Relinked

Marianne vs Windows Live Writer – I win! I have worked with Microsoft support and finally I’m able to add links into my posts from my laptop again. I’m a fully functioning mobile blogger again

So when I went to bed last night, this mystery item was sitting on the stove, waiting for a hot oven this morning.

What on earth could it be? Alas, due to my early class, I had to wait until I got home. So I just threw together a quick breakfast. I couldn’t decide between cereal or toast, so I had a little of both.

Toasted Silver Hills “The Big 16” sprouted grain bread, topped with peanut butter and raspberry jam.

A wee bowl of Nature’s Path Mesa Sunrise cereal.

And a glass of the ol’ standby, Happy Planet Mango Peach Party.

I spent my morning mostly on transit, with a short stint of biochemistry in the middle. When I got home, the mystery treat was baked!

 

Cinnamon pull apart And as you can see, it had already been pulled apart. Don’t they I know I need to take photos? Oh well, it still looks mighty tasty. Obviously, I had to try a piece.

Who am I kidding, I totally went back for a second piece.

Friday is totally my relaxation day, so I wasted some time on the interweb, and chasing the cat around the house. Eventually I was ready for some lunch.

More Silver Hills bread, this time in the form of a tuna sandwich. Too bad we were out of pickles.

And a side caesar salad. We even had croutons!

Simply delicious.

Now that I’m all digested, I must be off to the gym. I need to be back in time for important hockey! My Canucks are taking on Miss CCK’s team! Your team is going down Katie!

Peace out

Shiver Me Timbers

No, I’m not turning into a pirate. It’s just WINDY out there today. And rainy, and cold   Typical BC fall weather, that’s for sure. Makes me glad I can hide inside all day. And that I had time to make a warming bowl of oatmeal this morning.

• 1/2 cup oats, milk, water
• 3 dried figs, chopped
• splash of vanilla
• 1 tbsp flax seed
• swirled in peanut butter
• sprinkle of pomegranate seeds

A glass of the usual.

It was another fig-licious bowl!

 

I decided to dress up as a studious 12 year old today – wore my glasses, and braids. Thumbs up? Thumbs down?

And no, that’s not the only hoodie I own – just the one I wear all the time. LOL.

Psychology lecture was the norm. We finally got our midterm marks back, and it was decent, around what I expected. And since I have a better idea of how he writes his midterms, I’m the next few will improve

I couldn’t find a good couch to curl up on today, so instead I pulled up a piece of floor in the library, so I could compute and chow lunch.

I made biscuit-wiches! Mom had made some baking powder biscuits last night, so I made up a couple of mini ham & cheese sammies. Delicious!

The usual veggie component – carrot, cucumber, snap peas – for dipping in hummus.

Time to get back to my lunch break. I’m considering a stop over at Sbucks on the way to my next class – it’s chilly out there!

Time Flies

Wow, where has this day gone? I can’t believe I’m only sitting down now to write this post. You’d think on a day when I only have one class, I’d have all the time in the world! Time flies when you’re having fun, right? If only I could say my day was filled with fun though.

Not so fun? Waking up at the ass crack of dawn. Especially when the house is still cold. I totally stayed under the covers until I heard the heat kick in (it’s on a timer). Of course, it meant I was a little behind, so I had to go the cereal route for breakfast.

• Kashi Honey Almond Flax cereal
• Kashi Cinnamon Harvest
• pomegranate seeds
• dried blueberries
• milk

They look like pretty jewels

With a glass of Happy Planet Mango Peach Party.

I love taking pictures of breakfast.

 

I had my usual commute, usual biochemistry class, then my volunteer shift at Agora. Uh, yeah…let’s just say that was less than fun. I’m pretty glad that my time there is almost over, and won’t be returning next semester for any more unpaid labour.

I did bring a great snack with me to keep me going until I got home for a late lunch.

Medjool dates are back! We picked up a container at Costco on the weekend. These ones are stuffed with Artisana pecan butter. Nom nom!

