Uuuuugh

This is how I feel today. Like a slug. Why oh why can my butt not become unglued from the couch?

I am starting to worry about what I will be like when I have a real job. You know, the same old routine day in and day out for years upon years…yikes, now I get how people become overweight and don’t see it coming. That monotony,  the same thing, waiting for the weekend, only for it to come and leave me sitting here like a loaf of white bread. Just blahhh.

Maybe I just need coffee? I can’t even bring myself to post pictures because I feel that lazy. Yup, I am a squishy loaf of Wonder bread. Do they call it “wonder” bread because it makes you wonder whats really in it? Food for thought…

On another note, I ran a 5k yesterday with one of my best friends and two other fabulous ladies. It was my bestie’s first road race, and she did great! I finished with a time of 30:45, which I was pretty happy with since A. I know I am not fast. and B. I haven’t been regularly running because these past couple weeks have been crazy school-wise. The entire 3.1 miles felt light, easy, and energetic. I talked with my new friend Michelle for the whole last half, and it was nice to keep my mind off of what I was doing.

It really made me miss my running buddy.

Last spring, I met this crazy girl at the gym. She ended up becoming a really close friend, and the best running buddy ever. I was used to doing my workouts solo, but it was so nice to have someone there, encouraging me, and keeping my mind off of the repetitiveness. Because of her, I started to like running for more than just the fact that it made me look good. She got me to do my first 10K race, which made me realize how much I want to do a half-marathon. It is crazy what a good running bud can do for you.

Do you have a running buddy/workout  buddy? What have they helped you accomplish?

 

Genessee Royale

I went to Genessee Royale with my Mom for lunch today:

Genessee Royale is a small restaurant located in the West Bottoms area of Kansas City, Missouri (aka not a good place to go at certain times of the day, but totally fine for breakfast/lunch time) They turned what used to be an old gas station into this:

and this:

I fell in love with this place before I even ordered my food. I want them to decorate my future house someday. And I probably liked it because many of their decorations seemed to come from Anthropologie (notice those hooks on the ladder? Totally Anthropologie. I’m not obsessed or anything…), a store which I love but can sadly not afford. If only I could live there…

The menu included items that are familiar, with a hint of something new, like the butternut squash soup with brioche croutons we started with.

I need to find a recipe for this stuff–holy yum. It was perfect.

We ordered sandwiches and traded halves for our main course. For me, the farmhouse style grilled cheese with an apple slaw. For my Mom,

(On a side not, doesn’t she look pretty? I think so.)

the slowly cooked Boyle’s corned beef sandwich with aged gruyere, brussels sprouts and hot mustard.

Here’s my plate with half of both sandwiches, apple slaw, and more hot mustard for dipping. The brussels sprouts were actually pretty good, although they would have been better if they were cut smaller. Overall, this meal was a win, and could only get better with…..Dessert!

A chocolate chip walnut cookie that was nice, and then……

The most amazing rum cake ever!!!

And that is saying something, because I usually don’t consider anything without chocolate worthy of being called dessert. Oh my was this good. Perfectly sweet, buttery, and melt in your mouth. Now I’m drooling.

It was so nice to spend time with my mom, catching up, talking about the future, and talking about recipes we have recently tried and what not. I love that about my mom, we can talk food for hours and never get bored.

So, the moral of this post is: If you ever come to Kansas City, which, lets face it, many of you will not because no one really comes here unless they live here or have family that lives here, you need to go to Genessee Royale and get some delicious food. I promise, Kansas City is not in the boonies, there are things to do here (like eat!!!), and we don’t have southern accents. Actually, we have very neutral accents. Ok, most of us.

Just eat here.

My weekend started out with some of this: Whole-wheat pizza dough from Trader Joe’s because I was feeling too lazy to make it myself, topped with marinara, chicken, onion, mushrooms, bell pepper, and mozzarella. Yummm.

