Second Saturday

Today was definitely like an extra Saturday since Robert did not have to go to work this morning. So apparently there is a perk to snow on the weekend if that means two extra uninterrupted days with hubby! Yesterday we did nothing but watch Dexter, Dexter, and more Dexter! So addicted now. I was apprehensive at first, but once I realized there wasn't much violence- just a lot of blood- I gave in and I LOVE it! We did all of season 1 last night and then we are just starting season 2 now on Netflix. So fun!

Food wise, I've realized that everything I eat is orange and/or brown. Lol! Not sure how that happened, but it's amazing what food blogs will help you realize. I've been trying to fix that today, but the kale I planned for lunch was moldy and so was the acorn squash. Enter- sweet potatoes. Very orange. Ha! Maybe living this close UT is getting into my system. ;)

Sunday Breakfast: Yummy carrot cake oatmeal this morning! (orange again) I missed the creaminess a banana adds, but the flavor was so delicious. I also had a "mocha"- coffee and hot cocoa and a boiled egg because I've been craving protein all day.

Snack: 'Zeke wrap with some cheddar cheese (orange and tan)

Lunch: Ellie Krieger oven fried fish (some crappie that robert and dean caught this summer), sweet potato chips (orange), canned artichokes sauteed in olive oil and garlic

Snack: a PURPLE (finally) raspberry split smoothie from Froots at the mall. Sorry, no pic. I split it with Robert while we were playing in the apple store. The ingredients looked simple enough (raspberries, bananas, yogurt, strawberry-kiwi juice), although I don't normally like juice in my smoothies since it's so sugary. I also had a bite of chicken teriyaki free sample because I was craving protein.

When I came home I grabbed an apple and a wasa bread with pb and j. it looked exactly like my snack from yesterday and thankfully was a greenish hue (the apple) and not orange.

Dinner: We were supposed to go to buffalo wild wings with some of the johnson people to watch RAW, but it was super crowded so Bert and I walked down the street to the mellow mushroom instead. I had a spinach salad (spinach, bacon, parmesan, and mushrooms with esperanza dressing) and 1 and 1/3 slice of mushroom and bacon pizza. No I did not intentionally order the same toppings on my salad and my pizza. It just sort of happened that way.

I have school tomorrow apparently... although it's a two hour delay. I'm torn about whether I want to go back yet or not. It will probably be pretty boring here without robert if they do call it off tomorrow morning... Hmmm. We'll see. Oh, and no wonder I keep finding tongue marks on my balcony door. :P

I should probably eat more salads...

I'm just going to go ahead and do what I've been wanting to do for a while... turn this into a food blog! as you can see from my "good reads" section that I love to read about food and fitness, and I think creating my own will help me stay motivated. Not that I think it's going to turn into anything huge (that would be a dream come true, but I'm not banking on it), I just want to keep up with everything I eat for one week and see how I like it! Don't worry though, I'll also keep it updated with what I'm up to as well for any buddies who read this and want to use it to keep up with me.

With that being said, here go the last two days...

Friday Foods: 
Snow Day! (for me, not Robert; so I was stuck at home with the dog all day.) Snow days actually make me realize how much I like to work. Not that I don't mind slowing down once in a while, I'm just - BORED. and completely unmotivated to be productive. Not a combo that makes any since at all.

Breakfast- KERF oats with peaches and slivered almonds

Snack- Wasa bread and four turkey pepperoni

Lunch- Tuna salad (homemade with tuna, plain non-fat yogurt, a touch of reduced fat mayo, onion, carrot, and dijon mustard) on an ezekiel wrap with melted reduced fat cheddar and romaine lettuce. carrots with homemade hummus on the side and pumpkin yogurt (non-fat plain stonyfield with pumpkin, vanilla, and stevia).

Snack- Orange

Dinner- ELR home-made pizza dough! Three slices of pizza with turkey pep, crumbled bacon, mushrooms, onions, half cheddar/half mozzarella; side salad of romaine, shredded carrot, mushrooms, and oil and vinegar dressing; Bud light golden wheat to celebrate Friday Night!

Saturday Eats: It snowed all day! Robert and I watched 10 hours (all of season 1) of Dexter. Totally addicting! We finally ventured out to go out to dinner for date night to Aubrey's. The roads were so nasty and hardly anything was open, so we didn't get to do anything other than dinner. :( Still suffering mucho from cabin fever although I did do major yoga damage.

