I’ve kind of been on a spending spree lately.  A lot of it has been necessary stuff, but some hasn’t so I am feeling a little guilty.  S’s birthday is next weekend, and I have bought him a couple things.  I am also planning on taking him gokarting, which has been wanting to do, and that will cost a pretty penny.  I’m going to spend less and try to save for a while now.  Plus the trip to Switzerland is coming up, and I definitely want to be able to spend money there without feeling too guilty.  So now entering penny pinching mode.

This morning I went grocery shopping and got some yummies, including strawberries, angel food cake, cottage cheese, Barney butter, sunflower butter, chocolate dream peanut butter, wasa crisps, and a new flavor of Luna bar I haven’t tried before (white chocolate macadamia nut):

I have been wanting to try Barney Butter and Peanut Butter & Co. peanut butter for a really long time, having read about them both on sooo many blogs.  I actually ordered some Barney Butter off Amazon a few weeks ago, but they had to cancel my order after they placed it because they said they couldn’t get it from the supplier anymore!  I was so sad.  So today when I found it at Nob Hill I was totally excited, even though it was $10 for the jar.  And man, I had some with my dinner… it was worth every penny

Eats for the day included eggbeater omelette for breakfast and turkey salad for lunch.  I ate an entire cantaloupe throughout the course of the day:

Cereal for a snack:

Followed by some wasabi and soy almonds.  I can’t decide whether I like these or not.  I think that I do… I just have to be in the mood for them.  At least I hope I do, because I have a huge bag to get through eventually…

Then was the highlight of my day… the delivery of my new running shoes!

I always get them from Running Warehouse… they have good prices and free two-day shipping.  I got the Mizuno Wave Alchemy (as usual) and can’t wait to wear them for my next run!  As you can see, JB was excited about them too.

Dinner was another old mac and cheese in a cup, some yogurt and more cantaloupe:

Then I broke out the new Barney Butter to try on some Wasa crispbread.  I had one crisp with regular peanut butter, and one crisp with the Barney butter for comparison:

I loved them both, but DAMN, that Barney butter is good!  Fo sheezy!

Dessert was some chocolate Arctic Zero with a crumbled Kashi Happy Trail Mix cookie on top.  And that makes for a happy Raychee!

Now the football game has just ended so it’s time for me to go and do some studying.  I have to turn off ESPN before I hear the word “Farve” one more time tonight and my head explodes.

Yeah, so I didn’t write yesterday.  S and I were invited for dinner at a friend/coworker’s house with him and his wife.  I was totally dreading it the entire day, but ended up sucking it up and going because I promised I would.  This was the first time I had met them.  Turns out that, although they invited us for dinner at their apartment… they don’t cook at all.  So we had, drumroll please…………………. COSTCO PIZZA.  I couldn’t believe it.  Oh well…  And it was like the most unhealthy, greasy pizza that I would NEVER buy for myself… meat supreme with sausage and pepperoni.  I ate one really big slice and felt really sick and mad afterwards.  I was mad because I had to go in the first place, mad because I had to eat that shit pizza.

I also had four glasses of red wine…  I probably shouldn’t have had so many but when I first got there I accepted one thinking it might be the only way I could get through the evening.  And every time I finished the glass (I never learn…) the guy just kept filling it up again.  And since I was kind of nervous and it was just the four of us sitting there eating shit and talking… I just kept drinking it.  So I was feeling sick and pretty drunk by the time we left (too late.)

Drama ensued.  S and I got in a fight, and I made him just take me home.  It sucked, end of story.  Things are ok now, but last night wasn’t great.

This morning I went to the grocery store and got some goodies – and some ice cream and cake for a treat for this weekend.  I’m nervous for my 18-mile run on Sunday.

Today I had a nectarine (which I didn’t remember to take a picture of until I had already eaten half of it…):

Lunch was a beautiful multi-colored salad with lettuce, carrots, cabbage, red green and yellow peppers, onions and broccoli.  Along with a veggie patch portabella garlic burger, cheese, egg whites, olives, and olive oil and vinegar.  Isn’t it purty?

Snacks included cereal and cottage cheese cheesecake pudding with a nectarine:

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I also tried the chocolate peanut butter Arctic Zero.  Another new obsession, SO GOOD!

For dinner, I made burgers.  Ground beef patties for S, a veggie burger for me (with some carrots and hummus on the side… no pic.):

And dessert was cake and ice cream.  I totally love store-bought cake with buttercream frosting.  So good!!!

