Blogging the Menu: Day 125

Ah, the day before the first night shift.  What do you do with yourself?  Sleep?  Sometimes that's counterproductive.  Drink lots of coffee?  Could be a recipe for heartburn.

So what did I do?  Hung out with a dog in my lap while the husband was at CME and the kids coughed.  Fun, right?  I probably did drink too much coffee, but I'll survive.  There's a container of Tums in my desk and I have bananas which are good acid neutralizers.  Seriously, that's a thing.

The yard is practically a swimming pool, and this rain isn't going anywhere.  This means the kids are housebound and stir crazy.  We've been answering this by letting them trash the basement, which at least keeps them a floor below me.  One day this week we'll end up at the Children's Museum.

Saturday I'll attempt a half marathon after an overnight shift.  Forecast right now is for high 30s and rain...but that's beats the shit out of snow so I won't complain too hard.  Also gives me the chance to wear the new gear I bought last weekend.

Tonight is an initial meeting for the next round of the box challenge group so I'll be attending that since I missed Sunday.  I think I'll keep it up.  It's good for me to have the support and to feel like I'm obligated to someone/something besides myself.

On to the Menu!
Breakfast was pretty standard.  I picked up some bacon last night so I wouldn't have to spend another day without it.  That shit is unacceptable.

Bacon is the food of the gods.

I didn't snack so much as I made maple lattes.  That totally counts because there's carbs, fat, and protein.

Deal with it.

Lunch was leftover Pho, minus the jalapenos, because raw jalapenos repeat on me like nobody's business.  This is some serious bone broth.  It's practically gelatinous when cold, but heated up becomes a lovely meaty broth that perfectly poaches the zoodles.  

It was a good day for soup.

Dinner is going to be Peruvian Roast Chicken with Ahi Verde sauce.  As soon as it's done through.  It looked done on the outside, but upon spatching?  Not so.  Back into the oven she goes.

Flat chicken.

It smells amazing.  I can't wait to eat it.  It's from Nom Nom Paleo.

My snacks for work include leftover pork fried "rice" (cauli rice) a banana, a couple of hard boiled eggs, and some venison sticks.  Not sure how hungry I'll be, since I was eating all day, but better to be prepared than raid the fridge all night.  Tomorrow I'll likely sleep like the dead, and if it's rainy like today that will feel extremely decadent.  My plan is to WOD tomorrow night at 7:15 and see if that makes it feel like morning.

Fuck I'm hungry.  Hurry up, flat chicken!

Oh, and I almost forgot.  My friends Rachel and Kim are doing a Longest Day event to benefit the Alzheimer's Association.  Visit Rachel's blog at Running in Real Life and check it out.  They're doing a sweet raffle this year again, and it's worth it to donate.  I've been promised there will be no scary pants raffled off this year.  If you're very lucky, I'll post a picture of myself in the scary pants I won last year.  

On second thought, if it will boost donations I WON'T post a picture of myself in scary pants, but ONLY if you donate.

Seriously.  Donate.  It's a great cause.  You can even designate who you're donating for/in memory of and they'll dedicate laps to that person.

Go now.

Blogging the Menu: Day 124

Did you miss me?  I've been supremely lazy.  With blogging.  Not with other things.  I worked my shadow week on thirds and came out on the other side none the worse for wear.  Unfortunately my off week will be shortened up by an illness, but it means I get 20 hours of OT so I can't complain too much.  With luck my counterpart will be shipshape after a few extra days of rest.

This Saturday I drove to Des Moines to run the Drake Relays-on-the-Roads half marathon.  It was an adventure.  I tried a new route south that worked out quite well.  It was fast, interesting, and very scenic.  Southwestern Wisconsin and Northeastern Iowa are beautiful places that don't get enough credit.  There are few places more bucolic than this region.  The road is technically challenging to drive (at a high rate of speed, of course), and the distance (450ish miles) feels short.