Breakfast- KERF Yogurt pancakes with peaches and sliced almonds and a drizzle of sugar-free (gross I know, but I'm trying to get rid of it...) syrup. coffee with milk and stevia, plus a second cup made with diet (I know! I know! I'm cleaning out the chemicals slowly) hot cocoa.

Lunch- Tuna melt with cheddar and bacon on Ezekiel bread with an orange.

Snack- Wasa bread with PB and J plus an apple

Dinner- Aubrey's Restaurant: small slice of bread with a teaspoon of honey butter, caesar salad with chicken and a side of parmesan creamed spinach (had to try it because I heard it's the best!), about 1/3 of free dessert- my favorite Key Lime Pie!

Analysis? I love carbs. :-/

Snow(?) Day!

Not a single flake has fallen from the sky and they've already canceled school tomorrow!!!! Woo Hoo!!! I guess the superintendent feels bad about last time it snowed and he let us leave an hour early, but we all still had to drive home in the snow. Gosh I LOVE the south! I'm going to miss that if we move to Boston. I really really really needed a day to just veg and work on my unit plan, and now I have it! Really I'm more excited at the prospect of sleeping in and not having to put together my sediment lab in a rush tomorrow. ME this week has been pretty boring since we're talking about bathymetry and ocean topography. I gotta think of a way to make that more interesting next year.

I'm already bailing on my running schedule too, so hopefully I can wake up kind of early tomorrow and run before the snow starts tomorrow afternoon. We were supposed to go today, but neither of us felt like it and my hip has been killing me all day! I have no idea why either; I can't stretch it out or pop it or anything.  For dinner tonight I made beef lo mein that was awesome. I should have taken some pictures, but I didn't think about it.

Quincy got a new Bobo from petsmart tonight since she absolutely destroyed the Hanukkah Bobo... aka the "Jew Toy." It will be missed. Although she's adjusting quite nicely to the tiger toy...

No picture tonight. I'm out of things to say, so I'm gonna go hang with the hubby.

I love my Mom.

I don't believe in snow that doesn't stick. So upsetting to have to watch the snow pour from the clouds through your classroom window and know that you aren't going anywhere at all. *sigh*

My ME presentation today was not quite as fun as I hoped it'd be, but that's ok. There's always next year. My freshmen had a test today, so I got lots of grading done and prepped for BLAST tomorrow. Did I do my lesson plan? No. I did not. I was planning on tackling that during Dance Team practice, but apparently they canceled practice this week so that the girls can work on their senior dance. Not sure when that unit plan is getting done now... but hopefully by this friday so I can focus on--

Finally found a practice physics praxis book that I don't have to purchase! Everyone at school thinks I'm crazy for going for it. Apparently it's super hard, but I know it will really be worth it. I want to teach the older, smarter, more serious students! Plus, I loved teaching the physics portion of Physical Science, so physics seems like a smart next step. No masters classes to take. Automatic job security. Pay raise. It's looking like a better option than PA school or a masters degree right now. We'll see where it takes me.

Food today: Oatmeal for breakfast, krispy kreme for a snack (then I sold the rest so I'm safe from them now), carrots and home made hummus, two bites of last night's stoup (which I gagged on because it tasted super chicken-y. not what i wanted), a piece of ezekiel bread, an orange, an apple, a bag of kettle corn popcorn, two pieces of dark chocolate with almonds, two pieces of ezekiel bread french toast topped with peaches and lite maple syrup, two slices of bacon. not bad right? i didn't track though. bah- i don't want to!!! but I need to. gotta make myself do that at some point.

Glad Bert and I did our run yesterday because it is COLD outside! I may do some yoga tonight, but we'll see. I really just want to chill.

And my commentary on today's picture: Gosh I love my family. Please note how my mother looks amazingly, glowingly beautiful- while the rest of us are acting a fool. we can't ever get her to smile in pictures... well until now that is. Thanks Mom. You're the best.

A light in the deep...

Today was typical- Robert got up and made me oatmeal for breaky, and then I drove to school to print out my marine ecology tests for first block. I had a miniature panic attack when I forgot where I saved the test on my laptop and freaked out for about 10 minutes with Windows search looking for it. (I hate you Microsoft. Why can't you be simple like Apple?) Anyway, I found it and got everything printed and copied before my all junior/senior class showed up 3 minutes before the bell.