I added in a little of this for the win: Kennebrunkport Brewing Company’s Pumpkin Ale. I liked this beer. I also found this at Trader Joe’s, and thought it had more of a pumpkin spice taste than the blue moon pumpkin beer I have tried in the past. I think I am a little obsessed with everything pumpkin right now though, and I know I’m not the only one…

Saturday was Mike and I’s anniversary. By that I mean our monthly anniversary, because we are nerds and like to celebrate our relationship every month. So lame but so awesome. We had a lovely time together, making risotto with chicken, bacon, onions, mushrooms, and parmesan, and a side of greek-style salad. I can’t forget the Old Amsterdam gouda, either, that stuff is ohsogood, and some merlot to set it all off. So I am not the best photographer, but it was really tasty. More tasty than the picture…

This morning I went to breakfast with my friend Tayler, and had a great time catching up and snarfing cheesy eggs and breakfast potatoes. I love breakfast.

Time to finish up the night with some of my favorite shows:

 (source)    (source)

I don’t know why I like such macabre shows. I promise there is nothing wrong with me. Mostly.

Mike and I are going to watch them with our friends Garrett and Emily, who also like screwed up creepy shows. See, we’re not the only ones.

What did you do this weekend? Do you like any shows that are somewhat controversial?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

It has been quite a while since I last posted, and undoubtedly much has changed in my life since then. I made a huge decision this past week, one that was difficult and scary, but I now feel so excited for the future I used to dread…

I changed my major.

You might call me crazy–I had only one more semester of classes to go before my music therapy internship. But I just could not shake the feeling that I have been on the wrong path for the past three and a half years. After two years in the music therapy program, I told my parents I was thinking of changing my major to something geared towards food or nutrition, but I talked myself out of it, deeming it impossible and too time consuming. I am a stubborn person, and told myself I was just scared because some of my classes were difficult.

For the past 3+ years, I have felt like a complete phony, like everyone around me was so passionate about music therapy (and don’t get me wrong, I do believe it is a very effective way of helping people) and I was just along for the ride. I never participated in clubs associated with my degree, I didn’t even go to the music therapy conference held in my OWN CITY. If that doesn’t say something, I don’t know what does.

It finally all became clear to me this past week when a friend and fellow music therapy student told me about changing her major to a bachelor of arts in music. I realized that if I did this, I wouldn’t be set back too far class-wise, since many of my music courses would transfer degrees. I read about what it takes to be a registered dietitian, and I researched schools and programs. I soul-searched, talked to my friends and family, and finally came to the conclusion that this was what I really wanted to do.

So I switched. I will have to take many elective courses which I will now gear towards getting into a dietetics program. I will have to take 17-18 hours for two more semesters, and will have to take 9-12 hours of classes next summer. But you know what?

I feel like this is one of the best decisions of my life. I feel free. Like this weight on my shoulders just disappeared, and that happy, energetic, soulful girl I used to know and be is back in my body again, replacing the scared, mousy one from before.

I feel alive again.

What kind of decisions have you had to make that were scary/difficult? How do you feel about it now?

Aixois

I don’t even know where to begin except to say that it was 102* here in Kansas City today. Days like this make me wish I lived in Alaska.

Since my dad broke his ankle last week and can’t work until it is better, he and my mom treated me to lunch at Aixois today. Aixois is a little french cafe/restaurant south of downtown Kansas City, and everything I have tried there has been amazing! Today was no different.

I ordered the french onion soup

And a salad that had shrimp, avocado, grapefruit, and lots of other things I can’t remember

Aixois never disappoints.

Neither does the weekend.

I can’t wait.

Chicken Sausage and Spaghetti Squash

Happy Wednesday! Where has the week gone already?

After a nice 4 mile run today (I am trying to build my mileage back up so I can do some road races soon!) and some weights involving my arms and back, I was starrrrving. I needed something healthful, but also delicious, and let me tell you, I made something tasty.

