More Birthday

Morgan told me she was missing my blog, so I decided I’d post some pictures of her gifts to me. She knows me well, and got me all kitchen themed birthday gifts.

 

Only Morgan would know how much I would love a pretty pot holder and mini colander.

Just look at this book that Morgan made herself.

She knows I love birds.

It’s a recipe book.

Seriously, can you even believe how talented that girl is?!

Thanks so much, Morgan. You helped make my birthday so special!

P.S. In case you were wondering about the results of my birthday weight-loss challenge, I lost 3 pounds over the 3 weeks. Obviously that’s not 5, but I’m happy with it!

Early Birthday with Family

This past Saturday, we celebrated my 21st birthday early with my family at my Grandparents’ house.

My Grandma had decorations all over the house for me.

We started out with some veggies and yummy hummus.

There was also lots of fruit.

My Grandma made her famous lasagna. Thanks, Grandma!

Mom had also made a dish with rice noodles for Andrew.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I love how my mom arranged the cupcakes so cute!

My sister of course had to give me a fun 21st birthday present.

 

 

 

Aren’t they so cute?! But wait, there’s more…

Andrew did this one.

Love it! Thanks so much, Emily and Andrew!!!!

My family knows me well :) 

My actual birthday isn’t until Sunday, but this was such a fun day!

Have a great night, everyone. Thanks for sticking with me through my break!

The Break is Over!

The 3-day break turned into a one-week break. I must admit, I missed blogging a lot. It makes me feel more connected to the world around me outside my little college. Thank you to those who checked up on me during my hiatus, it meant a lot to me.

So… I’m back! I had an emotion week, but I’m alive and well and ready to write about it again. Here are some of the foods I ate while I was “away.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Feed sent me a generous sampling of their granola that I received last week.

My mom and I tried out the cranberry coconut flavor right away. I loved the flavor. This has little pieces of coconut in it, which I’m not a fan of, but my mom loves coconut and she loved this flavor. I’m looking forward to trying the apple cinnamon flavor.

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I also celebrated my birthday with my family over the weekend. I’ll go write that post right now…

Busy Busy Busy

Sorry, no post tonight because I’m busy busy busy with Spanish dialogues and Project-Based Assessment research papers.

A little stressed over here, but it will all be done after Wednesday.

I’ve been taking pictures, so I’ll have a recap when I get time. I’d post them now, but my camera seems to be hiding and I don’t have the patience to look for it.

I hope your week is going well. Have a great night!

Darker

Happy Saturday, everyone! It’s been a fun and relaxing weekend so far. Here are a couple meals from the weekend so far.

For dinner last night, we ate at Longhorns. I got the parmesan crusted sirloin with veggies. I ate half of the steak.

This was my lunch today. Mom was kind enough to make me a delicious egg, cheese, and ham sandwich for me. I also had cantaloupe on the side.

Then I went to get my hair done. I wanted to go a little darker, to ease back into my natural color.

 Have a great night!

Lazy Leftover Day

Hi everyone, how’s it going? I’ve been in such a lazy mood this week today. I need to get out of this funk!

Anyway, this morning I ate a leftover pancake and a banana for breakfast.

Lunch was this whole wheat ravioli with chicken my mom sent me to school with. Believe me, it tasted a lot better than it looks!

Workout

Even though I was feeling lazy today, I still made it to the gym. I did 25 minutes on the elliptical, then 25 minutes on the treadmill at a 5.5 incline for 25 minutes. I left sweaty and was glad I went even though I didn’t want to [but when do I ever really want to? ;)].

For dinner, I had more leftovers. This time it was leftover whole wheat spaghetti. I also had a salad while I was waiting for this to heat up.

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Birthday Challenge

Yesterday, I announced that I was doing a birthday challenge for myself to lose 5 pounds before my birthday. I really want to thank you all for your encouragement about it! I also want to clarify a little. I know it’s not the easiest thing in the world to lose 5 pounds in 3 weeks, especially when you’ve been losing weight for a while. I mostly set up this challenge to help with motivating myself to work out harder and count calories. Even if I lose 2 pounds in 3 weeks, that will be GREAT in comparison to 1 pound every 4 weeks, and I’ll be happy. The most important thing to me is that I’m healthier, not that I lose a certain amount!

Nite!

Birthday Challenge

I had another rainy walk to class this morning, but this time I was prepared with tennis shoes :)

For breakfast, I had pineapple Chobani with a sample of Nature Valley Nut Clusters my mom got in the mail last week. I loved the nut clusters, and I’m excited because I got the same sample in the mail today.

After morning classes, I came back and had the leftover stir fry from last night.

I took this Strawberry fruit dried fruit bar from TJ’s to Spanish to fuel for my workout.

At the gym, I did the same workout as Monday—25 minutes on the elliptical, and then 25 minutes on the treadmill.

For dinner, I ate the last of my TJ’s soy nuggets.

Dipped in LC cheese and ketchup.

And a salad on the side with light ranch.

All together now!

Warm and satisfying!