I spent Saturday afternoon with a friend I haven't seen in a while, eating sushi (which I love) and shopping (which I generally loathe).  I got a few super clearance winter running shirts, which pretty much rules, and some new underpants.  I will not say panties and you can't make me.

Saturday night I turned in early after meeting another friend for a drink at Peggy's (because you have to go to Peggy's).  I'm too old to spend any length of time there, so I was sleeping by 10pm.  The half was scheduled to go off at 7:30am and the forecast was grim-20mph wind and rain a virtual certainty.  I got to the start line at around 6:45 and found out that the Knapp Center was closed to all but the elite athletes.  Now, I get this. The Knapp Center is a beautiful facility and a mob of runners is disgusting.  A shitting, pissing, GU wrapper tossing, missing-the-garbage-can-and-leaving-the-banana-peel-on-the-floor mob of nastiness.  Still, the wind was really high and there was a question of whether the race would even start.

They made the call to delay the race and opened the Knapp so we could go inside.  No sooner were we in than the heavens opened and there was a solid 45 minutes of torrential rain, hail, thunder and lightening.  To my great relief the race was only delayed until 8:30 and we were off shortly thereafter.  The wind was still high, but the rain had stopped and we were off to downtown.

I hung with the 2:15 pace group for a while, but when we started climbing I dropped back.  I wasn't in the mood to run hard into a headwind for 8 miles.  I was more in the mood to look at the scenery and reminisce. Sue me.  This was the hardest half course I've ever run.  It was really cool, but the hills were killer.  So much so that there were timing mats at the bottom of "Bulldog Hill" and at the top so they could provide you with a split for the hill.

I don't know what my split time was.  They couldn't pull up my number at the timing tent.  I haven't looked at the website for the race yet.  My overall time was around 2:30 (clock time was 2:33 and change).  Considering the difficulty of the course, I'm cool with that.  I got to see a lot of places I missed and run down roads that I'd only driven down before.  I also got to chat with a hot guy in a kilt around mile 4.  That is never a bad thing.  Also not a bad thing?  I dropped him there and never saw him again.

Today I'm home again with the smalls.  My big plans for going to the Children's Museum were blown when I discovered both it and the Neville are closed on Mondays.  I did get to take all of them to puppy class and then to Target for shoes.  Three separate people blessed me.  That is really disturbing.

On to the Menu!
This morning I discovered we had no bacon.  I died a little inside.  Cheese to the rescue.  This is 2 eggs with a little shredded cheddar and a grapefruit.  I put a little coconut milk and a teaspoon of maple syrup in my coffee to even out the carbs and fat.  3 blocks.

This was a disappointing grapefruit.

A little one block snack in the late morning.

Venison stick and a tablespoonful of nut butter.

I had planned to make Peruvian Roast Chicken tonight, but I realized we have so many leftovers in the fridge that I have neither the containers or the space to store it.  So today was clean out the fridge day.  Tomorrow I'll roast a chicken (when my husband is home to help eat it).  Moo Shu pork with homemade Hoisin sauce.  The butter lettuce I usually eat with this was frozen in the back of the fridge.  Awesome.

Still delicious though.

Afternoon snack mostly because I was bored.  Venison stick (I have quite a few of these 1oz-ers), one macadamia nut, and a couple of prunes.

I know.  Random.

For dinner we finally finished up all the spaghetti and sauce.  I used up some of my zoodles from the Pho I made last week.  Still lots left.  The juilenne peeler makes so many more nice narrow noodles than my spiralizer did.  A sprinkle of mozz for interest.

Can't feel bad about a meal that's mostly veg.

This was my dessert.  Did I mention I took three small children to dog training class and then to buy shoes.  For all three of them.  Well I did.

And I'm spent.

Today was long.  This week is going to be longer.  8 days in a row at work including a half marathon after my shift on Saturday and then 4 days of travel and running a Ragnar.  May is going to be crazy and something tells me I'm going to owe my husband big time.  Good thing I got this OT so I can buy him something pretty.

