Cool mornings

I awoke to a cool breeze coming in the window – a crisp fall-like morning today! 60 degrees, cloudy, rainy on and off.

My friend texted at 7am asking about our tenatively planned run – I said yes as long as it’s not raining, and it wasn’t at the moment, so we hit the pavement at 7:30am. Did a nice 3 miles in the cool air.

Def a scarf and cardigan day!  {Yayy fall!!! :) }

Now having oats and coffee – OIAJ with half a banana, soy milk, PB and Kashi Go Lean for crunch. Coffee on the side

Now I’m showered and ready for the day:

– class 10-11:30
– reading, finsihing a response due at 5pm
– interview prepping (eek)
– internship interview at 3:30
– meeting at 6pm
– class 6:30-9:30

Oh boy! Gonna be a long one today.

Labor Day Weekend

Well it’s been a flurry of a few days! Yesterday I went for an early morning run with Melissa. We covered about miles! Great way to start a Friday, and good to get into a running groove here in New Haven right off the bat. (I’ve also got that 10k fast-approaching on 9/18!)Breakfast was more OIAJ of course. With banana and PB. Mmm.

I then worked on our sunny porch and did some course applications and had lunch. The afternoon consisted of a failed meeting with my advisor (rrg) and a student group fair. I then drove (not biked, ops) over to Edge of the Woods, a neat little grocery store across town. It reminded me a miniature Whole Foods – pricey, but full of awesome natural foods. I picked up supplies to cook Jeff a yummy stir fry. I biked to his place and found him walking his roommates’ dog, Captain Wilson!

I got a new sort of tofu, sprouted! I think it actually ended up giving me a huge stomach ache. Maybe it was just too much soy in general. We had some white wine, too. Just good ol’ 3 buck chuck. Nuthin special, but tastes good on a summer evening. After eating we headed to my school’s first TGIF! (Thank God I’m a Forester!!) The theme was endless summer, so people were decked out in summer gear, bathing suits, and hawaiin themed clothes. There were kiddy pools and floaties! It was a lot of fun and everyone was really excited to be back and hanging out. It was also a beautiful night out! We caught up with people and headed inside for the dance party later in the evening. Fun times!

Today has been fun too – kicked off with an egg on toast with a side of local blueberries, mm. Coffee on the side, of course. I then headed to the farmer’s market with my housemates. It’s such a great Saturday morning activity – walk around in the fall sunshine, run into lots of people to chat with, and pick up locally grown tasty produce! We headed back in time to get ready for a cookout! We had a lovely cookout in the park down the street for our mentees (new first years we’re assigned to to help out with course selections, and just to be a buddy to). It was a fun time and we all sorts of yummy food – veggie burgers, potato salad, corn on the cob, chips, watermelon, mm!

I fit in a run today with Melissa again and we did our same course, this time about 5 miles. I followed it up with 3 sets of 20 leaning leg lunges, 30 tricep dips, and 2 sets of 10 push ups. Woo woo!

Now I’m getting ready for a little girls’ night action — going out for Mexican and margaritas!! :) 

 

SO excited for FALL!

Happy September!!!

I am SO excited that it’s the start of September, which means that fall is in the air! It’s my favorite season of all time and I am so excited for fall foliage, apples, pumpkins, crisp mornings, sweaters, apple cider, and halloween! There are just so many wonderful things to do in the fall weather, I just love harvest time!

But first, breakfast, on the porch of course!Overnight oats in a jar, mixed with frozen berrier, fresh blueberries, a drizzle of honey, and a sprinkle of go lean crunch! Annnd coffee of course!

I didn’t do too much to celebrate the start of September and autumn today because I was sitting in classes from 10am til 5:30pm! I scoped out some classes, but think I’ll just stick with one of the 4 I ended up sitting in on. The others just aren’t quite what I’m looking for. From yesterday’s listing, I’ve ruled out

• Management and the Environment
• Statistics
• U.S. Climate policy (I’ll take yesterday’s climate change course instead)
• Life Cycle Assessment Practicum

But I will take LCA! It’ll be a tough class, it counts as a capstone which means it’s like a master’s project course, but it’ll be a really valuable skill to have, so it’ll be worth it for sure. Hopefully I’ll come out being able to use the software to do life cycle assessments on different products for companies. And I really like the professor, he’s young and enthusiastic, and I took a class with him last spring.

Lunch was leftover yellow curry from the other night, over rice, mm!

After class I met up with some friends for a drink downtown and then headed over to Jeff’s cuz he cooked me dinner! Corn on the cob, kale chips, and baked eggplant with tomato sauce. It was delish!

But didn’t quite fill us up, plus we knew there was pizza arriving at my house soon for the big gathering of dudes for a fantasy football draft (I still don’t really know what this means). Either way, I had some pizza and another beer when we got to my house after dinner. And we might have topped off the night by getting rid of eating some leftover pancakes, smothered in PB!! Ooooh grad school and college-style eating! So hard to avoid. Ah well.

Us ladies sat out on our porch chatting away while the dudes did their football thing. It was lovely!

