Great Day

Before 1pm today I accomplished quite a bit and had some random musings (mostly with help of my dear friend, Mr. Insomnia who wouldn’t let me sleep past 530am):

*Took Lincoln for a mile and a half walk

*Packed a bunch of stuff up that I am giving to charity

*Re-listed a bunch of stuff on craigslist and starting gathering clothes and purses to sell on Ebay

*Had breakfast

*Went through my mail and found that not only did I get a free drink from Starbucks but my parents sent me one as well.

*Realized I have no clue who Terri Ewing is and now curious as to how they got the free drink card to send to me.

*Start to think of crazy stories of how they know Terri Ewing, My favorite one being they knew Terri and killed him or her for a free drink coupon so they could make me happy.

*Wonder if Terri is a man or woman

*Realize it’s spelled with an “I” so most likely a woman.

*Thought about how much I hate unisex names 

*Thought of names for the made for tv movie about the murder and liked “Will Kill For Starbucks: All She Wanted Was Java” the best.

*Start singing “All That She Wants Is Another Java” to the tune of “All That She Wants” by Ace of Base

*Laugh about the notion of this whole idea that someone would kill another for a Starbucks drink

*Stop laughing since I’m sure people out there think that I would kill for Starbucks

*Think that I can ponder about Terri Ewing all day so I better go to the gym

*Had an awesome workout of 30 minutes on the Precor AMT along with upper body strength training

*Come home and attempt to run to shower first thing since I am literally a hot mess.

*Am stopped by Lincoln because he wants to lick the sweat off my face

*Wonder why dogs are so loyal and like gross things

*Finally get in shower

*Portion trail mix into single servings so I don’t go buckwild and eat the entire bag in two sittings

*Flip though Michael Chiarello’s book “Bottega” that I won over at All Kinds of Hungry

*Think that asking for a man who can cook, has a nice smile, straight, gainfully employed with no mommy issues shouldn’t be too hard to find.

*But then come to the conclusion it is

*Get sad about that

*Am hungry from flipping through Bottega

*Make a random lunch

*Wonder what was up with my intense protein craving for lunch

Indeed Paul.

How’s your Monday going?

What’s your story of how my parents got Terri Ewing’s free drink card?

Blame it

Hello all! Happy May Where has this weekend gone? I can’t believe it’s Sunday night already and I blame that on one thing:

No, not the alcohol

 

or rain 

Blame it on Marathons!

And not the running kind

It seemed like each time I turned on the tv this weekend there was a marathon of some sorts on. First there was a House marathon on Saturday night, which killed my evening right there. And today there has been non stop Real Housewives. I love that I can catch up but hate how it just sucks me in. Especially when I’ve seen Theresa from RH of New Jersey flip over a table and call Danielle a whore at least 30 times now. I’ve officially decided I want to create a RH of NJ drinking game and each time Caroline says “We’re family” or “protect the family” you have to take a drink. I would be drunk within the first 10 minutes of the show!

Even though, I was plagued with a case of the marathons, I still got quite a bit done.

On Saturday I woke up at 3am and couldn’t get back to bed. Not that that was annoying at all. As soon as the sun rose, I got to cracking on my errands. While driving around, I saw at Wiki Wiki Car Wash for a free $15 car wash in celebration of their grand opening. There was a huge line but I had absolutely nowhere to be so I drove in and waited my turn.

Yeah, apparently everyone and their mom is about the free car wash. Could you blame them?

But then I saw we were actually going through the car wash and it wasn’t a manual car wash.

Eeks! I remember as a little kid, I would love going through the car wash and it was exciting. Now? It just freaks me out and I think I am going to stall or crash into someone. I blame this on Enterprise Rent A Car. Enterprise was my first real job out of college and to keep it simple—the job sucked. I was making $10 an hour, wore a suit to work….in Phoenix….in the summertime….while running from one car dealership to another to go get cars. At that time I didn’t run so yeah, it was a horrible job. Oh and I didn’t mention that the main part of the job was selling the optional insurance that is complete bs? I am not one to be pushy especially with a product that I don’t believe in so I often had to go to sales calls with our regional manager so I could “learn” from him. That never happened because I knew it was BS. One day I had to run a white F-150 through the car wash and I crashed it while going through since the wheels weren’t on track. I believe this traumatized me and still haunts me to this day.

Even though I was completely hungover, I still made it to the gym on Saturday afternoon. I started with doing 25 minutes on the elliptical than did upper body strength training. I would love to tell you what I did but I cannot remember for the life of me since I wasn’t too hot. And I think I was the stinky person at the gym….I blame it on the night before since I was sweating out all the liquor.

Even though beer was coming out of my pores, I had a great workout!