I will probably have another snack before I go to bed tonight, but not sure yet what that will be.  Guess we’ll see…  I’m so glad I can just relax and sleep in tomorrow.

And I feel like I’m about to freaking melt.  It must be 3000 degrees in my house or something, I am sweating on my couch!  Hot flashes at the age of 26???

The past few days have been really busy at work, that’s why I haven’t been blogging appropriately!  But really not that interesting.  The most interesting thing?  Probably that my shower had a clog.  But I bought. drumroll please…. DRANO!  Actually I think it was Liquid Plumber, but same thing ya know.   You are supposed to use half the bottle to get rid of a clog, and let it sit for 15 min.  I did that once, but it didn’t get rid of it!  So I dumped in the rest of the bottle and it worked.  So it must have been a hell of a clog, that puppy required a whole bottle of drano!  But I am very happy because it was less than 24 hours of showering with 4 inches of dirty, disgusting water around my feet and it was super gross.  I felt like I came out of the shower dirtier than I went in…

My eats have been ok, I wish a little healthier.  I need to stop buying foods that I love but that I know are trigger foods, for example:  pudding.  I love pudding, but I cannot just eat one pudding cup.  I buy 4, I eat 4.  I buy 6, I eat 6.  So yeah, I ate 6 pudding cups (but am only putting a picture of one, ha.)

I’m doing great with fruit – Today I had 1 nectarines and a pint of blueberries:

For dinner tonight, I had something yummy.  A few weeks ago, I got a coupon for a free Gardein product.  I bought the Santa Fe Good Stuff and finally decided to try them.  I just heated them up in the microwave, and ate them on top of some angel hair pasta tossed with tomato sauce and a wedge of laughing cow cheese, and threw in some steamed broccoli and mozzarella cheese.  It was delicious!  I definitely recommend this Gardein product, and look forward to trying some more of them.

I got another new product that I was TOTALLY stoked to try.  I heard about this Arctic Zero frozen treat and, as an ice cream fanatic, thought it definitely had to be too good to be true.  A whole pint for 128 calories?!?!  Yeah, must taste like frozen chocolate mudwater.  It is ridiculously expensive, and Amazon is the only place that I know of to buy it from right now, but I really wanted to try it so I sucked it up and bought some.  Oh man, this stuff is freaking incredible.  I got chocolate flavor and chocolate peanut butter flavor, and tonight I had the chocolate:

It is seriously so good.  Creamy – not like chocolate ice like I expected.  First I made myself a bowl of it on with a Kashi Happy Trail mix cookie crumbled on top:

And then, you know you saw this one coming, I ate the whole pint.  But it’s ok, because it was only 128 calories!  Too bad it was like $8!!!!    Here is a snapshot of the nutritional info, in case you don’t believe me:

It even has 4 g of protein in 1/2 cup, which I like.  Yes, I have a new obsession.

Snackeroos included cereal, cottage cheese, almonds, and soy chips.  I opened a new bag of Safeway Eating Right soy chips, and I thought that they tasted a little bit different that usual, but kept eating them.  When I finished the bag, I went to throw it away and noticed that I got the Sea Salt flavor (while I usually get the Sour Cream and Onion).  They were pretty good – I probably would have never bought that flavor intentionally… I tend to be a creature of habit and if its not broken, why fix it…. so it was nice that I got to try them even if it was accidental.  I might even get them again some time! 

Ok, time to declog.

If all goes according to plan (which, I know, it never does….) I will be running the Lausanne marathon two months from today.  Two freaking months.  That’s eight weeks, and the last two weeks are taper so thats just 6 more long runs.  Holy poop.

On a lighter note, today was a good day.  First of all, I went to the gym.  It’s funny, I felt like I hadn’t been there in FOREVER since I didn’t go on Saturday (day before long run so tried to rest), Sunday was long run, didn’t Monday (day after long run so tried to rest.)  For someone who is an obsessive compulsive gym goer, and who relies on that daily ritual for her sanity (even if I don’t do a hard workout at all), that was tough for me.  I know, that sounds retarded.  But for some reason, just walking into the gym makes me feel better each day, even if I do nothing but ride a stationary bike for a little while or walk on a treadmill.  I think part of it is because of the fact that I work at home so it is sort of like my “haven” where I get to leave the house and leave work and actually be around other people for a little while.  But it’s more than that, because it has always been a place I love to go even before I started this job and started working at home.  It was my escape during college and grad school, and even back in high school and before.  I guess I’m just a bonafied gym rat.  And I love it.  It’s my therapy.

