xo, Amanda

The Wedding

2012-02-12T15:41:00.000-06:00

Oops I wrote this back in January, but wanted to add a few cell pics to it & then never ended up finishing it.

On October 1, 2011 two of my great friends got married and I was blessed to be in their wedding as a bridesmaid.

I normally am quite the picture whore, but this time I knew EVERYONE would be taking pics, so I actually took almost none. HUGE SHOCKER. I even left my cell phone in the bridal suite while they got married at a nearby park and didn't go back for it until the middle of the reception. It was rough! ;). Kinda silly too since our dresses had POCKETS (!), but alas.

Therefore, I credit 99% of these photos to the professionals, Aragon Photography of Atlanta, as well as a pic or two from facebook (I think Dana's sister's, Kelly if I'm not mistaken) that may have slipped in the mix.

Nathan and I. I had never met him before, but him and his wife were both really sweet. His poor leg was hurt and he had to use a cane most of the day, but was able to troop through and walk down the aisle like a champ! :-P

Dana and her Dad. Here we go!

Seeing his bride walking down

Awww.

Married!

Everyone together

Girls

Color pop!! LOVE. She added the rhinestone herself and it made the shoe. She's so pretty.

In the limo directly after the ceremony.

Reception.
Quick story. They called all of us in the wedding party one by one into the reception after all of the guests were seated, but Nathan and I were accidentally left out, so the whole line kept getting messed up, and I think Dan and Dana actually were announced before us, haha. If I'm not mistaken I think Nathan's wife was the one who announced or at least gave the list? And she said she got nervous and forgot to say her husband's name, of all people LOL. It was really cute/funny. We just had to scoot on by the bride and groom to get around the dance floor so they could begin their first dance! :)

TA DA.

Amazing amazing couple and friends.

Annnd now that I look at all of the cell phone pics none are really worthy of sharing at all, but since I made you wait this long, I'll add them here at the bottom just because. These are mostly random ones of my Mom and I over the course of the weekend. She'd actually never met Dan OR Dana previously, but they asked her to please come as my guest since they'd heard so much about her and really wanted her there (SO nice), so of course she obliged!

Delirious in the airport at like 5 or 6 am. Aren't we beauties? :-x Well, my Mom always is :).

Once again delirious, prob at 2 am that nite? Well, technically the next morning. I couldn't sleep! Not sure why taking creepster pics of myself was necessary, but it passed the time....sorta.

Another oh-so-lovely duck face by yours truly. Right before we walked across the street from our hotel to the mall (convenience at its finest!) to eat lunch. Sushi, yum! Well, for me. Mom's not down with that. Crazy. She had a burger, I think. Ha...how many places have sushi and burgers? It was a steakhouse/sushi hybrid kinda place, though maybe not the best idea since now that I'm remembering I did get sick after.....

Leaving for the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner! It was at a great Irish restaurant. We got to meet her family (first time for me too, since they live in California) and bond. It was really nice and the food was great!

Outfit. With gold strappy wedge sandals. I don't think I look like myself in any of these. Weird.

Excited

Wedding day! During the rehearsal all the girls talked about hair options. I had a couple ideas in mind (some up, some down), but that nite only myself and another girl decided on updos, while the rest were going to go down. In the end, only I ended up with mine down!

I had my dress tailored (why did bridal stores always insist you go up a million sizes??? I wasn't even getting it tailored there, so it's not like they got extra money!) and it was STILL too big. The ironic part is the boob part was the part that was too big, yet the only reason I went up TWO to THREE sizes was to accommodate for my chest!

And it was extra WEIRD because the day before I tried it on to be sure and it fit almost perfect, then I woke up the next morning and it was HUGE. I could barely keep the top up. Not great when it's strapless!!!! So I figured keeping my hair down would help hide that...I told the hair stylist I was gonna put my hair in front of my shoudlers, so it'd help cover me up a bit. She ended up not listening to me at all and didn't do it like the picture I showed, plus it was super tight in the back and looked mullet-y pulled forward (but great in the back, as you can see above). She also did my bangs (that were way too long as you can sorta see in the rehearsal dinner outfit pic) in front straight across instead of side swept (also like in the pic). But I don't think I had any wardrobe malfunctions, so oh well. At least my makeup was perfect! I didn't even tell the makeup artist what I wanted, but she ended up doing it exactly how I was envisioning!She did all of us girls in similar, complementary colors, but that were best suited to our features. Very cool.

This was taken post-wedding in our dark hotel, so you can't tell at all. But it was a navy-ish smoky eye (my go-to for fancy events usually) and the rest pretty natural...except, you know, false lashes! They look way more exaggerated here tho. They looked pretty and natural in person.

About to leave for the wedding venue!! I had fixed my hair a lil better there, the bangs at least, but the wind ended up attacking it anyway haha.

Purdy mama

Leaving!

& we were invited to the small brunch the next morning for close friends and fam. Luckily we could make it (had to take our luggage with us LOL).

Healthy, huh? Nutella and banana (I think? nutella for sure) french toast. :-D

Phew, that was prob TMI, but my blog is mostly just for memories anyway, so it's all good.

xo,
Amanda

Protein Powder VS BCAA Powder

2012-01-15T15:19:00.017-06:00

As usual, I've clearly been a bit behind in the blogging world lately, but one thing I have noticed taking prominence among many dietary posts is the inclusion of BCAA powder to prevent post-workout muscle soreness.

Being a person always interested in learning about the latest health supplements and their positive effects on the body, my curiosity was peaked. While researching the benefits, I was told (and have since confirmed) that BCAA is already a component of most protein powders! Luckily my obsessive need for information and reviews (thank you, internet!) outweighs my impulsivity, as my first instinct upon reading that BCAA is used to prevent muscle soreness was to throw down that $40 or so dollars and see where it took me. With all my muscle issues I can use all the help I can get, but now I'm just plain confused why this product is rapidly gaining popularity (though it's looking likely I will remain $40 richer--hooray). I know a lot of the bloggers using the supplement already include protein powder in their diets, so why the necessity for additional BCAA? Anyone know? Is there something to this inclusion or is everyone just being duped?

I was at Sprouts today and compared my favorite whey protein powder (MRM for those curious) to the BCAA's (3 different kinds, including the MRM BCAA powder). The only difference I could see was that the protein powders include even MORE amino acids than BCAA, while the BCAA-only's included slightly more concentrated doses of about 3 amino acids. I don't know if those 3 have been researched to provide better recovery in those heightened doses or what?

If anyone reading this uses both protein powder supplementation AND BCAA powder, do you use them simultaneously? Or do you only use the BCAA on its own if you're not planning to use the protein powder? I know I definitely don't use whey after every (or even most) workouts, so that makes more sense. But if they're commonly being used in combination with one another, I am so lost!

Gracias.

xo,
Amanda

One Mile(stone)

2011-12-31T17:17:00.016-06:00

I think I just ran my first mile.

No, really.

Let me back up.

I've run many a mile(s), just never consecutively (I don't think--though there was one time a month or so ago I think I may have in the middle of a workout and not realized it).

I already worked out today with weights, but I got a wave of extreme fatigue and instead of taking a nap or lazily fighting it, I decided to pump myself up with a quick run. Once I got started, a few seconds in, I thought, what better day to try than the last of 2011?

Not only that, but it was a 12 minute mile exactly (Unplanned. In fact, I was aiming for 15, sad as that sounds! We all start somewhere...). I have cardiovascular endurance, but not speed. It's partially a mental thing, partially lung, it seems. Because although my calves were tight, as they often are, my legs felt OK: good even (until I slowed down!). But today I proved I can push through the pain, be it physical or mental.

I know MANY people walk at 4mph, but that used to be my "running" (err, I guess jogging...) speed. But now I'm inching my way up to 5 and 6 mph, a place I never thought I could be, even though neither are particularly remarkable for many.

But as they say on Pintrest...

I don't normally do resolutions, but I've had a goal in mind for a few months--and maybe, just maybe, by 2012 it'll be achieved.

BIG Hint: 3.1.

xo,
Amanda

Christmas Dinner

2011-12-25T20:44:00.019-06:00

After my last post I was on a coffee high, while everyone else passed out.

I took the opportunity to fit in a 35 minute treadmill run. I know, who works out on Christmas? But I truly felt like it, so why not? Now my legs feel so tired from running & then standing for hours to cook that I can barely stand it, but it's only one day....

Finally, I got myself cleaned up & got started on the next round of food.

While that was all cooking, we took the opportunity to have 2738384 photo shoots.

Bella was laughing at me.

Yeah, the bald look isn't really in for me...EEK!

Still NOT my best look, but my mom looks way too cute not to post!

Meh, neither of us look our best here either, but what can ya do?

There's not a meal that goes by where food doesn't get on his shirt, tie, or pants. Heh.

More snuggles, natch.

Oh, right: the meal.

Appetizers:
spinach artichoke dip, queso, shrimp cocktail, veggie chips, taro/sweet potato/other chips, organic blue corn chips, baby carrots, celery, deviled eggs, and black olives

Main Event:
filet mignon & mashed potatoes. I also tried one of the crab stuffed clams I accidentally slightly overcooked.

I forgot to make the salad! Doh.

Served alongside giant glasses of Prosecco. Which my dad kept INSISTING was Champagne. He didn't understand that they're similar, as in they're both sparkling wine, but one is Italian (does Prosecco always have to be Italian? *ponders*), while one is ONLY from Champagne, France. Oh well, it's still bubbly vino and that's alright with me!

Fancy pants time!

Finally, my brother & I.

Excuse Buster's odd eyes. He had red eye in almost every pic, the little demon! Clearly iPhotos red eye corrector wasn't at the top of its game today....

We tried to go see the Descendants at the indie theatre, but our steaks took too long to cook and we wouldn't have made it. Kinda disappointi...

Err, wait, what's that you say? Oh, sorry not you. That was the pumpkin pie & vanilla/cinnamon/maple whipped cream calling. I must bid you adieu. A couple gingerbread or almond sugar cookies might find their way into my, er, pie-hole as well. It's only fair.

Then, I must watch the Christmas classic, Dexter Season 2. Eh, ok so it has nothing to do with Christmas, but I'm gonna watch it anyway. So there. Hopefully Elf too if my Dad ever goes to sleep and gives up the big tv! SANTA! I KNOW HIM! I wanted to watch it the other nite, but we couldn't find our copy and it wasn't on tv 'til today. Weird!

Hope your Christmas, Hannukah, or anything else you celebrate (life?!) was amazing, too.

xo,
Amanda

Christmas Morning

2011-12-25T14:13:00.018-06:00

Looks like we were good this year-Santa came!!

First up--stockings! Obvi.

I told him to smile. What's up with that? HAHA. Family...

And modeling my oh-so-(NOT)-flattering onesie ;)

Makeup-less face not able to be shown because I still want to have SOME pride-ha.

Then, presents!

He's a MAN!

Here's (most of) my loot. I'll post a more detailed list later.

Way WAY too much! But I love it ALL.

Lots of snuggles were to be had

Yeah, yeah that one was from yesterday, shhh close enough

GASP Naked pets! NOT ok in this household ;). But their sweaters kept getting caught on their paws & it wasn't fancy-clothes time yet!

HAHA mid-yawn. Isn't he ferocious?!

It isn't the holidays if you don't get humped by your dog, I guess! Yikes!

Oh, Buster.

After the presents were unwrapped (took less than 2.5 hours--a personal family record. Usually we hit the 3-3.5 hr mark), it was time for breaky-fast! Ham & cheese egg casserole topped with a last minute addition of cream cheese (GREAT decision) + egg nog ~~bread pudding~~ baked french toast.

And egg nog coffee. Lots of coffee.

+2

Misc. Decor:

Even my nails got festivus with the rest of us :-P

I guess it was tiring getting so much new stuff. Nap time for some!

Be back later with another recap, hopefully!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

xo,
Amanda

Christmas Survey

2011-12-24T16:55:00.015-06:00

Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?

WRAP. I didn't realize some people just set them under, that would practically ruin Christmas for me! Half the fun is opening everything!!!!

Colored lights on tree/house or white?

White

Do you hang mistletoe?

Nah. I'm pretty sure you don't need to make out with your family. Just sayin'

What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?

Hmm....I like everything we make, hence why we make it. Fave is prob the spinach artichoke dip.

Favorite Holiday memory as a child?

Can't think of anything specific, but we always had excellent Christmases

Snow? Love it or dread it?

LOVE. LOVE. LOVE. Shame on you haters! :-P

Real or fake tree?

Fake. We had a real one a couple of times, but it gave my Mom and I horrible headaches, so we're probably allergic.

What’s the most important thing about Christmas for you?

Seeing people happy

What is your favorite Holiday dessert?

pumpkin pie with gingerbread cookie crust or pumpkin gingerbread trifle

What is your favorite tradition?

watching my family open their presents

What tops your tree?

the past 2 years (we always seem to lose the toppers, so it changes) it's been a SUPER sparkly star that my mom, dad, and I love, but my brother thinks is sooo tacky, lol

What is your favorite Christmas Song?

I'm not a huge Christmas song person, but I like that Garth Brooks "Santa Looks a Lot Like Daddy" one OK, or really any of his Christmas Album...and for shame, for shame, but I've always been partial to that "Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays" one by N'Sync (I don't know the real title, but I'm sure you know the one...). The Hippopotamus one always makes me laugh, too. And not a Christmas song, but...what are the holidays without Adam Sandler's Hannukah song?!

What do you leave for Santa?

cookies, milk, and veggies for the reindeer, duh!

Do you have a Christmas morning tradition?

Whoever wakes up first (at a reasonable hour, say after 8) can wake everybody else up, as people slowly get out of bed to head downstairs, we all open our stockings, one by one, then find our cozy place on the couch, cuddle in with the pups and kitties, then open the presents 1 by 1. It usually takes 3 hours, at least. Then, I make breakfast & coffee with egg nog when we're done (even though it's usually past lunch time...) and we feast. Only to be followed by beginning to start the appetizers and dinner process.

Picture taken about 5 minutes ago, but you get the idea ;)

Do you prefer to shop on-line or at the mall?

mostly online--more unique choices!

YOUR TURN!!

xo,

Amanda

The Most Simple, Delicious, Homemade Beer Bread

2011-12-11T20:30:00.004-06:00

I googled something like "easy beer bread," found a recipe, and tweaked it. I'm more of a cook than a baker, so I didn't have high hopes, but this bread is AWESOME! I want to eat the whole pan. I'm definitely going to keep making this. It's easily adaptable based on what you have in your own pantry, but here's what I used:

Ingredients:
-1 cup whole wheat flour
-2 cups unbleached white flour
-1 12 oz bottle of beer
-1/4 cup baking stevia
-1/4 cup demerara (raw) sugar (any sugar is fine, that's just what I had)
-pat of butter

Directions:
-preheat oven to 375 degrees
-rub the butter on your loaf pan and set aside for now
-mix your flour, sweeteners, and beer in a mixing bowl. Transfer to your pan. mixture should be a little sticky.
-cook approx. 53 minutes, take bread out and rub your butter on the top layer. Put back in oven for 2 more minutes.
-Take out, let cool a little (I sampled it after maybe 5 min and it was hot, but able to be sampled), and then devour!

You can probably use any type of flour or sweetener. I was worried about using stevia, since I know yeast (from the beer) feeds off of sugar, but no problems here. I'm not sure if it would work using 100% sugar-free options, but I'm sure it would be fine. I've also read you can use 7 up or Sprite instead of beer, but don't quote me on that!

It's on the sweet side, but I think it would be fine for savory dishes or sandwiches, too.

YUM.

xo,
Amanda

Aldi Obsessed

2011-12-08T22:05:00.016-06:00

Yay for no office Thursdays.

Slept in a little, then made a delish breakfast: egg white omelet topped with wild blueberry goat cheese + a side of 29 cent grapefruit (!)

That goat cheese is so good. And cheap too. My family recently discovered Aldi (it's new here) and they have some good stuff, yo. Just keeping my fingers, toes, and anything else double crossed for Trader Joe's next. Dallas was supposed to be the first Texas location, but I recently read Ft. Worth was confirmed first instead. I'm not thrilled, but at least it's getting closer and hopefully means many, many expansions. I'd be a crazy happy maniac if TJ's came here, oh boy. 2 buck chuck! Mini pb cups! Chocolate covered toffee pistachios? O-M-G, yes. Oh, and, you know...cheap healthy food is always amaze too :).

To get back on track, I also had some faux coffee. I'm not supposed to have any caffeine for 2 hours after I take my homeopathic drops. The horror. I've been trying to set an alarm early to wake up, take the drops, then go back to sleep for 2 hours (is that obsessive? lol), but felt like sleeping in today with no interruptions. Teccino to the rescue, vanilla nut flavor. It calls itself an herbal coffee, but tastes more like tea, imo. I eggnoged it up and it was close enough for me.

I worked a leeeeeettle bit, but my Mom invited me to lunch, so sayanara to that!

She picked her fave, Mi Cocina. When we sat down I forgot tortilla chips are corn based (duh) and ate 1 or 2. Then, I knowingly ordered tortilla soup, but pushed the tortilla strips to the side. It probably leaked into the soup, but...baby steps, I guess.

My Mom ordered the bowl, which I thought was a little weird since I knew she'd be ordering an entree as well. I ordered the cup. She didn't realize she said bowl not cup, so when it came she was so confused. Oh, Mom. I offered to switch with her, since I'm a soup addict and I knew she'd waste most of it. Good call.

I also had part of a grilled chicken salad (also came with tortilla strips, I didn't know, ugh! and bacon, eww...both got pushed aside)

The house dressing was like a blue cheese, so I just drizzled it + dumped the entire salsa dish on top. I figured it would be more like balsamic vinaigrette. My bad.

When I got home I was so tired I could barely function. I'm getting reeeeeal tired of this pattern. It's been happening at work every day lately, followed by a headache and sore throat. Not cool.

I FINALLY mustered up the strength to walk downstairs and make gingerbread cookies. They came out more like cake-like cookies. Odd. But still tasty. Normally I'm not one to eat more than a cookie, maybe 2, but uh I ate like 4. That wasn't my best move. But I still want more, not gonna lie. (Also not gonna have more...tonite).

My brother and I had planned to split a chicago style pizza, but he was rude and got Panda Express instead and left me with nothing. Who does that?

I remembered the bag of 2748844 sweet potatoes (again, Aldi....), so I diced and baked a couple of those, ate some dipped in spicy "special sauce" (vegenaise, organic ketchup, & sriracha) + a few lil baked shrimpies in the sauce. With my beloved sparkling water.

It's no ridiculously deep dish, saucy pizza, but it was rather tasty in its own right.

No more desserts tonite. Darn!!

xo,
Amanda

To Corn or Not To Corn?

2011-12-01T23:14:00.020-06:00

Shortly after I started seeing my current chiropractor, almost a year ago, she mentioned a lady I may want to make an appointment with. She didn't know her personally, but she had another patient with unexplainable chronic pain, similar to me, who seemed to have some success. The lady is not a doctor, but practices a medical technology known as Electric Dermal Screening (EDS). Apparently it's THE diagnosing technique in Germany and other parts of Europe, but it hasn't quite caught on here yet.

Despite not having to have any sort of medical training (aside from learning how to use the device, of course), it seems to have caught on by those in the know, as the wait list was backed up about 6 months. We thought we'd made me a July appointment, but July came and went...no appointment. I confirmed a new appointment...the Monday after Thanksgiving. Long wait, again.

On Monday I debated back and forth whether or not to even go. It seemed a little hokey. I didn't know what to expect, if it would be worth the money, or if it was just a waste of time. I even found another homeopathic clinician (with an actual doctorate in natural medicine or something like that) as a backup, but ultimately decided if I waited almost a year, I may as well see what it was about.

I can explain the actual process if anyone is curious, but the real point of this post is to bitch about one of the handful of findings. Supposedly, according to my electric nerve pulses (something like that anyway....) I have a severe allergy to corn. That includes corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, and corn oil, but shockingly, not popcorn. That didn't sound too bad at first. I like corn and all, but it's not a fave, and I try to stay away from the corn syrups regardless. OH, but wait. Hello cornstarch, cornflour, polenta, grits, cornbread, (veggie) corndogs, corn tortillas. Not to mention the common corn-based food additives that are added to almost EVERYTHING.

Even my favorite hot sauce has corn starch in it. I'm telling you, EVERYTHING has corn in it.

Stupid corn.