I eventually found my way home, and had a lunch bowl full of leftovers.

I layered mashed potatoes, corn, sauteed mushrooms, a couple of random brussel sprouts, hot italian sausage, and sausage gravy. It cleared out a few containers from the fridge, and made for an excellent meal.

A hot meal at home is always the best.

I will say though – I could have done without the sausage. Give me the potatoes, corn, ’shrooms, and gravy, and I’d be a happy camper. Probably because of the gravy

I had a leisurely afternoon on the interweb, and enjoyed a little snack.

Sourdough rye Wasa cracker with peanut butter, chocolate chips, and dried cranberries. It always amazes me how great this is at satisfying a sweet treat craving

I headed over to my cousin’s place this afternoon, as we had plans to get our workout on. She has the whole Carmen Electra series of striptease workout videos, so we figured it would be fun to go through them. Uh yeah…I’m so not a dancer. Figure skater/ice dancer? I’m all over that. Put me on the ground, and I am a spaz. At least I can laugh at myself, right? LOL.

And, as I’m sure will come to no shock to you, we went out for sushi afterwards. I swear, my cousins and his wife are obsessed more than I am with the stuff! We couldn’t go to our usual place though, as they were closed when we pulled up. There was a note on the door saying they had to take one of their children to the hospital. I hope everything is okay!

We hit up all you can eat sushi instead, which isn’t as bad as it might sound. Every item is brought to you in really tiny portions, so you get to try all your favourite without leaving overstuffed. I had all of my favourites, and was totally content when we left

I went back to their place, watched some tv, drank some hot chocolate, then made my way home. It is a school night afterall My cousin hooked me up with all of his music (80 Gb!), so now I have the task of transferring it all to my computer, and sorting through what I don’t already have. I’m sure it will be a warranted distraction from school work this weekend.

And that concludes my Wednesday. Hope the week is treating you all well. I’m off to dreamland. Night!

Go Fig-ure

So Operation: Clean Up is sort of going well. I managed to get into bed at a decent time, and had a decent sleep. But alas, I slept in a little longer than I wanted, so I couldn’t bust a move this morning before I was out the door. No worries though – after I finish this post, I’m going to go for a walk around campus before my next class starts It’s a beautiful fall day, so I have no excuse

Oatmeal was on the menu this morning, and I decide to try out another Costco purchase – dried figs.

It’s not that I’ve never eaten figs before – hello, Fig Newtons? But I’ve never purchased them, eaten them as is, or combined them into my own creations. I couldn’t resist when I saw the little package for a steal of a deal. Into these oats went:

• 1/2 cup oats, milk, water
• 1 small banana, sliced
• 3 dried figs, chopped
• 1 tbsp flax seed
• splash of vanilla
• shredded coconut
• Artisana Cacao Bliss

A refreshing glass of Happy Planet Mango Peach Party was along for the ride.

What a great way to start the day.

So I think I’m in love with figs. They are super tasty to eat just on their own, and they added the perfect sweetness to the bowl. More so than a ripe banana does, I think.

I had an uneventful transit ride to school, then sat through a psychology lecture on sleep and dreams. We also found out that our class is cancelled next Tuesday, which is perfect, because I have a midterm that afternoon. So instead of going to school for 9:30 am, I don’t have to be on campus until 2 pm. You better believe I’ll be taking advantage of that!

After lecture I found myself a comfy seat per the usual Tuesday/Thursday routine, so I could play on the interweb and chow some lunch.

The highlight of today’s lunch was ED&BV Cocoa-Coconut Chili I pulled out of the freezer.

I paired it up with some whole wheat pita wedges for dunking.

As well as some carrot sticks and snap peas.

And some Sabra Roasted Pine Nut Hummus.

