Keeping It Real

I was all about my lunch today.  I couldn’t wait to dig into my huge green, veggie filled salad and chicken!

That chicken from last night was so moist and delicious so I knew I was in for a treat with a chicken leg I grabbed!

Salad salad!!  Oh I love you and all your fresh vegetables!

Such a good, filling lunch!

I packed some trail mix for my later afternoon snack.

Paired with a thing of Sargento cheese.  I was excited to pick up a whole pack of these individual Mozzarella string cheeses so I could pack them in a hurry!

Can’t wait to get home and eat some pizza tonight!!  See you later gators!

Pooped

What a day it was in Labor and Delivery! We ended up being extremely busy. We were all running around non-stop. Thank goodness I was able to eat lunch! I needed that fuel to keep me going!

Whole wheat angel hair pasta topped with ground turkey and marinara with a salad on the side.

My afternoon snack couldn’t have come at a better time. I was ready for it. I had just gotten finished with delivering a baby and scarfed down some of my trail mix I brought. Super yum.

I needed the protein in the almonds to last me until dinner and give me a burst of energy so I could bike home and then strength train.

A short bike ride home and it was time to do some strength training.

I figured I’d go on a run tomorrow night.  I did a variety of push-ups, pull-ups and ab exercises.  I feel good and strong now!!

It was a breakfast for dinner sort of night at the Watson household. I decided on some whole wheat toast, scrambled egg, mandarin and bacon.

Mmmm… I love breakfast for dinner. There’s just something about it that is so comforting.

Of course I had to have a sweet treat. Can’t go wrong with a Reese’s Cup Easter egg.

Oh wait… I know of something better!  A Reese’s Cup Easter egg in the 1/4 Reese’s Cup flurry from Dairy Kastle I had frozen over a week ago!  Ah, now that hits the spot!

Now it’s time for a wind down and bed. I’m pooped! Need sleep badly!

Do you enjoy cooking breakfast for dinner?  What’s it typically include?

We’re Here! We’re Here!

Alright!  We’ve finally arrived at our destination.  Where you might be asking since I’ve been sort of secretive.  We’re in Baton Rouge, Louisiana!  The great bayou. We are extremely excited to be here visiting the hubs side of the family.  We’re celebrating a very, very special lady’s 90th birthday tomorrow.  It’s a surprise party and she has no idea that her grandchildren and great-children are here!  I love it!

But before I get to anything else I’ll fill you in on the rest of the trip.  We had another 5 hour drive after I last blogged and we ended up snacking along the way, of course.  I invested in a mandarin.

A little while later I ate some trail mix.

I napped off and on during the ride.  I was exhausted from not getting a lot of sleep last night before our early wake up call.  I finally dug into a book I brought, “Naturally Thin” by Bethenny Frankel.  This is her first book and my second time reading it.  I wanted to remind myself of the practical rules of eating and balancing out my life and I think this is essential to read over and over to keep myself accountable with food.  It never hurts to remind yourself!

We finally arrived and it was onto our hotel, Hilton Baton Rouge, to take a rest break and get ready for a night out.  I was pretty hungry upon arrival so I decided instead of starving myself until dinner and then probably over indulging at dinner due to being super hungry, I  would eat a granola bar.  I tried the Carman’s fruit muesli fruit bar from the 10 mile race I picked up last week.

I liked it.  Not too big or filling to spoil my appetite but perfect to hold me over until dinner since dinner is over 2 hours away still.

Some of the hubs our cousins are meeting us at the hotel to pick us up for a night out.  We’re doing dinner and then gallivanting about the town.  I love that we are downtown and can’t wait to discover more of downtown.  I have a feeling I’m going to have a great 10 mile run tomorrow along the river and different parts of downtown.  It’ll make for a great change in scenery.

Don’t you love the room?

And the river view?

There is also a pool down below.  Doubt I’ll get any lay out time but it might be nice to read by the pool tomorrow late afternoonish.

The plans for tomorrow include a delicious buffet breakfast after my 10 mile training run (2 weeks until the big marathon!!!), getting ready and being ready to surprise Grandmother at one o’clock sharp!  Can’t wait to share fun pictures from tonight and tomorrow with you.  Hopefully, if it’s not too late, I’ll be posting later tonight.  If it’s too late and I need to crash, I’ll post tomorrow after my 10 mile run and breakfast.  Love that I have the next two full days off and with family!!  Life is good!  Hope you all had a great Friday!

Don’t you feel more relaxed when you get out of town, into a nice hotel and have great laid back plans?  I sure do and I’ve needed it for a while now!