Now for some relaxation and perhaps a viewing of the daily show (still haven’t accepted that I need to start doing work!! argh) before bedtime! Everyone else headed out to the bar, butttt I’m good with staying in tonight :)

On the docket for tomorrow: an early morning run, a meeting with my advisor, some course applications, student group fair, and TGIF party tomorrow night.

Gnight!

First Day of School!

Well, I’m back in New Haven and today is sort of the first day of school! It’s our course expo where we walk around to tables where our professors are standing and giving out syllabi. It’s a day to learn more about the classes we think we want to take and to say hi to all of our friends! I’ve caught up with a bunch of mine already and have been spending lots of time with my roommates and Jeff. It’s great to be back! I’m all unpacked in my room and it feels like home again. We hunkered down as hurricane Irene hit on Sunday and it was a good day to stay inside and unpack. And now it’s gorgeous, crisp fall weather here! Loving it, and super excited for FALL!!

I also love our front porch, and eating breakfast there! Ready for my first day :) Oats in a jar!! Mmmm, scottish oats soaked overnight in soy milk, topped with banana slices and a biggg scoop of PB! Coffee on the side.

 

I’m off on my bike to school soon and will be there almost all day. Then a 4pm meeting with my supervisor from my job to see if I’ve got a position lined up for this year! Then, I’m hoping to hit the gym or go for a run! C ya!

 

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!

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…

 

Return of Kale Chips!

I had a bit of a late lunch of Fage yogurt and a banana with peanut butter. The yogurt was topped with sliced strawberries and a sprinkle of cheerios. I guess this looks more like a breakfast plate, but, it was a great lunch! 

The rest of my day was filled with a wonderful date with my best friend from home. We pretty much spent 5 hours on my porch just chatting away about life. She recently returned from a trip to China and she brought me back all sorts of neat things! I’m particularly excited to use the chop sticks.

As we chatted I munched on the bag of “Chinese” peanut M & Ms. By 7pm I was hunngrrryy and whipped up aquick dinner, including KALE CHIPS! It’s been quite a while since the last time I’d made ’em!  I used the Kale we got at the farmer’s market, it was the flat leaf kind, came out delicious!  I made two trays-full and devoured them both … 

The rest of dinner was composed of gyoza dumplings and a big beet! While cooking dinner I ate a few hunks of french baguette. 
A great filling dinner. Love how easy the gyozas are to steam up in a flash! Topped these with soy sauce. After dinner I was excited to see that my Amazon package had arrived – its contents are very exciting! After a few months of deliberating I finally took the plunge and bought a French Press coffee maker. I’m a huge coffee drinker and always use an automatic drip coffee. But after having Jeff’s french press coffee there’s just no denying how much better pressed coffee tastes. So, I’m excited to use this guy this year! I may test it out tomorrow morning – mom is eager to try it out.

I was then inspired by Tina of Carrots n Cake and her recent post on Kodiak Cakes. They sounded great and having to only add water to the mix sounded like a great camping trip item! I found a 3 pack on Amazon for just $11 so gave it a shot. 3 boxes though… that’s a lot of flapjacks .. better get eatin’!

Cupcake Truck!

Lunch today was pretty good – it was meant to be a breakfast! I had set up some overnight oats last night thinking they might be a good easy food on my stomach. I brought em for lunch – they were the perfect kind, which means they were made in an almost empty PB jar. YUM. 

– 1/4 c scottish oats
– 1/4 soy milk
– last scrapes of PB jar
(soaked over night in fridge)
– small banana sliced next day

PS note my To-Go Ware silverware pouch. This guy is aweosme- it’s a fork, knife, and spoon made out of bamboo. The pouch is made out of recycled PET plastic. It’s awesome and I use it every day to eat lunch – cuts down on plastic cutlery waste!

This lunch was very tasty and we ate outside with the interns – so nice out today! Bummed I missed what musta been a gorgeous fresh air morning. I had a few afternoon snacks today .. one was a bag of pretzels I picked up at 7-11 next to my apt before heaidng into work. Soothing carbs.

Then, my supervisor and I had been plotting a trip to the cupcake truck again! I was excited. I picked out 3 cupcakes [1 to eat now, and 2 to bring up to New Haven to share with Jeff, aren’t I nice? :) ] You’ll have to wait to see the other two flavors, but I dug right into the Triple European Chocolate, which they describe as:

“We start with a moist and decadently dark chocolate cake made with fine Belgian cocoa. Then we add a generous helping of silky smooth French chocolate frosting. Finally we top it all off with Belgian chocolate shavings!”

What a cutie. Sandra makes awesome cupcakes! And it’s neet hearing some of the ins and outs and challenges of running your own bakery business. It sounds like a lot of hard work! But with some sweet pay offs.

Half-eaten. Now all gone! Mmm it was mighty good. Not soo sure that a chocolate cupcake it exactly what my stomach needed, but I’m hoping it doesn’t upset all my work to keep it calm too much! We will see. Welp, today has not been too productive, we’re off to the capitol for a meeting, then headed back to my place for a big potluck dinner!

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!!

 

Peanut Butter Dessert

Oh yes, I had dessert.  A bit before 10 I finished up a draft of my work and was still feeling a bit hungry, so dessert it was! A tbsp of PB and a tbsp of almond butter, paired with slices of half a small banana. Perfect! Now for a little SATC, then bedtime!