Dinner was put together last minute on Saturday night. I had white shrimp defrosting in the fridge but didn’t have a plan as to what to do with them. I didn’t want to fry them and wasn’t in the mood for pasta so I marinated in Paula Deen’s Peach BBQ sauce for 30 minutes then cooked the shrimp on the stovetop

While that was sitting,  I got to start on the side items first up was baked okra. I love that okra is back in season since it’s such an easy veggie to prepare! You don’t even have to fry it , which unfortunately was the sole way I used to eat it. I blame that on working at Cracker Barrel. I worked there for four years in my high school and college days. I started off a hostess than working my way up to server and made awesome money there. I just hated the ugly brown apron we had to don, that did not help me with tips. I like to slice mine up, toss in extra virgin olive oil, garlic and pepper and bake at375 degrees for 20 minutes. However, no extra virgin olive oil tossing this time (um, how dirty does that sound??) Because I finally put down the $10 to buy a Misto!

I spritzed the okra with extra virgin olive oil from the Misto then let bake.

Hmmmm, not as oily as previously made but still tasty. They didn’t turn out as crisp as they normally do which was a bit of a let down.

When visiting the hippies on Friday, I saw they had turnips. I’ve never cooked with turnips and am forever on a quest to try new veggies. I asked them what I could do with turnips and they suggested that I add them to mashed potatoes. I’ve been jonesing for sweet potatoes lately so I killed two birds with one stone with by making mashed sweet potatoes with turnips mixed in. I boiled one sweet potato and one turnip until soft then mashed and added half and half, grated  parmesan, salt and pepper.

This turned out smooth and creamy and was a perfect way to try a new veggie! I  really didn’t notice too much of a stand out taste of the turnip but from what I’ve heard it’s a mix between a carrot and potato so it jived well with the sweet potato.

This meal was a little more labor intensive that what I had hoped for on a Saturday night but a successful dinner all in all!

This morning, I went to Panera to work on some internship stuff and get my free bagel waiting for me via MyPanera rewards.

I was sitting enjoyed my jalapeno cheddar bagel when all of a sudden, a terrible headache hit me. And you know what I blame this on? Unruly children whose parents don’t discipline them.

Beautiful noise my ass.

I know a lot of you reading this have children and my tolerance of children has gone up in the past few years but these kids were horrible!!! The kicker was that the terrors looked like little angels. Little angels who like to shriek at a pitch that Lincoln would’ve heard and little angels who like to throw pieces of bagels at each other. I already switched locations from the area over the wall where  the guy wearing a velour suit kept rubbing his right pec while reading the paper. I couldn’t stop staring at and he probably thought I was getting turned on (not so much) So I didn’t want to move yet again but tried to power through the rest of my work and get out of there. And you know what? As soon as I walked out of Panera, my headache went away. Go figure!

Words cannot express what an awesome workout I had today! I got to the gym right as it opened and found a Precor AMT to hop on. Does anyone else feel extremely awkward while moving backwards on those and using the handles? I tried to do both simultaneously and it just didn’t work for me. I did a resistance ranging from 8 to 12 and killed it! So much that I was sweating in places I never knew I could sweat. As much as I tried to cool down, I felt like I kept having to wipe myself off. Gross, I know, but I’m a sweater when I workout. If sweat is a result of a great workout, that’s A-OK in my book! I did lower body strength training afterwards including

*squats (15 reps, 2 sets 20 lb kettlebell)

*hip adduction  (12 reps, 4 sets 95 lbs)

*hip abduction (12 reps. 4 sets 110 lbs)

*leg extension (13 reps, 3 sets 80 lbs)

*hamstring extension (13 reps, 3 sets 65 lbs)

Awwwww yeah. Like I said, sweating is not an issue if it results in an awesome workout!

When I got home, I went straight to the kitchen. I didn’t even greet Lincoln properly and I blame this on the workout since I was voracious. I put together a quick wrap with hummus, veggies and ham with a side of blue tortilla chips

The ham was a completely random addition to the wrap but I had a couple of pieces sitting in the fridge that I wanted to get rid of. I hate throwing something out if I don’t need to and Lincoln helped me get rid of some

When I went to Panera this morning, I noticed they didn’t have any Tabasco sauce out with the rest of their condiments so I couldn’t snag any for my house. I went through my stash of condiments and couldn’t find any hot sauce for the tortilla chips

Then I went through some of my purses because there had to be a hot sauce hidden in one of my purses, right?

Right. Mission accomplished!

My frugality and refusal to buy condiments like normal people? Well, I guess I could blame my Polish heritage on.

For dinner, I mixed it up by making tofu but doing it Italian style! I’ve cooked tofu with Mexican and Asian influenced spices before but never Italian. How could I leave out my heritage in my tofu loving??