Crashed

What a day it has turned out to be. I let my lunch digest for a bit and then got geared up for a run… then the hubs called with bad news. Our MacBook had crashed. Not good, not good at all.

So the hubs got home, we grabbed our external hard drive in hopes of the Apple geniuses to be able to revive our necessity of a computer and headed to the Apple store.

On the way to the store, I took pictures with my camera in the way of the snacks we ate. You won’t be seeing those and I’ll get to that part in a minute. But I know you can use your imagination and picture the Cascadian Farm Organic flax bar I ate on Saturday and my trail mix. The hubs ate one of the two bars that comes in the package and a few almonds.

We arrived at the Apple store and was bummed to find out that our MacBook will be out of commission for a few days. But we were really glad that the hard drive that needs replacing was under a quality investigation so it’s being replaced free of charge and we’re getting an upgrade from 8 gigs to 16 gigs! There’s always a silver lining. So that means you’ll be getting iPhone posts and iPhone quality photos for a few days so hang in there with me!!

We came home and decided since it was so gorgeous outside that it’d be the perfect time to go get my bicycle tuned up. I’m really excited to start biking to and from work again and biking any where near the loft that we need to go.

Safety first: Must wear a helmet!

After the bike was given the okay to ride again it was time to get used to the feeling of biking again. The hubs and I rode a short 5 miles around Old Louisville and headed back home because we were hungry for dinner!

Dinner was a simple grilled chicken breast, broccoli and cheese and peas.

The hubs was also kind enough to give me half of his Sister Schubert’s roll. Oh so good. I love bread!!!

We were really excited for us to be finished with dinner because that meant it was time to pick up a package the Easter bunny had tried to deliver earlier today when we weren’t home.

A bag full of Reese’s Cup eggs, Hershey’s bliss eggs, butterfinger eggs and kit kats for each of us.

A Dinstuhl’s big milk chocolate solid bunny! The best ever!!

My mom is the best! She never fails to make us an Easter basket. Even if she isn’t able to give it to us in person. I love that woman. She’s a pretty special lady. Thanks Mom!!! I’ll enjoy my chocolate as soon as Lent is over!

After we got home it was still pretty early and light outside so I decided a run was definitely in order. I ended up running 2 miles in 19 minutes and then walked a mile to cool down. My legs were feeling it after my bike ride earlier. My legs definitely have got to get used to using those different muscles again for biking.

I came inside, hopped in the shower and ate two mandarins and the rest of my red grapes.

Now I’m settled in for the night after a quite productive unexpected day off. Time to watch The Biggest Loser and be asleep by 10! Hope you had a fabulous Tuesday!

Do you bike? If you do, do you try to bike everywhere you can to be green, save gas, get exercise, etc.?

Catching Up on Calories

Look at what was sleeping on me all day?!  How lucky am I?

Those cute things have been sleeping ALL DAY!!  Lazy boys!

The rest of my day was spent vegging and doing nothing!  It was great!  Around 3 o’clock, I was starting to feel quite hungry so I snacked on some trail mix of mine.

Dry Roasted Almonds, Craisins and Dark Chocolate Covered Plums.

It held me over pretty well until after we went to church and came home to cook dinner.

The hubs and I hopped to it with fixing dinner because we were both starving!  I think my body is so ravenous since I ran 21 miles yesterday so I’m trying to catch up on the calories.

On the menu for tonight: Flank steak, Asian inspired sautéed green beans with mushrooms, onion and bell pepper, Annie’s mac and cheese and baked beans.

The hubs had a Sister Schubert’s roll with his dinner but I decided to skip out since there were a tons of carbs on my plate already.

I packed up half the flank steak, sautéed veggies and rest of the baked beans and mac and cheese for lunch tomorrow.

This was our first time to try out Annie’s mac and cheese.  Usually I’m a Velvetta shells and cheese girl but even their small boxes are so big for the two of us and the serving sizes I scoop for myself ends up being huge!  So I decided to try this!

My review:

I really, really enjoyed it!  The shells, themselves, are smaller than Velvetta and the cheese mixture stayed creamy the whole time.  With Velvetta, they usually clump up and dry out pretty quickly but these were perfect.

A mandarin for an after dinner snack because I just felt like I needed something else.  Maybe I should have eaten a roll after all.  🙂

I’m now settled onto the couch and plan on being in bed and ready for sleep by 10 p.m.  I don’t think that’ll be hard tonight since my breakfast, lunch and snack are already packed up and ready to go for work tomorrow and I’ve showered and caught up on everything.  Here’s to hoping our next door neighbors won’t be partiers tonight and I can sleep all night!

See you tomorrow!!

What’s your favorite trail mix combo?