Category Archives: 4 mile run

Spring in my step

I am so sorry I didn’t include a P for Pixie yesterday!  So, I will make up for that.  I think she is more popular than I am……..

It is a glorious pre-Spring day.  I knew I wanted to run outside, but not until later so I slept in until 7:15!  Yay!  Felt pretty good, too.   I wanted protein waffles today, but with a different topping:

This was an apple cooked in a tsp of butter, 1 tsp of brown sugar, an SL of cinnamon, and about a tbsp of water.  I put a lid on the frying pan and let it steam a little bit.  Yum.  I might do more water next time and thicken it up to make a sauce.

Got to work early today while waiting for the temps to rise.  It was 26 degrees this morning, but low 50s this afternoon!  Woo Hoo!  Protein snack mid morning:

Here is a gratuitous Pixie pic.  John is playing with her:

Lunch time!  I had the last can of tuna today.  Officially tired of tuna, and this can has been here for a few weeks.

Nom, nom!  After digesting for a while, I got ready to run.  Hello vitamin D!

I’m not exactly sure what this pose is supposed to be.  I kind of look like a weathervane.  Did 4 miles today.  Felt pretty good except for mile 3, where I started to get tired, but I was running into a headwind.

Check out what else I spy with my little eye:

This made me dance around with joy!  These are the black and white tulips coming up.  Gonna be time to trim back and clean out the garden.  Happy, happy!  You all know how I love my garden 😀

After the run, I needed a snack:

Lattes make me happy.  I thank whatever Ethiopian goat chewed on the first coffee beans so that I can have this cup.

Dinner time and I had a frozen crabcake.  I baked it in the toaster oven (although I secretly long to deep fry it).   ….insert peanut eating here…

Brussels with cranberries and clementines round it out.  I was so paranoid slicing the brussel sprouts because I did a report today where someone sliced off the end of their thumb with a mandolin.  One of those reports that make your toes curl while typing it up. 😯

Tomorrow is the wearin’ of the green!  I need to think of some kind of green food to make for St Patty’s Day.  We have an Irish family!

I need to put something green on Pixie, too.  Bet she would love that.

My mom is coming over tonight, so we can pawn off some chocolate on her LOL!  I think tea and chocolate sounds like a good night tonight.

Question:  What is your heritage?

Peeps are the sure sign of spring

Woke up this morning and figured I would run outside today, so I ate breakfast first.  Custard banana oats!

Yum.  We sat and goofed around on the computers for a long time this morning and then when I looked up to run – it was sprinkling outside!  It looked like it would pass, so we waited a little bit and went out.  It was windy and cold.  Hit up the track, where I did 4 miles and John did 3.  Here is me finished.

Don’t be fooled by that smile.  What I really was thinking was “Who’s idea was this, anyway??”  I even voiced that to John a couple times, to which he said “We already established that it was your idea.” 😳

Came home and had a quick protein snack of powder mixed with water and some almond butter (really dry almond butter) before showering.

While getting ready, John asked if I wanted to go shopping! Was I going to say ‘no’?? I don’t think so!  We headed out to Saratoga Springs and the mall down there.  Stopped at Esperanto for a quick lunch.  They just remodeled and the place is a lot nicer.  Very local feeling:

Here I am all cleaned up.

And my hot date (he has windblown hair):

I had the beans and rice dish.

It was quite good, but a lot of food! I only ate about 1/2 of this figuring we would probably stop for coffee in a couple hours.  I was right!

We certainly have been going out a lot the last few days.  Not a lot of money each time, but it can add up.

We hit the grocery store on the way home and you can see the colorful display of Peeps!  That means spring is just about here, right?

I actually love Peeps. I remember when they just used to be the yellow ones!

Could I have put more of my favorites onto my dinner plate tonight?

This was a bagel thin egg sandwich with laughing cow.  Plus my 2 favorite produce partners!  Not that big a fan of the bagel thin, though.  It was pretty much and Arnold thin.

Speaking of berries, I got a great picture from one of my blog readers.  Summer sent me a photo of her at a strawberry festival in Florida last week.

A girl after my own heart….

Chocolate update.  I have been really good with the chocolate.  I had one square of John’s bar yesterday and today I just didn’t feel like having any.  Isn’t that weird?  Maybe it is just comforting to have all that chocolate in the house or something 😀

Question:  Peep lover or do you think they are gross?

