Bore fest.

The weather has been getting more and more nice out! It's sunny and all of the trees are starting to bloom. I LOVE spring!! Can't wait for the Cherry Blossom Festival :)

I packed my lunch/snacks to take with me to class. The sad thing about my final semester at UMD is that I have really bad professors right now. All of them. Bad. Also, now that I got into grad school and my GPA is secure I don't really care as much about these classes. That's probably not the best attitude to have, but it's true. Soooo, I occupy myself with eating and thinking about what I'm going to make for dinner and crossword puzzles.

Speaking of eating; I packed some edamame (very interesting to eat in class), Kashi 7 grain crackers, an apple, and an Apple Pie Lara Bar (one of my favorites now!).

My yoga class was kind of canceled today so that we could work on our little midterm projects (lame) so I did 30 minutes of Hip Opening Flow #2 on my own. Post yoga eats was a Peach Chobani with a little bit of Ambrosia Blend trail mix on top for texture.

I think that tonight's dinner is going to incorporate portobello mushrooms and tofu... we'll see :)

Fiber overload!

Morning, morning! I feel way more rested than yesterday, so I'm hoping for a much more productive day.

Breakfast was a bowl of oatmeal-- wanna try for the fiber overload today.

1/2 c. oats, 1/2 c. vanilla soy milk, 1/2 c. water, 1/2 banana, cinnamon, blueberries, walnuts, Cinnamon Raisin Swirl PB. Yummy. I feel the fullness!!

I also switched over to decaf tea today instead of my usual decaf coffee. It's good and I think I just need something to drink in the morning as a habit. But a fun habit!

This is a pretty short post because I need to do a few things before class! Have a wonderful Tuesday!!

Opening up.

Ahh the first Monday after my return has been conquered! I'm still easing back into the week and my school work, but I need to start working hard soon! And look how much the daffodils have opened up since this afternoon!!!

Dinner needed to be mindless because I am always too hungry to think too hard or prepare too much after I get back from class on Mondays. I decided on Annie's Whole Wheat Shells and White Cheddar and roasted brussels sprouts.

They didn't let me down. For some reason I have been hungry all day. Maybe not enough fiber? I always blame fiber. Tomorrow will have to be an improvement because I feel like I loaded up on stuff that I didn't need today (ie. Chai lattes and ice cream).

My back has also been hurting me, I think because of stress. I decided to do 20 minutes of Lunar Flow and I think it did the trick for the time being. I haven't done yoga for a couple days so I'm thinking that might be the reason for some muscle tension.

I also really wanted something sweet (of course) so I had a serving of Nature's Promise Vanilla Ice Cream. Full fat. Eeeek, I don't ever buy that. I stirred in about 1 T. of coconut flakes and a few butterscotch chips.

Yummm. In blog news:

The Hungry Yogini is giving away Barney Butter! Check it out!

I got an award from Dulcie of Daily Dulcie. Thanks, Dulcie!!

The rules are as follows:

List 7 things that you love, and then pass the award on to 7 bloggers that you love! Be sure to tag them and let them know that they have won. You can copy the picture of the award and paste it on your sidebar letting the whole world know…you are Kreativ!

7 Things that I love:

1. My family; they have always been there for me and they always will be :)
2. The BF; he's the best boyfriend that I could ever have asked for. Ever.
3. My education; I will be the first in my family to graduate from college and get a graduate degree.
4. FOOD; duh, but I do love it: cooking, eating, sampling, learning, EVERYTHING.
5. Helping others; I believe in doing good for others.
6. Cute animals; I like to pretend that the gushiness makes me sick, but I secretly love it.
7. The beach; I've lived there all my life and I don't know what a summer without it would be like.

I tag the following bloggers (I did more than 7):

• Lauren
• Becca
• Kelsey
• Emily
• Julie
• Lara
• Abbie
• Michelle
• Olga

These are some awesome ladies. I've appreciated everyone's comments as I've been starting up this blog. It really IS a community :)

Emily also gave me an award a while ago and I totally forgot to post it:


Thanks girl :)

OK, time for beddy and such. Good night!!

Grocery shopping therapy.

First off, thank you thank you thank you to everyone who commented or just allowed me to vent on my last post. I really appreciate the support :) I figured out a way to cheer myself up, because today was GROCERY DAY!!!