Tomorrow's goals:  Get to the box.  Get the girl child's hair cut.  Make Peruvian chicken.  

That's all I got.  I'm about to be really tired for a while.  

Blogging the Menu: Day 117

So Saturday and Sunday I didn't photograph what I ate.  I took the weekend off and had a little fun with friends and a few unclean meals.  Not unclean in the sense of unwashed or you know, cloven hoofed or whatever.  Because I eat the meat of the cloven hoofed animal all the time and that shit is delicious.  No, I mean unclean in I ate bread (and super sugary bread at that), some cheese cake, had a few glasses of wine, and some pizza.  Ermahgehrd pizza.  Pizza is so horrible for you, but no matter how much I tell myself that it still tastes like a party in my mouth.  For fuck's sake there's a party named after pizza.  It's a pizza party.

Anyway, I ate the shit out of some shitty food this last weekend.  I feel pretty good, but holy balls am I bloated.  Fortunately I took my final measurements for the challenge club before going all gluten glutton.  My weight dropped about 5lbs, which is nice, but my waist shrank to 30.25 inches from 32.  This is my natural waist (ie the narrowest point of your torso-bend to the side, where you crease is your natural waist) and it hasn't been below 30 since high school.  I am going to hit a sub-30 waist this summer.  It will happen.  A sub-30 waist is going to suck with 42 inch hips.  The world is not ready for this jelly.

I'm not sure how the daily blog thing will work on my overnights, so I'll take pictures of what I eat during the day and a picture of what I'm taking for "lunch" overnight.  I'm really packing two meals and a snack for my 10 hour shift.  Dinner is my "breakfast" around 5pm, lunch is around 11pm, and dinner will be around 5am with a snack in between.  I ate a breakfast when I got home this morning (Monday morning) because I ate practically nothing overnight and I was ravenous.

On to the menu!
I still have some egg bake, but eating it makes me sad, so I tossed some cheese on it (local cojack-certainly not low fat) and it was a much happier dish.  Add in a little 'nana pudding for fat/protein and banana for carbs and this was a 3-4 block meal.

Egg bake is more exciting with cheese.

I slept from 9 until about 2:30.  I should've gone to sleep earlier, but the Boston marathon was on and I had to watch at least the start of it. I had bacon and raisins for a 1 block snack on waking.

There were raisins.  1 block snack.

Husband made Mu Shu (Moo Shoo?!?) pork from Nom Nom Paleo and it was Nom Nommy as usual.  We are all about the Asian inspired paleo cooking this month.

Nom Nom indeed.

Took the puppy to puppy class and fed her much cheese and a few hot dog pieces.  She was a rockstar as usual.  Then came home and tried to eat the hem of my pants.  Went to Target after to grab a julienne peeler as my spiralizer went home to Jesus last week and treated myself to a passion tea.  Unsweetened, of course.

Mmmm.  Pink tea.

So here is my lunch box for work.  Egg bake with cheese and grapes for my 5am breakfast, beef stew provencal for my 11pm lunch, and half a sliced apple with chocolate hazelnut butter for my snack somewhere in there.  I should probably eat more food, but I've discovered that eating too much at one time overnight causes a little heartburn and I'm not down with that.  Easy fix? Smaller portions.

Look how organized!  This lunch kit even has it's own cutlery.

Here it is all packaged up and ready to go.  How cute is this lunch?!?  

Bento boxes FTW.

Tomorrow the kids go to daycare, so I'll be able to get a lot of sleep during the day.  That makes life a lot easier.  I probably won't make Dancing for Dummies tomorrow night which is a bummer, but I can't take my kids to the studio.  One of my classmates will just have to catch me up.  I'm looking to get back into the box on Thursday and Saturday I'm headed to Des Moines for the Drake Relays-on-the-Roads half marathon.  I have a lot of races in the next month!  Hardware city!  And I might just make the leap into the Half Fanatics. We shall see.