4-miler and snack change-up

Tuesday and it is midweek for me!  Hope you had a chance to read my running post from earlier.

Speaking of running, that was on the agenda for today!  I almost ran outside, as it was 29 degrees, but there was frost on the car and I decided just to go to the gym.  Feeling a little cold wussy today.  I was a little sore from yesterday’s strength session, but not what I was expecting (thinking steam-rolled was going to happen).  My glutes are the most sore (thank you dead lift).  I hopped on the treadmill and did 4 miles.  It felt pretty standard, although a little stiff at first.  No speed work or anything fancy today, just a sweaty run.

Came home thinking bananas for some potassium!  I was needing to replace that:

Banana custard oats to be exact!  I felt like being different and put my oats in a mug!

I am such a rebel…..

I had a little trouble concentrating at work today.  Not sure if it is the mid week hump day for me or what.  We all have days like that, I guess.  I did find out that our favorite coffee shop had closed as of yesterday, though!  The place where we went each Wednesday.  I am so bummed. It was very sudden.  There aren’t that many places to get a good bagel around here.  (Please don’t make me open up a bagel shop….).

I was wanting a sandwich for lunch, so I decided to make a batch of protein waffles to use as bread!  (I have a waffle iron in my Open Sky shop, too 😀 )

This was 3 egg whites cooked in the microwave (they get nice and puffy) with some laughing cow and topped with hot sauce.  Egg whites are boring, let’s face it, so the hot sauce was a welcome addition.  Needs to be hotter, though….

I still have a few more FAQ questions, so after looking at a bunch of my races while compiling the running post, it got me thinking about this one:

What has been your greatest health/fitness achievement to date?

I have to say there are 2 moments that stick in my mind.  The first one was my triathlon last July.  It almost seemed like the culmination of so much work (which it was) combined with rising so far above any expectations I could have had of myself a few years ago.  I cried when I finished, which was not the reaction John was expecting LOL!  The close second was the duathlon.  That cemented to me the fact that I can challenge myself and push myself and *love* it!

You know how I was saying my snack of ricotta and protein powder had some potential? I tried this mix: ricotta, vanilla protein powder, pumpkin pie spice, heaping tbsp of pumpkin.

This was quite good and really hit the spot. Think you might see this around a lot.

I have been playing around with snack times this week, and it seems to be working pretty well.  I added another one into the day between breakfast and lunch, so I could push lunch a little later.  That way I won’t be tempted to snack between latte time and dinner or lunch time and latte time (or both, as I have been doing 😳  ).  So far, so good.   I’ve been making it a protein snack as well rather than too carby.

Dinner time… ding, ding, ding!  I cooked a huge amount of broccoli in some coconut oil.  I just used the rest of the bag, so there is probably almost 2 cups there!

This is a frozen crab cake that I cooked in the toaster oven.  Too many peppers in this for a traditional crab cake, but pretty good.  Yum.  I probably could have used a bigger plate.

I am now proud to say that I have not had a protein bar for over a week now!  Not one Balance Bar has crossed my lips (or any Zone or Luna) since Feb 28th.  This was a major hurdle for me, so I think I will try to make it my goal for March to be store-bought bar free.  I might make some at home, but that’s a different story.

Now if I could get control of these:

You’ll have to stay tuned to find out where we will be having our bagel day tomorrow – we don’t even know yet!

Working for the weekend

Woke up to a big change in weather today!  Cold and windy.  Hit the gym for 4 miles on the hamster wheel.  It went by so fast – yay!  I think I like 4-5 miles as just a good solid run where I don’t get too tired, but feel like I got a great workout.

Came home to make some quick-cook steel cut oats made with a mashed nanner and a blob of PB and jelly!

Tasty. : It creeps and leaps and glides and slides across the floor:  Anyone?

John is back at court again today for deliberations.  They had better hurry up and finish! 😯

The weekend cannot get here fast enough!  Today should have been my last work day of the week, but I am going to have to play some catch up tomorrow.  We are getting trained on new software stuff for work, and the training was so superficial that it left a lot of us confused.  So, we could ‘volunteer’ for extra training to help understand it, which means unpaid training.  During the conference call, even the trainers were unsure of stuff.  One of my biggest pet peeves I have is time wasting.  It’s especially noticeable when you work on production.