I also came up moderately allergic to sugar, also in everything. I mean..SUGAR, people.

Oy vey.

I was thanking my (not so) lucky stars that peanuts were ok (peanut butter, my love!), stevia, oatmeal....even gluten was great. That one shocked me, as sometimes when I over-do it with the wheat I feel blah. But that may just be the fact that it's a hard grain for anyone to process.

But when I got home and started checking ingredients of everything corn was..always..there.

Shit.

I even came home late Monday nite (my appt lasted 2 hours! And I only had to pay 1 fee for 3 sessions) and started to make dinner. Step one: mushrooms. Without thinking, I coated them in my favorite Greek seasoning. Five seconds later I realized they contain cornstarch. I washed off the mushrooms (yeah I know you're not supposed to clean mushrooms with water--too bad) and started over. The rest of the meal? Corn free. But wait. At the last second I doused my portion in hot sauce. Yep, the aforementioned cornstarch-containing variety. Whilst cooking, I had, out of curiosity, checked my red hot sauce (which is corn-free..the way to be! ha..I'm so corny...OK I'll stop), but didn't check the green, which was not in the clear. I was exhausted by this point and said eff it, I've eaten corn for 26 years, one more small amount in a meal won't kill me. And it didn't. Yet.

I don't remember Tuesday. But yesterday, I even did well ALL day (I'm pretty sure). Until dessert. Yeah, not only does it include sugar--duh, but I wasn't even thinking.....I planned to get plain fro-yo topped with fruit. Pretty healthy and as far as I know no corn (though there probably is somewhere in the process, but hey I don't know.....). BUT, instead? I took one look at the self-serve bar & all the flavors were suddenly spilling out of my HUGE cup. Next? CANDY. Oh, what's that you say? Candy is chock-full of corn syrup? Shit. Shit. Shit. I was covered in sugar and corn, barely coming up for air, by the time I realized this.

I'm gonna try my best, but since it's not exactly a life or death allergy it's hard to know what to do. If it's a cause of my daily pains or other discomforts, clearly it would be in my best interest to cut it out completely, but I don't know how much it does affect me! And it would be a nearly unrealistic life change to get it out of my system. So idk. For now I'll do my best, but as you'll see....I'm not doing so amazing.

Breakfast started out pretty well.

Egg white and spinach scramble topped with cream cheese, hot sauce (the OK kind), and grey poupon. Brown rice toast topped with Irish butter and lingonberry jam. A pear.

No good morning beverages yet--I'll explain in a sec. But overall I think I did a corn-hating body good.

I worked from home today and while plugging away at my laptop a couple hours later, when it was safe (again, see below), I made a mug of Godiva caramel pecan bark coffee with vanilla stevia and egg nog! I love me some egg nog coffee.

For a snack I had my last vegan tofu curry egg roll. I had read the ingredients the nite before and thought they were in the clear, but today I spied corn starch in the wrapper ingredients. UGH. I ate it anyway.

Same thing happened with dinner. Last nite I read the bottle of a pre-made butter chicken sauce in a jar and I SWEAR it had no corn on it. Wrong. Tonite, after prepping my meal, I noticed cornstarch again. DAMMIT, people. Again, I ate it anyway. Whatever.

Made with an organic diced chicken breast on top of basmati rice.

& a salad

I got a small stomachache, but no big thing. Could have been from the acidity of the sauce. Who knows?

For dessert I finished my frozen candy yogurt. I suck.

I've also been given a homeopathic remedy for another possible health, bacteria-related issue. Guess what? With homeopathic remedies you can't have caffeine within 2 hours of taking the drops (aka no coffee until at least 2 hours after waking) and you can't have mint (including cinnamon?). No mint toothpaste. No burts bees chapstick. This crap better help me feel better, I tell ya!

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a little snuggle buggle to attend to.

She's corn free too. Mama doesn't let her eat corn, soy, or wheat. Common doggie allergies, you see. But she sure can put away celery, carrots, and apples! Apples are her kryptonite. That's my girl.

xo,
Amanda

Thanksgiving 2011

2011-11-25T13:59:00.010-06:00

Started off with a semi-late breakfast. I made french toast for my brother and stole a few bites for my Dad and I and I also made him scrambled eggs. My Dad made us egg souffle omelets, an apparent specialty of his I never knew he had. He wanted swiss & I wanted cream cheese, so we compromised and had a little of each + a few cut up vegetarian sausages. It was sooo good! I also made us protein pumpkin pancakes. Ahh, the day had barely started and we already had to make 284494 things to please everyone :-P.

Luckily I had prepped a handful of things the evening before, as my back decided to spasm all day. Honestly, I'm not sure how I managed to stay standing all day. It was pretty bad.

But I pushed through.

Appetizers, anyone?

The spinach dip was made with goat cheese. I'd never made it that way before, so was a bit nervous, but it turned out pretty well.

The dogs got dressed in their party clothes...

Audrey Hep....I mean Bella!

& tuxedo boy himself, Buster!

While Henry hid and Ethan looked on, probably silently laughing...

Unfortunately, my DSLR battery died right as the food finished. And then when I tried to use my backup point and shoot, that battery was dead! Electronics are so rude sometimes.

It didn't help that my iPhone was taking all blurry pictures all of a sudden...

AH well, we do what we have to do...

The feast all strewn about...

I cooked everything except the turkey, so my Dad did the honors of carving it as well...

I couldn't find the Thanksgiving table runner (grr!), so I had to use the spring set up

I'm pretty type A and was getting frustrated that I couldn't find 4 matching glasses, couldn't find the right decorations, etc. but it all still worked out..

Turkey, homemade gravy, mashed sweet potatoes topped with caramelized bananas, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole

Also, unpictured: orange soda cake topped with an orange-cream cheese frosting & my personal fave, pumpkin pie with a ginger cookie crust topped with homemade maple/cinnamon/vanilla whipped cream. I don't like whipped cream, but I could eat a bowl of that.

Nom, nom, nom.

Success.

xo,
Amanda

iPhone Test Post

2011-11-21T12:10:00.001-06:00

Hey guys. I know. I know. Not even going to say it.

AND when I had a chance to update this weekend our Internet router broke and a replacement won't arrive til Tuesday or Wednesday. I roughly wrote this on my phone via the blogger app, but trying to insert the photos that way was a nitemare/somewhat impossible, so I'm doing a little picture tweaking at the office. Yay for working wifi.

It's pretty random, but I was just trying to clear out the iPhone photos (and have many more similar posts to come)

Without further ado, I present to you...Food Lately. Turn away health foodies, a lot of what you are about to see is junk.

The first 3 pics are from Hannah's in Denton. That was the city I went to college in and tho I commuted, it was one of the few things I miss about Denton! :-p. When my Dad signed up for a seminar in the area I knew I had to tag along to accompany him for lunch!

These used be the best fries eva, especially with their special sauce, buuuuttt they changed the waffle fries and just... Meh. Ok. They still give you a million for only a couple bucks, at least.

I don't really understand why places are famous for certain items and then change them!! What's up with that?

Next up, duck crepes! Ooh yea. The duck was a wee bit overcooked, but still pretty tasty stuff. Not sure if it was worth almost $20 tho. For lunch! And with no sides. It was pretty salty. But...it's CREPES. People, you know I love my crepes.

And I took this to-go, but panna cotta with berries and, wait for it... balsamic. It works.

Lastly, they had the coolest potted herbs hung above our seats! I was a fan. I wonder if they use the herbs?

Below that is a rarity: food from home! Overnite cocoa oats, in this case. Topped with frozen cherries I let thaw overnite. Plus a gingerbread soy misto. Sup holiday cup?

Lastly (for now), it was a long day at work one evening, but my brother begged my Dad and I to go with him to Purple Cow Diner. He rarely likes to go out, so we begrudgingly agreed. He also insisted I try a milkshake, as he claims they're the best. Good call, Ryan. I almost got an "adult" milkshake with Baileys, but ultimately stuck with nonalchy chocolate peanut butter. It. Was. Awesome. I couldn't finish it, but I sure made myself sick trying!

I also had a black bean garden burger (open faced) with fries.

Ok, I give up for now. Blogger app still needs some work. Humph!

xo,
Amanda

Breakfast Lately

2011-11-07T23:29:00.021-06:00

I had a busy day, so here's a quick post. I've had some both conventional and unconventional breakfasts lately, but all have been really tasty. Take a look.

See? Busy Bee. *Gulp* that was what piled up within minutes of walking in the door, and it only kept coming. Luckily, by the end of the day it was all complete. Victory!

Brown rice toast topped with a slice of organic american cheese, egg white puff, & grey poupon with coffee with egg nog! That fruit you see is a pear, but it was a little past its prime and most of it ended up in my dog's belly or in the trash.

Today I had basically the same breakfast, only today I added in hot sauce to the egg white mixture before I nuked it. Great idea! It was awesome.

Bella agrees. But she only got some apple slices, her fave food of all time. (Yeah, she was still in her Halloween pj's, whatev. She's in a pink dress now, no worries)

Protein banana pancakes topped with peanut butter, chocolate almond butter, and a tiny bit of chocolate hazelnut butter. Oh yeah. If that wasn't enough of a delight? More egg nog coffee!!

So glad it's back! And this kind is organic too. Bonus!

Obviously those meals are all pretty normal to start the day out right. I typically tend to eat your standard breakfast food items for....breakfast. But over the weekend, I kept picking lunch items instead, even though it was to break-the-fast. Weird! But tasty, nonetheless.

It was coupon use up time again. First up, Humperdink's.

This was only my second time there. Still not impressed, but this salad was great.

I didn't eat the croutons or tomatoes, but left little else. It consisted of spinach, hard boiled eggs, feta, artichoke hearts, and sundried tomatoes topped with balsamic vinaigrette. Dreamy.

The whole reason I went the salad route instead of going for a veggie omelet was to avoid eggs for a day or two. Oopsie. But I LOVE hardboiled eggs in salad, I couldn't say no!

Funnily, when the waiter asked my Dad if he wanted cream with his coffee and my Dad said yes, he came back with a container of whipped cream. We were both confused and amused, but he decided to give it a try and he liked it. It mixed in easily too. Who woulda thunk it?

The next day we had a Mimi's coup (that ended up not being as good as we thought, but oh well money off is money off...). I started off breakfasty, but that's also where it ended.

Just call me queen of the drinks. I often seem to end up with a trio.

Entree wise, I debated back and forth between the chicken madeira crepes or the shrimp salad. Only, not really, because as I've said before...crepes (almost) always win. Both looked awesome, though. The crepes came with a lil balsamic salad and the crepes themselves were filled with chicken, artichoke hearts, and mushrooms & topped with a creamy sauce. It was good.

I've been getting a lot of stomachaches and also having a lack of appetite lately. I wake up really hungry, eat breakfast, get a stomachache, and feel full for the rest of the day. I try to force myself to eat at nite to keep my metabolism going (and have been making somewhat poor choices when doing so, since nothing sounds good...). Of course, you'd think since nothing sounds good, I'd just eat whatever healthy foods are available, but nope. For some reason it's not working that way. Lame!

Like, for one, fried chicken "fingers." Does putting them on a bed of organic spinach (with light ceasar dressing) make it healthier? Didn't think so... I also slathered the chicken in "special sauce" (lowfat veganise mixed with organic ketchup...also delish, but only faux healthy)

I NEVER make fried food at home. I didn't even know HOW to make fried food before I was 20. I'd never seen it done before I had a roommate. But for some reason I was dying for chicken fingers (something I basically never eat), so instead of ordering out I made my own. Weird.

Hopefully my eating patterns will regulate soon!

I wasn't terribly hungry for dinner again tonite, no surprise there, but my brother wanted subs for dinner, so I got one too. Firehouse Subs! Only my third time trying it, but it was really good. I got the Engineer with a few modifications (smoked turkey, sauteed mushrooms, cheddar, lettuce, tomato, green peppers, onions, and extra spicy mustard on wheat!) + some roasted sweet potato & a pickle spear a la carte.

For dessert I had most of a mug of (honeycrisp!!) apple cider

Shortly after, I prepped tomorrow's breakfast and I can't WAIT. I made it up in my head yesterday, hoping to have it today, but we were out of greek yogurt. I was NOT about to let that happen again, so I popped by the store before I came home this evening. Chocolate overnite chia oats here I come!

xo,
Amanda

To Keurig or Not to Keurig?

2011-11-02T13:11:00.032-05:00

Do any of you buy the Entertainment Passbook every year?

If you don't know what it is, it's a HUGE book full of coupons for restaurants of all types, from fast food to steak and seafood dinners. Of course, the more casual places outweigh the fancy, but still.

No, they're not sponsoring me, so enough about that-haha ;).

The point of bringing that up? The coupons randomly expire November 1 of each year. For years my Dad and I have been saying we were going to use the Lawry's Prime Rib one for their Sunday brunch, and never did. We always assumed it was a buffet, but upon further investigation, it's not. And although most of the menu isn't even breakfasty, we decided to FINALLY go, the last weekend our coupon was good!

In true Amanda style, I had already been over the online menu, ohh, 10,000 times. At first I really wanted the chicken crepes. If there are crepes on a menu, I'm usually going to order them. It's just a fact. HOWEVER, I noticed they had something called a toad in a hole. It said it included filet mignon medallions and veggies inside of a yorkshire pudding topped with a cabernet wine sauce. Like I said last post, I'm eating WAY too much red meat lately, BUT I've always wanted to try yorkshire pudding and have never seen it offered before! I guess I could have asked for some on the side? But no. I ordered the Toad in the Hole. More on that in a minute.

When we first arrived there was no one at the hostess stand and none of the wait staff stopped to acknowledge us either. Even after a good 5-10 min. My Dad wanted to call the restaurant and tell someone we were there, right in front of them (the phone was behind the seating station), but I begged him not to, lol. Eventually he motioned a bus boy over, who told us to wait a moment. Meanwhile, the hostess came out of the bathroom, sort of apologizing for the wait and took us to our table.

Amazingly, every meal also comes with a basket of bread (sourdough & blueberry muffins) complete with flavored butter, a glass of champagne or a mimosa, and your choice of: fruit with mint and creme freche, their famous spinning salad, or a bowl of mushroom bisque. All for a really reasonable price! (Unless you get the prime rib, then it's their normal price, depending on size,...but you still get the first course and champagne, so not too shabby).

Mmm, champagne. Why waste half the glass filling it with orange juice? ;)

My Dad picked the salad, so I picked the bisque, assuming we'd share. I guess we both liked our own too much, as we barely saved a bite for each other. Oops. Though, funnily enough, I think we'd both consider getting the other's choice next time. I really liked my soup, however it was all blended smooth. I had assumed it would be a creamy base filled with chunky mushrooms.

Usually I pass up the bread basket, not just for health reasons, but because I don't really like most bread. But I do like sourdough and even though I don't particularly care for butter, I've always liked trying flavored butters. So, they won me there.

I'm pretty sure they were regular butter (didn't try to confirm), blueberry, & chive

My plate:

Pretty good, but I'm not sure I'd eat them again if I go back. The muffin was pretty bland and the sourdough flavor wasn't very strong. But the sourdough was probably my favorite, as the texture was quite nice.

My Dad ate (almost) the rest of the bread *shakes head*

I had also ordered coffee, but assumed the waitress forgot (she didn't write out orders down, which always makes me a little nervous!)

I was going to just forget about it, but then she ended up bringing it out right before the meal came.

Love the little pot!

I thought maybe she'd take it off the bill since she forgot it for most of the meal, but no such luck. $3.50! That seems pretty pricey, right? But it was delicious. Very strong, which I love. I drank it completely black and drained the whole pot (not that it was very big).

I also realized shortly after ordering, that I never specified how I wanted my steak cooked (rare!), nor did the waitress ask. I thought that was a little weird, but didn't really care, so long as it didn't come well done.

You can see where this is going. It came well done. LOL. But it was still pretty good, so no worries. It came out looking much different than I anticipated. I had no idea it would be covered with fried onions, for one. Not that I expect a steak "dinner" to be healthy by any means, but this seemed much more decadent than I was anticipating. I pushed most of the onions aside and dug in.

It tasted more like a semi-gourmet beef stew more than anything, also not what I expected. It was good, but between the bread and soup, I took approximately 3 bites and called it good. Don't worry, the rest came home with me. The yorkshire pudding wasn't as exciting as I hoped, but it was good, too. Just tasted like a puff pastry? The roasted potatoes were also pretty great and I was excited to include them in my breakfast the following morning.

I had read online that the Dallas location wasn't as swanky as some of the others and that the service wasn't great, but I found both accounts to be untrue. Not that I've been to the other locations, but still. Our waitress was very friendly and though she didn't check on us excessively, there wasn't any real need. As far as the restaurant goes, my Dad and I were both a little surprised at the small size of the dining room, but my Dad felt it gave it more of an exclusive feeling.

I really liked the plant for some reason, lol.

Overall, we were both pleased (my Dad got the crab cake benedict, which oddly came with no english muffin, the crab served as the "bread," and thought it was pretty good, though not great). For a normal brunch out it's on the pricey side (his meal was $19, mine was $17, and then the coffee), but for what you get it's still a great deal. We would go back and pay full price for a special occasion or celebration OR go just for fun with another discount. Since it is so rich, it's probably plenty to only go when we have a coupon (this year we bought 2 books after a misunderstanding with the vendors), but it's a nice option to have when you feel like being indulgent.

We ran a lot of errands after eating, so we didn't have time to make it to the gym, but clearly I needed to burn some of this off!

I procrastinated and procrastinated, but ultimately ran on the treadmill for half an hour, I think? Well, my usual walk & run, that is.

My initial hesitance:

Followed by almost-acceptance that this was going to happen:

And finally, sweet, sweet, sweaty victory:

Hotness.

I don't remember what I had for dinner, leftovers most likely, but for dessert I tore into a candy bar I forgot I had.

I ordered it along with an iHerb order awhile back and it came a little melted, but tasted oh-so good. If only it had been dark chocolate, but really, when it comes to toffee and chocolate, you can do little wrong!

And last but not least, give me some encouragement or discouragement: re: K cups. Worth getting a Keurig for? Yes? No? Help! I've been wanting one forEVER, but can't make myself take the plunge. I've been thinking about asking for one for Christmas or using a gift card for one now, but I can't decide! I found this at Walmart...

But it was sold out. Ugh. $64 I could get down with. I have found it for $79 elsewhere, but now seeing it for $64 I'm determined to get that price lol. I'm a little sad it doesn't make the iced variety, but for that price, no big thang. Maybe I'll take a 20% off coupon to bed bath and beyond and see what happens?

I've read mixed reviews. Many people LOVE their machines and k-cups, while others say the coffee is crap. Help a sista out.

xo,
Amanda

More Randomness

2011-11-02T11:54:00.020-05:00

Pretty much the only at-home meal I have a pic of for the old blog lately.

Baked chia oats with a cut up honey crisp apple topped with raisins, a blob of plain chobani & a drizzle of sunflower seed butter. It made me miss the sunflower seed butter from Newflower (aka Sunflower Market in many other states...another company had copyrighted it here tho so they had to change it...silly), a grocery store we briefly had that closed down. Their blend was so much better.But once I mixed up all the elements of this concoction it was purdy darn good too. The coffee I believe was a mix of all the Godiva blends I own (pumpkin spice, caramel pecan bark or w/e, & chocolate truffle). I like to experiment with mixing coffee flavors, what can I say? I think it had a splash of unsweetened almond milk & prob a lil stevia too. It was pretty good, but that mug is huge and I ended up spilling most of it out. I'm so wasteful.

Boatmeal Close Up:

Friday nite I was gonna go out to dinner, but after much deliberation Chinese takeout was decided upon instead.

I was healthy and ordered shrimp & extra veggies--no rice, but then I stole some of other people's fried rice. Kinda defeats the purpose, but it was tasty! I also tried a lil shrimp in lobster sauce, but mine was the best.

I then glued my ass to my seat and obsessed over my latest love, Pinterest. I tried to figure out some of the hairstyles posted both on their and on a friend's facebook, the top knot. I kindasorta figured it out (for me anyway, Miss Hair Challenged herself), but MAN did it make my five-head look HUGE. I have a slightly larger than normal forehead in real life, but nothing crazy. But in pics it gets SUPER exaggerated, I have no idea how that's possible! That's why I like to have bangs, to hide it in pics. Kinda silly, I know, but it makes me so self-conscious, even tho I know it's not that bad in reality! I keep showing people the difference between the pics & real life and everyone agrees it's not true-to-life and it's bizzaro. My friend said the same thing happens with her nostrils.WEIRD!