So anyhow, I went to the gym today.  Did 20 minutes on the stepmill (fat burning program, level 13) and then 20 minutes on the elliptical (hills, level 11).  I sweated like nobody’s business.  I have been sooooo hot lately, all the time.  At night I have trouble sleeping because I am so hot, and during the day time I’m hot as well.  I always have been a heavy sweater at the gym, but this has gotten simply ridiculous!  It’s actually kind of embarassing, dripping all over the place.  But whatever, that’s sure as hell not going to stop my work outs!!!

Work was fine, same old.  Breakfast and lunch were the same things I have had the entire week – clementines, green tea, coffee, and my huge salad with everything under the sun thrown in.  Snack was my cereal.  I know… boring.  I’ll try to spice things up some more.  My dinners are getting more interesting, though.

When S came home after work, he walked in WITH A DOZEN ROSES for me!!!!  I couldn’t believe it, I was so happy.  He’s a sweet guy and says very nice things, but he doesn’t really do little romantic things like that very often at all so it was huge surprise and really meant a lot.  Especially because I was kind of grumpy with him when he left the house this morning – I was annoyed because on Thursday night we have to go to eat dinner at his friend/coworker’s house with him and his wife and 1.  I’m not that excited about going overall and 2.  They are going to get Indian food, which I am not a fan of.  I also couldn’t sleep at all last night, partially because I was hot, partially because of some unknown reason, and partially because he was SNORING so LOUD.  I freaking wear earplugs, and I still can’t sleep – that’s how loud it is sometimes.  So I was kind of snippy as he was leaving in the morning.  Needless to say, I can’t possibly be snippy with him now, bless his heart.

Isn’t that sweet?  Totally made my night.  For a few minutes I actually got scared because he was being so nice to me the entire night I thought for sure that he must have done something really wrong.  But turns out he didn’t, he was just being sweet

For dinner, I made whole wheat penne with olive oil and parmesan cheese for S, and some homemade garlic bread on the side.  I admit it, I had a bite or two, or three…. while I was cooking it…

For myself, I made grilled chicken breast, steamed broccoli with mozzarella cheese and egg whites with hummus:

And some cottage cheese cheesecake pudding with blueberries and flax seeds:

Dessert was some swiss chocolate:

And then I made an experimental recipe.  From a long time ago, when I made the mistake of trying the Medifast diet, I have at least 30 packets of medifast chocolate pudding sitting in my closet.  It actually tastes pretty good, so I don’t want to throw it away, but I always have better things that I want to eat so it has basically just been sitting there.  So I tried to experiment and make some brownies.  I took a packet of medifast chocolate pudding and mixed it with a tablespoon of whole wheat flour, one egg white and  a pinch of baking powder and sweetener.  I mixed it all together and added a little bit of water to make it a thick dough and then separated it onto spoonfuls and put it in the toaster oven at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes.  When they came out, I let them cool for a few minutes and put on a little bit of peanut butter.  And they were pretty good!  I was happy with my invention:

Now it’s bedtime for bozos.  Hopefully I will be able to sleep tonight, I’ve just about had it with this insomnia thing.  I don’t know how insomniacs get through the day, I really don’t.  If I get less than my 7 hours, you do NOT want to talk to me the next day.  That reminds me of a really interesting article that I just read on Runners World website.  It was about Tera Moody, one of the best marathoners in the country who is also an insomniac.  It is crazy, I don’t know how she does it.  But really interesting.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Swiss have left the building.  Yes, the last Swiss (well, technically second-to-last if you are going in chronological age order, but let’s not be picky) left this morning.  S dropped his brother off at the airport at 5am, making me glad that I decided not to spend the night at his place and go with him.  I was supposed to go out for dinner with the two of them last night, but his brother didn’t end up getting back from Sacramento until 9pm.  I was exhausted from not sleeping Saturday night and then my 16-mile run, so I was NOT going out for dinner at 9pm, going to their place and then getting up at 4am to go to the air port.  I don’t think so.