I even had a (cute) guy stop and tell me that my "soup smelled so good". I told him it was chili, and he said even better! He asked if I made it, to which I replied yes. Then he was sad that he was off to the SUB to "eat the crap" there. Too bad he was total jailbait

I’m still having issues with my WLW on my laptop – I cannot add links to any of my posts, and even with my support request into Microsoft, I can’t figure it out. It’s very frustrating – has anyone else had issues using Vista & WLW?!

Well, I’m off to enjoy the crisp fall day!

Prosperous Pit Stop

Another Monday come and gone. Can you believe we are in November already? Only one month left of classes! Crazy I tell ya. Before you know it, that other holiday *cough* Christmas *cough* will be upon us.

Like every morning, I was up bright and early. I managed to get in a little ab work before even eating breakfast. It’s one of my new things – I’ve been slacking in the exercise department, so I’m trying to make little bits of time here and there so I don’t feel like such a sloth! After my 5 min or so, I wandered back upstairs to the kitchen to try out my new cereal purchase.

Kashi Honey Almond Flax Cereal. Me thinks it’s just GoLean Crunch with a honey almond spin. And since I love me some of the Crunch, I figured I should try this one out.

I filled up a bowl with the cereal, and topped it with some craisins and shredded coconut. They appear to be my cereal toppings of choice lately.

With a glass of the Happy Planet Mango Peach Party on the side.

Not sure what was up with the odd lighting. I may have turned on a different set of kitchen lights or something.

Verdict on the cereal? I like it. It doesn’t have the cinnamon undertone of the regular GoLean Crunch, but has this mellow, very subtle sweetness from the honey. And you can’t go wrong with almond flakes added in. I think it will be nice to switch back and forth between this one and the regular.

Off to school I went, where I had a biochemistry lecture, followed by my volunteer shift at Sprouts. I did snag my free baked good – a peanut butter chocolate chip muffin – but I was hungry, and devoured it before I took a picture. It was tiny anyways – it didn’t stand a chance to get its picture taken. HA!

I decided to make a pit stop on my trip home from school. After seeing that Kristie had found the new PB&J Larabar in Canada, I had to stop in at Whole Foods to see if I too would be so lucky. Turns out, I was doubly lucky!

They had both of the new Larabar flavours! I snagged one of each, to test them out and decide if they are worth buying in mass quantities like my precious Peanut Butter Cookie or Coconut Cream Pie flavours.

The good luck didn’t stop there though. I also ran into London Drugs for something else, and found these babies on clearance.

They were only $1.69 each. Which is a good price for here – the Jocolat bars are usually around $2.49 or so retail, and always more expensive than the regular Larabars. Hence, I haven’t really tried many of the flavours. These were the only two kinds they had, so I grabbed one of each.

My dad picked me up from the train, and bought me lunch – deli sandwich from Safeway.

I had the “California Dreamin’” – turkey, bacon, guacamole, lettuce, cucumber, pickles, onion, ranch cream cheese spread. All on a whole wheat bun.

Always a good day when Dad decides to buy you lunch

I let that sammy digest, then headed off to the gym for some cardio excitement. I made it home in time to clean myself up, and succumb to the Hallowe’en candy.

Damn you Oh Henry bar!

Then I was out the door, as I had my volunteer orientation at the hospital this afternoon. This was the general orientation, where we learned all the policies and whatnot, got our pictures taken for ID, signed all the paperwork, etc. We are supposed to hear back in the next two weeks for our job specific training. I talked to the coordinator, and she’s really trying to get me into the diabetes clinic to work with the dietitians there. Woo!

The orientation went long than I thought, so it was after 8 pm by the time I got home. At least mom had dinner waiting for me

Homemade hamburgers. Mine was topped with cheese, lettuce, onion, ketchup, and mustard.

As well as some carrot sticks and snap peas to go with the Pine Nut Sabra Hummus we got at Costco this weekend.

And since we had that giant caramel apple crumble pie…well, I had to have another little slice. With some cheddar cheese – apple pie & cheddar cheese is such a great combo.