Ughh, what's up with that! It's so ridiculous!

LOL I just noticed the dog butt behind me too. Hi, Buster.

Saturday, I had the chiropractor for the first time in 3 weeks. I thought I had been doing pretty good, but she had to adjust EVERYTHING. Multiple times. I'm trying to switch to getting a massage every other week instead of every week to save some money and this was week one of my experiment. So far so good, pretty much. The chiro said altho my body was out of alignment, my muscles were still pretty loose. RARE for me, so she says that's sign of improvement. Baby steps, body. She also thinks my running instead of weight lifting has shifted things around, but it's not a bad sign. Just shows I've been doing different stuff.

The chiro appt was at 11, so kinda awkward timing for breakfast. We ended up eating after the appt, I was soo hung hung! We ate at Corner Bakery since it's cheap (ish) & was close.

I wanted the chilled Swiss oatmeal, as usual, but, as usual, they were out. Nooo. I'll have to start going earlier I guess :(.

I settled for the veggie egg white scramble. It was just OK. At first they brought me the wrong thing that looked way better. The bacon and avocado-filled scramble with raisin toast or something? I hate bacon, but otherwise it looked so good! I didn't eat my toast at all, but would have loved the raisin toast! I'll have to investigate my options next time (or, you know, get there early enough to get what I really want...tho If they always run out I don't understand why they don't just make more oatmeal every day..duh!)

Actually, what I REALLY wanted for breakfast was scrambled eggs (not just egg whites, but yolks too) & a croissant. RANDOM craving,huh? I don't even like scrambled eggs. I should have just listened to that craving and went with it, but couldashouldawoulda. At least mine was healthier...tho I did split my fruit with my Dad & ate half his potatoes. But still purdy healthy.

Ran into Ross nearby after to look for pillows. Suddenly I have an urge to buy more pillows for my bed. Not too long ago I had too many pillows and got rid of some. Not sure where they went, actually. And now I need more. Oops. I only need my one perfect pillow to sleep on, but since I've been lounging more in my bed recently, I need more cushioning to read with! I really want some husband pillows, but haven't found any good ones yet. Bed Bath & Beyond, maybe? So far I've only found some ugly white ones with multicolor peace signs all over, lol. I also want some pretty throw pillows for decoration. I blame pinterest.

They didn't have any decorative pillows I wanted, but I did get 2 standard pillows for $7.99 each. Is that a good deal? I'm not up on my pillow pricing, I guess lol.

So far lookin' cute.

I also got a new lamp later on that afternoon.

I've been eyeing this bad boy for awhile at Tar-Jay, but thought I could find better. Turns out, I can't. Unless I want to spend like $150. I thought this one was $16.99, but it rang up as $19.99. Rude, but still a good deal.

Still can't get away from the black & white love, can I?

Also, during the afternoon, my Mom and I went to a Holiday Bazzaar/Craft Show held at a nearby high school. Growing up, my Mom would drag me to craft show after craft show and it was literally my least favorite thing to do all year. Now, I love going with her! We both look forward to it every year. Last year I don't think we went to any, the first time that happened, and we were so disappointed.

This year was the first year we didn't buy anything....except lunch.

More eggs. I had "veggie quiche" (ummm....it ended up having turkey in it..wtf? LOL. Good tho), caesar salad, & buttermilk pie. We forgot to get drinks, oops. It was all pretty good! And, as you can see, they gave us extra quiche 'cause we're so awesome. I left a lil pie crust, but otherwise ate everything else. I had lifted weights just before leaving for the bazaar, (legs only still..stupid shoulder), but immediately felt like I needed to workout again after eating this lol....but... I didn't.

For dinner, my parents and I decided to brave Down Under Pub. My brother was lame and stayed home.We thought it might be crazy for Halloween (they have live bands every nite), but it was the only place we all really wanted to go, so we thought we'd peek in and see and just leave if it was a mad house. We walked in and saw people in costumes, but it was pretty dead. Weird. Maybe since we were there fairly early? Tho last time we ate there on a Saturday around the same time it was crazy. Huh. Anyway, I ordered the chicken avocado salad. It looked kinda crappy, but tasted really good! I had wanted a beer, but decided I'd have one at home instead.

Only, instead of having a beer after at home I changed my mind and had a more kid-friendly option.

I tryyyy not to do dessert AND alcohol, and dessert won out instead.

I had wanted frozen yogurt (because when don't I, amirite?), but it was a wee bit nippy out lol, so I made another last minute change and stopped for s'mores and hot chocolate supplies instead. Yes, I had both, don't judge me! I couldn't pick :).

My friend Molly is to blame for this decision. ;). She texted me a pic of some AWESOME looking smores she was eating, so I was a copy cat (altho hers looked better lol, these were tasty too!). Although, I learned a lesson: never buy the off brand graham crackers, trust me. At least not at Walmart. Usually I think store brands are the same as national brands, but in this case it was more like deliciousness vs. cardboard. Nothing a little dark chocolate and corn syrup (I mean marshmallow) couldn't mask. But still. Never again.

I took the lazy man's method of hot choc & just mixed some chocolate almond milk with some unsweetened almond milk to cut down on the high sugar....but then replaced the sugar I took away by adding marshmallows :-x. I'm kinda shocked the choc almond milk has 22 grams of sugar tho. Yikes. But the unsweetened kind is a little gross. Maybe I'll give it one more chance with some stevia? Just thinking aloud (kinda..lol)

While buying supplies for my sugarfest, I ran into this display:

My Mom was in a fender bender recently (not her fault), but even tho it was a fairly minor accident, since she's been in so many, she ended up with a concussion :(. It took like 3 weeks for anyone to realize she had the concussion....Our chiro of all people figured it out (which was then confirmed by my Dad's neurologist colleague/friend). Scary. So now she's threatening to wear a helmet at all times LOL. I sent her this and she told me to pick out a pink one for her. I seriously wasn't sure if she was joking or not :-x. Luckily she was.....for now. But knowing her, we'll see if she changes her mind. If so, expect pictures. Lots of pictures.

Man, with catching up posts it's super hard to keep things properly flowing. I mean, this DID happen after the dessert-eating, however, how do I tie this in properly? Hey guys, I made some dessert and then caught my cats snuggling.

Everybody say awwwwwwwwwwwwww.

Look what else I saw:

Haha, isn't that fun? I'm not a big VW person, but love me some burberry print!

xo,
Amanda

Random Return

2011-11-02T10:48:00.019-05:00

Oh, hey guys.

I have had a request to resume regular posting. Shuttup, it was from my Mom, OK? But still. A request is a request.

I finally have a few minutes (hours?) and I'm not dead tired. Lately I've been excited to formulate a post, only to be too tired to hold my body up on a computer chair, so instead I just collapse in bed and watch tv or read for like 5 hours. Doesn't make sense I can't take half an hour to post, but can stay up all nite, but I go with it.

The difference now? I still barely slept, however it's day time, and I'm not going into work today until like 3 (my Dad and I typically go in together and he's with my mom at the dr as a last minute semi-emergency...more on that later, she's OK I think, but her blood pressure keeps shooting up and down, so I'm a little nervous...), so I decided to just hang out at home like a lazy beyotch!

Funny how things happen sometimes. Last nite before bed (well, more like 2 am), I was thinking mannnn I REALLY don't want to work all day tomorrow...and it turns out I'll only be working like 2 and a haf hours. Bad for the wallet, but good for the spirit, ha.

Sooo, yeah, sorry 'bout that whole mini hiatus thing. Nothing new, right? Sad. I keep saying I'll do better, but I think from now on I'll just leave that to the whole age old actions speak louder than words thing....

So, besides being tired, busy, the usual, another excuse = right after my last update I ate some frozen yogurt with a crushed whonu cookie (basically a vitamin enriched oreo, so you can pretend it's healthy) and then ended up puking my guts out. Gross, I know. So food or talking about food wasn't too appealing for awhile there. I wonder if I developed lactose intolerance or something, but most of the time I'm fine, so who the heck knows what the dealio is (was?).

I've still been mentally planning posts as always, then deleting some of the pics when said posts don't go up, but here's some photographic evidence that hasn't been cut yet.

Let's start with Sutra.

My friend Sam gifted me a $40 groupon voucher to Sutra, a new indian restaurant, for my birthday back in April. I've been meaning to use it since then, but somehow never got around to it. Seeing as how it expired on October 26th, I used it...on October 26. Naturally, I ate a late lunch that day and wasn't hungry at ALL when it was time to go. Doesn't it always happen like that? But I went anyway, duh.

Truth be told, I was a little anxious about it. I read pretty mixed reviews online, many saying the service was horrible (especially if you weren't indian yourself), yet also that the food was crap, not at all authentic, etc. But they had peshawari naan and I had $40 to burn, so clearly I had to brave the bad reviews and see for myself. I've never seen peshawari naan on a menu here before. In fact, I never would have heard of it, except the one time my friends and I went to eat indian in Atlanta they ordered it and it was awesome. It's slightly sweet, which seems weird to eat with curry, but it's soo good and actually works well together!

So, my experience? Not bad, not bad at all. I don't think I'd go back without a coupon of some sort because the area it's in (Shops of Legacy) has lots of other options I'd probably go to first, but it was still a pretty positive experience.

Actually, I have been there once before on a weekend when my friend was MCing their lil club they turn the place into. It wasn't my thing (too dark and loud and I'm an old lady lol), but couldn't comment on their food that time, obv. It was way different as a restaurant tho. For one, they actually had...tables. LOL. ANYWAY.

To start, they had these awesome red screens along the back of the restaurant that I couldn't stop talking about. Aren't they pretty cool?

Just me? Well, I liked them.

Upon perusing the menu, I noticed it was slightly different than what was shown online, however surprisingly everything was a couple bucks cheaper! I had been considering the curried duck with fois gras (fancy, no?), but it wasn't on this menu, so I stuck with my boring, tried-and-true, chicken tikka masala. After it arrived, I vaugley remembered the reviews saying it tasted like a can of Campbell's tomato soup with a shake of curry powder. After taking a sample I realized I could kiiinda see what they were saying, however I still thought it was pretty darn delicious. And definitely tasted like indian food. The naan was awesome too. Success. I did think it was a little weird they didn't ask what spice level I wanted for the tikka masala, and it wasn't spicy at all, but it still had nice flavor.

I also heard the portions were tiny and expensive, but I found them to be adequete. In fact I took half to-go. I know I said I wasn't too hungry in the first place, but I think I could have made two meals out of it regardless.

The service did leave a little to be desired, but our order was eventually taken by who I believe to be the owner and he was awesome. We did have a lil snafu when we ordered dessert and it took forEVER to come (and forever to find someone to order it from, for that matter). The whole experience was pretty slow actually (though our waters never went even close to empty), but when it came to the dessert, if I hadn't wanted it so badly (panna cotta guys, hard to find, but oh-so-good!) we would have just left the estimated tax & tip and left (we'd already given our groupon). Then, the dessert came out to-go? We said we had wanted it for there, but by then we were ready to leave anyway, so we just said no big deal and left.

It was a cardamom panna cotta with caramelized peaches. At first I thought the peaches were canned and was like wtfguys? But I'm not so sure. It was really good though! I was sad I offered to share-haha. I'm glad I didn't let the voucher expire due to other people's poor experiences. Thanks, Sam!!

What's your fave Indian dish to order? Fave naan?

Um. Yeah. Looking through all of the pictures I uploaded, they're basically all from restaurants. No wonder I feel so weighed down lately. I haven't gained weight; in fact, I keep losing it (and regaining lol, but never above where I started), but I just feel like I need lighter, healthier options back as the majority! Good timing, you know, with the heavy food & treat holidays coming up, huh? :-P.

Right now I just REALLY need to focus on less red meat. I rarely eat it usually. I never have. But lately I seem to have steak of some sort for practically every meal. WTF? ENOUGH!!

And has anyone else noticed this blog seems to be turning into a restaurant review blog, not a healthy living blog? Need get back on the wagon, stat! After I finish my restaurant updates, that is :-P. I have SO many posts I neeed to make. I still never finished recapping my JULY trip lol, didn't recap the Wedding last month, etc. I never even posted about LAST Halloween I always meant to lol. Not gooood.

OK, well I uploaded like 30 other pics to put in this post, but this seems long enough for now. I may update 204044 times today though. Or at least one or two more.

OH YEAH, one last bit of kind of exciting news. I haven't uploaded a video to Youtube in over a year I don't think, but randomly yesterday or the day before I got an e-mail asking me to become a partner. I've been wanting to make videos again anyway, so hopefully this will be some incentive. I just don't know where to begin, what to make, blah blah. But kinda cool! Any video requests?

OK, talk to ya soon, loves.

xo,
Amanda

Rest Days

2011-10-18T19:28:00.012-05:00

I'm the kind of person that skims directions and then tosses them aside. I want to know everything about everything, but who has the time? Never mind that it usually takes 10x as long to figure it out yourself.

Obviously I've run in my life, I've just never tried to be a runner (I still say that loosely for now...). I kind of didn't read the part of Couch to 5k that tells you rest every other day. At least the first week is a lot of walking, but 3 days in a row makes for one tight-calved Amanda. Going down stairs is not the picnic it was pre-Saturday.

Let's be honest, some weeks I'll rest, no problem, but others I'll work out 5 or 6 days in a row. I know rest days are very important and I take MORE than my fair share, but I just can't get down with only half an hour of light cardio 3 days a week and then calling it quits. No bueno. But from now on, running of any kind will be on alternate days only.

But mannnnnn, even crap-running makes you HUNGRY. I feel like I ate non-stop Saturday-Monday. Today I did take off and luckily the beast was quelled for now, but geeeez. Maybe that's why they built in the rest days :-P.

Today?

I need protein pancakes every day of my life. Usually I roll with oat, egg white, and protein powder varieties, but lately have take a queue from Julie and cottage cheese-d them up. I've made both her pumpkin & banana varieties and both get two very enthusiastic thumbs up.

Toppings today included a little maranatha pb, a little maranatha chocolate almond butter, & a drizzle of maple syrup. Yes, please.

I debated whether or not to include coffee, as I've cut wayy back, but pancakes, especially ones covered in nut butter, scream for nice, hot coffee. Chocolate flavored (I forget the exact name) Godiva coffee, it was. With a large splash of unsweetened vanilla almond milk + vanilla stevia. Mmm Mmmm.

While I waited for the french press to do its thang, I put the almond milk & stevia in the mug....and then forgot about it & shook the cup out for some reason (to see if there was excess water in the cup from being washed, I guess?) Good thing it was over the sink, because liquids went a-flying. Ooops.

Got to work late like we do every single day and got some things done. Of course, also as always, we had too much drama, too many things to get done, and not enough time.

I managed to cram a little food down my face late in the afternoon, 2:40 or so. Good thing protein pancakes are long-lasting goodness.

What was it I ate, you ask? Sorry, it was too ugly to share evidence, but here's a wordy description: Last nite I prepared a wrap using a brown rice tortilla, a torn up piece of land o lakes white american cheese, red pepper hummus, and organic spinach. I brought a Quorn veggie cheeseburger alongside to heat up & add inside at work, but our work microwave is a little too potent and killed it. No big deal, it was good enough without it. Those brown rice tortillas are my fave taste-wise, but I don't think I'll be toting them around anymore. Portable they are not. I opened up my wrap, doused it in mustard, and as I tried to assemble it all back, it crumbled all over the place. Rude.

Tuesdays are an early day, (though not as early today *cough drama*), so I just went home and caught up on TV & snuggle time with the pups. Nothing better! I don't want to wait until January for the Lying Game to come back. ABC Family, I love youuuu!

Every single day I say I'm going to make salmon. So far, it's still in the freezer. Today included. I knew I wanted peas, but wasn't sure what else. The fridge proved useless, but a peak in the freezer made up my mind: goat cheese and cranberry stuffed Quorn "chicken." If I couldn't have the burger for lunch, the faux chicken patty would more than do. I was gonna make a salad too, but got lazy. Maybe later. Add in a ginger ale Zevia once I couldn't find my coconut sparkling water and I was set.

That's a lil pat of Irish butter in the peas, just FYI.

And yes, it too was deeeeelish.

For dessert I'm currently considering a chocolate vitatop warmed up & crumbled into some frozen yogurt, maybe with a little nut butter, but who knows for sure!

Can't wait for Ringer tonite! Anyone else watching? That & Revenge are probably my two new fave shows this season. What about yours?

xo,
Amanda

I am Not a Runner

2011-10-16T20:30:00.008-05:00

I went to my doctor on Thursday for a routine med check and gave her the heads up on what's been going on with my shoulder. She knows I suffer from an unknown chronic pain syndrome, but the car accident, and most likely subsequent shoulder discomfort, occurred a week AFTER my last appointment. She had me do basic strength and movement tests, which I knew I'd pass with flying colors (and did), but she can see some muscle tightness around the rotator cuff, most likely caused by inflammation that's never gone away. After telling her I recently realized weight lifting has exacerbated the pain and kept it lingering around just when I think it's starting to heal, we decided I probably need to cut out ANY upper body weights entirely. Arms, shoulders, back, chest, almost everything. She said once I feel like the injury is 70% healed I can start reintroducing weights and see how it goes, but not for at least 3-4 weeks. *gulp* I miss it so much already!!! But do feel less pain, I must admit. *sigh*

She also told me to take a prescription NSAID once a day for 3-4 weeks & to go to physical therapy. I'm popping the pill as instructed, but last time I went to that place for physical therapy I HATED it. Plus, it's VERY time consuming, so I'm holding off for now. If I really thought it would help I'd make it a priority, but I just don't have the faith. *shrug*

Meanwhile, since I still hate the cardio options at the new gym and am now resigned to being a temporary cardio queen, I'm trying to have a workout to look forward to. I decided to take up running. I've always wanted to be a runner, but let's be honest here...I'm just not. Not at all.

Call them excuses if you will, but I have everything going against me. I have the flattest of flat feet that severely overpronate, I have asthma, bad knees, need I go on?

I don't think I've ever been able to run a mile straight, even when in great shape. I don't know if it's purely a mental obstacle or if I truly do have physical limitations, but obviously I could do it if I worked harder, no matter what the issue.

I decided to try out the Couch to 5K program.

Yesterday was day one, at the gym. It went pretty well. I don't know exactly what speeds to go for walking vs running, though. I'm slow. Real slow. I'd like to challenge myself, but not overdo it, ya know? I think I've started out a wee bit slower than I probably should, but then again I already feel overwhelmed!

Today, technically day 2, I forgot to switch over on my iPhone app, so I accidentally did day one again. You'd think for a program that is even for people who legit have NO endurance, days 1 and 2 wouldn't be much different, but it kinda is. Oops. Tomorrow.

Anyway, today I attempted my first outdoor "run." Errr....not there yet. I got to minute 12 (aka only ran for 3 minutes at that point, not consecutively either) and then ran back in my house and finished it on the treadmill. MUCH better. Who knew it was THAT drastic of a difference? Ouch.

I hope I improve. And that it's not miserable! My (lack of) arches are already killing me.

Time to go make a fun playlist. Let's do this.....

xo,
Amanda

Burger & Buffet Glutton

2011-10-14T22:17:00.030-05:00

Where have I been?

Why, being a glutton, of course.

Naturally, when you should eat extra good for a certain purpose (i.e. mine = doctor's appt = scale), instead you eat extra bad, am I right? Oops.

Last week?

Twisted Root Burger.

A Dallas institution I have yet to partake in. Until now.

1/2 lb standard sized cheeseburger with guac. I ate 3/4 of it. Next time, I share. Lived up to the hype, but 1/4 lb would be much more reasonable. I forgot to say wheat bun when I ordered. I was not disappointed. That bun was amazing.

I also tried a couple of their fried green beans. Also did not disappoint.

The Egg & I

OK, this one is actually kind of healthy (it's on their health menu, after all), it just doesn't look it. But it happens to be my favorite menu item anyway. The Mediterranean Frittata (chicken, mozzerella, sundried tomato...). No butter on the english muffin. & Fruit. Plus coffee. French Vanilla, this time. I miss the seasonal chocolate macadamia. Come back soon!

I took my Mom to see Motherhood the Musical.

The venue often serves up a buffet style dinner before various shows, ours included.

