Busy Busy Busy

Another busy day, but I actually prefer them. I think I get more done than on days where I could do things in my spare time like clean. I love a clean space, I just hate the action of cleaning.

Since I wasn't sure if I would have time to sit and enjoy lunch today I packed a bunch of foods to snack on through the day. Into the lunch bag I threw-a Wallaby organic yogurt, strawberries, a banana, and a mix of pretzels and chocolate gram goldfish for something sweet.

I ended up having a few minutes to eat, so I cut up the strawberries and half of the banana and threw it together with the yogurt. I never had the Wallaby brand yogurt, especially since I usually stick to plain and preferably greek these days. But since I'm sticking to my budget and didn't have time to run to either Trader Joe's or Whole Foods (where usually some kind of greek yogurt is on sale) I went with Wallaby since it was on sale and still organic. Today I had raspberry and it was delish, especially when mixed with my fruit. The Australian style is also much different from anything I have had before, thinner yet creamer than traditional yogurt. I'll definitely stick to the greek when I can (15 g protein/serving) but the Wallaby isn't a bad alternative (7 g protein).

Back to work,

Nicole

PS- Do any of you watch Modern Family on Wednesday nights? It keeps me laughing every week! Cam made the show last night, "I really, really, really, just want him to get a job so I can go back to be a stay-at-home dad/trophy wife."

Lunch at Home

Usually I eat lunch with coworkers either in my lab conference room or school cafeteria, but I didn't have time to pack a lunch this morning (had to be out of the apartment by 6:50 am to tutor) and am saving money so no buying lunch for me.

Lunch was nothing special, a pizza veggie burger, with sauteed spinach and plain yogurt with cinnamon and butterscotch chips on the side for something sweet.

Crazy busy day, blah.

Nicole

Birthday weekend-just not mine

Hey all~

I had every intention of sitting down and blogging last night, but totally got distracted by who knows what.

This weekend was all about the birthday's.

First up my friend Dana came over for make your own pizza and a late celebration of her birthday.

The pizza toppings were so random, but what vegetable isn't good on pizza:

Also sampled a few different Crumbs cupcakes:

While we were chatting Dana brought up Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. She hadn't seen the show but heard about the first 2 episodes. The show happened to be on so we ended up watching the last 30 minutes. I love that Jamie Oliver is trying to bring healthy cooking to school cafeterias and the obesity epidemic to light, but I wonder if the show is actually getting to the right audience. I mean Friday night isn't ideal tv time. Have you watched any episode of Food Revolution? If so what do you think? Can changing the way one small community eats in West Virginia have an impact on the country?

After watching the end of the show we headed to my friend's boyfriend's birthday. When we arrived the boyfriend was at work making drinks for everyone:

Sorry Matt, goofy photo I know, but I like it!

Ended up sipping on this drink slowly most of the night since I had 8 miles planned for the morning. I'm actually a bit behind in my running schedule so I'm going to attempt 10 next Friday, I'll think of it as an extra 20 minutes of running rather than an extra 2 miles. I'm running with a girl in my lab which makes the world of a difference!

In the end I think I knew of 5 different celebrations this weekend! I ended up celebrating 3 (3rd celebration post to come), and spent the remaining weekend attempting to finish up my thesis proposal, relaxing and sleeping.

On the agenda for the day:

-write for a few hours this morning

-work on midyear review for fellowship

-lab

-3 mi easy run and spin

Double Down

Ok, by now I'm sure many of you have seen this new concoction from KFC.

Before seeing the commercial I thought it was a joke, how could anyone want to eat such a thing! I honestly think it should be illegal to sell. What went through the minds of the creators?!?

That is all,

Nicole

Sunny Days

Hey bloggies~

I definitely need to move to a climate that is always warm. I've had so much energy the last couple of days and loved being able to eat both lunch and dinner outside yesterday. Going to try for the same today, maybe even grill this evening if the thunderstorms keep away.

Lunch yesterday consisted of a huge salad! I packed soup, but soup when the temperature was on it's way to 90* was silly so I ended up getting a salad from my school's cafe. While there are days when I find slim pickings, yesterday I was in veggie heaven. I mean they even had multiple forms of prepared tofu. My tummy was very happy.

Lab mates also taking in their vitamin D:

After a killer chisel class last night at Crunch (we had a substitute class instructor and she was tough), my friend Ena and I grabbed dinner and ate outside. Love that it was after 7 and the sun was still out!

We wrapped up the evening with a sweet treat from Pinkberry. I wasn't planning on getting any but Ena raved about the new seasonal flavor mango and they have a new mini size for only $3 that includes 2 toppings, so I went ahead and ordered the mini mango with yogurt chips and almond slices. She was right, mango was amazing, I think my favorite flavor!!

Look at how cute my mini looks next to her regular sized cup:

Weekend almost here, yay!

Nicole

Spring in the air

Spring in the air....

After work this evening I met up with a postdoc and tech from the first lab I rotated in my first year of graduate school. I really needed to just sit out, sip on a margarita, and enjoy the fresh weather this evening. I had such a bad case of spring fever, if you will, today and just could not concentrate! I wrote for about 3 hours this morning and then I couldn't think of how to spell words let alone form structured sentences. I ended up walking away from the paper and onto some other work. Ideally I would like to send some kind of draft to my boss tomorrow so we can chat about it on Thursday, but I'm not feeling so great about it at the moment.

While chatting with my former lab-mates I felt a bit better about my situation. Part of the problem is that I'm doing something so different than anyone else in my current lab and am reluctant to get underway. But what is progress without failure? I also just came across this quote that gives me courage "If your gonna screw up, do it while you're young. Older you get, the harder it is to bounce back." For me this means make mistakes early so you can learn from them and move on. It is so much better to have an experiment fail in my second year than in my fifth when I'm trying to graduate.

I was also excited today to find out that an exchange student in my lab wants to join me for long runs once a week. I'm glad to have a friend along to push me on longer distances especially since I've been slacking a bit due to sickness and weekend travels.

If I could just kick the lingering signs of my cold I would be a happy camper!

Night,

Nicole

Sunday recap

Hey all~

I'm back in New York after saying goodbye to the cutest puppy. Doesn't she look like a stuffed animal, well maybe minus the doggie red eye.

But, I was welcomed back to New York by these...my herbs had started to sprout! I planted basal, chives, dill, and parsley last Saturday and was excited to see my little indoor garden come to life.

We didn't really have a big Easter dinner planned at home so I didn't feel bad about leaving in the afternoon. Plus I was able to attend church with the family in the morning but still have a relaxing commute back to New York. In the past when I've traveled late on Sunday night, my bus ends up being 1 or more hours late just for pick-up.

For dinner I threw together buffalo tofu (recipe to come) and a make shift tabouleh: bulgur wheat, tomatoes, and cucumber tossed in olive oil (I was missing the parsley, lemon and mint).

Served in my new Easter bowl:
Happy Monday!

Nicole