I’m actually feeling pretty good about today. This past week killed me, with school and everything. I felt like I couldn’t get on top of anything else in my life other than school work. My room is a pigsty, I couldn’t get in the exercise I wanted, I chowed on way too much candy, didn’t get enough sleep, and barely had time to blog. Not cool. So I’ve decide that for the rest of the year I’m on Operation: Clean Up. As in, cleaning up everything in my life. I hate when I push everything to the wayside just for one part of my life. It doesn’t make me feel good. But I see no reason for the rest of my semester to be that way, now that I only have one class left that has any assignments/midterms left. I’m making it my focus to get my balance back in my life through the end of 2009. Hopefully it will continue on past then, but who knows what next semester will be like, plus the Olympics will be here!

Since part of my balance involves getting sleep, I should go do that now. Night!

Hallowe’en Happened

The spookiest night of the year came and went, and I failed to post all weekend. Oops! In my defence – I was barely near a computer. Which I guess is a good thing, as it means I was up to something all weekend, and it wasn’t homework

I’ll give you the Cole’s Notes version of the weekend, with the few pictures I have. That way, we can start anew for November. Sound good?

Saturday & Sunday

I was up way earlier than I ever should have to be on a Saturday, so I could go help out with inventory at my sister’s work. That meant I had little brain power available to make anything fancy for breakfast, so peanut butter, banana, and honey on toast it was. With a glass of Happy Planet Mango Peach Party, of course.

Then there was a whole lotta working in the warehouse. Remind me, I never want to work in a dirty ol’ warehouse. Never.

At first coffee break, I broke out this Cocoa Coconut Chew Larabar, and devoured half.

Silly me, I thought that would keep me out of the Hallowe’en candy all day. Boy was I wrong! I definitely had my fair share of delicious bite-sized chocolate bar treats.

They ordered in lunch for us, which was Chinese food. Love! There were some interesting dishes I got to try. My two new favourites? Deep fried eggplant and deep fried squid with spicy salt. I could eat that and some veggies, and be a happy camper. Yum!

More working, yadda, yadda. We actually got to leave early, and I informed my sister I was not going back on Monday to help out again. Lots of reasons, but frankly, it was driving me insane.

Later on, I made my way over to my cousin’s house, and hung out with his wife all night. We ordered in delicious sushi, handed out candy to little trick or treaters, watched 3 movies, hit up the hot tub, consumed our weight in candy, and may have had some drinks. Good times! I stayed over, and was greeted with spectacular cinnamon raisin bread French toast for breakfast.

I went home, wasted some time, then took a trip to Costco with my mom. Got a few excellent buys, came home, started Hallowe’en candy detox. HA!

We had something for dinner I haven’t had in probably 5+ years – sausages & gravy. We picked up some hot Italian sausages at Costco, mashed potatoes, sauteed mushrooms, and steamed some broccoli & brussel sprouts for an excellent dinner.

Mom can’t go to Costco and not pick up some sort of dessert. We got this gargantuan caramel apple crumble pie. Seriously, the thing weighed over 5 lbs! I had a sliver, with a scoop of vanilla fro-yo.

Sunday night ended with some Amazing Race, and we started watching some of my Planet Earth DVD’s that I got for Christmas last year. Very cool – I just have to find the time to watch the rest now!

That wraps up my weekend, so I’m able to start anew (with more things than just the blog). I’ll be back later tonight

Home Alone

How nice is it to have the house to yourself for the weekend? I definitely miss living on my own. I miss my whole “adult life” sometimes. Don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying being a student, but I wish I had some sort of “in between” reality. Does that even make sense?

I spent plenty of time in the kitchen this weekend, making foods I enjoy, not worrying about whether my family will eat them or not, and not having them in the way

I decided to revisit millet for breakfast. Since I had time, I cooked it up on the stovetop instead, in hopes of getting a creamier, more oatmeal like product. It was very successful.