I was going to stop there (for the entree, DUH dessert was coming next), but I was still a wee bit hungry, so I had seconds on the salad.

I was pumped all day for the dessert bar. I wanted to eat like 10 pieces of cake.

Instead, I took two, both chocolate. Normally I don't like chocolate cake, but I was craving it! Or a chocolate dessert of some kind.

Meh. Disappointment x 2. I ate maybe half of the bottom one, but really should have left all of it and stuck to my (decaf) coffee. They also didn't have the bread pudding they always have. No fair! The only saving grace? See that white part at the end of the far right? It was a sugar cookie. A really good sugar cookie. I wanted to grab the rest, but thought that would be a little tacky to destroy all of their cake just for the cookie edge ;).

One buffet in a weekend not enough you say?

I gotcha covered.

I had a travelzoo voucher for brunch that was going to expire in late October for the new restaurant, Q De Cheval, in the Intercontinental Hotel.

Don't mind if I do!

We arrived approx. 20 minutes late due to a.) an unforeseen circumstance I can no longer remember & b.) rain. The host was a little rude to us, saying they normally won't hold a reservation past 15 minutes, but he'd see what they could do. Understandable, but I could have done without the attitude. And we wouldn't have minded waiting a little. Instead, we were seated less than 1 minute later. I'm guessing we were the only party of 2 and they had an open 2-top table. His attitude changed as he sat us, and we got to eat, so no harm done. Sorry we were late and it offended you, bud! :-P

Now, let's eat!

I pretty much destroyed this plate. Happily. Shrimp pasta, jalapeno mashed potatoes, lox bagel with a million capers, shrimp cocktail, grits with poached egg. Big smile.

Served alongside bottomless mimosas, champagne, & bloody mary's. And coffee, natch.

I stuck with 2 mimosas to start.

They don't play. You know how most bottomless mimosa buffets water down the mix? Not this. It was more champagne than anything. And considering they used Ketel One for the bloody mary's, I'm pretty sure this was some decent champagne at that. I approve. (Though I do adore the taste of cheap champers, not gonna lie, so I'm cool either way).

+ water & our own pot of some pretty delicious coffee.

Not only did the waiters bring your beverages, but you could also go up to a table and serve yourself the booze. Bottomless, indeed. I barely finished the 2 during the entree portion of the meal, but my 21/22 year old self would have been quuuuuuite impressed with the set up. They, however, may have rethought it once I left. Kidding. Sort of.

Plate 2?

Barely got touched. It was still v. good, but not quite as good as plate 1 (luckily!). Not worth making myself ill over. Caramelized banana french toast, a little fruit, eggs benedict.

Took a 10 or so minute break and then let the dessert eating begin!

The entire meal I was eying the chocolate mousse. When it's good, it's gooood. However, I kept noticing mostly-full glasses go by on the waiters plates of empty dishes. I worried people kept grabbing it, but not liking it.

Still, I grabbed the last glass. Phew. Just in time. I had to find out for myself! I'm never one to turn down mousse, come on now.

As I perused the other desserts, they brought out a new concoction in the same martini style glasses. We didn't know what it was, but my Dad grabbed one for us to try, while I went to town on the chocolate fountain.

Of course the marshmallow was what I most wanted to get covered in chocolate and it was the only thing that wouldn't play fair!

But when I got back to the table and I remembered the chocolate hardens I didn't really want it anymore. I always think I love chocolate fountains until I sit back down. Oops.

OK, back to the mousse(s). So, the chocolate mousse wasn't as good as many I've had in the past, but it wasn't bad at all. The reason people kept sending most of theirs away? It's pretty huge. We soon discovered a little mousse goes a long way. Those crunchy little chocolates on top didn't last, though. De-lish.

The other glass? Tirimisu! My Dad ended up only liking the top portion, while I was going to town on the bottom. Could have used more of the bottom if you asked me. Again, good, but not amazing, and a little went a long way.

So, for the second time in 2 days I was a little let down by the dessert buffet. Nothing blew me away. But that's probably a good thing. A few bites and I was good. Oh, and I also downed half a glass of plain champagne with the chocolate.

All in all, I wouldn't pay the regular price for the buffet ($30/person), though it was overall worth it, but if I got the chance at another voucher I'd buy it for sure (ours ended up being a total of $45 for 2, including tax & tip). Even then it was pretty pricey for breakfast, but well worth it for what we got. The only thing I would have changed? I wish they would have had their famous duck quesadillas I read about online, but maybe that's just an evening thing? But what we got was a nice change of pace!

To top it off, on Monday I went to the regular Indian Buffet. It didn't photograph pretty, so we'll omit that evidence. Buffet, buffet, buffet. My poor body! But hip-happy taste buds. Oh yeah.

xo,
Amanda

Lavendou + Pet Halloween Costumes

2011-10-06T21:45:00.006-05:00

Despite being less than a 2 hour flight and 1 hour time difference, my trip has me WIPED. OUT. It was a great long weekend with stories and pics to come, but for now let's start a little smaller.

My first set of vouchers from groupon and similar sites are starting to near the expiration dates, so I'm trying to get on it! Today, my Mom and I used one for Lavendou, one of our fave French restaurants, that we're especially fond of during lunchtime.

This voucher allowed us to each pick a soup or salad, entree, and the dessert of the day.

I chose the salad to start.

I immediately regretted the decision and wished I had gone for the french onion soup instead. My Mom picked that and it looked delicious. So much so she spilled it all over the white tablecloth-haha. Although my salad was basic, it was very fresh tasting.

For my entree I went for the crepes of the day: chicken crepes.

I love crepes and these were no exception. I think shredded chicken or perhaps bigger pieces of chicken would have been tastier texture-wise, but the crepes themselves were perfect and the sauce was great. I tried to smother the vegetables in the sauce. I ate 1 crepe and all of my vegetables. It was the perfect amount and I had another crepe and all of my mom's vegetables for another meal.

I had my fingers crossed for a chocolate dessert of any kind, but that was a no-go. We were brought out a pastry with strawberry & a thick whipped cream.

I wouldn't order it if it was my choice, but it was still good.

The food is ALWAYS amazing, but sometimes the service at this restaurant leaves something to be desired. This time? Not at all. They knew we had a voucher from the get-go, so I thought it may be even worse, but nope. The waiter was super friendly and even offered to get my Mom a fresh soup when hers spilled (she declined--but still the thought). It definitely made me want to go back.

Do note, though, not to go here if you're in a rush. They're always pretty slow, even when they aren't busy. But it's a nice place to take it slow and really enjoy your meal if you have the time! Also, their iced tea is delightful.

Thanks Lavendou! YUM.

I went to Target after to pick up a few necessities (what? canned pumpkin IS a must) and ended up getting the pups their 2011 Halloween costumes! Last year I reused old costumes, but had really wanted Bella to be a hot dog. This year, that dream will come true lol.

Now THAT'S a hot dog. HAR HAR, get it? Get it?

Buster's I went back and forth on. I *almost* got him a shark suit, but instead? The banana prevailed.

Can't you tell how thrilled he is? :-x. I think I got a size too big, oops, but so frickin cute. Ohhhh pets, you bring me such joy.

What are you gonna be for Halloween? Your pets?

xo,
Amanda

Winner Winner

2011-09-28T21:37:00.003-05:00

I'm going out of town tomorrow for my friends wedding (!!!) and too wiped to properly post :(.

But before I go, here's the giveaway winner. A little disappointed by the lack of interest in entries, but ya win some ya lose some. Speaking of which,

Random.org picked lucky #3 aka:

Julie said...: follow blog as jelaws5
aunteegem@yahoo.com

Congrats, Julie! I will e-mail you asap.

xo,
Amanda

Simple Sunday

2011-09-25T22:59:00.005-05:00

Another weekend ends *tear*

This was a pretty low-key weekend, even more so than usual.

For some reason I stayed up last nite until 3 am watching tv (surprise, surprise, me and tv lol). I made a good dent in my DVR, but it didn't do my sleep schedule any favors! I woke up just after 11:30 am. Oops.

Instead of breakfast, it was more like brunch/lunch. With a last minute change in plans,we ended up going to one of my faves, Breadwinners Cafe. I got my favorite breakfast, the monterrey enchiladas with egg whites topped with queso & salsa with a side of black beans. It usually comes with potatoes, but I subbed fruit. They gave me a whole plate of fruit. Awesome. Otherwise, it was a little lackluster, unfortunately. One thing I've noticed that really bothers me is the menu says the enchiladas come with sour cream, but they never do! Even though I don't really need it (but do love it!!), it bugs me that it says one thing and they plate it another way! I asked the waiter the first time and he said he'd bring it to me, but it doesn't typically come with it. Then why does the menu say it does??? /end dumb rant lol. And this time, the enchiladas came lukewarm, almost cold, and the beans were WAY too salty. Fail. But we got to eat on the patio, our fave, and it was nice out, so it was still worth it. Plus the coffee is great and the little cakey breads they bring out are always a nice start. I bet the meal will prob be much tastier as leftovers when I can heat it up. Don't worry BW, I still love you.

There were two people next to us who were quite outspoken. I wouldn't say they were especially loud, but in an entire patio of people, I heard every single word of their conversation lol. And the girl even asked my dad and I what we were putting in our coffee (liquid stevia!!). At least they were friendly and their conversations made me (silently) laugh :-P.

After we ate, we went to Whole Foods so I could use up some coupons that were close to expiring. I forgot to bring my $20 off living social coupon I got, but oh well. Guess that just means we'll be back soon--darn ;).

I kept meaning to workout today, but never did. Ho-Hum.

Ate Maggiano's leftovers again with a fiber one bar. Watched copious amounts of tv. Got lots of licks from the pets. Drank a delicious mango Kombucha. Super exciting stuff :)

xo,
Amanda

Fiber One Review & Giveaway

2011-09-25T22:12:00.008-05:00

I was provided a package from General Mills via MyBlogSpark

Your prize pack will contain the same items I received:
-1 box of Fiber One 90 Calorie Chocolate Chewy Bars
-1 chic black cosmetic case
-1 pop-out hair brush
-1 compact mirror
-1 tin of mints

I've been a fan of Fiber One bars ever since they came out. They're surprisingly filling, likely because of the fiber (5 g per bar), despite being fairly small. It helps that they taste like a dessert, but only have 5 grams of sugar. And that's especially low, since one side of the bar is coated in a chocolate shell. On the downside, they do contain a lot of ingredients, some I'm not a fan of, but as an occasional treat I can overlook that. They're also a good, quick way to get in a little sustenance before a workout without weighing yourself down.

Want to try for yourself? (Hint: the answer is yes)

To enter, just leave a comment below telling me your favorite bar (any kind).

For extra entries why not throw in the usual?

1. Follow Moi
2. Add me to twitter @ManoloMandi (maybe that will convince me to actually use it!)
3. Subscribe to me on Youtube (I plan to hopefully start videos again soon....)

Blah Blah Blah. :)

Let's end this thing before I go out of town, so get your entries in by Wednesday evening, k? K.

Good Luck!

xo,
Amanda

Saturdia Flair

2011-09-24T22:47:00.015-05:00

Today was pretty boring, but why not jump right back in to a daily recap?

My Dad's back was hurting him this morning, so we had to skip yoga :(. Well, I could have gone, but I'm needy with new things and hate doing things alone lol. Usually Saturday is weights day, but I decided to work out at home & did a quick 25 minute treadmill workout.

I was pretty darn hungry after & pumped for what we had planned: crepes! Tried out a new-to-me (not sure when it actually opened, it may be new in general) lil joint, Cafe Flair in Frisco. It was pretty good, but not as exciting as I hoped, as a crepe fanatic. My Dad let me pick the 2 flavors for us to split. Banana Nutella is non-negotiable. That's ALWAYS a must. It was good, but needed WAY more filling. We also split the spinach/egg/mushroom/swiss one (aka The Favorite). Neither of us could taste the eggs at all. Kinda weird. In fact, I'm not convinced they didn't forget them. *shrug* And again, the amount of filling left something to be desired, but it was still a tasty meal. I do love me a crepe. You know how they say bad pizza is still good? I DEFINITELY don't agree with that, however, in my eyes, a bad crepe is still a crepe aka still tasty stuff. Not saying these were bad tho!

They also sell smoothies and bubble tea. I went with coffee to round out my breakfast, but will definitely be back for taro bubble tea fo' sho'. Not sure if crepes and bubble tea go together, but individually? Me gusta MUCHO.

As far as the crepes go, I'd definitely go again if I was in the area and needed a snack or wanted dessert, but for a full meal I'd probably pass. I prefer the crepes in the food court of Northpark mall, but these will do in a pinch.

My Dad said the amount of food was surprisingly really filling for him, but he didn't get the whole full meal experience you get when dining out, since this was an order at the counter casual place. I think we spent somewhere around $18 or $19 bucks after tax & tip, so it's not that cheap when all is said and done (can be kind of deceiving since individually things are cheap, but it all adds up). Plus no leftovers. My Dad was also disappointed coffee refills are 90 cents, but neither of us finished our large coffees anyway, so it's not a big deal.

It took me a little more time to process whether I was full after or not, but when the brain signals finished their chat with the stomach signals, eventually I decided I was quite content and stayed that way for maybe 4-5 hours. Not bad, not bad.

Then, we went to Tom Thumb (our branch of Safeway). I had a coupon for $1 off Seattle's Best coffee (which was already on sale-score). I need more coffee like I need a hole in my head (stupid saying, whatever), but I've been curious about their whole 1-2-3-4-5 level line, so why not? I had no idea which number to pick, but went with 4. I like full-bodied tastes and always think coffee tastes too watery, so that seemed like a good place to start.

Wellllll, it didn't end there. Silly me also picked up 2 more bags....the seasonal Godiva blends: pumpkin spice (I mean, duh, it's pumpkin) & caramel pecan bark. Hey, they were on sale too, the caramel one was limited edition, and I was going to eventually buy both anyway. I can't help myself! Now I have at least 7 bags of coffee at home and 1 at the office. Awesome.

I also had to run into Petsmart to restock Bella's heartworm pill & prescription vitamin supply and Walmart for a couple of things. Boring. Now I just need to remember to remind my Dad next Sunday to take Buster to get his heartworm pills since we forgot to get them this month and I'll be out of town. We got the dogs tested at different places and it's kind of inconvenient, especially Buster's since we did his at this Vaccination Station place that does it for a discount, but only shows up at certain locations once a month. But they're worth it. OK, you didn't need to know all that lol.

Came back to the house for a little bit and probably just watched tv. I don't even know.

I was supposed to go to the Greek Festival tonite, which is always fun, but it was hot as balls out and I didn't feel like sweating more than I already was (nice image, eh?) Kind of disappointed, but I'll live.

Instead, I went downstairs around 5 and made myself a cup of the pumpkin spice coffee. Eh, it's more spice, less pumpkin. Not my fave, but oh well. I was planning on making a snack to accompany it, but my whole fam was starving, so we just went out for an early dinner. Well, around 6, but close enough.

I had a $10 off coupon Maggiano's e-mailed me that was expiring at the end of the month, so we put that to good use.

We all had water & all ordered off the classic pasta menu (where you get 1 pasta dish for there & one to take home). The waiter prob hated us and thought we were cheapos. Oh well, it was still over $60 for 4 of us. Food is so expensive.

For my meal I forget what it was called, but it was farfalle pasta, broccolini, & sundried tomatoes in a lemony sauce? I thought it would be an olive-oil sauce, but it was kinda watery? Not the best, but pretty good. I think I got less food than everyone (no, but really), because I ate so much of mine and all of theirs still looked full. :-x. I also had a side salad.

The pictures were way too dark, so just use your imagination.

And while you're doing that, also imagine my dessert, since that was too blurry. Don't expect good pics in a moving car. Oops. My sugar-fest was what I eat almost every day lately: frozen yogurt! YUM. Half cookies & cream half plain tart topped with strawberries, blueberries, a sprinkle of chocolate sprinkles (lol), and a sprinkle of heath....oh and 3 mini pb cups.

When we got home, my dad accidentally dropped part of my second to-go dish on the kitchen floor when he was putting it away (eggplant parm with pasta pomodoro). In his true nature, he threw a lil fit haha (he gets really serious about food...yikes), but he picked it back up and put it away anyway. GROSS!! I'll prob just let him have it. My brother and him seem to think it's still perfectly fine, but I'm not sure that's hygienic in my book! He wanted eggplant parm anyway, but didn't order it because he thought I'd yell at him for being unhealthy-HAHA. Umm...he ordered baked ziti with sausage for there & meat lasagna to-go....prettttty sure those aren't exactly good for you either.....Doh!

Not gonna lie, I may have picked at some of the leftovers as a late nite snack. That's what eating early does to ya!

Well, back to tv-time, as always. Fall tv is KILLING me. I've been recording approx. 9-10 hours of tv a day most days and I don't think I'm ever going to catch up. Not sure what I'm gonna do...I already decided to delete & cut out Top Chef Desserts, but I'm not sure if anything else can be cut. TV is just so amazing. GOSH.

xo,
Amanda

Day 9:

2011-09-24T22:11:00.003-05:00

List Uno:

9. A picture of a person who has gotten you through the most

Obvi

Yes, she's a person. Duh.

&

List Dos:

Day 09- Something you’re proud of in the past few days

Nothing really lol *shame*

xo,
Amanda

Day 8:

2011-09-23T11:43:00.004-05:00

List Uno:

8. A picture that makes you laugh

I had to REALLY stop myself from posting more pet pics lol. So here ya go...

(Semi)Short explanation: my friend Molly & I stayed at a super fancy hotel in downtown Chicago a few years ago. We got the room for a reasonable price via hotwire (my savior for nearly all my trips), but they were only able to give us a room with a handicapped bathroom. We weren't exactly sure what that meant, but figured no big thang. Well, there was no tub, just a shower with an open bottom with a couple drains in the middle of the bathroom (I mean I'm sure there was a drain in the shower part too, but I literally mean middle of the bathroom....as in outside of the shower). We thought that was kind of odd, but were rolling with it. When it came time to actually shower, we understood its purpose. We both FLOODED the bathroom every time we showered, there was really no way around it. I'm not sure why that's so funny, clearly there is a need and a purpose for this type of shower, so obvi I mean no disrespect, but it's quite shocking and therefore oddly hilarious, to come out of a bathroom freaking out because the entire room is coated in water. ANYWAY, here is my photo modeling the shower. Guess that wasn't so short after all.

Picture 2...

You know how people handle stress/crisis'/uncontrollable events quiiite differently?

Well...here's photographic evidence of one instance.

If I was alone I'd surely be freaking out myself, but with people I have a weird sense of humor and sometimes find travel hiccups to be funny. A good story to tell, if you will. Sooo...my friend Sam used to work for an airline and got us free buddy passes, so my Mom and I went with him to Seattle and to Montana to visit my grandma. It was smooth sailing on the way there, but we ran into a little trouble on the return trip, as all of the flights from Seattle to Dallas were booked. This picture was likely taken on Day 2 of our Stuck-in-Seattle-With-No-Immediate-Way-Out scenario. After all the flights left and we were stranded, we stayed in a (HORRIBLE and expensive to boot) hotel nite 1, but Day 2 I suggested we just stay at the airport. Well, there were no flights that day either. Or nite. But for some reason I just thought it was so funny. My Mom thought it was a nitemare. Sam was in between. I tried to make the best of it. We all did. But clearly from the photo my Mom was not having it, and I was hyper city USA rocking my new airport outfit (complete with granny panty sink washable camping underwear that went up to my belly button. Oh dear. The only available underroos in the entire airport....now that was where I wanted to meltdown! haha).

List Dos:

Day 08- Short term goals for this month and why

The month is almost over, but I'd say the usual...

-drink more water (I used to drink TONS, but recently don't feel like I get enough! Even though I carry a filled reusable bottle everywhere, I find it to stay full many days)

-don't get back in the habit of coffee/caffeine EVERY DAY (I love coffee, but don't want to be dependent on it. When I had my stomach flu recently I quit drinking it, obviously, and have only had it sometimes-not every day-ever since)

-eat less sugar (self-explanatory)

-take a Yoga class (hopefully tomorrow. I'm a little anxious to get back into the class scene, but I know it will do a body good)

Stay tuned for a couple reviews, a GIVEAWAY, and the comeback of my normal foodie and fitness daily-type posts.

xo,

Amanda

Day 7:

2011-09-20T17:17:00.007-05:00

This was a hard one!

