Bike Ridin’

Dad and I biked 12 miles today! We had a great ride all around Wayland and parts of Natick. There are some really beautiful areas, and a few farms, too! We pedaled and pedaled and planned our route to go by the Whole Foods (<3) in Wayland. We enjoyed some sushi as we took a break – veggie roll with carrots, avocado, cucmber, yum! Enjoyed in the sunshine. We got back after about 1.5 hours and relaxed in dad’s backyard. He’s taken up a new hobby of intense bird-feeding and watching! He’s got a great backyard that borders a wooded area so there’s tons of wildlife and quite a variety of birds, squirrels, and chipmunks. While sitting for about half an hour we saw woodpeckers, nuthatches, tit mice, chickadees, sparrows of course, cardinals, blue jays, and 2 hummingbirds! Not sure what kind they were, maybe one of these three? They fed on the feeders of sugar water my dad had out. 

Dad is growing some super tall sunflowers in his yard, too! Check this guy out (along with my sweet biking attire)

After the wild-life and flower viewing session, I did some errands (i.e. picked up beer and cookout supplies for this evening) got home, and I was hunngrryyyy, so I dug into this: As sliced up organic Gala apple with blobs of peanut butter and almond butter. The almond butter is MaraNatha all natural creamy almond butter and it’s awesome! I’ve been digging into this jar for a while now but had yet to blog about it. It’s thick and tastes like roasted almonds. I’m still much more in love with peanut butter, but it’s nice to change things up sometimes, or combine them :) It’s got the same stats as natural peanut butter for the most part – 190 cal and 6g protein for 2 tbsp. Almond butter goes great on anything you’d put with peanut butter – toast, sandwiches, fruit, in oatmeal, the options are endless! And,  I got this lovely jar for FREE  from Swanson. Swanson sent me this for free so I could try it out! If you have a food blog, check this out to get your own free food stuffs!

Along with my apple snack I had a few handfuls of granola (so addictive, I’ll def be making this more often).

Now: it’s last-minute packing, organizing, etc, then JEFF arrives :-D ..and its cookout time with the fam!

Breakfasts on the Porch

This morning I tried to sleep in since I knew I’ve got a slew of dawn-rising mornings coming up in our tent! But, I was awake and up around 8am. Ah well, I felt great so I hit the pavement for a nice run and did 4.72 miles. It was a nice cool 64 degrees.

Felt good and I chugged along at about a 10 minute mile which, considering all the hills, is quite alright. It was nice to have company on the run too – lots of other runners out bright and early on this lovely Saturday morning! I came home and did

– 1 set of abs with some other abs moves
– 10 push ups on my knees
– stretch

Half a Shower (cuz there’ll be more sweating later on!) and breakfast:

Oats with soymilk, topped with blueberries, half a small banana slices, honey from yesterday’s market, and home-made granola!  It was quite the rockstar bowl. Side of french press coffee.

I love eating out on our back porch. My mom has it decorated with plants and doodads and it’s a great sunny start to the day. Now I’m off to meet my dad for a bike ride! :) Happy Saturday everyone!

 

 

Camping Trip Prep & Granola makin’

I’ve spent much of the afternoon prepping for our upcoming camping trip to New Hampshire and Maine (hooray!). Lots of packing going on! I’m also trying to pack things or at least prep them for a trip I’ll be leaving on the day after we get back from camping – a trip to Mexico! Lots of hiking clothes packed. And gear! Camp soap, head lamp, stoves, fuel, dry sacks, bug spray, not to mention all the stuff that’s already in the car, like the tent, sleeping bag, sleeping pad, kitchen gear like dishes pots and pans, etc etc. Lots of planning involved here!

I also packed up all my necessary toilettries, including all ever important blister kit! Antiseptic, bandaids, and mole skin (can’t beat this stuff). As I packed I munched on a juicy nectarine, handfuls of raisons, some chips, some walnuts, and a spoonful of peanut butter. Call that lunch? I think so. Lacking veggies, but I’ll be having a veggie-filled dinner so it’s all good. After getting organized round herrr, I headed off to yet another farmer’s market with mom. We picked up some produce for a little cookout tomorrow as well as some things for the camping trip. We picked up a jar of honey from a guy keeping bees just down the street. He let us try it and it tasted so wonderful, and he said he harvested it just the other day! Hooray for bee-keeping, we need more beekeepers! It was a really beautiful day out today. However, I found myself back in the kitchen … I had lots of leftover ingredients from all the bars I’ve been making so thought hmmm what can I do with all these oats, dried fruit, and nuts? Ah-hah! GRANOLA!! I’ve never made my own, so I loosely followed a recipe that called for honey (used the stuff we just bought!), oil, brown sugar, and vanilla. This seemed pretty routine in all the recipes I looked at. I mixed in everything that I had – coconut, almonds, walnuts, raisins, cranberries, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, oh my! It made a lot! Into the oven it went. We’ll see how it comes out!

Oh, and about that to-do list….

• Pack for camping/ organize my disaster of a room
• Pack for Mexico
• Laundry
• CVS
• Trader Joe’s (postponed to tomorrow)
• Farmer’s Market
• Make granola?
• Buy new head phones
• Coffee date
• Dinner date

Not too bad so far…

 

Potluck Extravaganza

Tonight I hosted a potluck dinner with my fellow interns. It was fun (just like our last one!) and full of food and drink!

There was wine, cheese, grapes to start. Also a layer dip I made with beans, corn, salsa, and cheese with chips. I had a small glass of red wine. Main courses included a number of starches – ops! A great couscous salad, a spicy rice, mashed potatoes, cucumber dill yogurt salad, 3 bean salad. Dessert was a yogurt parfait bar and one of the interns made her famous granola! It was very tasty, with lots of fruit toppings.