Before I give you the low down on dinner, here are some of this week’s eats:

Turkey sandwhich, apple, veggies, luna, greek yogurt (green lid) with mango butter, oats and cashews, and tomato soup (in the blue greek yogurt container)

This was lunch and dinner yesterday. Here’s my smoothie from today:

I used these ingredients to make it:

Minus the ice cubes, plus some unpictured frozen raspberries

This was the first time I used my bag of Sunwarrior protein powder, and I have sort of mixed feelings about it. I have read about it on so many blogs, and seen so many smoothies and bowls of breakfast cookie dough with this stuff in it, and it always looked so good.

I really want to like this protein powder, especially because I paid a pretty penny for it. Sunwarrior is just too chalky for my taste, and the texture is too odd in breakfast cookie dough (which is one of my favorite breakfast/anytime foods.) It did, however, make my mango raspberry smoothie taste, oddly enough, like lucky charms marshmallows! The chalkiness somehow fit the same texture of those little charms, so it was a little easier to eat than the breakfast cookie dough I had this morning.

Lunch was much better. I kept it light since I was going to run afterwards.

Spinach salad with tomato, cucumber, red onion, goat cheese, and home made balsamic vinaigrette; gigantic nectarine, and my mom's rosemary french bread. Yumm.

And now, the recipe I am so proud of:

Sauteed vegetables with chicken sausage and spaghetti squash

It doesn’t look quite as pretty as it tastes here, but this was delicious.

I started out by cutting the spaghetti squash in half and scooping out all of the seeds. I then lined a baking sheet with foil, seasoned the squash with a little salt and crushed red pepper, and then put the seasoned sides face down on the sheet. I cooked it for 50 minutes (I will probably try 45 minutes next time, it was a little too roasted) at 450*.

While the squash was roasting, I chopped up some red and white onion, bell pepper, tomatoes, and chicken sausage. I sauteed the vegetables in olive oil:

Waiting on that spaghetti squash led to some PB and honey snackage...and a really weird face...

I seasoned the vegetables with garlic powder, salt, pepper, oregano, and just enough crushed red pepper to give it some kick. Then I added the chicken sausage.

After a few minutes, it was ready!

When the squash was finished baking, I used a fork to shred it, then put it in the bottom of a bowl as my noodles. I put the veggie/sausage mixture on top, and it was ready to eat. Just spicy enough and full of flavor, this was the perfect dinner.

 

What is your perfect dinner? 

Batman boats and carpal tunnel

One week of classes down…a lot more to go. I thought I would have all sorts of free time last week, and man was I wrong.

Part of being a Music Therapy student is of course learning music. On guitar. On piano. Singing. Ahhhhhhh. All the songs, all the keys, all the practicing. I have decided that playing instruments and singing is a workout because my arms and hands and fingers feel like they are going to fall off. I practiced for five hours today, and I am pretty sure carpal tunnel has set in. At least I got to go to the lake this weekend!

Take a look at this crazy awesome boat….duh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh……BATMAN!

The Lake of the Ozarks sounds kind of like it is in the boonies. And if you thought that you are mostly right. It is also absolutely beautiful though, and a lot of fun. We watched speed boat races (which is where I saw Batman boat in all his glory), and went tubing:

And thank God you can’t see this one very well. I would be the one on the left. Soooo nerdy.

There was also some wake boarding, and some of this:

Bonus points to whoever can guess what that is….

I also managed to cut my right leg. Somehow, I cut it every time I go to the lake.

If you look to the bottom right corner, you can see the four-inch long scar from the last time I cut my leg there by falling off a dock. Now observe the new cut (thanks to a boat prop) on my right knee. It is pretty much inevitable.

I will leave you with a yummy and quick dinner I made the other night.

A tasty egg scramble with spinach, corn, bell pepper, turkey, gouda, onion, and TJ’s spicy black bean dip on top ( I know you were wondering what the heck that gross brown blob was).

What did you do this weekend?

When it rains…

It pours.

It’s been a messy couple of days…….