List Uno:

7. A picture of most treasured item

It seems like so many of my answers to these questions are of the same thing. This may be a silly answer, but my first material-possession that came to mind? My first post-c0llege real, big purchase:

(I rarely watched the Doctors before Jillian, now it's been on my tv on the blog twice in one week)

37 inch, flat-screen tv. I thought I'd regret spending so much (even though I got an amazing deal and searched and reviewed for weeks). Instead, every day I wake up and still LOVE it, over 2 years later. Best purchase ever. It's the perfect size for my space. Love. It. Even if my brother thinks it's a waste that I never DVR in HD. It takes up too much space!!

Non-material? Obviously...

*muah muah*

List Dos:

Day 07- A picture of someone/something that has the biggest impact on you

Yep, that's me. Other people always let you down eventually, you should count on yourself. Take the best parts of everyone you meet and learn to be a mish-mash of those qualities.

xo,
Amanda

Vitality House Review

2011-09-17T22:30:00.029-05:00

Today was a whirlwind of plan changing.

Last weekend was supposed to be busy and errand-packed (aren't they all?), but my impromptu stomach flu put a damper on any of that. Forward to making up for it this weekend. Yesterday, I was invited to lunch for today, and rescheduled my entire weekend around that, only to be told, one hour before the scheduled meet up-time, that it would no longer be happening as planned. The new plan was to go 2 hours later (which who knows if that would continue to change, you know?). My time is valuable too, thankyouverymuch. In the past I would live my life around other people's schedules and silently suffer, but not anymore.

Instead, I shook off the annoyance and disappointment, and proceeded to move along with my day. My Dad agreed to accompany me to use a Living Social voucher to try out a new, healthy breakfast & lunch restaurant, Vitality House. The reviews online are mostly good. I think that's a fair assessment of my experience. The idea of the place is right up my alley. Here, I'll let them speak for themselves:

At Vitality House we offer delicious, flavorful, unique dishes that are nutritionally beneficial. Our mission is to make your journey for a healthy lifestyle a simple path to follow. With the collaboration of our first class Chefs and our in-house Nutritionist, the menus we present are designed to meet the highest nutritional standards. All of our dishes are pre-portioned and nutritionally analyzed so that the biggest decision to be made is which tasty creation you will choose to enjoy!

And I would say they succeeded overall, but they're not quiiiite there. The ambiance is bright and cheery, the service was a little slow, but very pleasant, and the menu options were good. However, as I expected may happen, I think I liked the idea of the place more than the execution. They're still new (I believe they opened in May or June) and their official Grand Opening isn't even until next week, so I have hope they're still working out the kinks.

The place is small, but it was busy. All but two or three tables were full. Additionally, Dallas fitness guru, Larry North, was also in attendance this morning. This marks the third time this year my Dad and I have run into him and his fiancee at breakfast. Nearly every time we eat in the Richardson area. My Dad and him briefly worked together in the past, about 20 years ago, give or take. For some reason, my Dad thinks this is reason enough Larry should remember him. *shakes head* I had to BEG and plead for my Dad not to say hi this time, lol. Thankfully, he obliged. I really didn't think he'd be able to help himself. Phew.

/tangent over.

I ordered coffee, water, a modified version of Chris' Favorite Frittata (normally comes with eggs, spinach, sun-dried tomato, mushroom, & asiago cheese: I substituted egg whites only & goat cheese), plus a side of sweet potato hash.

I liked the fritatta and it was cooked well, but it was a little bland. If I had made it at home, I think making friends with the (salt free!) greek seasoning would have shaken things up quite nicely. That, or a nice dose of hot sauce.

I forgot to take a picture of the sweet potato hash. Not sure what exactly made it a hash. It was pretty much just diced sweet potato. I'm very picky when it comes to breakfast potatoes of any kind. 9 out of 10 times they're too hard/undercooked for my tastes. How anyone could like undercooked potatoes is beyond me, yet it seems to be the norm. Weird. Anyway, these were no exception, though they were JUST underdone, almost there. So I still ate them and liked them. They were seasoned perfectly. I swear I could almost taste marshmallows, though clearly there were none.

It took an awfully long time for our food to come out. And oddly, after awhile, the waitress came out and said they were out of goat cheese and would I be OK substituting feta? To be honest, I live for goat cheese and it was what I was most excited about, but feta is pretty good too, so I said that was fine. If they're out, they're out. what can you do? But, my Dad and I were both a little confused why it took about 20 minutes (just guessing) before they noticed they were out of the goat cheese? We both figured we'd have had our meals already, let alone have them come to a realization about an ingredient I had subbed from the start! My coffee mug also stayed empty for a good part of the meal, but it was watery anyway, so I didn't feel like I was missing much. (FYI: the feta was really flavorful and tasty, so there's that).

The meal also came with toast (which I left for my Dad to take home). As we were packing up the leftovers late in the meal, I realized my food was also supposed to come with fruit, something I never received. Had I remembered upon delivery, I would have asked, but it felt a little silly asking for it to-go. Especially since we had just paid and were nearly ready to head out. But for $10.95 for the meal, maybe I should have.

Size-wise, for being portion-controlled and relatively low-cal, the amount of food was more than adequate. In fact, as soon as we were seated, we were brought a plate with 4 mini-muffins (carrot, zucchini, & nut). We both ended up taking half of our meals home and left feeling comfortably full.

My Dad ordered the build-your-own omelet (their standard omelet is made with 1 egg + 3 egg whites, pretty cool). It was a little on the pricier side of the menu, at $9.99. It came with toast (he subbed an english muffin--which ended up being whole wheat), but no other sides. The cool thing about the build-your-own omelet is, for one price, you can theoretically order ANY available ingredients you want. He got 3 or 4 vegetables, bison sausage, chicken, and mozzarella. He was disappointed they didn't offer swiss cheese, but liked the variety otherwise.

He thought both the english muffin and the eggs in the omelet were a little dry. I took a bite of his omelet. Although the ingredients were not what I would choose, being unbiased as can be, I could see where he thought it was dry, but I still thought it was pretty good. The problem is, he's an omelet-connoisseur, you see, and he compares any and all omelets to our local breakfast joint, Little Gus Cafe. Little Gus omelets can do no wrong. They are huge, delightful, and only cost $8.99 with bread & the best breakfast potatoes of all time. Basically, they are the Chuck Norris of omelets, so really why bother anywhere else? I try to tell him this anywhere we go. Branch out; do not get an omelet, you WILL be disappointed. And he always is.

He said his overall experience was moderate and though I'm struggling to come up with reasons to bump my opinion up beyond moderate, I'd have to agree.

If it wasn't a health-food restaurant, I'd be hard-pressed to find real reason to go back, but since it fits along with a lot of my ideals for eating, I'm going to give them at least one more try. Ideally, I'd like to also give them another try for breakfast and a try for lunch. It wasn't bad, I just wasn't blown away. And unfortunately, I don't see them turning unhealthy eaters into converts. They just didn't use strong enough flavors to prove that healthy food is just as tasty, if not tastier, than processed, chemical and fat-filled frankenfoods. For example, a sprig or two of fresh basil chopped into my frittata may have given it that freshness and potency that would have put it over the top. Just the little things that really add up.

Also, a lot of the menu is very reasonable ($6.95 or so for breakfast? Sign me up!), but for us it turned out to be more than we expected. I paid $12 for the voucher, which allowed us $25 in food. With tax and tip, our bill came to about $36, I think. That's $12 I paid for the voucher + an additional $11, totaling $23 out-of-pocket (thanks, Dad!). My Dad and I go out to breakfast almost every Saturday and Sunday, and unless we go to our (read: my) more expensive favorites, our bill almost always comes to about $25 with tip. So really, we didn't end up saving much of anything using the coupon.

OK, I think I went a little overboard with my review. You get it. :)

I wish more healthy restaurants existed, so I could make the rounds. Plus, a little healthy competition (pun not intended, but if it works...) might make everyone amp up their game and change the public's perception of healthy food. One (fine) day......

OK, time to go finish watching my girl Jillian on the Doctors. Not sure how she scored the gig, being that she's not a Doctor, but I'll take it, if it means I get to see her every day!

xo,
Amanda

Day 6:

2011-09-17T14:38:00.004-05:00

List Uno:

6. A picture of a person you’d love to trade places with for a day

Source

I tried to be a little more creative, but I just love her and I don't think ANYONE has a life like her, ya know? Might be interesting to see. For a day. Then I could just turn her into my BFF. Sounds fair.

List Dos:

Day 06- Favorite super hero and why

Source

*shrug* I don't particularly have a favorite, but I've always enjoyed the Spidey movies, lol. Wait, does Alex Mack count? Haha, who misses that show? Remember the episode where she almost gets caught in the science fair? Thank God for her ability to morph into that liquid puddle or whatever. Haha, anywayyyyyyy.

Restaurant review coming tonite, for you Dallas-area peeps.

xo,
Amanda

Day 5:

2011-09-16T22:03:00.007-05:00

List Uno:

5. A picture of your favorite memory

Opening presents on Christmas (insert any Christmas pic here, really) + any time with the puppies is also a fave memory, so combining the two? Explosion of happiness.

Miss you, Little Girl.

& because I can never post just one picture....

I die. I know I've posted them all on the blog before, but I still can't get over their faces.

List Dos:

Day 05- A picture of somewhere you’ve been to

source

xo,
Amanda

Day 4:

2011-09-15T16:31:00.004-05:00

I'm still a little out of it, but delay no more!

List Uno:

4. A picture of your night

You picked a bad evening to ask that! How boring.

Probably a little of this:

(ignore the mess, sheet & blanket-changing day is in process lol)

& a lot of this:

ahh tv.

List Dos:

Day 04- A habit that you wish you didn't have

(staying up too late & snoozing too often to make it to the gym!)

xo,
Amanda

Quick Hello

2011-09-13T10:41:00.002-05:00

Hey guys.

I didn't disappear off the face of the (30 Days) planet. I wasn't home for almost 2 days and couldn't get wifi to work where I was (except at work, but ya know...not very appropriate. Oh wait, I'm here now-ha! But this is quick.....really!), then I got a nasty case of the stomach flu all weekend. I'm doing better, but my electrolytes still feel a little off. I'll be back soon, hopefully tonite, back to resume posting.

I did manage to do a lil workout this am even, but my Dad went a further distance than me on the elliptical. Oh my, I don't think that has ever happened! But doing something is better than nothing, right? Right.

xo,

Amanda

Day 3:

2011-09-07T22:03:00.007-05:00

List Uno:

3. A picture of the cast of your favorite show

& many, many more. I love tv.

List Dos:

Day 03-A picture of you and your friends

xo,
Amanda

Day 2:

2011-09-06T21:48:00.018-05:00

List Uno:

2. A picture of you and person you’ve been the closest with the longest

I could answer this one 100 different ways (OK, maybe like 10), but I'm going to go with...Molly! We "met" on an old school AOL fashion message board back in the late late 90's (yes, 1900's haha) or maybe early 2000's and became good, close friends probably 8 or so years ago? We finally met in person when I was on a mini road trip with my cousin and friend 5 Summers ago, in 2006. I picked her because we're still close today and talk at least weekly, if not much more often. We are also facebook married-haha.

Here's a pic from our first in-person meeting (OK, like the second or third day, but you know what I mean!)

In da club in LA. HOLLA.

We were so young looking! Who am I kidding? People still think we're both like 12, but maybe we were 10 then? ;)

(Sorry Molly, didn't get a chance to ask your permission to post your pic. Hope it's OK, if not I'll take it down!)

List Dos:

Day 02- The meaning behind your Blogger name

,

This blog has semi--but-not-officially changed names a few times. I never made anything official-official, because I never came up with the IT name, ya know? But in the interim, while waiting for THE name to hit me, what I noticed always stayed constant was the sign-off signature. It's not terribly unique, but it's easy to remember and it's cute. It's more original than my first standby name of Food.Fashion.Fitness.Fun. Obviously I keep that part in the header, as it's the clearest way to describe the blog, but it seems like a common theme around blogs (and rightfully so!). When I took the plunge to buy the domain, xoAmanda it was!

So, without further ado...

xo,
Amanda

Day 1:

2011-09-05T19:54:00.055-05:00

I think this is the only day of the month where the challenge for both post is essentially the same. No double trouble to start.

See?

List Uno:

1. A picture of yourself along with 15 Topics.

List Dos:

Day 01- A recent picture of you and 15 interesting facts about yourself.

Fair enough....

Not the most clear picture in the world, but I took it at work today (yes, that is correct...I worked on labor day. The joys of being contract labor/self-employed-ish!), so it's about as current as you're gonna get.

Still no bang trim, ugh! But the necklace you can't see is a sparkly stiletto heel. Adorbs. And only like $2.80. Holla.

Onto the facts. They didnt ask for attached pics, but everyone knows that makes it more fun, yeah?

1. I have hazel eyes, but they're multicolored (always gold in the center) & can sometimes even turn green (and very, very rarely, blue)

Source

2. I love everything Audrey Hepburn. My room is covered in her pictures. She's amazing.

Source

3. I moved to Calgary, Canada, by myself, when I was barely 18. I was meant to stay for college, so at least 4 years, but only lasted part of a Summer. It ended up being a pretty terrible experience. BUT, it's where I got my dog Bella, so despite loneliness and a LOT of money wasted. A LOT. I can't regret it, because she's my heart.

Source

4. I moved to Boston, with a friend (and Bella!), when I was 20. Again, I only lasted a Summer (a full, long Summer, at least), but that was because I hadn't applied to transfer colleges in time and had to move back to finish my degree. It's one of, if not, my favorite city, and was a much better experience.

Source
For some reason I always associate Boston with Paul Revere & have fond feelings for the old guy-haha! I even have a Paul Revere mini-action figure. Odd fact 4.b.? LOL

5. When Moulin Rouge came out I thought it looked stupid and ridiculous and couldn't understand the appeal to make anyone want to go see it. Shortly after, I was on vacation with a friend who was dying to see it, so I begrudgingly went. From then on it's been one of my favorite movies. I just love the cinematography and the soundtrack.

Source

6. My two favorite book genres are memoirs & teen books, especially teen series (but all of mine have recently ended, nooo!)

Source

7. I was a very precocious teenager, much older than my biological years, but I still feel about the same now, at 26, as I did then, in many ways. That's probably both good and bad? I also think I looked a little older then, physically, than I do now. Weird.

Source

8. I feel really guilty if I, or I see someone else, trash something that can be recycled. Sometimes I even bring home things like water bottles (even if they're not mine), since at work we can only recycle paper products. I also worry a lot that our cleaning lady just trashes the stuff in our recycling bin. I hope not!!

Source

9. I'd really, really like to go dairy-free pescatarian again, but there are a few things holding me back that I'd miss too much! Frozen yogurt, cream cheese, the occasional egg white, just to name a few. Plus, even though I don't care for meat too much, I'm really not a carb person and don't know if I could, or should, live on mostly fruits & veggies alone.

Source

10. I only use aluminum-free deodorant, because having my body slurp up toxic, heavy metals freaks me out. But damn if the toxin-free ones don't suck in comparison. It could be a coincidence, but I have noticed the few times I went back to the aluminum in an emergency-situation or whatever (lol @ emergency deodorant situations), I've ended up feeling really sick after (headachy and nauseous). Creepy. I do still cook with aluminum foil, which concerns me. But hopefully it doesn't leech into the food? Ahhh....

Source

11. I think plain coconut water tastes the way garbage smells. I can't believe people actually love it. It really baffles me. However, I've recently tried flavored coconut waters and I really like (most of) them a lot. Huh.

Source

12. I love decorating. It's so hard to narrow down styles, because I could decorate 10,000 rooms. It's so fun. But lately, I seem to want to incorporate black & white damask with EVERYTHING (gee, I bet you couldn't tell). Especially in combination with turquoise/teal. I'm just worried I'm going to get burnt out!

Source
OK, that's toooo much even for me....kinda hate it.

13. I try to be a healthy eater, but I have somewhat of an advantage being that I naturally hate a lot of unhealthy foods. Some of these include almost anything fried, white rice (or most rice, but especially white), most bread, bacon, sausage of any kind (except veggie), hot dogs, and most cheese.

Source
OK, but let's not lie. The above cheese looks delish to me. Of all "cheese" for me to love, I am quiiiite partial to the processed American variety. It's one chemical-filled vice I lurve.

14. As I said above, I still eat dairy, but I quit drinking dairy milk well over a year ago. I randomly ordered a nonfat, 2-pump pumpkin spice latte last week instead of my usual soy and it practically ruined my day. Not really, of course, but ugh. I had a milky, filmy taste in my mouth all day no matter what I ate or drank or how many pieces of gum I chewed. I'm not sure why I can eat milk-based products and be OK, but the actual cow juice grosses me out so much.

Source

15. I have TMJ or at least something similar, but I'm kind of worried I caused it myself. That's probably impossible, but I remember in school one day, I think middle school or early high school, a friend kept clicking her jaw and I thought that was so weird and gross. But I was oddly fascinated and couldn't stop myself from seeing if my own mouth could click. I did it over & over again until it finally did....and it hasn't stopped since. Not all the time, of course, but I can pop it at will. Ew. My mouth is already weird enough. I was born with no wisdom teeth & no second set of bottom molars. Because of that, my top back molars are kind of sharp because they had no bottom teeth to balance them out. Ew x 2.

Source

Anything else you want to know? :-P

xo,
Amanda

30 Days

2011-09-05T19:47:00.004-05:00

DaMora @ Hunger Fix recently posted a fun 30 Days Posting Challenge that reminded me of a picture-only one I had saved way back in February, but never got around to doing. Most of the questions/commands are different, so I figure why not combine them and answer each one in one post each day? Here are the 2 lists below, feel free to play along too!

List Uno:

1. A picture of yourself along with 15 Topics.
2. A picture of you and person you’ve been the closest with the longest
3. A picture of the cast of your favorite show
4. A picture of your night
5. A picture of your favorite memory
6. A picture of a person you’d love to trade places with for a day
7. A picture of most treasured item
8. A picture that makes you laugh
9. A picture of a person who has gotten you through the most
10. A picture of the person you do the craziest things with
11. A picture of something you hate
12. A picture of something you love
13. A picture of your favorite band or artist
14. A picture of someone you could never imagine your life without
15. A picture of something you want to do before you die
16. A picture of someone who inspires you
17. A picture of something that has made a huge impact on your life recently
18. A picture of your biggest insecurity
19. A picture of you when you were little
20. A picture of somewhere you'd love to travel
21. A picture of something you wish you could forget
22. A picture of something you wish you were better at
23. A picture of your favorite book
24. A picture of something you wish you could change
25. A picture of your day
26. A picture of something that means a lot to you
27. A picture of yourself and a family member
28. A picture of something your afraid of
29. A picture that can always make you smile
30. A picture of someone you miss

& the more current one floating around,

List Dos:

Day 01- A recent picture of you and 15 interesting facts about yourself.

Day 02- The meaning behind your Blogger name

Day 03-A picture of you and your friends

Day 04- A habit that you wish you didn't have

Day 05- A picture of somewhere you’ve been to

Day 06- Favorite super hero and why

Day 07- A picture of someone/something that has the biggest impact on you

Day 08- Short term goals for this month and why

Day 09- Something you’re proud of in the past few days

Day 10- Songs you listen to when you are Happy, Sad, Bored, Hyped, Mad

Day 11- Another picture of you and your friends

Day 12- How you found out about Blogger and why you made one

Day 13- A letter to someone who has hurt you recently

Day 14- A picture of you and your family

Day 15- Put your iPod on shuffle: First 10 songs that play

Day 16- Another picture of yourself

Day 17- Someone you would want to switch lives with for one day and why

Day 18- Plans/dreams/goals you have

Day 19- Nicknames you have; why do you have them

Day 20- Someone you see yourself marrying/being with in the future

Day 21- A picture of something that makes you happy

Day 22- What makes you different from everyone else

Day 23- Something you crave for a lot

Day 24- A letter to your parents

Day 25- What I would find in your bag

Day 26- What you think about your friends

Day 27- Why are you doing this 30 day challenge

Day 28- A picture of you last year and now, how have you changed since then?

Day 29- In this past month, what have you learned

Day 30- Who are you?

Ready? Set.....GO!

xo,
Amanda

My Nite

2011-09-01T22:14:00.004-05:00

xo,
Amanda

Meet Chef Lara & Chef Amy

2011-08-29T22:26:00.023-05:00

The usual Sunday-Monday dilemma occurred: stayed up all nite (well, close to 2) on Sunday, slept through gym time Monday.