Now just under seven weeks and counting until we leave for Switzerland…

So I stayed at my place and slept alone (sorry JB, not alone…  just with a slightly smaller and furrier sleeping buddy than usual), and woke up to early morning meetings, green tea, a clementine and my coffee:

I managed to have a spare half hour in the morning, so did a quick grocery store run.  I was completely out of salad, popsicles, and a few other non-negotiable staples.  I also picked up some fresh nectarines and blueberries!  One of the greatest things about living in San Jose (which is NOT available where I am from…) is having at least 3 grocery stores within a 2 mile radius of my house.  I never have any excuse to not have fresh fruits, vegetables, and healthy eats.  So lunch was a burger salad with Veggie Patch portabella garlic burger, cheese, egg whites, olive oil and vinegar, and a few olives.

Snacks were cereal and blueberries with cottage cheese/cream cheese pudding (just cottage cheese blended together in the blender with vanilla, a little dollop of cream cheese and some stevia):

For dinner, I had fun inventing my own recipe of chicken cordon bleu for S.  It actually turned out pretty good, although it didn’t look that beautiful.  S loved it and thought it was delicious, which made me happy.  I have to admit, he’s a good eater.  I have never made a single thing that he didn’t like, even the crazy recipes that I experiment with and make up.  Here’s what it looked like:

For me, it was Veggie Patch spinach bites, steamed broccoli with a cut up string cheese on top, and a bowl of blueberries:

And dessert was a sundae with chocolate and vanilla ice cream, a crumbled crunchy granola bar, and chocolate syrup:

I had my meeting for work, and then night snack before I went to bed was another crunchy granola bar, some bbq pop chips, and a chocolate pudding cup:

I’m going to sleep.  S is already sleeping, due to his early morning this morning.  I think this is the first time ever he has gone to bed before I have…

Oh weekends, I love you.

Friday night I went bowling!  Haven’t done that for a long, long time.  First we hit up Subway where I got my footlong turkey sub.  Oh Subway, how I love thee.

Then it was on like donkey kong at the bowling alley.  Except not really, because one thing that S forgot to tell me in all the time we have been together is the fact that he must have been a professional bowler in his past life.  He does like this shady curveball thing when he lets the ball rip down the lane… it goes wayyy over to the right and you think for sure it’s going to be a gutter ball.  But then right before it goes in the gutter, it does a turnaround and beelines straight to the middle of the lane where it hits the pins and gets a strike.  It’s incredible.  And big bro taught little bro in the four games that we played, so by the end of the night they were both doing it and majorly kicking my ass.  I think I scored more than 100 in one of our games, which is always my big goal, so I was happy.  Here’s a pretty cool action shot I got of S:

Saturday started off with sleeping in.  Not getting out of bed until 11:30, while rare, is a much appreciated and anticipated event.  Then we headed to Barnes and Nobles for our ritual.  Breakfast was some cottage cheese protein cheesecake I had made the day before to use up some cottage cheese that was about to expire, a clementine, and a kashi bar.  The backdrop for the kashi bar shows Alyssa Milano’s wedding dress, because I couldn’t help but liken it to a wrinkled up napkin that was sitting right next to my breakfast at the table when I took the picture.  What was she thinking??

We spent the afternoon at Target getting S some new work clothes.  It was pretty fun, although after a couple of hours it got a little old standing outside of the dressing room.  But I did get some things for myself, including a new toaster oven.  My old one bit the dust (it was totally old and ghetto, I’m surprised it even lasted this long) and I use it alllll the time for everything so I definitely needed a new one.  It’s a really nice Black and Decker with convection baking, toasting, the works.  Ha, maybe that isn’t impressive for all you professional cookers/bakers out there but to me it ROCKS!

Annnd… I’m not going to lie…. S bought me a set of SPONGE BOB DINNERWARE!  Well, probably dinnerware isn’t the right word for it because it’s made of plastic and probably made for a child around the age of four, but you know what I mean.  A matching plate, bowl and cup!!!

And along with his new clothes, S got a sleek fedora hat.  He has been wearing it dancing around the house all afternoon.  He thinks he’s Frank Sinatra or MJ or something…

What a cutie patootie.  Dinner was an Oroweat thin with peanut butter and raisins, carrots and hummus:

And dessert of angel food cake and pudding:

And I baked brownies for S and I to test out my new toaster oven (with convection baking!!)  You know I ate mine on my new Sponge Bob plate….

