I’m talking about bananas, all you sickos.

Friday morning started out with this:

Yes, a white-chocolate-covered christmas-tree-shaped rice krispies treat, I’m afraid.  I saw it at Target, and I succumbed.  *sigh*.

At least I balanced it out with this:

A green banana.  I have seen several people lately talking about how they like their bananas.  I like ‘em green!!!  I’m talkin kermit the frog green.  Don’t ask me why, I always have.  As soon as they turn yellow, they don’t taste as good.  And when they have… gasp… brown spots?  It’s all over.  I’m afraid at that point, banana bread is the only option.

On the exciting fruit-front… I am pleased to announce that my local Target has now started selling some fresh fruits, vegetables, meats and cheeses.  It is a very welcome change and I am really excited about it because Target is right next to my gym and I like going there.  And, this time when I went… I saw these!!

A 4lb box of honeycrisp apples for $5.99!  I paid $1.99 per pound for them, on sale, at Safeway last time.  Woo hoo!  You know I hit that up.  So a honeycrisp was my morning snack.  Unfortunately, I do not have a picture because I ate it in the car on the way home…

For lunch, I used these which I got on sale at Whole Foods:

Quorn chick’n tenders.  I had never had these before, but have loved all the other Quorn products I have tried.  The only problem is that they are usually pretty expensive.

I made a Quorn chick’n tenders salad.

The tenders didn’t taste like real chicken at all to me, but they were still delicious.  I like all different kinds of meat-substitutes, even if they don’t taste anything like meat.

In the afternoon, I went to the gym and had an awesome workout.  Since before I went to Switzerland, I have been back at level 12 on the stepmill.  I had been trying to work my way up in minutes on level 13, but had started feeling really tired and was also beginning my taper for the marathon so I went back to level 12.  The longest I had gone at level 13 was 25 minutes.  Well, Friday I decided to go big or go home.  I set the stepmill for 30 minutes at level 13.  I was dripping sweat by the time it was done, but I did it!  I was so happy.

I celebrated on the way home, because I passed Dairy Queen and this was calling my name.

A chocolate chip cookie dough blizzard.  Heaven in a cup.  I restrained myself… I got a small.  And I ate every.  single.  bite.

I was full when I got home, but was so excited when I saw the Vitalicious package on my porch.  It was the variety pack I ordered two days ago and had forgotten about already!  I was able to hold off for an hour, but finally broke out a double chocolate dream vitatop:

I love, love, love vitatops!  In my shipment, I got a variety of flavors that I haven’t tried before so I’m very excited to try them.  My order contained:

• 4 VitaBrownies
• 2 Chocolate Fig VitaTops
• 2 Banana Nut VitaTops
• 2 Double Chocolate Dream VitaTops
• 2 Deep Chocolate VitaTops
• 2 Fudgy Peanut Butter Chip VitaTops
• 2 Golden Corn VitaTops
• 2 CranBran VitaTops
• 2 AppleBerry VitaTops
• 2 MultiBran VitaTops
• 2 BlueBran Vita Tops

I am so excited to try them all.

In my continued effort to cook one dinner for S and I, I made manicotti.

I beefed mine up by having it on top of steamed broccoli and egg whites with parmesan cheese.  It was incredible.  I also had a Fage greek yogurt, for some calcium.  I am making an effort to have more dairy each day, and since I don’t like milk… yogurt is key.

Then S and I went to Borders and read some magazines and drank coffee until they closed.  I absolutely love doing that, it is one of my favorite things ever.  When we got back home, I had some vanilla ice cream with a banana muffin for dessert.

It was so good, even JB wanted some.