I also slept through breakfast. Lara did the honors instead.

Yum.

Work was...work. It's a little hard to get motivated lately, but once I'm on a roll stuff gets DONE.

I ate a baggie of veggie sticks. Weird how spinach is my favorite vegetable, but my least fave chip flavor. Too strong! But I ate them all anyway.

I also had another turkey lavash wrap, this time with spinach (the good kind!), dijon, and garlic & herb laughing cow. I'm officially over that bread. Burnt out, I guess. And it makes me feel crappy. Not sure if it's the yeast or gluten, but back to brown rice toast love for awhile.

I was supposed to leave work early (4) to get my bridesmaid dress hemmed & taken in, but things ran a little behind and I didn't feel like being rushed. Tomorrow. I had a chiro appointment at 6 anyway, so stayed at work 'til just after 5:30 instead.

Things looked good for the first time in awhile as far as my adjustment went, so that's promising. My neck was still bad off, but that's no surprise. It always hurts. But the shoulder is holding up better than it has thus far *fingers crossed* We set a tentative next appointment for Saturday, September 10, so we'll see if I can make it last that long.

I meant to "run" in Kohl's to grab a strapless slip to wear under the bridesmaid dress, but nearly 30 minutes of trying things on later and they didn't have any small enough. Ha, if only that meant I was small. Nah, the problem was the band size at the top. What do small girls with big chests do??? Everything started at 36, I needed 34. I tried every 36 they had on the tightest setting, but I don't need a wardrobe malfunction, even if it's not my big day. There are still pictures to be had! What about people with 32 bands, etc? It's really not that uncommon! Back to the drawing board...sigh. Not sure where to look now! I'll figure it out..I hope. Ugh, and it didn't help that I wore my Hunter rain boots today. Cute as can be, but not very conducive to taking off & putting back on a million times!

So all that time and no slip, however, I did find shoes. I know, I bought some yesterday. But these were 70% off!! Only $16.49, holla. I'll take the other ones back and pocket the change. Not too shabby.

I think they look better in person. I can't decide if I like these or the other ones better, but for a $40 difference, if I can't decide, why not go for the cheapies, right?

I planned to make an awesome dinner of spicy, crunchy chicken tacos, but between having to go to Walmart to pick up food, medicine, and other miscellaneous items (including the highly coveted September Vogue), it was already 8:30, PLUS more crap occurred that made me feel too bad about myself to be useful, so Amy helped me out with her lasagna, while I put together a quick salad. A couple mini pb cups & a lemon girl scout cookie may have snuck in as well.

On a fun note (kinda?), I just got my Dad, brother, and I reservations for next week's Chick-Fil-A free breakfast. We went to the unveiling of the spicy chicken biscuit last time, so obvi had to continue the trend. Want your own? Click Here. Yay. My Dad and I picked the chicken, egg, & cheese bagel, while my brother went for the bacon, egg, & cheese biscuit. Bacon? At Chick-fil-a? Weird. Happy cows, not happy pigs, I guess!

Back to numbing myself with tv time. Is it weird that I still watch Degrassi? Come to think of it, ALL the shows I plan to watch tonite are about high school. Eh, like I care! They're good.

xo,
Amanda

Off on a Tangent

2011-08-28T21:32:00.035-05:00

I'm still sad. Really sad. But I pulled myself together as best as I could and made the most out of the weekend.

Friday, plans changed left and right, but ended up with a sushi dinner, followed by the smallest self-serve frozen yogurt I've made to date. To be fair, the cup was still half-full, but let's get real. I consider myself frugal when the cup isn't overflowing, usually.

It was probably my first real, solid meal in maybe 9 days? No joke, I weighed myself the next morning and I had put back on maybe 4.5 of the 7 or 8 lbs I had lost last week. I realize both times it was a false weight (water weight, excess sodium, and so on), but damn! I guess one can't live on soup and protein shakes long-term, huh?

Saturday, I planned to document for the blog, but when I looked back on all of the photos they were not worth sharing. In a nutshell, I had an eye appointment to get new contacts where they charged about 4 x what would have been considered reasonable, re-realized how downhill the breakfast at Mimi's Cafe has become, ate free italian ice's (sugar-free, splenda-chemical-filled) at the new Rita's, ran a couple errands, did shoulders and abs at the new gym, & had a family dinner at a pub.

Today would have been Little Girl's birthday. Miss you, sweet, sweet love. We still talk about you every day and wish you could be back with us. It's still so surreal that you're gone. I find myself repeatedly asking out loud if you're really not coming back.

Last nite, plans were made to tackle cardio and stretching at the old gym, followed by breakfast at Einsteins. Instead, my Dad woke up not feeling so hot and he's NEVER sick, so I just kinda putzed around and continuously checked in on him. He worked through it and felt better, but wasn't up for leaving the casa, especially for food or exertion.

I couldn't bring myself to reheat my awful Mimi's egg white omelet, so I just finished the leftover wheat toast with pb, honey, & apple butter + Bella and I shared a bunch of fruit. Plus, strawberry coffee with vanilla stevia and vanilla soy milk.

The watermelon was too mealy to eat, but everything else went bye-bye

My Mom & I made tentative plans to do a double-header at the movies, but I had a feeling we'd only last for one...which we did. We saw Our Idiot Brother. I love Zooey Deschanel, so it was a must. I didn't really know what to expect. I enjoyed it. The first half I liked and all, but was kinda meh about it. The second half picked up a little more. Great cast, good story. Made me a little sad, but what doesn't these days? :-P

Didn't have time to get a real meal in my system for lunch. We checked both Nordstrom Cafe and Starbucks, but they had slim pickings left in the food department. Ultimately, Mom and I split a chicken and tarragon sandwich from Starbucks (last one) + I dipped into her popcorn a couple times. The tarragon in the sandwich was a little overpowering, but it got the job done. The bread was surprisingly tasty.

Before AND after the movie we went on a mission: operation find bridesmaid shoes. I had found a pair at DSW I liked the evening before, but passed up because I'm a shoe weirdo. I either like to spend $20 on shoes, max, or go all-out crazy money designer. The shoes I found were $60 and that just seemed ridiculous to me. I told my Dad and he acted like that was a steal....& he's a cheapskate. What does that say about me? Ha. Though I suppose I could ask myself the same question, for the opposite spectrum, what does it say about me that I spent $900 on Louboutins? That I kind of regret, by the way, though they are beautiful. But I digress.

After trying on pair after pair at the mall, none felt just right, and my choices were a little limited. Even though our car registered 109 degrees, since September is just around the corner, stores feel the need to bust out the Fall trends. Knee high leather boots, anyone? Who needs strappy, shiny silver sandals now? Besides me, obv. Back to DSW it was. I had a coupon if you spent x amount you'd get x amount off, but the lowest "x" was $69 AND I noticed it expired the day before, so I tucked it back in my purse. I guess it was sticking out though, 'cause the cashier grabbed for it. I explained to her that it was expired, but she didn't care, so I left out the whole $9 off sitch. She ended up taking off $10. Score. Still $54 when all was said and done.

The final 2 contenders. I bought the pair on the left. Now I kind of like the right better lol. But from the side they were kinda odd.

My bangs are so long if I try to wear them straight across I'd be blind, but Toni & Guy told me to come back in 40 minutes to try again for a bang trim. Blah. Maybe I'll go someplace later this week. I love bangs, but they really are a PITA. I conveniently forgot about that part. (Not really, I just chose to ignore it).

No makeup pic, good thing half my face is covered ;)

While out I also tried to pick up a purse-sized body spray at Victoria's Secret or B&BW, but they all smelled like cheap chemicals. Bummer, but probably better off. I do have probably 20+ sprays and perfumes already.

Anyway, so when I came home I was starving. I made salads topped with kale chips, quorn "chicken" nuggets with special sauce (vegenaise & organic ketchup mixed together), & roasted broccoli. I also stole a bunch of my brother's leftover fries and ate them cold while the other food heated through. I also sipped a grapefruit zevia. I was pumped for the new flavors (new-to-me? not sure if they're new to the line or just moi), but they're pretty terrible. And this is coming from a Zevia fangirl. Grapefruit isn't bad, it just isn't tart enough or special. But the one I was most looking forward to, the Mountain Dew-clone (so cleverly named Mountain Zevia) is horrid. Just don't.

I go through periods where clutter overwhelms me and I MUST clean and purge as much as possible. Now is one of those periods. The problem is, a lot of stuff I have I want to keep. I want, want, want. But I also crave minimalism. What's a girl to do? My current plan is to work through what I have and not replace things unless absolutely necesary (i.e. if I run out of face makeup, replace that, OK, but if I run out of lipstick, use another one I already have). Probably good I didn't buy that body spray then, huh? Learning curve. It's pretty gross how much stuff I have, though. Or, how much I have and don't use. Ugh.

Well, none of those paragraphs really went together transitionally, but they are what they are.

I'm back, bitches.

xo,
Amanda

Heads Up

2011-08-24T21:52:00.004-05:00

Har, har, heads up. New header (well, not really, but altered). Get it? Get it?

Yeah.

Figured it was way past due to incorporate the blog name into it. :-x.

Thinking about a whole new look, but I don't know if I'm ready to let go of the damask yet. TBD. Another thing I've been putting off, but NEED to add is an official About Me page.

Blog maintenance is much needed around these parts. Slowly, but surely.

Not much else to say, so I'll leave you with this.

xo,
Amanda

RIP, Beautiful (Little) Girl. I love you always.

2011-08-22T22:35:00.093-05:00

My beautiful dog, Little Girl, passed away last nite.

She would have been 16 next week. I had an eerie feeling she may not make that milestone. Unfortunately, I was right. I didn't want to be right. I'd even whisper to her almost daily, you can do it. Just x # of days. You're almost there. But it was too much. One week.

Little Girl lived a long, happy life, despite being mostly deaf and having impaired vision for the past couple of years. She was barely 6 lbs, but she had a lot of life in her. She was never a very energetic dog, even as a puppy, but she did her little "Genie Dance" (Genie was her most used nickname, though she had many) that always cheered us up. She was so small it was hard for her to get up and down the stairs, especially in her old age, but we made up songs for her ("free rides," we called them, when carrying her around) and made a game out of it. I already miss singing to her.

Even though she was by no means our most social pet, the others sure loved being with her.

We actually used to sortof breed dogs when I was younger. Not officially, but her mom and dad, our old shitzu's, were pure bred, and we weren't exactly responsible pet owners at the time. I was with her when she was born and (sortof) with her when she passed. She was the last of her family to go. I hope they're all together now. Bonsai (dad), Buttons (mom), Sammy (sister), and Little Girl. And, of course, their best friend, Blizzard, who you may remember left us last labor day. All such special, loving dogs. We've really been lucky that way.

Genie lived over a decade past her estimated life span. She was the runt of the litter. In fact, we first named her "Pinky," as she was born with no visible fur. Underdeveloped, maybe, but that didn't mean she wasn't strong. We took her to the vet and upon feeling the squishy part of her head where the brain is supposed to harden, and hers hadn't, we were told she'd be lucky to live past 5. Water on the brain, they said. No cure. I was 10 when she was born. I would have been 15 then. I'm 26 now. Genie had other plans. She was going to stick around awhile.

She had a bark to her, but otherwise was the sweetest, most gentle dog you'd ever know. You couldn't meet her and not love her.

She was always nervous and she was always cold, so she shook a lot. We often called her our little chihuahua, and like I said, despite being purebred shitzu, when she was groomed, she looked a lot like a chihuahua, too.

She's our only pet who truly needed clothes, but she hated them. The other dogs jump up and down and even lift their arms when they see a new outfit, but Little Girl ran like a bat out of hell! We made her wear them to keep her warm (and sorry, but because she looked SO cute in them), but she fought the process every step of the way.

Most recently, she had a little quirk where she would hang out on the bed with just the tip of her little tongue sticking out. We called it the Genie Salute. She could lay like that for hours.

My dogs are just like their mama, they love their fruits and vegetables above all else. Little Girl would eat those too, no doubt, but her true love was spaghetti. You could always tell when it was spaghetti nite, because she'd con at least one person into letting her lick their bowl....and it would end up all over her face. We called it her spaghetti head.

We love you, Little Girl. I'm so, so sorry. I wish I could have hugged you and kissed your little head just one last time. I hope you knew how much everyone loved you. Most of our pets we attribute to belonging to a specific family member, but not you. You were the family dog. The family pet. Because of that, maybe it was too hard for you to live anymore given the current circumstances. I don't know. But even at (almost) 16, we weren't ready to say goodbye. You'll always be with us.

She may have been named Little Girl, but she was the definition of a true lady.

xo,
Amanda

Hola

2011-08-20T13:15:00.011-05:00

Long time no see, I know. I've mentally written this 100 times, but there's no positive spin to put on it.

My personal life is pretty terrible currently, therefore I deleted all of my evidence (photos, previously half-written posts, etc.) of the last week or so. Trust me, you'd have no interest in reading over and over how everything is crap. Right? Right.

It was a relief to delete some of the crap-quality pics I probably shouldn't post anyway, but it's hard to delete prettified plates of prettified food, lemme tell ya. I guess I could have compiled a pics-only post, but woulda, coulda, shoulda. (BTW, is prettified really a word? Spell check isn't correcting it??? Odd).

I'm still in the process of figuring out WHAT to write about to keep things going. I don't want to abandon the blog anymore, but I don't want to be all woe-is-me either, so writing about daily life is out for a bit, at least as I knew it.

I'll figure it out.

For now, cute puppies always make everything worthwhile, yes?

(yes, she broke the blinds so she can peek out. Forget shitmykidsruined...where's shitmydogsruined.com? LOL)

It's so hard not to squeeze the crap out of their faces!

xo,
Amanda

Better Than Nutella

2011-08-10T09:52:00.013-05:00

Monday

-overnite blueberry banana yoats
-strawberry iced coffee with vanilla soy milk & vanilla stevia

Ate in the car on the way to work. Got a stomachache. Wahh. Didn't even finish 'em.

Worked and then got the good news that lunch would be...

-indian buffet!

Yay finally. I always miss it when we don't go!

We left work early (4ish), because my Mom has pneumonia :(. I felt bad for not taking the whole day off. She was stuck all alone at the er doctor center all day, since our primary care dr was on vacation :(.

I was SO hot when I got home, like every day lately, so after I talked to Mom, I made a cold snack.

-chocolate/peanut flour/banana protein shake/smoothie

That's the stuff.

My Dad & brother went to see the Planet of the Apes prequel & my Mom wasn't hungry, so I didn't bother whipping up a gourmet dinner :-P.

-leftover pei wei (meh. threw away almost all of the rice & extra sauce)

The one bad thing about food-filled items that you want to dip, like the rice paper chicken salad rolls, are once you take the first bite, if you want to dip again and be a double dipper-face, the filling all spills out. Life is tough.

-leftover Kombucha

Decided to finally finish up the meh Chai Spice one.

I knew I shouldn't have eaten a late nite snack, but I was hungry and I hate sleeping when hungry OR full.

-reduced fat ruffles & gluten free crackers with red pepper hummus, red pepper edamame dip, & tzikiki

Edamame dip < hummus, but it was still good. Glad I bought it to try. They also had a lentil dip that sounds amaze, but it had weird fillings and spices, so hopefully they'll make more varieties.

Outfit of the Day:

Haven't done one of these in awhile.

Yay for bad lighting and bathroom shots!

I got that dress from Anthropologie awhile ago, but never wore it. If fits perfectly, but next time I need to remember to wear a same color tank underneath. The chest buttons kept ever so slightly gapping, despite not being too small AND also having reinforcement snaps. Makes no sense. It was on sale, so perhaps a slight design flaw? Sure, we'll go with that. Plus, it was a little lower than I originally thought. I don't know if I should apologize or collect tips from our patients for the free show they may or may not have received.

Tuesday

Today I almost got up to workout, but wa..wa..wa....I didn't. It's the thought that counts? *shifty eyes*

-leftover spinach/cream cheese/egg white omelet
-potatoes with ketchup
-iced strawberry coffee with vanilla soy milk & vanilla stevia

I'm always claustrophobic at my work station because it's a huge dumping ground for everybody's crap. It's where paper and boxes go to die before they make it to the storage room or trash can/recycling bin, basically. NO MORE. I wore another cute dress, which I probably got all dusty, but it was well worth it to dive in and go to town on clutter. It's still a work in progress, but check this out. Are you sitting? Just warning you, it's preeeeetty impressive, not gonna lie.

Before:

To be fair, it's usually not THAT bad, but it just goes to show that it happens.

During:

After:

There is nothing like order, folks. Sweet, sweet order. I just want to bathe in it.

Wait, what?

Awkward.

My co-worker rearranged her office this week as well and got rid of one of our wooden cabinets and left it in the storage room, so I snagged it.

Now my work Buddha has a nice spot to chill :).

Lunch was simple, but always a winner in my book.

-turkey sandwich on brown rice toast with organic mixed greens, white american cheese, & mustard
-blackberry hibiscus Mamma Chia

Perfect!

Shortly after lunch, a package arrived. A-HA. We've been waiting on a shipment of toner for the printer that came with a free Kindle! The toner is still a no-show, (luckily we have enough in reserve to last awhile), but the Kindle magically appeared.

Frustration free? Noooot quite. I've had a few fights with that box over the last two days. I don't know if that makes me dumb or whoever felt the need to include that stamp.

While cooking dinner snack:

-half of an apple cinnamon Kind bar

First time trying this flavah. Not as appley or as cinnamony as one would expect considering the name, but not bad. I've met very few Kind bars I didn't like. Actually just one. But since they have 284494 flavors I'd call that a win.

-tilapia with greek seasoning & a lemon/butter/white wine/kalamata olive sauce & sprinkled with a lil herby goat cheese
-orzo with the same sauce as the fish
-roasted broccoli dipped in tzikiki
-salad
-ginger root beer Zevia

LOL, longing for some fishie faces!

I had wanted to add a lil shrimp to the mix, but clearly I made plenty of food as is.

I got my tv on, which stimulate the old appetite again. Silly thing.

-graham cracker squares topped with an organic chocolate-hazelnut spread
-organic braeburn apple slices drizzled with the spread
-candy cane lane peppermint-vanilla decaf green tea with vanilla stevia

Even better than nutella. I'll show you the label next time. It's a must try.

xo,
Amanda

A Weekend Full of Restaurant Food & a Winery Performance

2011-08-09T18:14:00.010-05:00

I meant to post this last nite, but never clicked publish. Oopsie!

Saturday

I had a coupon for buy one lunch or dinner get one free with the purchase of 2 beverages from Mimi's cafe, so my Dad and I went there in place of breakfast.

-salmon provence salad (took most of it home. delish, but filllling!)
-about 1/3 of a chocolate mousse muffin (tasted just like a brownie, but with a cake texture)
-2 cups of black coffee

+ a few samples @ Sam's, mostly healthy! Yay.

It's so freaking hot. I can't stop saying that. RI-DIC.

Like I said last post, we tentatively joined a new gym last month, but it didn't open until this month, so we kept changing our minds re: which gym to stick with. In the end, the new one won. We went to the new one for the first time today & did a nice chest & back weights workout. Only one exercise (the pulldown...one of my favorites) hurt my shoulder, so I had to sit that one out. Otherwise, I went down significantly on weights, but I was able to do it all.

Since I am always on the go-go-go, I wanted to have a nice, quiet nite in, by myself, watching youtube and eating leftovers (how exciting my life expectations and enjoyments have become!!), but forgot we promised Ryli we'd go hear her perform tonite.

But first, we used up a Macaroni Grill gift card for dinner:

-snapper with tomatoes & potatoes
-a few bites of my mom's salad
-glass of chianti

Love how Mac Grill serves their house wine in juice glasses, LOL.

Healthy and delightful. Just the way I like it. :)

Then, off to the wine bar.

-about 2 and a 3rd glasses of peach white wine (we split a bottle that I forgot to take pics of)

I'm a red wine girl first and foremost, but this was a nice way to change it up.

Ryli was worried about us, because we didn't get there (Landon Winery) 'til about 8:45. Oops. Usually we're there between 7-8 (she technically plays from 7-10, but played 'til closer 'til 11 since they know her there & everyone was having a good time). She also sang Christina Perri's "Jar of Hearts" for my Mom & I and did soooooo good. Usually I don't think people cover it well, even very talented people, but she nailed it!