• cooked millet
• milk
• 1 tbsp sweetened condensed milk
• splash of vanilla
• shredded coconut
• flax seed
• frozen blackberries
• pecans

With a glass of Happy Planet Mango Peach Party.

Delicious!

This was really good. It makes me want to play around with more of the grains in my cupboards for breakfasts. I just have to remember to cook them up in advance, since most of them take longer than I have in the morning.

I watched some figure skating on tv all morning, while the rain just came down in buckets outside. It was gross! I had plans to go to the pumpkin patch with my cousins, but they cancelled. I can’t say I was upset – getting drowned while picking out pumpkins isn’t exactly my idea of a good time. I took the opportunity to head out to the grocery store instead. See, that’s one of those things I miss – my weekly grocery shop! I even took a picture this time

Some highlights include:

Larabars on sale, 3 for $3.99 (Choices Market)

Organic Wild Rice Pasta. I had seen it in the store before, and figured since I love wild rice, I should try it. Plus it looks cool, all dark brown and everything

Vanilla frozen yogurt. I don’t even know the last time I had fro-yo, and this was just calling out to me as I walked through the frozen food section.

But the most exciting thing? POMEGRANATES!!! Ah yes, it is pomegranate season. And I picked up these two for the awesome price of 2 for $4 (Choices Market again).

Also worth mentioning, I got those organic bananas for $0.78/lb at Choices. That’s the same price you usually pay for non-organic. Score!

All that shopping left me hungry for lunch. I decided to make use of the last bit of leftover chicken in the fridge, along with some tzatziki sauce my sister brought home yesterday. Chicken pita wrap, here we come!

I slathered half of the whole wheat pita with Sabra Roasted Garlic Hummus, and the other half with the tzatziki. Then I topped it with cucumber, red onion, chicken, and lettuce.

Since it was another rainy day, I had a bowl of Italian wedding soup along side.

And a few carrot sticks with dill dip, because I love me some carrot sticks.

I spent the afternoon getting things done around here – like applying for some more jobs. Here’s hoping I finally find something! There was also lots of hockey to watch, since it was Saturday night. Eventually it was time to make some dinner. I found this package of frozen veggies in the freezer, and knew stirfry was on the menu.

I marinated some tofu in soy sauce, garlic, ginger, and red pepper flakes, then cooked it up with half of this package of veggies, plus some red onion and shitake mushrooms.

I used the recipe on the back of the veggies for my sauce (peanut butter, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, brown sugar), then tossed in some cooked buckwheat soba noodles, and topped it with fresh pineapple and sesame seeds.

I had half of it for dinner, saving the rest for another day.

The pineapple totally made the dish. Don’t get me wrong, it was good without it, but the pineapple gave it that fresh, sweet contrast that made it fun to eat. I’m happy I decided to cut the pineapple up Plus it means there is some fresh pineapple ready to eat now.

Now, I know I said I’d post last night, but here’s what happened. I got the urge to bake. At 10:45 pm. So instead of posting, I got baking. There was pumpkin in the fridge that needed some loving, so I thought muffins would be the perfect solution.

The recipe I used was Nicole’s Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins. The only change I made was adding 1/3 of a cup shredded coconut to the batter. They turned out perfectly.

While searching for the almond extract in the cupboards, I found all these old bottle of extract. How cool are they?

I think they were actually my grandma’s. They all still smelled powerful enough to use

Obviously, I needed to taste test one of my muffins as a midnight snack, along with a mug of tea.

Yup, the muffins were excellent. Thanks for the great recipe Nicole.

Alas, my home alone weekend has just come to an end – the parents are back. Le sigh. I guess I should go be social. Later!

Crunch Time

So…I should be studying biochemistry. But here I am, putting together a post. I’ll admit it, I’m the ultimate procrastinator. I’m comfortable enough with myself to embrace it. Sure, if I’d just learn to not procrastinate, maybe life would be easier, but who doesn’t love forgoing sleep the night before a test to cram as much information in possible, only to wake up sleeping on your textbook?