Grrrrr…..  that kind of made me angry and frustrated today.  It makes my work day longer, because I still have to make my line commitments on top of the unpaid training.  I talked to my supervisor about how I felt it was unfair and all she said was “I know it is”.  ❓  WTH?  I like working at home, but sometimes I think I would be better served doing something else.

Lunch was a tuna wrap and some baked lays, all of which I munched while I had the phone muted for the conference call today. Even if other people waste time, at least *I* can multitask. :mrgreen:

My frustration led to some chocolate chip snackage.  I hadn’t eaten any chocolate chips since Sunday!  It doesn’t help that we ran out of milk this morning, so I did not have an afternoon latte as per usual.  I knew I was doing it, but sometimes the “I don’t care” voice is stronger than the voice of reason….

Regarding the Attune bars – check for them in the refrigerated section of your grocery store by the yogurts.  Or if your store has a ‘natural foods’ section, try there (again refrigerated).

Look at what it looked like outside at 2 pm:

Don’t you just get cold looking at this picture?  It didn’t last long and the sun came back out, but it is cold and windy.

John came home for an hour in the afternoon as they got a break from deliberations, but he has to go back!  Deadlocked since last night.  They fed the jurors lunch and they are getting dinner for them tonight.  I had some of the leftovers for dinner tonight.  My tax dollars at work paying for 1/2 of a calzone!

I miss my hubby.  It’s almost 7:30 and he still isn’t home yet.

Have to get back to work tonight and I have to start packing at some point 😀  Gotta find my shorts.

Hopefully I will get caught up on some blog reading tomorrow as well!

Question:  What is one of your pet peeves?

Cruising food plans

Another busy day on tap here at casa java!  I got some more great sleep.  I’ll do a more informative post on the 5HTP hopefully this week.  Think it is doing me some good!  Today was a run day.  One thing about my job in transcription is that there is sometimes medical information given that I find applicable to my daily life!  One doctor was treating a patient for a stress fracture caused by treadmill running.  The doctor said that treadmill running can cause a stress fracture in your foot bones because your stride never changes and the repetitive motion can cause the fracture.  So, a good reason for intervals or changing up the speed on the hamster wheel!  So that’s what I did today.  I did 4 miles (on my taper plan this week) in 44 minutes with speed intervals during miles 3 and 4.  It really felt great!  It went by so fast only doing 4 miles instead of 6 (did I really say ‘only’???).  Even John commented that I got back early from the gym.  😀

I was ready for waffles!  This will be the last of the protein waffles this week as there isn’t enough cottage cheese to make any more.

Doesn’t today look much better than yesterday?

It’s amazing what a little sun does for mood!

Lunch was a BBQ chicken pizza made on a Joseph’s pita bread.  I used BBQ sauce, cooked chicken breast and a little mozzarella and popped it in the toaster oven:

Served with an unpictured kiwi.  Yum!

John is sitting on a jury this week, so I have been entertaining myself during breaks from work.  Tried to get Pixie involved in picture taking with me:

She wasn’t all that interested….. 10 pics later and I finally captured a decent one:

So regarding the cruise/vacation eating plan.  We are getting into New Orleans on Saturday late afternoon, and our boat leaves on Monday after lunch.  I will say that all bets are off for the short time in New Orleans.  The food there is fabulous and we are going to take advantage of that.  There will be pictures of beignets, chargrilled oysters, probably some pralines.  It’s really hard to go wrong there.

The cruise itself is another matter.  One thing about cruise lines is that there is always food available.  24 hours a day.  Did you know this ship has a complimentary sushi bar?  😯  Not to mention complimentary room service.  Some people rave about ship food, but I found it to be a little institutional, if you know what I mean.  Not that it is bad at all, though. They are cooking for 2000 people, so that is some bulk cooking!  It’s not really gourmet food.  It’s probably better than most people are used to, and there is plenty of it.   The sit down dining room meal portions were actually ‘normal’ size portions, and I think that is due to  the fact that they have to feed so many people and it isn’t cost effective to serve portions that won’t get eaten.  More restaurants should take note of that…..