Time to watch a little TV, then change and head out to the grind.  Bring on night 5/7!

Blogging the Menu: Day 111-114

Woo! New Chromebook!  It's pretty and fast and so far I really love it.  I'm getting the hang of using the cloud drive and not having a full on "hard drive" to access, so this is going to be mostly pictures of what I ate for the last 4 days in no particular order.

I worked my first night shift last night (as a shadow for training) and it went fine.  It was a quite night, which isn't really the norm, but it works for training purposes.  My goal for the next week is to find things in the pharmacy (so I know where to look when time is of the essence) and make sure I'm good and familiar with the technology that could bite me if I'm unprepared.

On to the menu (in no particular order).  Some of my pictures were lost in the Great Computer Transition of 2014...so this isn't everything.

I love these.  Crunchy and sweet.  Just apples and cinnamon.

Cincinnati chili on a 'tater.  Tasty.

Pad Thai.  I blew up a squash in the microwave for this.

Worth it.

I'm sick of egg bake.

It was prettier the first time around.  So delicious.  My favorite.

'Nana pudding.

'Nana pudding and eggs.

Really sick of egg bake.

And more egg bake

Tod Mun chicken cakes with cucumber relish.  

This is sooooo good.

'Nana pudding as breakfast snack

Leftover meatballs and beans.

2 block snack.

I was reasonably proud of myself for not raiding the food available overnight.  I didn't get much sleep on Thursday, so I was dragging a little by 4am, but even though there was cake (smelly, smelly cake) in the break area I was able to avoid it completely.  I ate the food I brought and nothing more.  I have a lunch packed for tonight, but I'll probably snag some fruit from the cafeteria (if they have some) just for something a little sweet.

Tomorrow is the wrap party for our 90 day challenge at the gym.  I'm looking forward to it.  Just have to toss some stuff in the crockpot to cook when I get home from work tomorrow and I'm set.  I may indulge in some cheese curds on Saturday night...we'll see.  

Sunday is Easter and we usually do an egg hunt for the kids, but they got so much stuff from their grandparents and aunt that I don't think I'm going to bother.  Nobody needs that much candy.  Especially not me.

I got almost 8 hours of sleep today, so tonight should go pretty well.  Fingers crossed!

This will be more cohesive in the coming days, now that I have my lovely new machine :)

Blogging the Menu: Day 110

I'm pretty happy with today.  The puppy only got up once to go out during the night (and she was lightening fast because it was pouring rain) and then got up at a perfectly respectable 6:30am, right before my alarm was set to go off.  I felt bad for her when it was time to take her morning poop.  She was all jacked to go outside, wiggling and whining, and then I opened the patio door and she was all "NOOOOOOOOOOO" and backpedaled so hard she almost knocked the kitchen chairs over.

The kids got up and dressed with minimal horsing around, though they did complain bitterly about breakfast. Only children who have the luxury of a hot breakfast every morning would bitch and cry about scrambled eggs, toast, and fresh fruit.  I mean really.  I make motherfucking pancakes from scratch at least once a week, french toast, cheesy eggs, waffles, cinnamon rolls, bacon, sausage, many varieties of fruit and what do the little asswipes want?  Fucking cereal.  I'd be half tempted to let them rot their guts and their teeth if I could trust them to pour the milk.  My luck I'd end up with a lake of rotting dairy and a mold problem. I really can't wait until they are eating Ramen to survive.  Payback is a bitch and so am I.

After a fairly peaceful morning, I went to the gym and had a great workout.  It is so fantastic to be able to just do the workout and not worry about getting out on time to get to work.  Especially since I don't have to work until Thursday...