Biochemistry can wait. Let’s check out some food

Normally I don’t take the time for a hot breakfast on my early mornings to save time, but since I had some leftover millet in the fridge from yesterday, I thought why not turn that into a hot breakfast?

I took some cooked millet, milk, flax seed, vanilla, and frozen berries (raspberries & blueberries) and heated them in the microwave. Then I topped it all with a little honey and Maranatha Organic Peanut Butter.

With a glass of Happy Planet Mango Peach Party of course.

What a pretty bowl of breakfast.

I’m not 100% sure how I feel about the millet for breakfast. I think it would have been better if I heated it longer with the milk, so it came together more. I guess I’ll just have to try again!

We had a review session in my biochem lecture this morning, then I was off to volunteer at Agora. Again, I was free to bake, so I whipped up a batch of Raspberry Oat Bars. Too bad I left before they were out of the oven. I never get to try what I bake there. Hmph!

I also picked up some new (to me) cereal to try out while I was at school.

At Sprouts, we also have a bulk-buying club, where we can get all sorts of grocery items from our store suppliers for wholesale cost. Of course, you have to order a whole case of the product you want, so often people go together and share. I received an email this week saying that someone had this Nature’s Path Mesa Sunrise cereal coming in, and wanted to sell a few bags. It was a good price, so I snapped one up. Wanna bet this will find it’s way into my breakfast tomorrow?

Once I got home, I set out making lunch.

A warm, comforting bowl of Coconut Curried Squash, Carrot, and Sweet Potato Soup, topped with a dollop of sour cream and shredded coconut.

And a toasted sandwich – Sabra Roasted Garlic Hummus, avocado, cheddar cheese, and cucumber on Silver Hills Squirrelly Bread.

It’s so much better when you get to enjoy lunch at home.

I spent the afternoon working on random school assignments, emailing, phoning, and basically gettin’ ‘er done. Everything except that important biochemistry studying. Oops! I did find a moment to try out one of the muffins my mom baked last night.

They are a pumpkin raisin muffin. Sorry, I’m not really sure what’s in there, or even what recipe she used. And mom wasn’t home when I dug in, so I couldn’t ask. I heated mine up, and dabbed on a little buttah.

Yum! Nice, light pumpkin flavour. Not too sweet. A good snacking muffin.

Before I knew it, my sister was home from work, and we caught up on SYTYCD Canada that we PVR’d last night so we could watch Hell’s Kitchen. Then it was dinner time.

Mom made up a big green salad with romaine lettuce, cucumber, radishes, and green onion. I dressed mine with Brianna’s Honey Mustard Dressing and pine nuts.

There was roast chicken, and carrot sticks (with dill dip). I totally ate like, 3X the carrots pictured there. I love carrots & dip

And some sad Stove Top stuffing. I’m not even sure why we have this, but mom decided to cook it up. It was…well, you all know what Stove Top is like, I’m sure.

Another bright & cheery meal.

I then spent the rest of the evening in front of the tv. What can I say, Wednesdays are good tv nights! I know, I know. I should have put my nose to the grind and memorized those amino acids, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it! Of course, I was able to peel myself off the couch for a snack.

Yogurt mess!

• yogurt
• pumpkin
• cinnamon
• vanilla
• peanut butter
• creamed berry honey
• granola

Phew! Now that I’ve got all that out there, I really am signing off to get acquainted with some protein structures. And sadly, I won’t be able to post tomorrow, as I will be out at a dairy farm all day, then studying for real all evenings. We’ll get caught up on Friday. Wish me luck on my first midterm – I’m probably going to need it!

Denim Dilemma

It’s finally Friday! Another early morning, another long day. It’s weird, the things I do in the morning seem like they were so long ago, it’s like each of my days feels like two different days

Today started off like all my Fridays will from now through April – early 5:30 am wake up call! Followed by a quick breakfast.

A bowl of Kashi GoLean Crunch topped with craisins, dried blueberries, and coconut.