Our ship (Carnival) also has an a la carte area to eat on the Lido deck, and that is where we ate the majority of our meals last cruise and what we plan to do on this one.  We are very informal and getting dressed up for meals with a server bringing food is not high on our list.  I would rather get a casual meal and sit on the deck and look out over the water.  There are actually plenty of healthy choices available if I choose to make them.  I am going to try and eat what I would normally eat during the day, and a couple special dinners.  Plus the chocolate buffet 😀 .  Gotta partake in that.  There will be plenty of exercise to be had on the ship.  There is a workout room, or the outside track to run on (which is my choice).

The only variable here is the port of call places.  We are stopping in Cozumel and Progreso.  I don’t know what type of food is available there, and I certainly want to sample local cuisine.

The bottom line is that this cruise is not about the food.  It’s about relaxing and enjoying time with my hubby.  I am going to indulge some, but not overdo it.  Yes, there may be some weight gain, but I am very okay with that.

So, let’s see how well I actually stick to that plan, shall we??

Dinner tonight was an omelet stuffed with a Laughing Cow wedge.  Why have I not tried this before?  It was sooo good!

That’s the last of the strawberries this week!

I am off to my rental house to do the last few things like hang closet doors and replace some baseboard.  2 open houses this week.

Question:  When you vacation do you eat whatever or try to have a plan?

Festive feelings!

Boy was there ever a windstorm last night into today.  Gusts were up to 60 miles an hour!  It wasn’t cold, but I certainly wasn’t in the mood to run outside.  I sat around at home and ate a balance bar while I waited for my gym to open.  Then I did 4 miles on the treadmill.  I have to say with just doing cardio while taking a break from strength training, it has been a breeze!  Lifting really can take it out of you.

Came home and made some oats:

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  • 4o grams of oats
  • PB2 added during cooking
  • apple butter on top
  • a sprinkle of granola for crunch.  Yum!

Not sure where the rest of the morning went, but somehow it became lunch without me noticing!  I had another waffle sammie with turkey, cranberry and laughing cow.  luch1128

Not sure if it was the run or what, but  I need more food, so I had some of these:

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If you have not tried these, you must.  Go now.  I’ll wait…..

We then went to the open house at a local artist building called the Troy Shirt Factory (think I mentioned this last year).  This place houses potters, painters, fabric artists, jewelers, metal smiths,  yoga studio, woodworkers, photographers and more.  Plus a tea shop!  It’s a cool spot and I would so love to have a space here.  John, my mother, and I went and both of them managed to find Christmas gifts for other people and I just came home with 2 ounces of tea LOL!

After spending several hours there, we stopped by the Chocolate Mill for a snack and coffee.  I had an apple pastry:

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This was very good.  Quality baked goods are one of my favorite things.

Ate a quick dinner.  I love how things can be on the table in 15 minutes!  Frozen clam strips done in the toaster oven with some broccoli and apple sauce:

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Needed to eat quick to get down to the yacht basin for the annual lighting of the memory trees in Fort Edward.  Each tree is decorated by a family for a loved one.

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I met my mom there:

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It so festive and beautiful.  I love lights!

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It was pretty chilly, though!  I had walked there, but hitched a ride with my mom to get home 😀

I am so excited that we put the electric blanket on the bed today!  Yay!  And the flannel sheets.  I don’t care if that makes me lame for being excited about that :mrgreen:   It’s one of those simple things in life to get into warm and cozy sheets.

Saw this today looking at how people get to my site.  This has to be the best search string so far:  “all good things to share and enjoy a simple happle life”  on Baidu and my site came up first! Sweet!

There is another blogger out there that is doing something incredibly generous.  266 is going to be giving away food to those that need it based on how many comments she gets.  Let’s get her up to the 100 she has set!  Check out her post here

Muffins and mini meltdown

If you missed my recap on NROLW the link is here.

I actually slept until almost 8 am today!  This is really late for me.  We decided on some muffins for breakfast and I adapted a lowfat recipe from The Complete Muffin Cookbook

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Recipe here.

Delicious!  I think I would add some cinnamon to these, though.

After eating, we decided on a run for the day.  I asked John if he wanted to go for 4 miles and he reluctantly agreed (he has never run more than a 5K).  We normally do not run together.  We sometimes run at the same time, but he is quite a bit faster than I am.  Today we kept the same pace at the track, which was more my pace (obviously).  I could tell he wanted to go faster and after 3 miles, he picked up his pace and went ahead.  He finished about 1/2 a lap ahead of me. I am not sure why I started to feel bad.  Actually, I know what was wrong, I am PMSing and woke up today feeling bloated and the scale was up, and the fact that John was doing 4 miles for the first time and was faster than me, plus the fact he is at goal and I am not.  For whatever reason this got to me and I was getting tearful for my last 1/2 mile and started crying when I was done.  Of course, the worst part was knowing that John felt bad (which made me feel even worse).  I was feeling very selfish and atypically non-radiant.   It’s just one of those days, you know?  I got over it pretty fast – a nice hot shower helped with that!