First, let me tell you that I had every intention of writing a post yesterday, and then this happened:

Well, that’s just a photo from Google Images, but it properly illustrates what happened to my poor Dad late Saturday night. He tried to help someone carry things to their sailboat this weekend (Oh I didn’t tell you, he’s an ornery old sailor. In a land locked state. For real.) by walking down a steep grassy hill. He was wearing a beat-up pair of sandals, and there was a lot of dew on the grass.

Needless to say, my dad slipped and fell, narrowly escaped landing on and subsequently killing a hairless Chinese dog that he was carrying, and broke his ankle. He broke both bones and tore a ligament.

My dad was in surgery today. He had 11 screws placed in his bones, but he made sure to be his ornery old self before and after the procedure. That’s my dad alright.

 

On top of that whole debacle, I had problems of my own today.

My car started to misbehave. I was in line for a stop sign, and when the cars in front of me moved forward, I lightly touched my gas pedal to do the same. Only my car stalled and then went the opposite direction, almost hitting the person behind me. Was my car in reverse, you ask? No. It was in drive. Peculiar….

So I hightailed my defiant car to the shop, where they told me I must have hit something (doesn’t ring a bell), because my transmission fluid was leaking. Hence the car acting like it was in neutral when really it was in drive. Ieeeyieeeyiee.

Now that I have that all off my chest, how about some food and workout stuff? Anybody? Bueller?

Ahh, there we go.

I tried out some Green Monster tips from Katie over at peaceloveandoats, and I can officially say that I have found a way to enjoy this smoothie without tasting the spinach!!

This smoothie in particular was really good. I sliced up one of my peaches from the farmer’s market, added a scoop of vanilla whey protein powder, 1/4 cup of skim milk, 1/2 cup spinach, and two ice cubes. I tried starting small with the spinach, to ease myself into the whole idea. It worked. This smoothie tastes like peaches and cream, yumm!

Lunch for the day (packed for the first day of my last year of college!!):

One peaches and cream smoothie (for post-workout fuel), spinach salad with cucumber, bell pepper, tomatoes, turkey, herbed goat cheese, and home made balsamic vinaigrette, whole-wheat pita, hummus, and carrots.

I devoured that food. And my body needed it after the workout I did today.

Since I have access to weight machines again (and I have no clue what I’m doing with free weights), I decided that I want to incorporate 2-3 weights sessions a week into my workouts. I had a good one today that worked on legs, abs, and a little lower back, followed by 20 minutes of cardio on my favorite Cybex machine.

For the weights, I did three sets of 12 reps on 30 pounds for each machine: Leg curl, leg extension, abductor, adductor, glutes, leg press, lower back, rotary torso,  and total abdominal. I could feel the burn and I liked it.

What is your favorite way to do weights? Have you ever broken a bone?

I like the machines (for now), and I broke my right pinky at the growth plate in the fifth grade. Ouch.

City Market and Hummus

I woke up early this morning to go to the City Market, Kansas City’s largest central farmer’s market.  I started the day off with some hazelnut coffee and an english muffin with raspberry jelly, a slice of gouda, and an egg that I nuked in the microwave (inspired by PBFinger’s cheese and jelly bagelwiches).

An apple was also enjoyed on the side. I can’t wait until fall when apples are at their best!!

After my trip here I brought home all of this for less than 30 dollars!

 

 

 

Aren’t those colors just gorgeous? The end of summer is my favorite time for farmer’s market food because it all looks and tastes incredible. I ate one of the peaches after putting everything away, and juice was running down my face and hands like a peachy massacre. Mmmmmm.

I don’t know if you noticed that little bag of whole wheat pita bread in the back of that City Market loot, but I can’t wait to eat it. I bought it at Al Habashi Mart, a little ethnic food store in the market area, and it was still warm on the rack. It inspired me (along with yesterday’s post about saving money by making your own food) to make some fresh hummus. My aunt gave me this recipe a while ago, and I altered it a bit to fit my taste.