With farmer’s market jam to top it off! I am now sitting here SUPER stuffed with all this good food! And of course my stomach is not happy with me. grrr. trying to digest a bit before going to bed. G night!

Napping and Running, not simultaneously

Today really flew by – lots of meetings and work. My supervisor took me to lunch at the salad bar place and I made a massive salad. It contained: lettuce, corn mix, broccoli, 3 bean mix, artichokes, snow peas, tofu chunks, a few beets, and fruit on the side. Wow! I didn’t realize I was that hungry. I also had an honest tea. I saved my fruit for an afternoon snack. Have I mentioned how much I love my travel mug? I’ve had it for about 9 months and it is so trusty and NEVER leaks. It’s miraculous. This is how I bring my coffee to work every day. After a meeting ended at 4:15 I felt super tired and not great. I’ve been nervous about catching the yucky cold bug that half of my office had. I decided to high tail it outta the office to go collapse for a nap in bed. I of course left without my keys and had to spend 15 minutes going back, calling a coworker, and retrieving them. Grr, I was so tired I couldn’t even think!

I came home and passed out for about 40 minutes, and even dreamt. I woke up a bit groggy, but feeling better and ready for a run. I was almost antsy because … it was only 79 degrees out!!! INSANELY cool!!!! I simply could not pass up an opportunity to run outside. I had a few clusters of cville granola and a spoonful of almond butter to gear up and wake up. I realized it has been over 2 weeks since my last outdoor run! That’s nuts. I really have been missing it, hardcore. I figured I would do 3-4 miles since I wasn’t sure how I was feeling and since it’d be so long. Butttttt, once I hit that trail I got so excited! Running felt so good. When Party Rock came on my iPhone, I literally almost started skipping. I know, dork alert here. It was just perfect weather, a bit muggy, but not bad, kinda cloudy, and I loved seeing the other runners and bikers pass by enjoying the temporary coolish weather too. Before I knew it I was almost at the bridge, the 3 mile marker. Looked like I was going to do 6 miles to get back home. I didn’t even really feel tired as I approached home at 6 miles, it was so great! I think the best runs are when the miles just fly by. I came home and showered, and made up this beauty of a bowl! In the mix: 1c greek yogurt, 1 tbsp PB, raspberries, 1/2 small banana, and cville cluster granola. So good! and Filling.

Ok now that I’ve procrastinated for a few hours … I need to practice this presentation!!

 

Living in a swamp

At 6:30am it was 81 degrees, and by my measurements, 100% humid. seriously.gross. I got myself up and out and through the thick air over to the gym and was on an elliptical at 6:30 sharp. Simple 20 minutes intervals, nothing too intense, but enough to get a sweat up. Then I did lower body strength training, same as on Tuesday only I did fewer machines and added in another routine from the Ultimate butt workout (I had only been doing the first two).  Followed by stretching and lots of water-drinking.

I waded through the humidity home and showered and made a solid bfast – overnight oats in a jar, plus a big spoonful of PB, 1 banana, and cville cluster granola. This was an awesome jar of oats!!

Coffee to go of course. Another busy day at work, ready go!

 

Granola and Running Socks

Today flew by! Probably because I was pretty busy the whole day and because I’m working hard to pull together my project. Lunch was outside with the interns and consisted of broccoli, veg mix, and tempeh (look similar to last night’s dinner? ;) ) On the side was a peach and a snack bag of Cville Cluster Granola-(this stuff is AMAZING! hard to stop eating :)After lunch we had an intern talk with the EPA administrator Lisa Jackson!This was pretty cool and a pretty big deal. She’s a very relaxed speaker and appears at least to be down to earth, and she knows her stuff. She handled some of our questions on hydrofracking pretty well. In the afternoon I met a fellow Yale Forestry student for a coffee. She’s an incoming student that I will be mentoring and happens to be here in DC. It was great chatting with her and she’s very excited to be starting school (I am too! Well, to return for year 2). I got a big decaf. On my walk over I noticed that my sunglasses somehow got cracked and are broken :( Good thing they were only $7 from H & M. But I’ll need to replace these ASAP! Bummer cuz we saw lots of nifty sunglasses in Cville for cheap! Oh well. After doing more work I headed home and had a pre-gym snack.Big hunk of Dakota bread with PB, I was pretty hungry. Upon getting home I found that my running socks had arrived in the mail! Hooray!!! Note to self – do not put these guys in the dryer! They get hard in the back of the heel and then rub my feet – ouch! Anyone else have this happen with Balega socks?? I got two pairs so I hope these guys last, they’re expensivo! At the gym I did:

– Ran 4 miles on the treadmill, 40 minutes, switching between 6.4, 6.6, and 6.8 with incline of 0, .5, 1.0
– 10 minutes on the stair master to sweat some more
– 15 minutes on the elliptical to round out my 65 mins of cardio
– lower body strength training with machines and lunges, and butt work out 

Last time I did this lower body routine I was ridiculously sore for 4 days, I’m hoping this doesn’t happen again! I tried to stretch really well after and I decreased some of the reps.

I came home and refuled with some Fage yogurt, a sliced banana, and a few more crumbles of the Cville granola.
Natural light vs lamp light .. plus not-so-great camera.. boo.. I envy all you bloggers with fantastic cameras and food photography skills! I’ll get there.. maybe… Ok off on a late-night Trader Joe’s trip real quick – must restock salad fixins’. C ya!