Before hitting the stores, I had to take John out for his football meal, and he chose Red Lobster.  I really ate very smart there, and I was so proud of myself!  I had 3/4 of a cheddar biscuit.

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Side salad to start with FF vinaigrette:

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and ordered the woodfired grilled  shrimp with broccoli and rice.  I left half of the rice.

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These were good, but too salty for me.  All of the meal was too salty.  I used to love the biscuits and could eat 4-5 (Keep em coming!).  We have not been to RL in probably at least a year, maybe 2.  My tastes sure have changed.

Shopping commenced and John got a whole bunch of clothes at Kohl’s.  He really needed new ones (budget be damned) as his were so baggy after 43 pounds.

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Stopped for some refreshments!  A locally made granola bar (which we split) and a skim latte for me!  Yum!

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The crowds are starting to show up for shopping now.  It’s going to be internet shopping for me pretty much after Thanksgiving, along with some local art and craft shows.

We came home and made a yummy on the fly meal.  Cooked chicken with cheesy grits (and 1 strip of bacon crumbled), brussel sprouts and strawberries.

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This was so satisfying!  I actually think I liked the meal we cooked at home better than the one out at lunch!

Hot 100 update:

1. Duathlon.  DONE!!!
2. Limit the number of eggnog lattes this year to 2 or 3.   Gonna wait until Thanksgiving to have the 1st one!
3. Keep a redline of weight in mind to not go over during the holidays.  I am over redline by a pound now.  It’s water weight, but I must be careful.
4. Complete the New Rules of Lifting for Women.  DONE!!!!
5. Enjoy time with family during the holidays.  Met with my mom yesterday!

6.  Better organization of time to be productive.  I had a great productive week since last Saturday.

7.  Do some freelance writing.  Lame

8.  Run at least 2 more official 5K races this year.  1 down, 1 to go – should be Turkey day!

4-miler and Chipotle!

Woke up to a sunny morning, and I thought a nice outdoor run was in store, but would do it after breakfast.  Had a comforting bowl of banana oats topped with PB2 and apple butter!  This was delicious!

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Then I checked the temperature.  26 degrees.  😯   I really had to talk myself into going out for a run.  I knew if I didn’t do something in the morning, I would likely not get any exercise in at all.  I contemplated over a 2nd cup of coffee and the temp didn’t rise at all.  I finally sucked it up and put on my Nike technical turtleneck and sweats, and added some 180s to keep my ears warm!

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(The turtleneck is a Nike  drywick – $50 shirt I got at TJMaxx for $15.) Did 4.2 chilly miles! The only thing I forgot was a tissue.  My nose runs on the best of days when I run (guess it likes exercise as well).  So, nose – meet sleeve.  I was fine after about 1/2  a mile and still got really sweaty in this cold!

My mother was feeling well enough to go shopping, so we hit a big craft show.  I brought along a Zone bar and one of my granola bars to keep from eating whatever food would be there, and it worked!  I got a couple of Christmas gifts, so that was good to get started on shopping early!

We went to the Chocolate Mill for some coffee and a snack afterwards.

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Small desserts, again perfectly good and perfectly sized.  I got an almond apricot tea cake:

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Mom got a lemon tart.

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I owed John his football dinner from last week, and this was the first chance we had for me to take him out!  He wanted Chipotle since one had opened up nearby.  I kind of panicked, because Chipotle can be hefty on the calories.  However, we hadn’t been in over 3 years since we moved out here, and there were more choices.

In the old Lori-weighs-250-pounds days, I would get a barbacoa burrito with rice (no beans), cheese, hot salsa and sour cream. Usually I got extra rice because I did not get beans.  I would eat the entire burrito, too.  Looking up nutritional info, this would be over 900 calories just for the burrito!