Aunt Andie’s Hummus (WILAF Style)

Ingredients:

1 Can garbanzo beans (chickpeas)

1/4 C lemon juice

2 Cloves of garlic (or more to taste)

1/4 C olive oil

2 T tahini

Pinch of salt

Drain and rinse your garbanzo beans and add put them in a blender.

Add in your lemon juice (it tastes best when the juice is fresh).

Next add in olive oil, garlic, tahini, and salt.

Now blend, blend, blend!

If it looks chunky like this, add more olive oil until it reaches a smoother consistency. Or keep it chunky if that’s your style.

Finished product in container with an extra olive oil drizzle:And if (unlike me) you are really patient, you can try using roasted garlic instead of fresh for a more deep bodied flavor, or charring a red bell pepper and blending in the flesh for a smokier taste. Have fun, and be creative!

This stuff is good. Really good. Especially with a squishy, freshly toasted piece of pita bread. Thank you Mr. Al Habashi.

 

 

I wish every day were grocery day…

I woke up this morning absolutely starving, so I made myself a bowl of these:

Not the prettiest bowl of oats in the world, but they are mine so I will love them just the same.

Looking through my pantry and refrigerator made me realize just how badly I need to go grocery shopping. Lucky for me, grocery shopping is one of my absolute favorite activities. Everrr.…I write my grocery list at least a week ahead, and then revise it one or two times because something I want but don’t need sneaks on there. It reminds me of the mothers you see at the grocery store who have yet to notice the three boxes of fruity pebbles their kid hid in their cart. I guess I am my own relentless four year old.

Really though, I revise my list so many times because I am a college student, and although I have some form of monetary support, it helps me manage my money better when I shop within a budget. After a few years of shopping like this, I have learned many things about shopping smarter (without having to cut out coupons all day), so I thought I would share them with you.

1. Shop in bulk.

      

There are a few things that I eat a lot of throughout the week such as spinach and baby carrots. Because I know I will inevitably have to make more than one trip to a regular grocery store if I buy normal sizes of these items, I buy them in bulk. It ends up being cheaper in the long run, and keeps my budget in its place. Buying bread in bulk is great, also, because you can freeze whatever you don’t need for the week and it will come out perfectly fresh and delicious whenever you pull it out again.

2. Shop before you leave your house.

I recently discovered that you can look up the prices of many food items from your local grocery store online and compare prices on other websites. In doing this, i found that spinach and bananas are cheaper at Sam’s than at Hy-vee, and that one brand of organic skim milk is over a dollar cheaper at Hy-Vee than the kind I was going to buy in bulk at Sam’s. For some reason, it ends up being less overwhelming to compare prices online than when you are in the store and some cranky person is about to run  you over with their cart.

3. Hit up the farmer’s market!

                    

Ahh the City Market of Kansas City. I love this place. Need I count the reasons?

Buying fresh local produce, is without a doubt, wonderful because not only are you getting better quality food, you are also helping local farmers. I didn’t have to tell you that though.

Another reason I love the farmer’s market is the prices. Produce is always sooo much cheaper here, and of higher quality and flavor than grocery store produce. It is best to do a quick walk through all of the stalls and check on prices, and then go back to the stands that look like they will give you the best deal.

And don’t forget to always bring cash. Always.

4. Last but not least, make your own food.

There are some items that are easy to buy pre-made at the grocery store, yet are just as easy to whip up at home.

For example, hummus. 

Hummus usually rings in between 3 and five dollars at the grocery store. Now that is just fine, and I have bought it many a time, but when I am really stretched budget-wise I buy a can of chickpeas for around a dollar, a lemon for 25 cents, some garlic for a dollar or less, and use the tahini from the jar in my fridge to whip up a fresh batch of delicious hummus. That leaves you with up to two and a half dollars more in your pocket. And those dollars add up over time.

I know this only hits the tip of the iceberg as far as saving money on groceries, but these four rules have helped me spend much less money in the long run. I hope they can do the same for you as well!

How do you save money when grocery shopping?