I coated the tofu in a mixture of thyme, pepper, salt, garlic and red pepper flakes then let cook in oil with zucchini, red onion and red peppers

I had sea shell pasta cooking on the side which I then covered in parmesan cheese, red pepper flakes and extra virgin olive oil from my Misto

Then topped with the tofu and veggies

The tofu and veggies had so much flavor this didn’t need any sauce. If you’re looking to mix up your dinner one night, try this out!

As for the rest of the nights, I’m chilling with my peeps

Literally.

What’s your favorite way to prepare shrimp or tofu?

Are you a hot mess like me when you work out?

Real Housewives: love it or hate it?

Waiting…..

Ok, can I just say that this is my last week of work? Time has flown since I’ve given my notice to my employer, even with me giving away my whole portfolio. I am not going to miss the work one bit but I am really going to miss my coworkers. They are the best crew as a whole that I’ve worked with in a long time and none of them smell like my old co-worker who smelled like bleu cheese and ass.

As for the weekend, well, you guessed it. It went by too fast as usual. We didn’t get to leave early on Good Friday like everyone else I know but I ended up scooting out of there at 4:15pm. I’m sorry but if I have no accounts to work, am falling asleep at my desk in between reading cooking magazines, my time can definitely be spent better elsewhere. Plus, what are they going to do-fire me? I think not. I hope not at least.

I went to the gym right after work and it was a dead zone which was a nice change of pace. Nothing irritates me more than having to wait for a machine. Edit, nothing irritates me more than others who are waiting for machines and hover around you while you work out, as if that’s going to help time pass quicker. Why don’t they just go find something else to do instead of just standing there? They are there for a workout, yes?

Regardless, I don’t even remember what I did besides the Precor AMT but I must have had a rockin workout

I wasn’t in the mood to cook afterwards so I just whipped up a quick meal of asian cole slaw.

Always does the trick.

I also came home to a package from my sister—my Vera Bradley Puccini bag she picked up for me at the Vera Bradley sale in Indiana.

The theme for Saturday’s lunch was let’s-see-how-much-produce-I-can-fit-into-one-meal. It started with Athenos Roasted Red Pepper Hummus

Spread on a tortilla to make a quick wrap with red peppers, cucumbers and carrots

 

Complete with a side of apples and nectarines

Shortly after, I attended the Yelp Charlotte Elite  Cajun Invasion at Cajun Queen. I visited this restaurant only once before and was let down by it since it’s supposed to be the best Cajun restaurant in Charlotte. But feed this girl free food and drink and my vote may be swayed.

Wine was provided by Three Girls Wine

I didn’t try any but my friend said it was wonderful. I am temped to buy a bottle since I am one of three girls. However, I am always skeptical of any company or product that doesn’t have a website. It’s 2011, get with it.

The reason I didn’t try any was all because of Mother Earth Brewing.  This was my first time hearing of this beer but found out there are a North Carolina brewery in the eastern part of the state. Hooray for local brews!

The Weeping Willow Wit was my favorite-very comparable to Blue Moon. By the end of the event, I switched over to Sisters of The Moon, which is an IPA. I’ve never been a huge fan of IPA’s but starting to grow an appreciation for them as of late. Plus, the hippie names make me smile. I couldn’t remember the name of Sisters of the Moon  but kept calling it obscure names like Brothers of Jupiter or Fathers of Saturn. The beer rep seemed amused and that’s what I was aiming for. What can I say, my need to make people laugh is part of my charm.

We started with appetizers of shrimp and fried oysters.

Then they told us that the buffet line of entrée items was being served so we grabbed some more grub. I didn’t even need any more since the fried oysters and shrimp had my heart but I wanted to see if the Cajun Queen could wow me this time around.

 

Enter in jambalaya, etouffee with crawfidh, grilled chicken and peach bread pudding. All of it was absolutely delectable and I could have gone for seconds but didn’t want to seem like a complete pig.

You win Cajun Queen.

All in all, it was a fun event to attend. They open at 5pm daily so it was pretty baller to have the restaurant to ourselves and the house band that has been performing there for 24 years even came in to play for us.

Thank god, I had all that beer in my system because it helped me out with falling asleep right after. I needed the energy since it was one of my co-workers birthdays and didn’t want to bring the lame sauce by only staying out for a few hours.

Carrying on the cajun theme from that afternoon, we started at Bourdreaux’s in NoDa for hurricanes.

 

I love their hurricane menu because they are categorized by Category 1-5 Hurricanes-1 being the weakest, 5 being the most hooch filled hurricane you can get. I settled on a category 4 since I had to drive that night and wanted to enjoy the drink instead of wincing every time I took a sip.