Came home and showered up, messed around with the kids and the dog, then took Lucy to puppy class at Golrusk.  She made some puppy friends and met lots of humans of various ages and sucked up to the instructor something fierce.  She was all over that woman.  Giving kisses, sitting pretty, climbing into her lap and wiggling her little butt around like it was the BEST! DAY! EVAR!  She was a champ at responding to her name, sitting, standing, and "leave it", but sucked at "down".  The instructor said that's at least partly her breed, as Vizslas don't much like to be "down" unless they're sleeping.  So now we have stuff to work on.

Tomorrow will be a great day, too.  I'll hit CF at 5:15, get a few household chores done, and after the husband gets home from training I'm going to take a dance class.  An introductory "Dancing for Dummies" class for adults who've never danced before.  I am weirdly excited about it.  I am possibly the least graceful, least coordinated person on earth.  My parents were of the variety that thought dance was "useless" so I never took classes.  I had to beg to take gymnastics and after failing the same class three times my Mom put an end to that.  I took piano, I read a lot, and I did lots of resume building extra curriculars (not that they didn't serve me well).  The idea of giving it a try at this late stage of the game is both exciting and terrifying.  And for some reason I'm all about trying shit out lately.  So what the hell.  Dancing for Dummies is at Jenstar Yoga in DePere on Tuesday nights at 5:15pm.  Feel free to come join me.  It can't be anything but a hoot.

On to the menu!
I made egg bake!  And it didn't suck!  The chorizo made it super spicy.  I loved it.  3 blocks of protein, fat from the sausage, and I added some fruit to round out the veggies.  There's a shitload of spinach and peppers in here, but all divided up I figured it wasn't 3 blocks worth.

Restaurant quality, bitches.

In my continual quest to clean out the fridge, I finished up the last of the Country Captain chicken and some green beans.  Microwaved frozen green beans with Kerrygold butter and pink Himalayan sea salt because I am fucking fancy.  Also, last I looked there wasn't a sea in the Himalayas.  That must be some primordial salt.

Threeish blocks.

Last venison stick and some raisins.  Two block snack.

Good-bye Maplewood meat sticks.  I'll miss you. 

Dinner was the Thai Basil Beef I didn't make on Sunday.  Sweet baby dolphins this shit is delicious.  Spicy, bright, and fresh tasting.  These beans are real.  

From Well Fed 2

Earlyish to bed tonight so I can early to rise.  Hopefully not in a blizzard this time.  

Days off FTW.

Blogging the Menu: Day 109

Spending the whole day with three little kids and a baby dog is really stressful.  It probably shouldn't be, but my kids are weird as hell with this dog and doing any household chores with a literal ankle biter following you around is damn near impossible.

The laundry room is off limits to the dog, as we can close it off and Vizsla puppies are notorious sock eaters. Her food bin is also housed in there, which makes it The Land of All Forbidden Wonderfulness.  Because she is little and quick and slippery as shit, she has gotten in there a couple of times and immediately begins to wreak havoc.  So I did some laundry today, but it's not like I'll get to fold it.  Well, I might, but I'll have to do it during Game of Thrones after her last outside for the night.

I fed the dog about a half a pound of string cheese today trying to teach her "off".  We don't want her on the furniture (because if I can't sit down without a pile of fucking children sitting on my lap, legs, shoulders, and head, I sure as shit don't want to add a furry mouthful of teeth to that pig pile), and she being a jumpy dog has already gotten up on the living room stuff.  If I snap my fingers and point to the floor and say "Off!" she hops down and sits pretty.  I praise and give her a little piece of cheese.  I repeat.  And repeat.  So she sits pretty and waits for cheese and praise.  The moment I try to lengthen the time between cheeses, she hops back up, I give the command, and she drops back down into a sit.  And gets cheese.

She is a conniving little bitch, who deeply loves cheese.