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I’ve decided to challenge myself to lose 5 pounds before my birthday, which is November 1st. I’ve lost about 1 pounds a month for the past few months, which is very slow. I know I’ve been losing so slowly because I haven’t been counting calories, so I’ve been doing that again since Monday. I also feel like my treadmill workouts are much more intense than my stat. bike ones, which will hopefully help me achieve my goal. Do/did you ever make mini weight loss goals to motivate you to get back on track?

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I updated my Pictures page.

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Spanish time! ¡Adios!

GrandDuggar

This is late because I was watching the Duggars welcome their grandbaby on 18 Kids and Counting. I love the Duggars, even though they’re a little… different. Let’s just say I’m happy to have grown up in the family I grew up in!

For breakfast, I had a mini bagel with light cream cheese and smoked salmon. Dee-lish!

For lunch, I had the rest of the pasta and shrimp with pesto.

 

And then I tried these crackers from Mary’s Gone Crackers that I received a coupon for. I got the Original and the Herb flavors, and sampled the Herb ones today with some LC cheese. I didn’t like them plain, but I liked them with some LC cheese, and think they would be good with hummus or maybe salsa?

Dinner was another new-to-me meal. I picked up this stir fry chicken and veggies at TJ’s last Friday. This was such a good meal, especially for being frozen. I loved the garlic flavor and all the veggies.

 

For dessert, I had a VitaTop sample. I tried the Double Chocolate Dream, and loved it. I’ve found that it’s better to just let the frozen VitaTops thaw, rather than heating them in the microwave, so that they don’t get dried out.

It’s 11:11 and time for bed. Night!

Wet Dogs

I woke up this morning to pouring down rain. I got soaked on my way to class, and apparently wasn’t the only one because the stairwell smelled like wet dog!

I tried to start the day off right with a yummy breakfast of Trader Joe’s vanilla Greek yogurt, granola, and a banana.

After class, I had a quick lunch of leftover pasta and shrimp with pesto and asparagus before heading to Spanish class.

After Spanish, I went to the gym. I did 25 minutes on the elliptical, and then 25 minutes on the treadmill on an incline.

After my workout, I was in the mood for something munchy, so I had a serving of Food Should Taste Good sweet potato tortilla chips and a some TJ’s plain Greek yogurt.

 

 

A few hours later, I was hungry for dinner. I was anxious to try these Applegate Farms Organic hot dogs.

I loved that I could eat two of these beef franks guilt-free.

I put them on a sandwich thin, but then didn’t want the second one, so I ate the hot dog bun-less.

I also had some butternut squash soup to warm me up.

For dessert, I had a banana with Sunbutter.

 

Hopefully you all stayed dry today wherever you are!

Fall Break Yummies

Hey guys, how have you all been? I’ve had so much yummy food over the fall break!

Thursday night dinner consisted of chicken, yellow squash, rice, and broccoli.

Then I made these delicious oatmeal bars. My mom got the recipe from a friend.

Chewy Oat Bars

3 tablespoons margarine or butter (I used Smart Balance)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon honey
1 1/2 cup quick cooking oats
1/8 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
2 tbsp. ground flax seed
Preheat oven to 375*F and spray or grease your pan. Cream margarine and sugar. Add honey, oats, salt, and cinnamon. Spread mixture evenly in pan. Bake for 17 minutes. While the bars are still warm use a knife or pizza cutter to cut into bars. Allow to cool before you serve.

These are my new obsession. The recipe only made 6, so I made more last night and added sliced almonds this time.

 

Friday, Mom took me to Trader Joe’s. She had her fall break, too, and so we decided to have a fun day and go out for lunch. We settled on lunch at Which Witch, a lovely little sandwich shop that has over 50 different warm sandwich options.

I got the chicken pesto sandwich with provolone cheese, lettuce, caramelized onions, and tomato. This is most definitely in the top 10 best sandwiches of my life.

After TJ’s, we also picked up this MaraNatha Organic No Stir Peanut Butter that I got a coupon for. I tried a little on a banana, and loved it. It’s so creamy and has an amazing flavor.

Friday night, I went over to Morgan’s house and we made pizza with Trader Joe’s whole wheat pizza crust.

I won a contest from Applegate Farms a couple weeks ago, and they sent a few discount coupons along with the prize. So I got some Applegate Farms Ham while at TJ’s.

I made a toasted ham and cheese sammie on a sandwich thin.

And leftover broccoli and rice on the side.

A delicious Saturday afternoon lunch.

There were a couple too many of these consumed over the weekend. So, so good!

After lunch, Mom and I went to paint pottery.

So many options!

 

I chose a purple theme.

That’s the bottom of the plate. I forgot to get a picture of the top.

 

Thanks for going with me, Mom! It was fun.

Last night’s dinner was one of my favorites—pasta with pesto and shrimp.

Roasted asparagus on the side.

This will most likely be our last batch of home made pesto of the year—so sad!

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It’s been such a fun weekend, but it’s time to get back to school and back to reality now.

I hope your Sunday is going great!