Soon after, we headed to Solstice Tavern then to Sin City for karaoke.

Sin City was not what I thought it was going to be. When I think Sin City, I think of bright lights, a huge area and sketchy people. Well, sketchy people it did have. I’m talking more men with neck tattoos than I’ve ever seen in my life, bad hair pieces, worse karaoke singing and vampires.

Yeah, I said vampires. This guy was standing next to us and he had his vampire teeth in. As soon as I saw this, I was on a mission to relocate to another area of the already-small karaoke area.

I heart when randoms get in the background of pictures. And why do I still throw deuces? So three years ago.

Good times had by all. And I even hung until 1am or so with only having a couple of drinks. I am really going to miss these people.

And now it’s Easter afternoon. My Easter hasn’t been the greatest……I woke up early and went to the park with Lincoln where I killed two birds with one stone by listening to a church service that was going on. Then I came home to lay outside before going to a friends for lunch. All was right with the world, the sun was out, it was hot out but not so hot I sweating my balls off and I had Bitter is The New Black in hand since I can read Jen Lancaster over and over again. I made my way inside to freshen up and my door was locked. I started to panic—I never lock my back door if I am hanging out in my yard but for some reason the second lock was locked….not by my doing. I suspect by my landlord when he showed my house a few days ago. I went to the front door and it was locked and thank God I had my phone on me because I had to get in touch with my landlord stat. I called him up and he told me he was three hours away. Of course he was. He told me his wife was in town and could come by and let me in but she would be an hour or so. So I waited…..in the sun which only got hotter and the minutes were going by so slowly. Soon, she showed up and let me in but by that time I was in no mood to be social with anyone (I’m a bit moody for those who do not know me) and just wanted to cool off at home. He called me to make sure I got in and then sprung it on me that he was showing my house. Today. From 4pm to 6pm. On Easter Sunday, in case you didn’t catch that part. Who the hell shows a  house on Easter afternoon, can’t they wait one day? What if I had plans or people coming over? I charged up my computer and went to one coffee house but this random creeper kept following me around. I would get up and move because he smelled like trash and was singing “Amazing Grace” but once I found a new location, there he was. I drove home since it was around 530pm to check the status of if he was done or not and he said he had one more set of people that he was waiting on. So I sit here at Starbucks, blogging my little heart out.

Please tell me your Easter was better??! I just want to go home.

31 & loving the Biebs

Can someone tell me why they moved me to the food cube at work? Seriously, we used to keep all the food in the cube I’m occupying for the next two weeks and there is even food art on the wall! I have some extra cushioning attached to bum so they probably know I like to eat but this is ridiculous.

I’ll admit, I do get a little hungry while glancing over to the white board of food, except for the spaghetti with flies hanging around it.

But at least there is some healthy foods like fruit

And there is even sushi on the wall!

Which led to me to go out for sushi on Friday night. I had a $40 Living Social deal for Akahana Asian Bistro which I went to for the first time last month. I wasn’t too impressed by their service when I went but their sushi was tasty and $40 can buy you alot of sushi! When we got there, we saw a special for $1 domestic beers and that was a sign we were supposed to be there. $1 anything wins my heart and when it comes in the form of Yuengling, game over. When our server came up, he told us that ALL rolls were Buy One, Get One free as opposed to Tuesdays and Thursdays like they used to do. I got overly excited because of the $40 we had to blow through then he told us we couldn’t get the BOGO rolls with the Living Social deal. Thank God I asked beforehand because I could have seen us ordering eight rolls then after our bellies were full finding out that the BOGO didn’t apply.

We started off with edamame

And naturally, $1 beers

Then the feast of sushi came out. Well not really. To stay around the $40 mark we ordered three rolls and sadly, it wasn’t enough food for the two of us. I love that I have friends who love food as much as I do.

On the left is the Florida Roll

This was my favorite roll because it was very spicy and loaded with spicy tuna.

In the middle is the Mt. Fuji Roll

This was my least favorite roll. In theory it sounded good but the mango and the sweet sauce was too much for me. It was more of a dessert sushi roll than anything.

On the right is the Sweet Romeo Roll (I got this last time and loved it!)

It was eel fest with the eel topping and eel sauce-so delicious, plus the tempura flakes gave it a nice crunch.

Afterwards, we went to Bistro La Bon to meet up with my friends friends for dessert. I got some strawberry thingamabob with fresh strawberries, phyllo dough, strawberry puree and whipped cream. Seriously, I am calling it the strawberry thingamabob because our somewhat snippy waitress didn’t give us a name for what it was.