The kids?  Well, in spite of running around CFGB for an hour today (swinging on rings and ropes and chasing all over) then did not nap.  That never bodes well for my afternoon.  C gets tearful about everything when he's tired, so an improperly unwrapped snack (seriously) made for an hourlong lament.  Did I mention this was while we were walking the dog around the neighborhood?  Because it was.  By the end of that walk I was ready to choke out every single one of them.  They are all very lucky the "don't kill your progeny" instinct is so strong.

On to the menu!
Breakfast was pretty basic.  Bananas and strawberries for carbs.

A strong 3 block meal.

I was supposed to cook today, but the fridge is overflowing with leftovers, so I went for cleaning out the fridge instead.  The last of the spag squash with some sauce while I re-watched last week's GoT.

"You took too long."

"What are you saying."

"I'm saying you took too long."

Snack was some porkitos ans raisins from Trader Joe's.  Or TJ's, because I'm down like that.

You still haven't made porkitos?  I'm not sure we can be friends.

Leftovers for dinner as well.  I was supposed to make Thai Basil Beef, but that can wait.  The fridge is packed so full that finding things inside is difficult.  I completely forgot about this cauliflower, and there was only one pork burger left.  Two dishes cleared out of the cooler.  Winning.

Mmmmm.  Fiber.

I have resisted making egg bake this whole challenge.  Mostly because I get sick of eating the exact same thing every morning.  But I had a pound of chorizo and a bag of spinach both on the point of going over, so I made egg bake.  Onion, mushroom, red pepper, spinach, chorizo, and eggs.  It smelled fantastic in the oven and it looks very colorful.  We'll see if I can stomach it for a week.

A rainbow of taste.

I also made banana chia pudding, which will be a handy snack this week.

I have to wash the children.  They are currently running in circles around the living room.  The puppy is in her crate because she wouldn't stop nipping and then flat out bit the fleshy part of my upper arm.  That really fucking hurts.  At this point I'd be willing to go for another walk to tire them out, but it's raining.  I had hoped for a good round of "chase the dog around the yard", but the yard is completely swamped.  

It's okay, though.  My husband will be home in 12 hours.  Cosmos and GoT are on tonight.  I get to workout in the morning, and puppy socialization class is tomorrow night.  As long as I can clean all these little fuckers and shove them into bed before Neil deGrasse Tyson starts talking it will be all good.  

One hour and 10 minutes until bedtime.

Kill me.

Blogging the Menu: Day 106-108

Two days in Milwaukee for computer training.  You know who was in the class?  Me.  That's it.  Just me.  In a "101" computer class for a program I already kind of know how to use.  Zeus bless the instructors.  It has to be awkward teaching a "class" of one.  Especially when that one is a tattooed loudmouth with multicolored hair and a deep love of cursing.  They were both pretty cool, though.  I'd go out drinking with them.

It wasn't a complete waste of time, but it was a little fucked up that I had to drive all the way to Milwaukee and stay in a hotel for it.  On the plus side, I got to have dinner with an old friend (meaning we've been friends for a long time, not that she is-or I am-old) and go to Trader Joe's.  Trader Joe's is a wonderful place full of whole foods and creative candy.  And wine for three dollars.  Three dollars.  I clearly bought some.  I didn't drink it, but I bought some.  I was tempted to drink it.  Really tempted.

On to the menu!

Here's Thursday's menu:  RxBar for breakfast, JJ un-wich for lunch, and a three course dinner at the Rumpus Room in Milwaukee.  Holy shit do you need to eat at the Rumpus Room the next time you're down there.  We had an appetizer that boils down to "You there!  Bring meat and cheese!  Enough for two ravenous women!"  It was a platter of two kinds of meat (a salami and some mortadella), three kinds of cheese, figs, cranberries, honey, and olives.  The brought bread, too, but who gives a shit about bread when there's a plate of meat and cheese?  The second course was a salad with beef carpaccio and grapefruit sections.  Deeeeeeeeelicious.  The main course we split.  Seared scallops, sweet potato puree and brussels sprouts sauteed with side pork.  Amazing.  So I had cheese, and one beer.  Off with my head.