Glass of Happy Planet Mango Peach Party? Check.

Then it was off to school for that lovely 8 am biochemistry class. I think it should be cancelled on Fridays personally – who wants to get up for an 8 am class on Fridays, especially when it’s your only class?

After I got my learning on, I hopped on the bus and headed downtown for a day of shopping. I was down there by 9:30 am. Turns out, the stores don’t open until 10 am. DOH! So I hit up one of the 8 billion Starbucks for a little caffeine fix, in the form of a tall non-fat iced green tea latte.

I must remember to ask for it half sweet next time, although, I was pretty tired, and probably needed the sugar rush anyways. Especially since I had some cardio shopping to do. I spent all morning looking for jeans and shoes Oh, how I hate jeans shopping. I’m sure everyone has their own personal jeans buying dilemmas, and I know you have to try on a billion pairs to find the perfect ones, but I just couldn’t decide. I may have a new found love of the skinny jean, but I’m not sure if I can pull it off. Then you have the salespeople, always telling me I need to buy a size smaller than I want to, because the jeans will stretch, but I don’t know how true that is. It seems counterintuitive to purposely buy something too small. Is it true though, that you need to buy smaller jeans because they stretch? I just don’t want to spend all that money and have something I’m not comfortable wearing.

So, instead of buying any new wardrobe additions, I went and got lunch from Urban Fare.

Urban Fare is a somewhat gourmet/yuppie grocery store downtown, that has a great deli/sandwich/pizza/salad/hot bar, somewhat along the lines of Whole Foods. I saw that the Friday Hot Bar was “West Coast” today, so I went with that.

I got some awesome chicken in a wild mushroom sauce, a wee scoop of mashed potatoes, and green beans.

As well as the seafood in cream sauce – clams, mussels, and shrimp.

 

And a whole lot of the stirfried veggies – they included broccoli, peppers, mushrooms, zucchini, and onions.

Yes, I had more caffeine. School = sleepy girl

I enjoyed my lunch down along the waterfront. It was a popular spot for lunch today. Can’t blame people – it was beautiful out!

 

I was craving chocolate, so I picked some fancy ones up, but then never ate it, and instead made my way home on transit. LOL. Don’t worry, it didn’t go to waste.

I spent some time chillin’ once I was home, then my family got their dinner from A&W. I wasn’t actually hungry when they went to get dinner, and didn’t really want a burger & fries anyways, so I waited awhile, then decided I better make something so I would have digestion time before hitting the gym.

I made a sandwich on some toasted Silver Hills Squirrelly Bread with cheddar, avocado, lettuce, ED&BV Lemon Cashew Basil Pesto, and a little Brianna’s Honey Mustard Dressing.

There was some leftover potato salad, so I scooped a little on the plate.

And I finished off the little nub of cucumber left in the fridge.

Actually, that’s a lie. I never finished my dinner – I was still full from lunch. I had half the sandwich, and probably half the potato salad, with a couple cucumber slices. I packed up the sandwich & cucumber to take with me tomorrow (as I have to head out to the school for volunteer training).

Later on I spent some quality time at the gym. It was great – I hadn’t been able to go all week, as I’ve been trying to adjust to my sleep/travel/school schedule. I have a feeling I’ll only be able to get in a few trips per week, so I’ll just have to make those trips count

Remember I said I bought fancy chocolate?

You better believe I chowed down on those when I got home.

I picked these lovelies up at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. One is a Coconut Chocolate Bomb (coconut, chocolate, caramel filling), and the other is a Tiger Bomb (peanut butter, chocolate, caramel filling).

I intended to only eat one, and had the Coconut Chocolate Bomb first. Uh, yeah, it was amazing. So amazing, I had to try the Tiger Bomb. Which was less impressive than the coconut one, sadly. I had high hopes – chocolate, peanut butter, caramel? Should be a winner. But it didn’t quite live up to the coconut one. Good thing these are pricey, otherwise I might stop by to pick them up on a regular basis.