Saturday was full of running errands and by 2P I was dragging. Then I remembered I had only had one coffee and that was around 8A. I usually have three coffees in the morning so I needed some Starbucks loving and my friend and I went and sat out on the patio and enjoyed a cool, java drink.

Yes, love.

 Thank God I got some coffee flowing in my veins because Saturday night was a friends 40th birthday party

Why hello though red velvet cake

There were tons of people there and one dog who was all dressed up for the party.

This is Buffy. I was trying to get her to commit to being Lincoln’s bitch but wasn’t sure if Lincoln would like her or not. He is into voluptuous girls but has a case of the jungle fever

And Bieber balloons!

I must find these for my own home!

But then again, being a single 31-year-old woman with a house full of Bieber balloons possibly treads the waters of being creepy. On the other hand, that could be my hook for landing my own tv show called “31 & Loving the Biebs” They could follow me around and I can profess my love for the Biebs and his talent. I would sing his songs and know every word (which is a lie, I know only two songs of his and some of the words), tell them every single fact there is to know about the Biebs (which I know nothing about him except he is from Canada and has good hair) and talk about my love for him (which is also a lie since I like him but there is no absolute, dying love for him). Maybe one day on the show I would be able to meet the Biebs and I can be one of those ultra emotional women who start crying when he starts singing. After typing all of this, I am going to start using this when I meet creepy men at the bar! No normal men wanna hear about the Biebs right??

No worries though, for now I will like the Bieber from afar for I am a sucker for a Canadian man with good hair.

(source)

I’m kinda tempted to roll into work on my last day donning this and pajama jeans

(source)

Back to the party though, it was fun but I get paranoid about driving home so I left early and called it a night. It was a good time indeed.

I woke up super early today because that’s how I roll on Sundays. I hate that I can never sleep in on Sunday mornings because nothing opens until noon or so. I got to the YMCA before the doors opened and found a Precor AMT right away. I thought there would be a mad rush of people there when they opened but it was on the empty side which is a huge change of pace.

 I kicked a$$ during my workout:

35 minutes on the Precor AMT with resistance ranging from 9 to 13

bicep curls (12.5 lbs 12 reps x 2 sets)

Tricep pushdowns (15 lbs 13 reps  x 4 sets)

Tricep extensions (15 lbs 13 reps x 3 sets)

Lateral raise (12.5 lbs 12 reps x 2 sets)

Side bends (25 lbs 25 reps x 2 sets)

Chest press (20 lbs 13 reps x 3 sets)

I did all of that within an hour and was instantly energized from it. I came home and made a smoothie with coconut milk, chia seeds, blackberries and Spirutein Blueberries & Cream protein powder then got ready to meet up with a friend for lunch.

We went to Tavern on The Tracks since I had a BOGO coupon and you know, the frugal thing with me. I love my friends who respect my couponing and don’t mind going to their first choice place in lieu of saving a few bucks. It was an absolutely gorgeous day in Charlotte so we found a seat on the patio which was bumping since there was only one table available. Then we figured out why that table was available….it was right next to the speakers with a dude about to start singing. Now, I am all for music. Especially on a gorgeous day but when the area is 25×25 feet, if that, do you really need two speakers? Answer:No. My friend and I barely spoke during our meal because we couldn’t hear anything and we were just in a rush to get out of there as soon as we were done so the ringing in our ears would stop. I got a fabulous black and bleu burger out of it though with homemade chips

Bad Catholic of me to ask but if you give something up for Lent, can you eat it again starting on Easter Sunday or the Monday after? I gave up french fries and could not want them more right now. Chips with a burger is not as fulfilling as a hot, salty order of french fries, just sayin’.

So that was my weekend in a nutshell. I feel like I did a lot but didn’t get alot done, go figure.

Biebs-Love him or hate him?

Can you smell the balls I’m cooking?

You all rock. Thanks so much for the words of encouragement on yesterday’s post. I cried when I read some since they were so sweet and I am very emotional as of late and I hate that some of you are going through the same thing or have but it’s nice to know I’m not the only one out there. Something funkalicious is in the air! Again, you all? Rock!

Mmmmm, the Rock. Tasty.

Today was a better day at work and it went by quickly. Mostly due to the fact I spent the morning moving desks. I have two more weeks at work and I had to move since some new chick is taking my spot next week, which really makes no sense. Oh well, that was a way for me to kill two hours without calling angry people. These people are just unpredictable. They either love me or hate! I had some guy go off on me today then the next call one guy asked me out for drinks. You know, if I am ever in Jersey and want to go out for martinis with a 60 something year old man. 

A good portion of my day was spent checking out this site—That Can Be My Next Tweet

I don’t even know what this means but I’m kinda addicted to the site!