My Dad sang the chorus of one of the last songs with her:

& my parents danced a couple times. The last time, to a choreographed dance, where clearly my Mom was facing the wrong way-LOL!!

Don't worry Mom, I sat out because I knew I'd be the same way!!

-a few bites of the salmon salad from this afternoon

You know you have to stuff your face after drinking when you get home, no matter the amount. Duh.

-ginger rooibos tea

Sunday

My Dad & I had planned on finally trying Luna De Noche's tex-mex breakfast buffet today, but my brother ended up coming with us to breakfast and he never does and mexican isn't his thing. My dad voted Denny's, but was shot down x 2. Little Gus it was!

-about 1/3 of a spinach & cream cheese egg white omelet (I said NO bacon, but I saw a few small pieces sneak in...grr)
-about half the breakfast potatoes with ketchup
-small english muffin with grape jelly (I thought I HATED grape, but it was actually not bad)
-coffee with vanilla stevia

Went to the new gym to show it off to my brother. We got there a little after noon and the doors wouldn't open. WTF? As we were leaving (and my dad was calling, leaving their headquarters a rude message LOL for not telling us they're closed on Sundays and that's unacceptable, we wouldn't have joined blah blah), we noticed another guy go to the door and basically rip it open. YIKES lol. My Dad wanted to go in too, but my brother thought that'd be breaking and entering LOL, so we stayed behind 'til he motioned for us to meet him inside. The bad news is the gym doesn't open 'til noon on Sundays...LATE!! I like early(ish...like 10) workouts on Sundays :(. But the good news is, they are open...the door was just broken. Weird, since they just opened!

But back to my brother. So, he gave up working out awhile ago. He used to be pretty hardcore on the elliptical, but now nada. All he eats is junk food (panda express or chemical/preservative filled microwavable meals) and pretty much just watches youtube videos, plays video games, works (sitting at a computer), or sleeps. And he's only 24 and has high cholesterol already. But since he's not really overweight, he doesn't care. Hopefully he'll change someday, but I don't know. He wasn't too impressed with the gym. It's nice, everything is brand new, etc. and he's like "yeah.....it's a gym. Can we go?" Whatevs.

We dropped him off at home & were going to go right back, but instead I decided I wanted to go to the old gym, since I like their cardio options better. Plus, we had to officially cancel our memberships. We're still members there too 'til October, so that's kinda nice. Cross ramp ftw. I'll miss it so much! I hate the cardio machines at the new place.

When we got home, we realized we left my dog, Bella, outside in the 100+ degree heat for the hour or so we were gone. POOR BABY! I felt like the worst mommy in the world :( (even though I think my Dad did it). But she still loves me. *sigh of relief*

I was gonna be healthy and make a chocolate banana protein shake snack a lil after the workout, but our fridge is ridiculously full, so I ate leftover beef stroganoff instead to take one dish away from the crowd.

Got hungry again a couple hours later before grocery shopping. Never good to shop when hungry, so I ate a new Iron Girl protein bar. It was OK. I'd maybe buy it again. A little dry oat-y for my taste. A crispy lemony flavor would probably be pretty tasty.

At Central Market I found what I've been looking all over for. French macarons!!! Lil teeny tiny mini ones, I got 1 of each (of the 6) flavors. And I ate them all ;). I'm not sure what they're supposed to taste like, honestly. These seemed slightly stale, but also really good! Mmm. Now I want to try one from a Parisian bakery.

As far as I can tell, I also got all I need for dinner materials for the week. So no more half-dead grocery trips on the way home from work before I can even start the cooking process. Should help a lot, I hope!

I was WAY too tired to cook tonite, tho. Thanks, Pei Wei!

-half an order of pei wei steamed, spicy, sweet n sour shrimp and tofu with brown rice
-1 chicken salad roll dipped in peanut sauce

-watermelon
-ginger lemon tea

Weekends go by way too quickly, eh?

xo,
Amanda

Last of the Long Week

2011-08-07T21:31:00.016-05:00

Wednesday

So remember Tuesday nite I was going to go to bed early unless I was stupid? Well, just hand me the dunce cap. I should have just watched 1 more 30-minute tv show, but instead I decided to read. Seems like a better choice, but this was a book that is very easy to read and very hard to put down. So of course I had to finish it.

So no, I didn't work out this morning. Again. :(

And again, I had no time for breakfast technically, but we didn't have any 10 am patients scheduled, so I made a quick, 5 minute breakfast and scarfed it down and was just "late" for work (technically I don't have a set schedule, so no biggie).

-egg whites with cottage cheese & greek seasoning
-clif mountain mix bar
-strawberry iced coffee with unsweetened almond milk & vanilla stevia

-cinnamon coffee with hazelnut coconut milk cream & vanilla stevia

-turkey on brown rice bread with organic mixed greens, white american cheese, & mustard
-a couple cherries (took most of them home)

Went to the store after work to pick up chicken to make for dinner.

-baked chicken roll ups stuffed with herby goat cheese on top of brown rice penne in a lemon/butter/wine sauce with capers & kalamata olives
-small salad
-lemon lime Zevia (usually I don't like lemon-lime soda, but this was on sale. It's pretty good)

-small handful of mini pb cups
-large handfuls straight from the box of Grape Nut Flakes (these are delightful, even plain)

Thursday

Woke up staaaahving, but had plans to meet my cousin and Kendyll for an early lunch.

Only, it got postponed an hour. Still too early to eat a snack & still be hungry for lunch, though.

We met up at California Pizza Kitchen at the mall that's about half way between my house & their apt.

-few bites of the corn guacamole
-like 3 bites of the half size roasted veggie salad + added goat cheese
-iced tea

I know, I was starving and then barely ate. What's up with that? I'm still not sure why (I'm blaming the heat for EVERYTHING), but my stomach started killing me after just a few bites. Lame :(

We shopped a little, but first Kendyll was hyper as h-e-double hockey sticks ;) & then got EXHAUSTED and my Mom and I had to run anyway. She had a chiro appt at 3. Oops, I had thought it was at 4. My bad.

She was hiding in the clothes & then popped out right as I was trying to take the pic of her hiding and decided to show us which shirt she liked best ;)

Kendyll got a cinnamon sugar pretzel to eat while we shopped, but only ate about half. My stomach had calmed down by the time we decided to leave and Kendyll was through with her snack, so I finished it off. It was sooo good. Really really messy, but tasty.

Grabbing on to my Mom, she didn't want us to go!! She's a huge mama's girl, but she even said "buh-bye Momma, I go with my nana's now." Silly girl!! Next time :)

The chiro had a few minutes between my Mom & her next patient, so she offered to just squeeze me in, instead of my Saturday appointment. I figured why not. And she had to make a lot of adjustments, so I guess I needed it. When don't I? *sigh*

We thought we were gonna meet my brother and his new girlfriend (none of the fam has met her yet), but schedules ended up being too tight. Hopefully soon.

Since we weren't in a rush anymore to pick them up from work (OK, OK, I was gonna stop anyway, shh), I went to Starbucks and picked up a grande (altho it looked like a tall to me?) iced coffee with soy. It was so good. I hate Starbucks burnt tasting regular or iced coffee, but add a little soy and you're golden! And for only like $2 a pop instead of $4-5. And now I'm only 4 drinks away from being a gold member. Ohh yeah. It only took 11 months. How it took that long, I'm not sure!

Then, for the millionth time this week,I ran in Sprouts for dinner ingredients. No bulk shopping trips this week. Dumb!

-last of my salad from this morning (didn't hurt my stomach then (*knock on wood*)
-1 veggie taco in hard shell with veggie refried black beans, salsa, greek yogurt, organic mixed greens, tiny bit of avocado, & splash of green hot sauce

-peach popsicle

I was really thirsty, but didn't feel like drinking. Weirdo.

Dinner was early, so I was a snacky mcsnackerson, sorta.

-slice of brown rice toast with maranatha organic pb with a shake of cinnamon
-chocolate hazelnut tea with unsweetened almond milk with vanilla stevia

Was gonna have dessert (like I didn't have enough sugar today), but the salt monster struck instead. WEIRD.

-reduced fat ruffles mixed with mexican flavored veggie chips
-a few mini pb cups (like....5. Not a lot)
-zevia ginger root beer

I think I'm still a lil dehydrated, oops.

I found out today was apparently the 33rd day in a row of temperatures over 100 degrees :(

Friday

Surprise, bet you can't guess what I grabbed this am :)

-clif mountain mix bar (shock!!)
-apple

Actually, the real surprise was how much the apple helped fill me up combined with the bar. Yay!

-cup of hazelnut coffee with hazelnut coconut creamer & vanilla stevia

For lunch I planned on FINALLY trying the quorn cheeseburgers, but my brother didn't end up taking the lunch I packed for him (INGRATE! jk, apparently he forgot to eat lunch yesterday and it was still in his work fridge. Weirdo), so I just grabbed his lunch for myself. I would have made it slightly differently had I known it was for me, but it was still slightly ironic since I had wanted to make myself a similar lunch, but we only had enough chicken lunch meat left for 1, so I begrudgingly made it for him. :-P

-chicken deli meat on a whole wheat hamburger bun with white american cheese, mustard, & vegenaise
-part of a chai spice kombucha

Usually I loveKombucha & chai-flavored things, but this was kinda nast.

I also packed a chobani, but wasn't in the mood & the sandwich was a-ok as is.

A few hours later, though, I pulled out a lara bar from my purse. I kinda wished I brought the cookie dough one, but the chocolate chip brownie one was juuuuuuuust fine. Slurp! :-P

I was pumped it was Friday and even had the option of leaving work a little before 2 pm, but decided to stay. Especially b/c I took off yesterday & got a massage this morning. But ughhhh. I don't regret it, because..hello..cha-ching, but I didn't even leave the office 'til ater 6:30 pm. On Friday, guys!! That's just unacceptable. The last few hours I was just trying to stay erect (heh, heh. *immature*). My eyes were burning for some reason and I felt like I was gonna throw up. Pretty awesome! Riiight.

My Dad and I joined a new gym (in the same location where our other one used to be, actually) and they officially opened up today. We were too tired tho. My Mom and brother didn't officially join, but we're in a program where we can bring guests every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, so we wanted to show it off for them. Too bad neither were interested. Come on!!

The rec center riiight by our house has been remodeling and adding on forEVER and finally reopened today. Um. It looks the same if not smaller. WTF? Def not disappointed we aren't joining there. The 3938504389543 kids running around didn't help matters!

Usually I'd most likely go out to dinner on Friday, but I am WIPED. I never want to leave the house again basically. So I ran in the store AGAIN. I still felt crappy, but beef strognoff sounded pretty tasty. Next week I really need to plan dinners for the week and shop once or twice, not every nite!

The strognoff came out pretty good! I served it over a protein enriched farfalle & with a side salad. & a lot of iced tea. That I'm not sure is caffeine free. *fingers crossed*

FYI, today at the store I wanted to grab every sugar cereal. Guess the salt monster is slowly going back into hiding. My true self has returned. I don't know if that's good or not, LOL.

xo,
Amanda

Fast Month Slooow Week

2011-08-02T21:48:00.034-05:00

Monday:

Another Monday. *sigh* They sure come quickly, huh? How is it that the months FLY by, yet the days & weeks go sloooooow. Somehow doesn't add up!

But I did fuel up! :-P

-leftover egg white frittata topped with cottage cheese & pepper
-cherries (+ the last few pieces of fruit from my weekend breakfast)
-coffee with a splash of rice milk horchata & vanilla stevia

Cottage cheese is one of the things that MUST be full fat, otherwise it's all watery and gross.

& I bought that horchata once before. My Dad swore I was wasting money and would never drink it. I swore I would. Oops. This time I wasn't waiting around! I bought it Saturday and opened it Monday. BOO YAH (do people still say that? Oh, they haven't in years? Get over it! It works). It looks a little gross (cloudy and watery), but it is soooooo delicious. Yayy!

Monday's are always touch and go re: lunch. Technically, my Dad has a patient scheduled, but the guy only shows up some of the time. When he doesn't, we always do the indian buffet thang together. Since I don't like to chance it and bring fresh food and have it go to waste, I've taken up bringing frozen meals "just in case." This time, it turned out, to be a good move.

-frozen Amy's indian meal (paneer with spinach, some lentil thing, rice)
-mango Kombucha (went PERFECTLY with Indian)

At least I still had Indian Food Monday! Thanks, Amy. LOL

Have I mentioned how much I hate white rice? :-P. Otherwise, this was pretty good.

-a few baked tortilla chips (kinda like healthy doritos, but they didn't taste as good this time as when I remember having them last time...boo)
-the last 3 or so bites of the red velvet ice cream (was trying to make room in the freezer--honest!)
-pumpkin spice tea with a splash of rice milk horchata and vanilla stevia

Twice in one day, huh? Boo Yah again ;).

Maybe one day I won't head for the pantry right when I walk in the door. Yeah, right!

Gotta have somethin' to munch while making din-din!

-super small piece of flounder with a spicy red pepper seasoning topped with sauce made from butter/lemon juice//artichoke hearts/green onion
-even smaller piece of baked breaded fish a la whole foods topped with the same sauce
-a few steamed crab legs
-salad (organic mixed greens, green pepper, artichoke hearts, green onion, garlic gold nuggets, light balsamic, herby goat cheese)
-ginger ale zevia

Everything was (clearly) much smaller than I anticipated, but it was still tasty and filling enough.

-hail merry mint chocolate tart half
-watermelon & organic cherries
-chocolate hazelnut tea with almond milk & vanilla stevia

I used to think I hated chocolate and mint together, but what was I smoking? It's so good!

Tuesday:

Only Tuesday??? Ughhh.

No time for a sit down breakfast, but I managed to snag something on my way out the door:

-large strawberry flavored iced coffee with almond milk & vanilla stevia
-clif mojo mountain mix trail mix bar

The bar still isn't my favorite like I thought I had remembered it not being, but it was pretty good.

Since breakfast was on the (super) small side, I ate lunch early (for me. Which was about 12:30, usually I eat between 1 and 2, occasionally even 3). I tried to hold out, but it wasn't happening.

-greek sampler leftovers

Only, in my rush this morning, I just grabbed the leftovers in the styrofoam box and had no plate or pyrex or anything to nuke them on. I always worry styrofoam boxes = cancer. Oh dear. But a girl has to eat... :-\

Naturally, I needed an afternoon snack since lunch was early.

First, I had a cup of Starbucks cinnamon coffee (I FINALLY found it, after my co-worker and I were looking for it for like..2 months) with hazelnut coconut milk creamer & vanilla stevia

My friend said it tasted just like Christmas. One sip and I instantly knew what she meant. But I'm not sure if I liked it. The coffee, duh. I love Christmas :-P It had a weird aftertaste, but it's alright. But I'm also not sorry I bought some other coffees when I was out too. Vanilla macaroon? Or something like that. Hell. Yes.

But I also needed a food snack.

-banana with a Justin's chocolate peanut butter packet

excuse the crappy blurring. Had to protect patient's names, o' course!

Tasty.

On my way home I had to return a red box (saw Lincoln Lawyer last nite--pretty good! Different than I expected) and then it was finallllly home time. I LOVE that I don't work until 10 am every morning, but I hate not getting home many nites until 7 pm. :-\ OK, I think it was more like 6 today, but it still felt drawwwwwn out. EVERYONE seems tired and out of it lately. My Dad thinks even tho inside buildings are (usually) nice & cool, just being in the heat at all is really draining life out of us all. He may have a point. It's sooooo oppressive.

When I walked in the door I couldn't find my baby Bella. I almost had a panic attack. She's my world. Luckily the silly goose was just locked up in the downstairs bathroom. In the dark. Poor baby! Not sure why she didn't make noise when I was calling her tho. Geesh! My guess is my Mom or brother locked her up when their pizza delivery came, but I guess they forgot to let her back out. I hope she wasn't stuck for long!

When I got home from work I felt a little nauseated and faint, probably due to the heat. I don't know if my sodium levels were low or if it was just a coincidence....usually I hate salt, but I couldn't stop eating the reduced fat ruffles leftover from my friend's visit that I'd normally never touch. I'm not a salt girl. I probably only ate about half a serving, but it seemed to help a lil. Weird.

Dinner took forever to make when I thought it would be super fast. Good thing it was worth it.

-teriyaki tuna burger on whole wheat bun with organic mixed greens, white american cheese, & dijon
-mashed cauliflower
-zucchini baked with seaside cheddar

It was the first, but definitely won't be the last batch of mashed cauliflower. Or tuna burgers, for that matter.

-chocolate chip cookie dough coconut milk ice cream with a graham cracker square

I am WIPED. I've been staying up (too) late lately (hence no workouts ughh..would you believe I only worked out 4 times in July? No, not in a week. In the month. There's no excuse for that!) I hope I don't get a second wind or stupidly force myself to stay up late. I need an early nite & an early, workout-filled morning!! Makes me feel soo much better and more energized during the day. Which I need soo badly.

Time to drink some Zevia root beer (is it just me or is it weird that root beer is always caffeine free?) & hope my shoulders loosen up. Not because of the Zevia, obvs lol. Just saying. I'm tempted to take a hot bath to help the process along, but I'm already wayy too hot. Stupid unexplainable chronic pain. And stupid Summer heat.

Zzzzz.

xo,
Amanda

Back to Boston

2011-07-31T23:37:00.010-05:00

The morning of July 16th, my Mom & I boarded the Amtrak train to head back to Boston to spend the weekend with Marie! We're the kind of friends who, sadly, don't get to see each other often, or even talk really, but when we get together it's like no time has passed. Love her!

2 or 3 train stops before ours, the train lost power. They got it up and running, only for it to die again. They, obviously, wanted it stabilized before we took back off. Simultaneously, Marie's bus she was on to meet us at the train station had issues of its own. First, it pulled into a car wash. RANDOM. Luckily, it was just to turn around, not to squeeze through and get a scrub down-haha. Then, the bridge her bus needed to go over went up, so they had to reroute, which added a lot of time to the trip. Luckily, despite being hot as balls outside, our train stayed cool. I was cold even.

Eventually we both made it, phew.

I stopped at the station and downed a huge iced coffee & my Mom changed into a t-shirt she bought at the airport to help her cool down (it's hard work lugging....well....luggage around).

Good timing....as that girl in green behind my Mom is none other than Marie! Yay! We were all sooo excited to see one another!

We bought Charlie Cards (passes for the trains and buses) and headed around Boston to get our food on.

Going through the CRAZY Haymarket Farmers Market where they scream their prices and give you death glares when you don't buy, lol

We were all stahhhhving, so we ended up trying the oldest restaurant in America, The Union Oyster House.

I was pretty pumped for raw oysters, but they only sold them by the dozen (or maybe half dozen? But I was only looking for 2 or so). Oh well.

I knew I wanted seafood of some sort, but surprised myself with my entree order.

To start we had their awesome corn bread & iced tea:

Quickly followed by a cup of clam chowder that was pretty tasty

I couldn't decide on my meal. I was planning to get a lobster roll the next day, but just went for it here instead.

It was pretty bland. Shoulda waited. Marie and my Mom liked their food, so I probably would have been better off with something else. Bummer. But I still left STUFFED.

For our main activity of the day we were going to check out an artsy festival in Davis Square close to where I used to live, but my Mom eventually decided it was a lil late & she'd rather just rest at Marie's & let us go out.

We tried to walk to a lil arts & crafty thing going on quickly by where we were, but it had just closed we assume. Darn!

Marie warned us & warned us about her dog, Toby. He's super sweet, but quite the handful, since he's 80 lbs and likes constant attention.

I also got to see her kitty, Cosmo, again. SUCH a cuddle bug.

I met him 2 summers ago and he was as sweet as ever :).

After my Mom got settled, Marie and I headed to a sandcastle contest/beach festival in Revere.

How AMAZING is that? And that one wasn't even eligible to vote for, it was just kinda the mascot or w/e for the contest. Even though it prob was the best one there, lol. And it's made completely out of just sand and water. They all are. How do people even learn they have such talent?!

Here are all of the entries:

Incredible, huh?

The turtle won basically EVERYTHING. My favorite BY far, the lion door knocker, didn't win anything :(. It was awesome. But they were all really great.

After looking at the sandcastles we stopped for a lil for beach gazing

Marie got a lil hungry smelling all of the festival food, so we went back to the tents for her to get a sausage. We were also thirsty and sampled all sorts of free drinks (sun drop, some kind of tea, and some other soda). Sweet.