And now, it’s past midnight, and I’m still awake. That is way too late for someone who got up at 5:30 am, so I’m off to bed. Need to be fresh and ready to learn at volunteer training, plus I need to ponder this whole denim dilemma as well – if any fashionistas out there could weigh in, that would be great! Nighty night

Lessons Learned

Oh, what a long, tiring day I’ve had. While I only have 1 hour of class on M/W/F, I’m on campus from 9:30 am to 6:00 pm on T/Th. I left my house at 7:30 am, and got home just after 7:30 pm. Good thing I only have these 12 hour days for this semester. I was one tired person when I got home!

But let’s go back to early this morning. I made a hearty bowl of oats for breakfast – need some good fuel for those long days.

• 1/2 cup oats, water, milk
• 1 gala apple, chopped
• splash of vanilla
• lots of cinnamon
• raisins
• 1 tbsp flaxseed
• sprinkles of brown sugar (added after pictures, mostly because I forgot)

With the usual glass of juice – still working on the Happy Planet Mango Peach Party.

That whole apple sure made for a huge bowl of oats!

I made my way to the school for my 9:30 am class – Introductory Psychology. I think it will be pretty enjoyable. Our prof is pretty funny – he’s apparently “retired”, but has been teaching for the past couple years still, and he reminds me of some other profs I’ve had close to retirement. They are always candid, and don’t give a crap. Colourful characters I tell ya!

After that class ended, I had an interview for a volunteer position on campus. It is with Sprouts – a student run organic & local food cafe/grocery store/bulk buying co-op. It wasn’t so much of an interview as a “get to know you” kind of thing, and I will be doing some training on Saturday. I’m looking forward to getting involved in something on campus.

I then made my way to the Student Union Building, and planted myself in a semi-comfy seat to do some reading, play on the internet (hurray for laptop), and eat my packed lunch. I didn’t get any pictures, but it was nothing exciting – a peanut butter & rhubarb jam sandwich on Silver Hills Squirrelly Bread, carrot sticks, cucumber slices, and a Peanut Butter Cookie Larabar that I munched on throughout the day. Sadly, this proved to not be enough food for my stay at school, as I was ready to eat my arm off before the end of my last class. I’m going to have to figure out more voluminous lunches that don’t require much refrigeration, since I have no desire to carry a big, insulated lunch bag with me. Any lunch suggestions would be greatly appreciated

My 2nd (and last class) of the day was Land, Food, and Community. It’s a 4 hour long class, twice a week. It looks like it’s going to be quite interesting, but we have to do most of our work in groups of 6 or 7. And we didn’t get to pick our groups, they were assigned to us. Today we had a breakout section where we had to put together a food flow chart/web diagram for the home, looking at everything from production, distribution, waste, environment & health issues, etc, etc. It was more to get us going on something in our groups, but I don’t know about my group – seems like we have a few timid people in there, so hopefully that changes.

And of course, I ended up with some random free things today – a wallet sized transit map, and a lollipop. HA!

 

When I got in the door, I changed into my pj’s stat, and made a beeline for the fridge. Mom had my dinner all plated up and waiting for me. Gotta love moms

Looks like there was some sort of roasted, maybe BBQ’d, pork tenderloin.

A vegetable stirfry – broccoli, carrot, yellow pepper, zucchini, and onions. Not sure what, if any, sauce was on it.

And some brown jasmine rice.

Good thing they left me a large plate of food, cuz I was starving!

So starving that I also wolfed down these cookies – they have dried blueberries in them, and flax seed. Nothing to write home about, but they aren’t bad.

And after some biochemistry reading (blech), I was still munchy. And wanting something chocolate. I satisfied that with a piece of whole wheat toast spread with a little Artisana Cacao Bliss.

Now it’s time for me to make my way to sleepland – another early morning for that 8 am class. At least it’s Friday, right? Night!