I made a blogger recipe I’ve been eyeing for the past two months–Quinoa Pizza Balls! Such a perfect recipe to try in my attempt to go through my feedbag of quinoa and make something zesty! Anna posts the most interesting recipes that are veggie free however she is one of the blogs I have to read on a full stomach so I always have to time it right when I read her blog!

Plus, cmon, who doesn’t like saying “I cooked up a batch of balls tonight!?”

I didn’t have any fresh basil so I subbed some extra parsley and used red pepper flakes as well to get it some heat

I laid them over whole wheat thin spaghetti with sautéed mushrooms for a quick meal

The verdict? Ballerific! I love this as a substitute for heavy, fatty meatballs and they were better than I expected. I am not a huge kidney bean kind of girl but you really couldn’t take them and they took on the taste of the spices. Next time I will make these, I am going to make with basil as well since I think that would make the flavor pop a little more. If you want a meat free alternative, you need to make these. Thanks for sharing Anna!!

Maybe one of these I’ll finally make some cake balls.

But I think making cake balls would be the end of me.I go to Starbucks every day and the cake pops sit there and mock me.

I didn’t want to get off the couch tonight but peeled myself off the couch and went to the gym. I did 30 minutes on the Precor AMT along with leg press (240 lbs 13 reps x 3 sets) and leg extensions (80 lbs 13 reps x 3 sets). I’m happy I got off my butt for a quick workout and timed it just perfectly so I could catch some of the Real Housewives of New York and Orange County!

What are your favorite balls to make?

Watching tv while working out-yay or nay?

Jittery

 I’m a jittery person. Most of the time I’m on edge due to the amount of caffeine I take in during the day and kind of like the shaky feeling I get with it. But today, I’m a different kind of jittery and not in a good way.

I ran a bunch of errands this morning and was about five minutes from my house when I was driving on the loop around the city-277. I merged and when I did, the car in front of me came to a fast break and Iwasthisclose to hitting him. I quickly swerved left through two lanes and was fish-tailing around. Thank God when doing so, no one was behind me but I thought I was going to wreck or even worse, die. I’ve never had a driving experience like that before and am still shaky, four hours after the fact. I quickly got off the loop at the next exit and felt sick to my stomach, I couldn’t believe what had just happened. I came home, couldn’t sit down or even process what had just happened and couldn’t concentrate. I am still in shock of what happened and am very on edge right now.

I went to the gym about an hour after I went home and tried to work out but my mind was not all about that. I did 10 minutes on the Precor AMT and couldn’t stop shaking and all looking around me as if something bad were going to happen. I did some strength training afterwards but was still jittery-I spilt water all over one of the machines and ran smack dab into a guy while walking upstairs. I did another 10 minutes on the Precor Crossramp but that was a struggle to even do that. I had a decent work out but my heart wasn’t in and I just felt nervous the entire time.

I drove to CVS after that and broke down crying in my car in the parking lot. I just couldn’t believe that had happened earlier and how lucky I was to be ok and ahem, alive. I guess it just put things in perspective for me, how quickly something or someone can be taken away from you.

Just a bunch of rambling going on here but I just had to put down what happened this morning, more for my peace of mind than anything. If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading.

Now back to some normal Simply Shaka blog stuff.

FOOD & FUN!

I’m getting back on track with my meal planning and this past week was a great week! I tried Rachael Ray’s Chipotle BBQ Chicken recipe that I saw in her magazine. I don’t really cook with chicken thighs too often but it was fun to mix it up with the thighs this time around plus you get so much more flavor with bone in chicken.

Chipotles cooking with garlic and onion

I let the chicken cook for a few minutes in the sauce to brown them a bit

Then transferred to a baking dish and let cook about 35 minutes. The recipe calls for 30 minutes but I don’t have a meat thermometer and get skeeved out by the thought of chicken not being cooked all the way.

I heart beautiful poultry!

I made some mashed potatoes when the chicken was cooking and they turned out, um, pink?

Nothing wrong with pink potatoes right? The plan was definitely not for them to turn out pink but when I was mashing them, I realized that I had red food dye on the masher and forgot to wash it off, oops. Oh well, they were festive and tasty! Instead of cream, I added a Laughing Cow wedge to the potatoes along with butter and pepper.

I made banana bread so I could have a quick breakfast throughout the week. I saw Christina make it on Hungry Meets Healthy awhile back so I decided to copy her and also leave out the chocolate.

I love that the recipe didn’t call for oil but used yogurt instead and egg whites. It is absolute perfection and I think I’m going to make another loaf this upcoming week!

On Wednesday night, I got home from work and was about to start cooking chicken but then I remembered it was Ash Wednesday! I’m such a horrible Catholic. I was quick to look through my cupboards to find something veggie friendly and settled on a refried black bean cheesy salsa tortilla bake.