Kara's Grocery Trip
TRADER JOE'S:

• Canned garbonzo beans
• (3) Lara Bars
• Some daffodils (I decided to treat myself and liven up my desk)
• Baby spinach
• (3) bananas

GIANT:

• (2) Portobella mushroom caps
• Lite firm tofu
• (3) Fuji apples
• Scallions
• Tomato
• Brussels sprouts
• Sweet potato
• Avocado
• Vanilla ice cream
• Decaf English breakfast tea*
• Cinnamon Raisin Swirl PB(!!!)
• Kashi U Cereal
• Annie's Whole wheat and white cheddar shells
• Eggs
• (4) Chobani
• Kashi 7 grain rice pilaf*
• Blueberries

*on sale

Not everything is in the photo because one of my roommates was in the kitchen so I started to put some stuff away so I didn't look like a weirdo (my roommates don't know about the blog). I was surprised that I bought so little. Usually I have much bigger shopping trips. I do have a lot of things already that I need to use up, so I guess I was just keeping those things in mind.

And look at these gorgeous daffodils!! They've already started opening up since I got them home.

In between breakfast and lunch I had an apple and a Cashew Cookie Lara Bar, which is my favorite so far. I also got a tall soy Chai because I was exhausted.

I am TRYING to stay away from caffeine as much as possible, but I really wanted some this morning.

Lunch was a salad of baby spinach, baby carrots, cukes, blueberries, feta, and balsamic vinaigrette.

AND a half sandwich of just whole grain bread and CINNAMON RAISIN PEANUT BUTTER.

I have been holding myself back from buying any more nut butter until I use some up (I now have 4 open jars...) but I can only resist for so long. And it was so worth it. I didn't get any raisins in this one, but it was delicious and had great texture. Also has less calories than regular peanut butter. Hmmmm.

Blog news:
Be sure to check out julie golean's giveaway of some of her favorite things! I love her blog and I think this giveaway is awesome!

I need to get some things together for my evening class at 4pm. It's my least favorite class, but I'll probably bring my computer with me and occupy myself. Shhhh :) Have a good rest of your day!

Up and down.

The past 24 hours have felt like a roller coaster. Besides the fact that I left home and the BF's yesterday and was pretty bummed about it, I got my letter of acceptance from the other grad school (the one that I'm leaning towards going to) when I got back to CP. So of course I'm really excited about getting in, but I'm also pretty stressed out about the life decisions that I'm going to have to make soon. It's pretty scary that I'll be pretty much out on my own after this summer. I spent the whole night looking through the 2 different schools' websites and thinking about all of my options. I hate being stressed like this, especially when it keeps me from getting quality sleep. I'm so happy, but I'm also so nervous.

Anyways, eats have been pretty good and today should be getting back on track in the health department. I surprisingly didn't gain any weight while I was home, so I must have been doing better than I thought. I was totally feeling what Lara @ Thinspired said about either being "on or off" with healthy eating. I just need to be on again.

Breakfast yesterday was made by the BF. I had 2 scrambled eggs with a slice of toast with spread.

And a thin slice of Mom's banana bread :)

Yesterday was the BF's mom's birthday so we went over to his sister's house for a little celebration. I didn't take pics because they all don't know about the blog yet and I didn't want to start that conversation yet. But I had 2 slices of pizza and a smallish slice of caramel cheesecake.

I hit the road at about 7pm last night. It takes me 2 hours to get to CP from his house, so I always like to have some snacks available. I had an apple and a bag of Honey Cashews from the new Royal Farms that just opened. They kind of tasted like Cracker Jacks.

At home was a late dinner consisting of an Amy's burrito.

I have been wanting to try these for a long time and finally bought one on sale. It was a little bit of a let down. It was good, but I was expecting more of a contrast in flavors. I would probably still buy them again.

This morning was a little bit of a change up. I had a mini cinnamon raisin bagel with cream cheese and an Oikos with ambrosia blend trail mix.

I feel like I'm not going to stay full for very long, though. I need to go grocery shopping today and hopefully I can fit everything in our fridge since my roommates have it pretty full right now. I'm going to try to de-stress, but that can be hard for me sometimes. I just hope that I can get through this week without too many bumps.

Slow and steady.

I'm a little eager to get back into the swing of a routine. The last couple of shifts that I've had at work have felt like a taste of summer and I just want to finish out this year and get into something new :) I miss the beach so much!

