted a light dinner because I’m going to try to go to kickboxing tonight, but I was starving, so it had to be fast. I decided on a veggie burger and a salad, but while the burger was cooking, I realized I had some spinach that needed to be used, so I threw the salad toppings on my burger and had some sauteed spinach with lemon and pepper on the side.

Fascinating, I know.

Soon, I will probably have some cereal. I’ll spare you the visual.

I was hoping that I’d get home and the apartment would be a mess so that I’d have an excellent excuse for skipping kickboxing, because I’m kind of nervous about going for the first time since my lungs went whack. But Matt cleaned while I was at work, so nothing’s stopping me. Except for the couch and the remote, which are calling me with their sweet, sweet siren songs.

We’ve all seen this before

This has been a long week, and it’s not quite over yet. To comfort myself in my time of need, I made a big bowl of whole wheat pasta with roasted tomatoes and zucchini, sauteed spinach, chicken breast, and goat cheese (which is creamier and melts better than the feta I usually use).

I don’t like to brag, but it was awesome. I’m sure Matt will agree when he gets home tonight.

Last night, I made some chicken, veggie, and rice noodle lettuce wraps. It was my first stab at peanut sauce, and it worked out surprisingly well. Here’s a really crappy picture of round one.

There were two or three rounds. I wanted to use up the lettuce I bought at the Farmer’s Market on Saturday, because it looked a little dodgy. I meant to save some of it for Matt, but it was too good. To make up for it, I took him to buy the second issue of Secret Invasion (in case you didn’t know - it’s the crossover event of the year) when he got home from work.

We’re going out of town tomorrow, and I’m really hopeful that the magical cleaning fairies will visit our apartment (specifically the refrigerator) while we’re gone. For now, I’m just enjoying Top Chef and really wanting to eat some wedding cake. At some point in the next hour or so, I guess I’ll start on the endless pile of dishes that lives in the sink.* See you in a few days.

*or, obsessively check my bank account to see if my stimulus check is there yet.

Let’s call this… Sunday night

I woke myself up sneezing at four different points during the night (I also tried to wake Matt by groaning loudly and stomping around to get tissues so that he could sympathize with my pain and comfort me, but it didn’t work), but I didn’t actually get out of bed until 10:30. As you can see, I am a highly motivated individual. Since then, I have: gone to the gym, gone to the storage unit for more fans, gone to three different grocery stores (I have special needs), caused a scene at the Starbucks in the first grocery store by having the gall to use a gift card, looked at magazines at Hastings and confirmed my suspicion that Martha Stewart is somehow behind them all, cooked dinner, eaten dinner, and watched several episodes of Seinfeld. Including that one with the valet who has such bad B.O. that nothing gets the stink out of the car. It gets me every time.

We had those Veganomicon black bean burgers again, with some spinach and roasted sweet potato chips.

You will notice that I have yet again violated the vegan sanctity of the black bean burgers by adding cheese.

I had every intention of cleaning tonight after dinner, but when I got home from the gym this afternoon and Matt had already cleaned the whole apartment. Because he is made of goodness and light. That is also why he is in the kitchen doing dishes while I am blogging and watching a horribly depressing show about the top ten kitchens in the United States. Every single one of them is at least twice as big as our entire apartment. Oh wait, now it’s a different show about some couple buying a house, but there’s a catch - they have to stay under $625,000 dollars. HOW WILL THEY DO IT???

This is why I never watch HGTV. Matt said I should watch the kitchen show, because it would give me something to aspire to. But really, what more could I want? A kitchen with a normal floor instead of remaindered carpet? More than three and a half square feet of counter space? A refrigerator that doesn’t stink?

Dare to dream.