I spread the refried black beans, salsa and cheese on a tortilla then topped with another tortilla and repeat

Baked at 400 for 15 minutes and there you have it-a deliciously cheesy meal!

Seriously, I don’t even know the name of what I made it was absolutely tasty and perfect for a Mexican meal in a pinch!

Thursday night, I attended a Yelpy Hour at Bask on Seaboard–they provided a spread of appetizers and drink specials.

 Offer free food and I am there! Offer free food and discounted drinks and you have my heart.

(source)

Jalapeno Poppers and Pita Chips with Black Bean Hummus

The poppers weren’t the best I’ve ever had-they lacked flavor and spice but the black bean hummus was off the hook. I would definitely go back for that alone. What I like about Bask is that they offer simple, classic dishes with a mix of comfort at affordable rates. Not like Denny’s rates or anything but reasonably priced for the quality of ingredients they offer. Their menu isn’t huge but just the right size and they offer medium and large-sized platters.

Random question of the day-Anyone go from a WordPress blog to being self hosted? How big of a pain in the butt is it? I’m thinking of getting my own domain!

PS-If you won my I Love My Dog giveaway-I sent out almost all the bumper stickers today. Sorry for the hold up, I really didn’t forget about you all! I have been working almost 50 hours a week, so that with social events factored in things get hectic and busy–thanks for your patience!

Negativity, happenings and goal checks

So the past few days have been rough, I’ve just feeling blah. Maybe it was from the drunken stupor of Friday night, the 79 degree days we’ve been having or just laziness but I’m finally back to feeling “normal” and like myself again.

I had a major tofu fail last night. I have a couple of slices pressed in the fridge to get the liquid out and was looking forward to cooking up something tasty. I added bbq sauce to the tofu and cooked it on the stovetop while I had sweet potato slices and kale chips in the oven.

The tofu was extra firm but it was crumbling while cooking it so it quickly turned into a bbq tofu mash and it was funkalicious. It didn’t taste right at all so there goes my first experience with tofu gone bad. The rest of the meal was fantastic though.

Afterwards, I met up with a friend at the Y. She went to find a treadmill to run on while I found a Precor AMT to get my cardio on. When I finished working out, I sprayed down the machine and the guy next to me flipped his lid! He started getting all whiny and dramatic “Saying, og my gosh, I can’t breathe, why did you spray it in my face?? blah blah blah” I apologized saying that I didn’t realize it gotten on him (I sprayed it two times on the machine and wiped it) then after I apologized he gave me more attitude saying “Next time you really need to spray on the towel and wipe” and I just smiled and spurt out “Ok”. I walked away and *almost* walked back to go off on him and say something along the lines of “If getting cleaner on you is the biggest issue you have in life, I want your life” but I’m trying not to be so confrontational with strangers plus it’s the Y and I know I would start dropping the F bomb on him so I walked away.

My friend and I did some upper body weight machines after like the row, lateral pull down, shoulder press and chest press.

 It was a great workout and to think, I almost didn’t go because I had a case of the Mondays!

I came home and made a green monster with kale, coconut milk, Spiru-Tein Blueberries N Cream protein powder, flax seed and Yoplait Smoothie fruit mix.

Very tasty! I don’t think I would buy the Yoplait Smoothie mix again because there really isn’t alot of fruit in the bag and I believe it only comes out to two servings in the bag. I would rather buy a generic brand than spend an extra buck on this.

And today was hell. I didn’t have a lot on my plate because I wanted to work on a project but that fell through and there were just issues all day long. I started the day off with Yoplait and a Vita Top

Unfortunately, this didn’t hold me over at all. And there was a little issue with my sanitzer spilling all over the Vita Top–boo!

Just a note, this is the most disgusting scented sanitzer I’ve ever smelled. Plus the fact that anytime I see it, I start singing Strawberry Champagne to the tune of “Raspberry Beret” is getting annoying.

I didn’t make anything in advance so I had something new for lunch-Morningstar Sesame Chik’n

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again-I’m not a huge fan of frozen meals but usually keep a few in my freezer for days I have no lunch. This was surprisingly good though. The “chik’n” tasted like real chicken and the sauce was smooth and didn’t seem like it was laced with a shaker of salt. I’ve had Lean Cuisine frozen meals like this and they pale in comparison compared to Morningstar with it’s abundance of vegetables and flavor. I will definitely be buying this in the future.

When I got home, I was spent. But I came home to a nice, surprise package.

What can it be?

Multigrain Cheerios and Biggest Loser Wii workout I won from Kelly Olexa! If you haven’t ever visited Kelly’s blog, please check it out. She is super inspiring, posts vlogs on the faily and has a Monday post called Monday Manjoyment–who doesn’t love that!? Whenever I am feeling down an uninspired, I head over to her blog and it puts things in perspective for me and motivates me to get off my behind and work it out!