I can't believe that I only have 1 day to write about! Go me! I had work again this morning and I was pretty happy with the steadiness of customers that we had. Everyone else felt like it was slow, but I was just happy to be making money.

Before work I had some oatmeal (Oats, milk, water, 1/2 banana, cinnamon, vanilla, granola, raisins, almond butter).

I wish that I had known more about fiber in the previous summers that I worked there. I used to always get hungry as soon as I got to work, but I was fine until about 2pm.

Lunch was half good and half splurge. I had a veggie sub (lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, hot peppers, sweet peppers, provolone and oil+vinegar) with some onion rings.

I thought that I wouldn't be able to finish it all, but I guess I was hungrier than I thought I was. Before the end of my shift I had a Hawaiian Delight malt (vanilla ice cream with pineapples, bananas, and cherries). It'll be quite awhile until I get this ice cream again, so it was well worth it. Monday goes back to "normal" eating for me!

I had dinner with my parents tonight and my mom made awesome eggplant parmesan with pasta and a french baguette.

She also made banana bread from some bananas I snagged from work, so I had to get a piece of that before I leave tonight. I love my mom's cooking :)

I still need to do some packing and then I'm heading up to the BF's house. Hope your Saturday night is great!

Finding your pattern.

It's so much harder to stay in a flow when I'm not at school. I really hope that after I graduate I can keep up with my regular updates. It's all about finding a pattern, I guess.

I've gotten in some awesome food in the past couple of days! I love being home. Everything in College Park is a chain.

Yesterday for dinner we had Pepper's Tavern. They advertise as a "5 star dive" and that's a pretty spot-on description. It's really seedy inside and a lot of locals hang out there. The food is awesome. I almost always get the fish tacos with rice and beans, which is what I got last night (sorry about the fuzzy pic; I forgot my camera).

We were in a rush because we went to a play at my old high school, but it was still good. They have the hottest wings on earth. Seriously. I've had a lot of wings, and these are ridiculous.

Dessert was 2 Pepperidge Farm Chocolate Chip Cookies with milk. Gotta have the milk.

Today, similar to every other day this week, started with oatmeal (oats, skim, water, banana, cinnamon, splenda, vanilla, granola, blueberries, almond butter) and 20 minutes of yoga.

Lunch was from another one of my favorites: Mione's. I got a slice of the white pizza, which has ricotta, broccoli, tomatoes, and basil.

So awesome. I also had a couple of bites of The BF's Margarita pizza, which was equally good. His slice of pepperoni was mediocre.

Then I had work at Dumser's, which meant that I didn't have a lot of healthy food options. Which meant that I decided to give into the fryers and got some chicken tenders and fries.

I ate about 3/4 of that. A few hours later I had a small scoop of coconut chocolate chip ice cream with hot fudge. Yumm. But I definitely felt the effects of the fatty foods later on in the shift. I felt tired and draggy and slow. Blech.

Need to go to bed because I have work tomorrow, too. Have a great weekend!!

Excitement is in the eye of the beholder.

The most "exciting" things that have happened since my last post were making dinner and watching the new episodes of South Park and Important Things with Demetri Martin. I put that in quotes because not doing nothing IS pretty exciting for me :)

I'll start with dinner last night. Pizza was originally on the menu, but for some reason our lunch yesterday kept us really full all night. A lot of protein, I guess.

We had been talking about a restaurant that doesn't exist anymore that used to be one of my favorite places to eat. Period. It was called Mad Hatter's and they had the most amazing sandwiches, sweets, and coffee. I went there as often as possible until they suddenly closed about a year ago. So sad. One of their awesome sandwiches was called The Dodo, and we decided to replicate it last night.

It's really easy to make and a huge treat! In the sandwich:

• 2 slices multigrain bread
• peanut butter (we used crunchy)
• sliced banana
• honey
• raisins
• granola

I need to admire it a little more.

Ok. Done. Today has been another slow eating day, due to late awakening and a big breakfast. Tried something a little different today though: Gingerbread Waffles.

Ingredients (for about 4 waffles):

• 2 cups pancake/waffle mix
• 1 c. water
• 1/4 c. mollases
• 1 t. pumpkin pie spice
• 1/3 c. oil

Mix together and use waffle iron according to its directions. We had them with smart balance and syrup and they were very rich and good. Sweet, though and I haven't been hungry since.