Friday?  Dried fruit and nuts and coffee for "breakfast", then nothing until I got home around 2pm.  Training finished up early, so I just hammered home.  Then proceeded to eat several venison sticks.  Dinner was mandarin chicken prepared by my loving husband.

Atop some spaghetti squash.

I ate some cherries for a snack later on.  Trader Joe's has the most amazing selection of unsweetened dried fruit.

Lovely.

Today things got back to normal.  I went to the gym (seriously my first "real" workout is over a week) and had some free WOD fun.  I made breakfast like normal.

I couldn't finish all the pancakes.  When you use 2 eggs it ends up being a lot of food.

My husband made spaghetti sauce on Thursday while I was gone.  It's even better after it's set for a day or two.  This recipe (from Well Fed 2) calls for balsamic vinegar and it has a fantastic bite.

Seriously, get in my belly.

I found a lonely packet of prosciutto in the fridge, so I made porkitos.  Porkitos and dried cherries were a perfectly nice snack.  I ate them in front of the dog.  She was not amused.

It's fucking bacon chips.

We made bacon wrapped chicken strips and roasted broccoli for dinner.  First go at this, and they were pretty good.  I think the oven was too full, because they didn't get as crunchy as I expected.  Still a winner, though, and the kids gobbled them up.

I mean, what's not to like?

 Then I had a little after dinner treat.

Amaretti.

Tomorrow I have to take the kids to the gym for the challenge club meeting.  I'm debating taking the dog.  That might be a little ridiculous.  We'll see.

I was having this "Ermahgerd, husband works on Sunday!  When am I going to get a run in?!?" and then I remembered I don't have to work until 9pm on Thursday!!  I can run whenever I want!  Monday I'm going to CF at 9:15 and say hi to the group I used to work out with.  Tuesday will be 5:15 with my usual crew.  Wednesday 9:15 and the kids are at daycare/school so afterwards I'm going to hit the FRT for 5ish miles.  I am psyched.  One week of shadowing, then a whole week off, then it's on.  

I've got cleaning, cooking, and garden building to do!  So much time to accomplish whatever I want!  There may even be time for sock knitting.  

All my CF and running people that I've hardly seen these last two weeks?  I'm coming back!  

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!

Blogging the Menu: Days 103-105

Can I just tell you how hard it is to do a daily blog with a new puppy?  Pretty fucking hard.  Electrical cords are apparently delicious, because the animal has been attempting to eat every one in the house since Sunday. I've been more successful at blogging than getting to the gym, and that's a little pathetic.

All that's about to change, though.  I worked my last non-third shift today.  I have 2 days of out of town computer training to round out the week and then I'm officially a third shifter.  I can't wait for everything to settle into a routine again.  I'm over my cold and the weather is improving which makes me itch to run, but everything has been so AAAAAAaaaaaAAAAAaaaaAAAAAaaaaAAaAAAaaaa around here for the last 2 weeks that I can't work, care for all the small humans in the house, constantly keep an eagle eye on the new dog, workout, AND sleep.  Something had to give, and it was the gym.  Fortunately, the cafeteria has been providing plenty of healthy meals and we've been cooking at home as well so at least foodwise I'm still on track.

I am so looking forward to a daily workout.  10 days off is tooooooo looooooong.  I forgot how to do everything active.  Well, we've been walking the dog...

On to the menu!
I forgot to take a picture of my breakfast on Monday.  It was 2 eggs, bacon, and pineapple.  Nice and Zoney.  Lunch was leftover chili with zoodles.  The zoodles make this.  It is so good, and was better the second day.  Sunday night I slept for shit because I was on puppy duty and she got up every single goddamn hour.  Nature makes babies cute for a reason.  So you won't kill them in a sleep deprivation induced rage.

Dog in the kennel, kids napping.