Dinner was something new-chicken satay with brown rice, green beans, onions and baby corn

I’ve never cooked with satay sauce, nor did I know how orange it was!

Please disregard chipped nail polish. Instead of giving myself a manicure, I choose to blog.

I chopped up one and a half chicken breasts and mixed with the sauce

Cooked some onions on the stovetop then added the chicken

Then added the green beans and baby corn

Checked to make sure any chicken didn’t fall because if it did, Lincoln would be right there by my feet but instead he was sitting like a good boy

And voila! A tasty, healthy meal

I like to think of myself as a positive person but this past weekend, I had two guys tell I was a really negative girl and that bothered me. I am lot more positive than I used to be and when I feel like I’m speaking my mind or “telling it like it is” apparently, I come off negative. This came from me speaking about my job, you know, when you go out partying the first thing you want to talk about is work right? So when someone asks me what I do, I tell them then try to steer the conversation in another direction by saying something like “Let’s talk about something more interesting than work” and when they ask me, I really start to speak my mind about my job. As many of you know, I’m very unhappy with my role and have no issues about speaking my thoughts on my position but I guess I am really coming off negative? That being said, I am going to start making more of a conscious effort about how I speak about my job, life, feelings, etc and try to portray them in a more positive way and speak my mind more thoughtfully. I know I shouldn’t be doing this for other people but when I think about would I want to hang out with someone who is consistently complaining about their job, I wouldn’t. It’s just a downer. So I am going to try to express myself better or just learn when to shut up.

Which brings us to…..goal checks!

*Pay off one credit card by 2/15/11.  

 Success! I paid off in January and working on paying my other one down. I’ve paid $500 down on it in the past two months so I’m cutting that balance down. Thank God for 0% balance transfer offers!

*Quit my job. 

On the way to success! My manager and I had a one on one last week and I told him that I am 100% sure I will be out of there by May. He was quite receptive to what I was saying so I appreciate it and the goal date is going to be April 29th. I told him that I will give them a month’s notice since I’ve been with the company for six years and want to leave on a high note with a good recommendation. I can’t believe this is going to happen.

*Check out cities that could potentially be my new home.

Working on it! I am going to Pittsburgh in late March to check out the scene there. I have a good number of friends from college there, it’s an hour away from where I went to college and I would be within driving distance to family six hours away. I hate the fact that I have two nieces but I feel like I don’t know them at all. One is turning 10 this summer and I know nothing about her, I don’t want it to be that way, especially since I don’t want to have kids. Pittsburgh was recently named  the #1 Most Livable City in the US so it seems like a possible moving location. I am going to look into Indianapolis when I am there in May and possibly Chicago around that time as well. It scares me that I have absolutely no clue where I will be in six months yet at the same time, it excites me.

*Pay a little more on my car payment each month so I can pay it off quicker

Success! I’m still paying about $30 extra with each paycheck to cut the balance down on there

*Cut down on  Starbucks and eating out.

Umm, what’s Starbucks? Seriously, I’ve only been going one to two times a week which is major for me. I haven’t been eating out as much as I once did which is also helping me save money and when I do go out to eat, I try to use a Groupon/Living Social deal.

*No new clothes until March.

I did it! I don’t know how but I did and I’m proud to say, I didn’t buy any new clothes in January or February. It is possible!

*Plan a stay-cation instead of jetsetting all around the country.

This is going to be a difficult one still with all the traveling for potential cities to move to but am least when I travel, I will be crashing with friends instead of staying at hotels

*Sell what I don’t need.

Copied from last month because there is no progress on this–I haven’t sold anything yet but I am in the works of putting together everything I want to sell, take pics, put on Craigslist, etc. If anyone in the Charlotte area is looking for a Wine Refrigerator, let me know

*Try out new ethnic recipes.

 I still need to mix it up some but I made some good stuff in February like stuffed mushrooms, meatballs, tuna melts, tofu tacos and roasted chicken along with going out for sushi, Indian food,

*Be more consistent with taking my vitamins.

I give myself an F. Seriously, I don’t know when the last time I took one.

*Cut down on my meat intake.

Success! Doing great with this by incorporating Meatless Mondays along with eating  more beans, tofu and making dishes meatless.

*Use skim milk or almond milk in my coffee instead of half and half.

 Success! I bought coconut milk this weekend after seeing a recommendation from Monique and it’s sooooo much better than almond milk. Go try it if you haven’t!

When cleaning off a machine at the gym, do you spray the machine and wipe or spray the towel and wipe?