I'll be back at my house before I know it, with my standard eats and my normal eating/workout schedule. But I like this right now :)

Bizarro world.

I feel like I'm in a parallel universe. The sun is still out and I've gotten to walk around for a long time without it being freezing. I'm also no where near hungry for dinner. Breaks are weird. But awesome.

The BF and I did 20 minutes of Hip Opening Flow and then set out (finally!) for our walk! We went down to the boardwalk and walked about 4 miles all day (along with some window shopping at the outlets). There are good and bad things about Ocean City in the winter. Good: There are no tourists and town is quiet. Bad: Nothing is open. Which meant that we ran into a few closed restaurants that we wanted to eat at for lunch.

In the midst of searching, we picked up some Cinnamon Crunch Almonds from The Nut House. We love this place in the summer because the smell wafts all the way down the boardwalk. These are so good :)

We finally settled on Fat Daddy's. Their food is good, but overpriced. It's really popular with locals because they stay open really late.

I got a Dirt Burger, which was a veggie burger with lettuce, cucumbers, hummus, and provolone on multigrain.

We also split a small basket of fries.

Not sure what's going on for the rest of the night. I'm going to be sorry for saying this, but I think I might be creeping up on boredom. Eeek!

Changes of plans.

I had one of those days yesterday when all of my plans didn't really end up happening. We had been planning on going on a walk and then going out to a bar for dinner, but then the whole broke college student thing set in, so we didn't. I'm fine with it. I'm not a big drinker so it wasn't absolutely necessary for us to go out last night. And we still had good food!

During the day was a nice snack-grazing:

Nibbles off of my mom's Texas Sheet Cake.

Coconut Cream Pie Lara Bar, my LEAST favorite flavor so far. I almost didn't finish it. This was surprising because I love coconut and I've seen this flavor pop up on a lot of blogs. Oh well. I also split a Banana Bread one with the BF later and that one was much better :)

Apple.

Dinner was not only an excuse to go to Harris Teeter, but a way to get some cooking in and try to save some money. Granted, we made crab cakes so we were still being a little pricey, but it was fun!

The Harris Teeter near us is still pretty far away- probably about a 20-25 min drive at least, but it's fun and it's the only "special" grocery store in the area (no Whole Foods or Trader Joe's!). We loaded up on some ingredients and then came home and got cooking.

We started off with some Take and Bake wheat rolls (I had 1).

And then the main meal, which consisted of crab cakes, roasted brussels sprouts (there's my green!), and basil and garlic couscous.

Yummy! I wanted to make a Maryland-style crab cake, so I based these off of this recipe, but used crushed crackers instead of bread crumbs and Old Bay instead of mustard powder. Also, I would never shred the crab meat. The best crab cakes have lump crab meat in them!
We also had a discussion about whether or not the oven door needs to be open while using the broiler. Anyone have some insight?

Dessert was a frozen mini Snickers.

Today looks a lot nicer in the weather department. Hoping to get outside and get some activity in. Breakfast was back to oatmeal!

In the bowl:

• 1/2 c. oats, 1/2 c. water, 1/2 c. skim, 1/2 banana
• vanilla
• cinnamon
• crumbled Kashi Oatmeal Raisin Flax cookie
• Almond Butter.

I know that this is going to carry me through to my next meal a lot better than everything else has been!

Alright, have a great day! Thanks for commenting and putting up with my lack of posting :)

Happy St. Patty's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Break is still proving to be pretty laid back. Totally don't remember my alarm going off this morning... and it really doesn't matter if I sleep in because I have nothing to do. I love it!!

Yesterday I opted for the snack and dinner option. I snacked on an apple in the late afternoon to hold me over:

We went to dinner at Bull on the Beach because we just wanted to get sandwiches. They have really good turkey. And apparently their pit beef is awesome, but I don't eat too much meat so I wouldn't know.

That's a hot turkey sandwich on a Kaiser roll with fries. I also doused that thing in barbecue sauce. Yumm.

After some aimless walking around the outlets and some yearning over guinea pigs at Petco, we headed up to the movie theatres to see He's Just Not That Into You. It was cute, and we were the only people in the theatre. Gustl kept saying I look like Ginnifer Goodwin, mostly because of my hair I guess. We split a small popcorn and I had Twizzlers, a couple of Gustl's Starburst and a couple of Cadbury mini eggs (my favorite!!).