My sock club shipment arrived, and being the 90 year old lady I am, I was very excited.  I get a skein of sock yarn, 2 patterns for socks, and 2 cookie recipes.  This shipment included a recipe for Amaretti, which I made paleo by subbing raw honey for the sugar.  They are beautiful and delicious.  And pretty Zoney, truthfully.  Made with eggwhite, almonds, and honey, they hit all the Big Three.  Definitely a "sometimes" treat, but not the worst thing for a person.

Crispy on the outside, soft on the inside.

I made Rosemary Pork Burgers for dinner.  This recipe is so beautiful and simple with such a bright flavor.  I love it.  I stuffed this one with goat cheese and it was divine.  Just pan fried as I couldn't operate the grill, and simultaneously watch the children and the dog.  Oh, BTW?  Kids will try to murder each other the moment you begin food prepping or pick up a knife.  A new puppy will try to murder the children or shit on your carpet the moment you put your hands in raw meat.  I learned a valuable lesson:  KENNEL THE DOG WHILE YOU COOK.

Seriously the best use of goat cheese ever.

Tuesday I worked a day shift after 2 nights of minimal sleep.  Getting the kids off to school and making it to work on time went shockingly well considering my general state of hhhhuuuuuuhhhhh?  But I sure as shit wasn't together enough to pack a lunch.  Cafeteria to the rescue.

Ye olde standebye.

And because being tired makes me hollow and I'm basically a Hobbit:

Second breakfast.

The resident thought the combo was odd because fruit is so healthy and bacon is not.  But she had candy for breakfast, so I let that slide.  I went down to the chemo cave to learn about an aspect of the computer system that I'll have to use infrequently.  At around 2 I was hungry for lunch, so here it is.  Chicken salad and tea.

Boring, but easy.

The hubs made meatballs for dinner.

Mmmmmmeatballs!

This morning I felt a little better since I was off dog duty last night and actually got a reasonable amount of sleep.  I barely made it to work on time, though, so cafeteria it was again.

I spend a lot of time isolating the pineapple.

Lunch was build your own nachos.  For me that means meat, lettuce, tomato, olives, jalapeno, and a shitload of guac.  

Not exactly nachos.

Dinner was leftover pork burgers and roasted cauliflower.  Serviceable.  I'm teaching myself to enjoy cauliflower florets.  It's going....okay.

Pork burgers are awesome.

I haven't been snacking as I should.  Mostly this is because my meals have been closer to 4 or 5 blocks than 3 as I haven't been making them at home as often.  I also haven't felt hungry between meals because of that fact, so I haven't been "eating just to eat".  My second breakfast day was an exception, of course.  I've had a few Amaretti, which I think counts as they are calorie dense and relatively complete.  The cafeteria isn't 24 hours, so once I'm third shifting it I won't be able to rely on it.  I'll also have plenty of time in the evenings to make my meals and I'm looking forward to it.  

So pretty.

After a week of consciously trying to remain "in the Zone" I've been pretty successful.  I haven't really noticed excessive hunger, and if I've felt hungry "early" it's because I forgot to eat my snack or there was an imbalance in my previous meal that I was able to correct.  I lost just shy of 2 pounds, which is fairly impressive as I feel like all I do is stuff my face.  I don't feel deprived (except for cheese which I want all the time) and aside from the stress I cause myself by not getting enough veg carbs (who can eat that much salad/veg?  I ASK YOU WHO?  OR WHOM? OR WHATEVER IS GRAMMATICALLY CORRECT) I've been reasonably chill about it.

I wonder if I could find the 150s again.  It's only 6lbs away...and perhaps that 29 inch waist is out there somewhere as well.  

Oh.  I also want wine.  Maybe with some cheese.

And I want to go to the gym.  And for a run.  Or maybe both in one day like a boss.  I'm so excited for days off!  Days off!!!  And I put in a vacation request today, too!  A vacation request!!  WHO AM I?!?