Ok, bed time for bozos.  I have an early morning wakeup call for my 16-mile run tomorrow.  I’m scared, scared, scared so doubt I will get much sleep anyways…

JB took a field trip today.  That is a big event for a cat who has not left his house since I got him (except once, when I moved from my apartment into my townhouse which was totally traumatic for him.  We took him for a sleepover at S’s apartment (where he is spending a max of one night a week actually sleeping, and doesn’t even go there at all during the week, so I guess it’s not even technically accurate to consider it his apartment anymore.)  Anyways, JB was majorly scared but really well behaved.  First of all, he rode in a very loud Ford Mustang to get there (and S’s driving isn’t, shall I say, the most graceful and calming environment for a scared animal.)

Once we got there, he made a beeline for under the air mattress, which was still blown up for Stephen’s brother to sleep on (he will leave to go back to Switzerland on Monday.)  I swear, it was incredible.  He smooshed himself completely flat and managed to get all the way underneath in the center of the queen sized air bed.  Hilarious.  Here is a pic of him investigating the entertainment center:

I also took some pictures throughout the day of my sleeping angel laying next to me as I worked:

I love pets and how they just offer complete and unconditional love.  I never understood how someone couldn’t want a pet.

Some nom highlights from the day:

Several plums….

I got these new Veggie Patch portabella mushroom garlic burgers that I really like.  They are delicious!  I got them at safeway on sale, along with some spinach veggie bites (kind of like chicken nuggets only with spinach inside) and have really been enjoying them.  So lunch was a veggie burger salad:

Snacks of more fruit and some cereal:

And an afternoon snack of some chocolate and vanilla Haagen-Dazs ice cream.  They both had about 1/2 cup left in them, so I polished them both off….  damn, that stuff is good.  I’m usually filling up on fat free frozen yogurt or sugar free/no sugar added ice cream.  I gotta admit, sometimes the real stuff is the way to go.

Tonight we are going out to dinner (I think Subway, my favorite!) and bowling with S’s brother.  I can’t even remember the last time I went bowling… this could be bad…

The heating coil that I ordered for my dryer finally arrived today!  I was really happy, but tried not to get my hopes up too much.  As much as I love my man and believe in him and how smart he is…  I still didn’t want to believe that a $30 part was going to magically fix my dryer, and then be disappointed if/when it didn’t.  And plus, there was the fact that even after putting in the new heating coil…. the dryer still had to be put back together.  Because at that point, it was still lying on my floor in approximately 1290473289543190432157098432q4809321 different pieces.  Give or take a few.

So I was pretty eager for S to come home and try to put it back together.  I was so excited that I even wanted to make a special dinner for him to help psych him up for the big fix.  So I started making chicken parmesan from scratch, just making up my own recipe as I went along – crushing up the bread crumbs, cooking the chicken breasts, it was fun.  By the time he got home, I was just putting it into the oven to bake and was starting to boil the pasta.  And, bless his heart… he walked in with a dozen KRISPY KREME DOUGHNUTS for me!!  And not just any krispy kreme doughnuts, but two different kinds:  1.  kreme filled (my absolute favorite) and 2.  FOOTBALL DOUGHNUTS!  Yes, it was incredible.  I’m trying not to eat my computer screen as I put these pictures in:

I was happy I had taken the time to cook a nice dinner for him when he walked in with this surprise, and then was planning on spending the evening working on my appliances!!!  We had dinner and then he got to work.  And I’m pleased to say….

Ta da!  That’s the new heating element, in place.  And then, he put the entire thing back together.. piece by piece.  I helped a little bit… but not much at all.  I held a couple things, screwed a couple of screws, and got him drinks… that’s about it.   And now, my dryer works!  So… while I was frustrated and ready to go spend about $1000 to buy a new one when mine stopped working (because it’s a stacked washer dryer, I would have had to buy a new combo), S was willing and able to take it apart, figure out the problem, fix it, and put it back together.  Love it!

Meanwhile, I ate six donuts.  Yes, six.  I managed to stop at six, because I figured that I had to leave some for him and I could rationally explain myself by saying that I only ate my half.  Ha.

My other eats for the day:

And DONUT!!!!  Doughnut?  Donut??  Ehh, who cares.  I ate it.  Six of it.  And loved it.

I tried to hide from Stephen the fact that I ate six of them.  I figured that by the time he noticed, hopefully it would have been a day or two so he wouldn’t know that I ate them all at once.  And he didn’t see me eat them, since he was busy fixing the dryer.  But I was so mad at myself, and felt so guilty.  Total disordered eating behavior.  Ugh. Oh well, guess you win some and you lose some, right?  And I totally won a lot today, so am NOT complaining   Good night.