Normally I love test days, but not in ME. I miss talking to them and lecturing on topics that are super interesting to me. Tomorrow, I'm lecturing on bioluminescence and the power point that another ME teacher put together is so CUTE! It starts with pretending you're in the bathypelagic (deep ocean) zone. You can't imagine WHAT would live down there because it's so dark and cold. Suddenly, you see a light in the distance. What is that? It's so pretty! (see where this is going?) You rush to it, wondering what in the world could be down there and ... RAWR! You're eaten by an angler fish! I'm going to have so much fun with it tomorrow.

I also learned about these really amazing dogfish sharks called cookie cutter sharks, and their bellies actually bioluminesce to match the sky so that viewed from below you can't see them. Typical for a fish with counter-shading, BUT these little guys have a special patch of cells that don't light up. That means when viewed from below, they actually look like a much smaller prey fish. A predatory fish like a tuna (albeit a small tuna) sees the shark and thinks "yum! lunch!" and when they go to strike, the shark gobbles them up. I thought that was just too cool!

I could go on and on too, talking about milky seas you can see from space and squid that display a sunset of their own, but I think I'll save the rest of my bio mumbo jumbo for another day. It has been super cool to teach this class though, and I'm learning so much every day. I really hope they give it to me again next year! ME and Physics would be so perfect... Wait a minute- do I like teaching again?!? I think I do!

Health Note: Robert and I are still training for our 5k. Our run today was soooo cold, but I over bundled and ended up hot and sweaty and gross. Food wise, I had a good day. I really need to go back to counting points or calories or something. Everything I ate was healthy (except for a Krispy Kreme donut that I bought to sell in class tomorrow and support Haiti), but I think I need to make sure I'm portioning right. I can't decided if I'm happy at my weight right now or if I need to keep trying to lose. I'm at a weird place where I'm happy with what the scale says, but I'm not happy with how my body feels or my clothes fit. Technically I'm at my goal, but my Anne Taylor "skinny jeans" from the first time I lost the weight still don't fit. I could continue to lose healthfully I think as long as I'm careful. I'm still 21 pounds over the low end of my weight range- I just need to buckle down and count for a whole year before I decide that I am cured enough of my food addictions/bad habits to eat intuitively. Ok- that will be tomorrow's goal: Start tracking again. Wish me luck!

Pic of the Day: Baby Kaycie with a wink and a smile!

Finding my stride

I promise I want to start blogging again... I guess I just need to find my stride.

I love Saturdays... especially Saturdays when I sleep until 10am and have nothing important to do. This past week has been so busy and crazy! For a four day week, it sure felt more like a month. Firstly, we've been dealing with canine anxiety issues since the weekend before last... It figures that my dog would come with an anxiety issue! She's much better now, but she was chewing everything in sight whenever we would leave. She chewed the door frame in the bathroom one night when we went to see Sherlock Holmes (great movie, by the way- highly recommended) and that was the last straw. I started researching separation anxiety right then and happily all it took was a little immersion therapy, some treat balls, and stripping our living room, kitchen, and dining room bare of anything she could chew. I'm typing this now at a desk I can't properly sit at because there is a cage surrounding the base to protect our electrical cords... oh well, it could be worse, and at least I'm no longer terrified of what I'll find when I get home from work.

The rest of the week was school, school, and more school. Dance team practice Tuesday, parent's night was Thursday, my final evaluation was Friday, the homecoming basketball game was last night, and most of the paperwork for my yearly evaluation had to be complete this week. Now all that is standing between me and summer (human resources wise) is one unit plan that I will work on next week.

On the food front, I've really enjoyed eating all the organic and whole food produce and products Robert and I have started purchasing. Ezekiel Bread and Almond butter make the best PB&J's! (AB&J's?) Our grocery bill barely went up and I really am starting not to miss most junk food. Although I did eat Zaxby's for lunch today (makes me feel so gross now) and some nachos at the game last night, so I'm not perfect but I'm taking it a day at a time. I made (almost) Vegan Almond Butter Chocolate Chip cookies from the Fitnessista last night and they are amazing! So so so good... I used half whole wheat and half all-purpose flour since I have NO idea what spelt flour is, and they still turned out great. I'm going to try to keep up with my food on here a bit since I'm really into health/fitness/FOOD blogs (see my favorite here), but I'll also post about my life too for Lauren's sake. (I miss you!)

Robert and I are training for our first 5k coming up in April through the Couch to 5k program and so far so good! It gives Quincy some exercise and I love the feeling I get from running. Week 1 is done, 8 more to go!

Quincy (with her head in the organic crackers box she found and devoured a few weeks ago...) says Hello! Off to shower from my run and watch some Bball with the Hubs!