Today, I still wanted some cheese and sour cream, but that meant leaving out something else.  I chose to get a lettuce base in a bowl and to leave out the rice:

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This left me with the yummy flavors of the meat and my favorite cheese and sour cream, but no rice or tortilla.  This salad was 410 calories.  That’s half of what I would have eaten before – and it was really tasty.  Yes, I kind of missed the rice, but I also realize that I had a treat earlier, so in the calorie balance of the day – I knew that was the best choice.

It’s back to work for me tomorrow.  Good weekend, a little indulgent, but not overly so 😀

4-miler and food in bowls

I konked out early last night and didn’t see the end of the game, but I really needed sleep.  I actually got about 7.5 hours and that makes me super happy! :mrgreen:   Today was a run day outdoors, so I ate breakfast first while I waited for the day to warm up some.  I cooked up some banana oats with PB and blueberry jam!  Yum!

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I got some McCann’s quick cooking oats and those nutritional are the same as rolled oats.  Not sure why that is, but they cook quicker.  I love McCann’s, too – must be the Irish girl in me 😀

After working for a while and seeing the temp creep into the 40s, it was time to go out for a jog.  I don’t like waiting so long to shower, but I don’t want to do it twice in a day.

Distance:  4.22 miles

Time:  42:57

Pace:  10:11 per mile.

Felt pretty good and I was sweating profusely.  I can’t believe how much I sweat even in the 40s!  I just had a technical shirt and jacket on.  I’m a salty sweater, too.  (Sorry)

I had a fun lunch today.  We have packs of animal crackers and Teddy Grahams from Halloween, so I added some to my lunch – Everybody into the pool!

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  • 1/3 cup pumpkin
  • 1 container of Chobani vanilla yogurt
  • Craisins
  • Teddy Grahams

Steady working today and was able to finish early!  Yay, love those days.  My afternoon snack was a latte and one of those granola bars.  While I was making my latte, someone stole my seat….

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Dinner was a mix of pan sauteed broccoli, chicken, and a laughing cow cheese wedge.  Looks like butter, doesn’t it? 😯

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I realized that all my meals were in a bowl today!

When I was cooking dinner, I grabbed the strawberries and found this:

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Now you all know *I* wouldn’t put back 1 strawberry.  Good thing we had another pound in there 😀

Had a pretty good eating day today.  I did have some cashews and FSTG chips while cooking dinner.  The run made me extra hungry today.

Off to the airport tonight.  John’s mom is coming in for a very brief visit for the next couple of days.   Her flight gets in at 10 p.m.!

Question:  Are you a profuse sweater when you exercise?

Blood donation Day and 4-miler

It was pretty hot and humid this morning, so I decided just to do 4 miles instead of 8 (later this week).  Fueled up with that yummy toast and jam like yesterday.  I could eat 6 pieces of this!  Last of the hazelnut butter.

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I was going to shoot for 10:30 miles and I did that for the first mile.  After that, I was sweating copiously.  The sweat was literally flying off of me (gross!).  I noticed my time slowed considerably to an 11 minute mile for 2 and 3, then I picked up the pace for the last mile and finished in 43:45.  I was totally soaked when I finished.  I definitely do not like running in humidity. Lots of water drinking commenced.

Decided to continue the jam and nut butter combo with some oat bran topped with both of those!  Like a PBJ in a bowl.

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Today was blood donation day!  PSA – they are really short on A+ right now.  You can visit the Red Cross site to find a donation happening in your area.

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They had an interesting snack available at the snack table:

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Raisins!  They had the usual cookies and cheez-its, but I decided on the raisins.  Normally I get Lorna Doones, but the pack size is now up to 6 cookies, which is more than I want.  So, decided on raisins.

Did you know that raisins are high in iron?  1 ounce gives you 8% of your RDA.  Broccoli is also high in iron, and you all know how I eat it pretty much every day.  My hemoglobin test  was 13.9  – how about that?  Yay me!  Higher than John’s.  I need to get him to eat  broccoli  (good luck with that….)

Note the Friendly’s coupon for donating this month.  A free 1/2 gallon of ice cream – d’oh!!

We went out to dinner afterwards to  Panera Bread.  I got the Fuji Apple salad, which has chicken, dried apples, gorgonzola cheese, and pecans.  It is quite good!

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The laziest cat in the world trying to stay cool in the window:

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She’s too big to fit in the sill, but she tries!  I am going to imitate her tonight,  as I get to be lazy for donating blood.  Need to catch up my google reader!