This morning/afternoon I wanted to make something themed with St. Patty's so I used the Irish Soda Bread to make french toast.

With smart balance and syrup. Not sure what we're getting into today. I want to go out tonight to an Irish bar, but I'm not sure what else.

Check out Thinspired to win some British bars! Those would be awesome! Have a great day!

Listen up.

It's almost 4pm. I have accomplished two things today: eating breakfast and doing an hour of yoga. I think my parents must think that I schlep around all the time since whenever I'm home I sleep in and do nothing, but I really do stuff when I'm not on break! Promise.

After waking up, it was time to take advantage of my mom's waffle iron.

Waffles with smart balance and syrup. Which have pretty much kept me full for the past 4 hours or so. I never know whether to eat lunch on days like this or just snack and eat dinner later. Probably the latter.

After waiting a while for the waffles to settle, Gustl and I did 60 minutes of Heart Opening Flow. Glad to do it, since more activity might not be in the cards today. The weather isn't looking so great.

I didn't do yoga yesterday, mostly because of work. But I'm also kind of glad to give my body a break half way through the challenge. I know that the challenge is to do yoga everyday, but yoga is also about honoring and listening to your body, so I need to stay true to that.

Who knows what the rest of the day has in store!

Game of catch up!

Yikes there's been quite the hiatus! I've been enjoying my first weekend off for break, but I've been wanting to catch up here! It's still kind of nice that I've been away from technology for the most part. I think I'll be a little more able to catch up this week because I'll be around the computer more.

Friday night:

Waiting for Gustl and our friend James to come up for the concert, I snacked on a Cranbran Vitamuffin (seen here in it's partially eaten state...):

Once they got up to CP and we got settled, we decided that we should probably get something pretty fast so we could get to the club when the doors opened. This meant going to one of my guilty pleasures:

Chick-fil-A tenders and waffle fries. Yummm. I try not to eat fried foods very much, but I'll make exceptions :)

The concert was fun. REALLLLY LONG. Modest Mouse didn't go on until midnight and we didn't get to sleep until 3! Yikes. Needless to say, my sleep pattern has been pretty weird.

Saturday:

In the morning/afternoon, I decided to make everyone breakfast. I made banana flax pancakes with smart balance and maple syrup. Totally forgot to take a picture until I gobbled them up, but trust me, they looked like pancakes ;)

Stopped in Annapolis at Whole Foods to get a few ingredients that we can't find on the good ole eastern shore. I picked up some Lara Bars to hold me over for the week and ate the Pecan Pie one on the ride home.

I also picked up some freshly baked Irish Soda Bread and had some at home. This is both mine and Gustl's pieces.

This is really good bread. Nice and dense and chewy.

Gustl made dinner from this recipe in Men's Health for Chile Chicken and Basil.

It was amazingly spicy, so I'm glad that I had the multigrain baguette to cut some of the heat. It was really good though, as long as you can take the heat!

Finished off the night with Stonyfield Farms Vanilla Frozen Yogurt.

I've been dieing to try this, but I wasn't too impressed. The texture wasn't great, and the vanilla flavor was a little off. I might try the other flavors, but probably not unless they're on sale.

Sunday:

Today I worked all day at the restaurant where I work at home. During the day I was making sundaes and at night I was waitressing. It's a fun job, and I seriously feel like I'll be working there forever. I've been there since I was 17 and always seem to get some shifts in when I'm home.

Breakfast at my parents' house was Irish Soda Bread. One slice was with crunchy peanut butter and one with almond butter.

With an apple on the side. This kept me full for a long time. I've been loving big breakfasts :)

Lunch at Dumser's was a turkey sandwich on wheat toast with lettuce, tomato, pickles, sweet peppers, hot peppers, and mustard.

Not a whole lot of excitement at work. Just catching up with everyone.

Dinner was pulled chicken barbecue with green beans and macaroni and cheese.

Not a whole lot of healthy food at the Dum's. And homemade ice cream doesn't help. I had a mini chocolate malt, one of my favorites. I also had a little bit of my mom's Texas Sheetcake when I got home.

Now I'm just relaxing and ready for the rest of the week. I hope the weather gets nicer! I've done yoga every day, but I'd like to get some action in outside. Have a good week!