I also saw these root beer float contraptions that I saw featured on an episode of Shark Tank not too long ago. Nobody ended up giving the guy a deal, so I'm curious if these were sold by the same guy or if someone stole the idea?

It has the ice cream in a cup on top attached to the root beer or orange soda and then you just drink it. Interesting.

Then, we stopped to watch some of the live entertainment. It was pretty much an all guy glee group.

I kept saying I bet they'd song awesome playing my FAVE song, the Cee Lo song, Forget You. About 15 minutes later they ended up playing it. Yesss!

We also creeped on all the dancing kids for photography purposes! I think Marie had to take most of that pic taking, since I'm a shorty and we were near the back!!

Isn't that older lady in blue quite a character?

We found a pretty sweet ride while walking around ;)

Marie kept trying to get me to jump in it to take a pic, but I was too worried whoever owned it would come by and yell at me. Haha such a wuss!

We walked back to the beach for pic taking opps together!

Then, we got down with our bad selves & threw up some gangsta signs

Eh, peace sign, gangsta, same thing.

Word.

Haha I kind of look like a conehead.

Then, I finally got hungry, but I really wanted fried clams. Marie knew a place famous for them on the other side of the beach. She didn't realize how far it was and we walked & walked & walked. But it was kinda nice. Good temperature outside, festival atmosphere, etc.

Along the way, when we first left, we ran into this guy.

Ferocious!

We FINALLY made it.

The line was soo long. I probably waited half an hour? Marie really really had to pee, so she found another restaurant nearby. The only thing was, her phone died, so I was a little anxious we'd lose each other and I'd have no idea how to get back to her place! But luckily we saw each other, so phew. Crisis averted. :-P.

Unfortunately, the fireworks we'd waited all day & nite for started when I was through the order line, but still waiting for my food. Wahhhh. At least we could still see them from the restaurant, since it's an order-at-the-window-outside kinda place. Not quite as warm & fuzzy & cozy as sitting on the beach watching them, but ya make do.

I wish I could say the clams were worth the wait, but they weren't very good :(. I normally hate fried food, but I really like fried clam strips. I'm pretty sure these weren't just the strips though? They just tasted kinda funny. And I rarely drink soda, but I ordered a coke. If I'm gonna drink a soda it better be really good ya know? But this one was wayyy watered down by the ice cubes. $20 meal fail. Can't win 'em all, I guess! But the random onion rings that made their way into the mix were excelllllent, so there's that lol.

We realized the bus was coming ASAP, so we power walked (and lemme tell you, Marie walks FAST normally and this was her power walk...) to the bus stop. Until it never came & I asked Marie if she was sure she checked the Saturday stop and not the week day one, and she realized it wasn't making a stop there. Oopsie.

Luckily, the bus stop was located in front of the T (train) stop, so although we had to make multiple stops and transfers, we were still able to jump on a (mostly empty) train right away. Lucky us for taking that stop, as the other stop (the one we originally got off at) was PACKED. Yay for having already secured seats.

My Mom was starving and was too afraid to order in and have Toby run out the door LOL, so even though we didn't get back until super late (well, like 11:30 maybe? late for not eating since lunch!), so we offered to bring her back food. We had to stop at the gas station across the street from her apt anyway for dog food & drinks. Marie said it sounded crazy, but the teeny tiny Brazilian pizza & sandwich shop inside the gas station was to die for. Hey, I'm game. They were out of slices of pizza (it was almost closing time), but the guy working the register said if I ordered a whole pizza he'd make it for me, so I got my Mom a small sausage & Marie just went with a sub. I don't think I'm all that pretty (wah wah wah, not saying that for compliments or a sob story saying I'm ugly or hate myself or anything drastic like that, just saying there are lots of really pretty girls out there, especially in Texas...), but apparently I have a look that Bostonian guys are into. It could be coincidence, but this time + a few times when I lived in Boston I'd go into places not knowing their hours, find out they were closed or closing, but they were run by all guys & I'd turn to leave and they'd insist they didn't mind making it for me. Never hit on me or anything, so maybe I'm just being vain haha, but I just always got the vibe if a guy or girl they thought was ugly came in they'd have just said they were closed ya know?

Man, I really should move back to Boston and snag me a man, huh? Texas boys just don't cut it! Ha.

Anyway.........that was a HUGE tangent.

So, I had my clams still to devour (only made it prob 1/3 to 1/2 a way through, so at least the portions were pretty big given the high cost) and I HATE sausage, but I had to at least try this highly renowned gas station pizza, right? Um. It was DELICIOUS. One taste turned into like 1.5 pieces. Just thinking about it right now makes me want it again BAD. YUMMM. I also had some pepsi, which is odd, as usually I hate it. But my watery coke let me down & soda and pizza & fried food sounded like a nice, unhealthy combo :-x.

If that wasn't bad enough, at the gas station I also snagged these, as whoopie pies aren't really known in Texas.

I know, I know. Gas station bakery items, how good could they be?

Eh, not very. I left most of the chocolate one at Marie's. It was stale and dry. No thanks. The oatmeal one was pretty good though. My Dad actually ended up eating most of it. I originally got that one for my Mom, but she claims to hate whoopie pies. I doubt she's ever had one, but OK? LOL. That's my Mom! My Dad nibbled on it all trip and even packed the rest & brought it back to Texas and I saw him still eating on it not too long ago. WTF? LOL.

After eating, my Mom went to bed, while Marie and I watched TV for awhile. We kept flipping between stuff live & stuff on her DVR. Eventually she asked me if I was into the Glee Project. I had actually previously recorded every episode, but never watched, so when I left for my trip I deleted them all to make room for my recordings when I was gone. Big mistake! We watched one episode together and then she went to bed, while I proceeded to stay up and watch most of them (I think I missed one?) until ohh 4 am or so. Oops. I even kept falling asleep, waking up, rewinding where I left off, and repeating the process. It's so addicting and I really got invested in the contestants right away! You better believe I watch this every week now.

Almost done with the whole trip, slowly but surely! Makes me want to go back :(.

xo,
Amanda

Celebrity Clone: Makeover Edition

2011-07-29T23:01:00.011-05:00

I got my hair cut today for the first time in god knows how long. I had a groupon for a salon I used to go to, but my usual girl there moved, so I went with her. But I couldn't turn down 50% off, now could I? It's Daniel's salon from Shear Genius if that means anything to anyone. I never watched it, but I guess he was the fan favorite? Pretty cool.

But I digress....

I'm 97% sure it's all in the bangs, but apparently I have turned into quite the songbird today.

What do I mean by that?

Well...here's me post-cut (/glaze/deep conditioning/eye brow wax):

Love.

It took 2 girls to get this fabulosity. One to cut, shampoo, glaze, and condition, and & one to blow dry and style (and do le eye brows).

The first stylist, upon finishing, kept referring to me as Miss Deschanel.

I'd normally be ridiculously flattered, as I'm basically obsessed with Zooey, if not for the fact that this is the photo I took in to get the perfect bang.

Still, she kept saying over and over that it was crazy how much I looked exactly like her after.

I wish! But I'll take it ;).

By association, I suppose that also makes me a Katy Perry clone, as she also couldn't tell the difference between the two.

Meow.

I've actually heard Katy Perry before, too.

But then...

Stylist two said I looked EXACTLY like Lily Allen.

Again, it MUST be the bangs.

aka this Lily...

But when stumbling on this picture I just found a new obsession. How adorbs is this hair?! Must recreate sometime, stat.

Darling.

Finally, when I texted pics to my friend, she said I look like the singer Jessie J. I didn't know who she was by name, so again, google to the rescue!

But when I told her the other stories she said she agreed with Lily Allen too.

So between the 3 of them you'd think I'd be working on the next big hit, huh?

If only I wasn't tone deaf.

Damn!

Instead I just kept snap snap snapping pics.

Right outside the salon with my mama and her new do:

Gaw-jus. (Her, natch!)

& me and the fountain, solo-style

A little in the car action:

And Home Edition

Cartoon-ized? Comic style? Over edited? Your choice :).

Taking a cue from Miss Spears: Down & Up & Down & Up and Down & Up & and Down

Awkward.

Any celebrity clone stories of your own? Do tell.

xo,
Amanda

Trying to Get Back on Track

2011-07-27T00:15:00.015-05:00

Posting out of order again. This time, more recent. I'll back track to the trip soon.

But now...I'm back to focusing on eater better and less. I've barely worked out this month at ALL and even when I was working out a lot I still felt blah. This has been a SLOW week, yet when I'm home I have notime! So I'll keep it (mostly) short and food-oriented just for now.

Monday

-1 slice of sourdough bread cut in half with egg whites, a lil raw red pepper dip, a lil white american cheese, dijon
-cherries & strawberries
-iced coffee via x 2 (1 packet, but it's technically 2 servings...ridic, who would make half a packet?!)

Oh wait, I didn't eat him. He just stole my picture taking window spot :).

Heeeeere we go:

That coffee pic is actually from Saturday, but I won't tell if you don't. ;). I wish the iced via's came unsweetened. It's wayyy too sugary. I don't know how I drank it nonstop last Summer. I wish I could control the sweetness and use stevia instead, but I'll drink up what I have (which is quite a bit).

-hot coffee x 2 with a lil hazelnut coconut milk creamer + a tiny bit of vanilla stevia in one of the cups

-Jimmy John's tuna with extra dijon, cucumbers, tomato, lettuce, & sprouts on wheat

-half a chocolate cherry Kind bar

-Mama Chia lemonade (a drink made out of soaked chia seeds)
-2 chicken roll ups (chicken tenders I lightly pounded out and stuffed with a garlic & herb goat cheese and rolled up and baked with greek seasoning)
-spinach & lemon cous cous
-salad salad (organic greens, cherry tomatoes, green pepper, green onion, organic carrots, garlic & herb goat cheese crumbles, balsamic vinegairette)

SUCH a good dinner. & I had that chia drink forEVER and was kinda scared of it, but me gusta mucho. Good thing, because I bought another one on sale in a diff flavor.

-dessert sampler plate with different bundt cake flavors & sliced peach
-ginger peach hot tea with a lil vanilla stevia

Pretty boring, straightforward day. Work, tv, the usual. My brother's friend also came over for awhile and hung out a little. Otherwise, I don't think I did anything noteworthy.

Tuesday

-parfait (plain oatmeal made with mashed banana layered with a few bits of captn crunch and berries, honey greek yogurt, more oatmeal, more yogurt, & topped with fiber one

I was so excited for this breakfast, but I had to rush to make it, so it was just OK. Melting the banana into the oatmeal was awesome tho! Usually I put it in after, but it madem it even more banana-y to cook it with the oats. Mmmm. And I prob coulda done without the yellow dye of the captn crunch, but it was the first box I grabbed. Not that I couldn't have put it right back, heh.

-coffee with hazelnut coconut milk creamer & vanilla stevia

Only 1.5 cups today. Impressive :-P.

-slice of brown rice toast with raw red pepper macadamia dip
-cherries
-lemon spinach cous cous

After work I went over to hang out with my cousin and Kendyll and brought dinner!

-Pei Wei caramel chicken & shrimp (steamed not fried) with brown rice
-1 chicken lettuce wrap
-1 crab wonton
-mandarin iced tea with 2 orange slices and a lil vanilla stevia

It was really good, but I forgot to use my 20% off coupon grr & I also forgot to say steamed/stock velvet, but luckily they hadn't made it yet when I went to pick it up (I ordered it online), so that part was an easy fix. It kinda hurt my stomach a little, but not too bad and it was really tasty. I bet if it had accidentally been fried it would have really done a number on my stomach.

Ended up staying about 3 hours at my cousin's. =-o. Longer than I expected, but it was fun as usual.

& No matter how tired she is, this lil lady is always full of energy and loves to spin! (and spin and spin...)

Her fave song is Britney Spears Up & Down...and that song was played 3-4 times+ and helped get LOTS of spin action in :).

-frozen yogurt with fruit & a few lil mini chocolates and chocolate sprinkles

-Kombucha

-pumpkin spice tea with vanilla stevia

I just realized I think the tea has caffeine. My bad.

Speaking of which....

I REALLY need to work on going to bed earlier, so I can wake up and workout :-\. Oops.

Wish me luck. (And ignore the fact that it's already almost 1 am now. CRAP).

xo,
Amanda

Beach Babes

2011-07-25T22:52:00.028-05:00

The Friday morning of our trip my Mom wanted me and her to take the bus to Newport for a few hours to eat lunch and shop and just walk around. As if I'd turn down that! Let's be real now.

Here's us on the bus ride LOL.

We went to a few stores, most of which we have in Dallas too. Oops. Hate that! But I did find a cute shirt for $17 (rang up even cheaper than I expected) and a fun headband for $12 (expensive for a headband, imo!!But I liked it a lot). The girl who rang me up said I picked out a perfect little black dress. DRESS?! I'm 5'3" and it barely covered my ass when I tried it on. I don't understand people these days with their embarrassingly short shirts they try to pass off as dresses. Call me prude, but it makes me feel embarrassed for girls who dress that way! :-x Oh well....

We did find a fun bracelet shop, Alex & Ani, where my Mom treated me, her, and a surprise for my cousin to some awesome, special bracelets with personal meanings. I was torn between the fleur de lis (my fave) or the tree of life, but ultimately decided fleur's are easier to find elsewhere, so I got the gold tree one to be a lil more unique. Love it! Thanks mama.

I invited my friend Mike to join us for lunch and luckily he was on vacation from work, so he was able to make it. We met him at the Red Parrot. I suggested my Mom try the lemon sole. I thought I'd eaten there years before and had that and loved it, but upon further thought I think I ate somewhere else that time. My bad. My Mom did get the sole and LOVED it. I got it as well, but thought it was just OK, if that. I hate rice, especially white rice, so I left all of that behind. I felt pressured to order before I was ready even tho we spent forever deciding and just blurted it out since she did :-P. I also had an unpictured Sam Adam's.

Before lunch I also came across a cute lil shop and picked up a lil somethin' somethin' for later :)

We promised the rest of the gang we'd meet up with them around 5 to head to the beach and we were cutting it close. Mike was nice enough to drive us back, so that bought us a little extra time to visit. I forgot to get a pic tho. Doh!

Before we went to the actual beach, we agreed to check out a Dixie band (they originally said like the Dixie Chicks, but I figured that wasn't true...) across the street in a lil open park with a gazebo. Yeah, Dixie Chicks? Not so much. It was a couple handfuls of 80 year olds crammed into a tiny gazebo playing instruments. Oh boy.

OK, OK, it was cute and fairly crowded, so we just chilled out and made the most of it lol. Some of our party loved it, while the rest of us thought it was funny/cute :-P. The scenery was nice for pic taking & it was fun watching the lil kids dance around. What is it about kids and dancing? Too sweet. & the weather was peeeeerfection. Someone send Dallas the memo, huh?

Dave and Candace, our trip hosts, are fabulous hosts & always have food, drinks, anything you could want on hand. We snacked on a few things (hummus and water for me!) and lounged in their comfy chairs.

Nice & breeeeeezy. Doesn't life look easy? ;) Ahhhh, vacation.

& How charming is this?

Love it.

Shortly after, most of us got up and walked over to the beach

We met a friend.

Haha.

It was a lil chilly, but the gang was REALLY trying to exaggerate to make the 100+ degree Texas crew jealous back home! We're super nice, dontcha know?

Time to bust out the beach hat!!!

Poor Candace's eyes lol.

My Mom took her tootsies for a little dip....with shoes on.

Which clearly did not stay on...and needed a good washing. & a nice husband to carry them around.

Everybody else went back to the gazebo to watch the geezers play (I'm so nice!), but my Mom and I stayed behind for more beach action & more photos to make people jealous, mwhahaha.

If you're landlocked like us 99% of the time, you get it!

For dinner I was SO pumped. I didn't think we'd be able to go to my fave restaurant in the area that we went to last year, Crazy Burger, but we did. YAY! Despite the name, it's actually more of a vegan/vegetarian place, but they do serve meat too. When I'm in any city near the water I try to eat seafood almost exclusively, buttttt in a vegan place I had to go vegan! Do as the Romans do, y'know? Cliched, that's meeee.

Is that napkin not so me? I should just tattoo my entire body in black & white damask...lurve.

I've been dreaming about a repeat of this juice allll year. Pear apple ginger. MMM MMM good. I almost went for seconds, but stopped myself. I want it again. and again. It's super good. If only juicing at home wasn't a huge pain! Or if we had a nearby local juice bar......*dreamy sigh*

My meal came with soup or salad, so I went with the same thing as last year again....the sweet potato soup.

Same as last year, just OK. But it sounded like the best option at the time.

I wavered forEVER for my main entree choice, but decided to eat Italian for like the third day in a row & went with the vegan lasagna.

It was pretty good, but didn't have some of the ingredients it was supposed to, I don't think? Particularly noticeable..the veggie sausage was missing. That was one of the main reasons I got it!! Bummer. On the plus side, I read online they use daiya instead of soy cheese. I can't confirm it, but if so that's awesome. Love that. I wish we had this place near me, so I could try the whole menu! It all sounds amazing.

When we got back to the house (or actually, maybe before we left, but timing isn't important here!), one of the guys, Howard, presented us all with some surprises he found when cleaning his house or going through old boxes or something like that. He found old pics, drawings, & letters my family sent him over the years. It was really awesome to see and REALLY touched my Mom.

HAHA the sad thing is my handwriting hasn't improved all that much over the years :-x. I was probably 10 or 11 when I wrote that lol. I knew I wrote it the second I saw it. Maybe I need handwriting 101? LOL @ how I printed my name and signed in cursive underneath. Randumb!

I guess I liked blue and purple flowers with yellow centers a lot in my youth. Ha.

My brother is a (graphic) artist as a career now, so it's kinda cool to see some of his first works of art!

He was only about 8 back then. Not bad ;).

After changing into pj's & getting cozy in the guest room I took out this lil number and split it between my Mom & I.....

Oh Em Gee. It was sooo good. I wish I had gotten more! Damn. Deeeeeelish.

Then, it was time for resttttt. We were supposed to have 1 more full day in Rhode Island, but didn't have any real plans for the day & my friend Marie convinced us to spend another day with her in Boston instead. When she was able to rearrange her work schedule and take Saturday off (she'd already taken Sunday off for us) & offered her place up (we had a hotel for Sunday already booked, but she wanted to save us the trouble of an extra day and extra $$), we took her up on it, fo' sho'! Good times ahead, natch.

:)

xo,
Amanda

Dallas to Milwaukee to Boston to Kingston

2011-07-20T23:13:00.023-05:00

On July 14, at 3 am, after less than 2 hours or so of sleep, I awoke ready to face a day full of traveling.

Our flight left at 6 am. I felt mildly nauseous when we first left the house, but by the time we got to the airport I was pretty hungry. Nothing sounded good though & it was time to leave before we knew it, so I held off until we got to Milwaukee a little after 8 am.

Recently, I've gone from loving flying to hating it. It scares the BEEP out of me. I abhor ANY form of adrenaline, so any little bump or bout of turbulence freaks me the eff out. The first flight wasn't terrible, but we got stuck in some clouds, so I was in mild panic mode as we bumped along a lil bit.

We finally, safely arrived in Milwaukee, our first stop, where we had about an hour layover. I walked up and down the small terminal, officially deciding to eat at the first place I pondered. It was just a little coffee & tea kiosk, but it had the longest line and seemed the healthiest. Not that what I ordered was terribly healthy, but not too bad. It was egg, ham, & cheese on sourdough with a blueberry rooibos tea. As they ALWAYS are, the tea was too hot to fully enjoy, but it was really delish. Too hot to finish before the flight, but I drank what I could. I also don't use airplane bathrooms, so I didn't want to overload my bladder too much :-x. TMI? Moving on... The sandwich was just OK, but got the job done. I also went back for round 2 to buy a local root beer to take with me. It was going to bother me if I didn't buy it, it looked really good!

We flew a kind of obscure airline, Frontier, which I found out serve warm cookies on all of their flights AFTER 10 am. Our first flight left at 6 am and our second at like.....9:45 or so. Ridiculous. I WANTED MY DAMN COOKIE :(. lol. We were in the air at 10! Geesh!

I had hot tea on flight one & orange juice on flight two. So by the time we landed?

I NEEDED some coffee. Stat.

Lucky me, our gate was right outside of not only a coffee joint, but an Illy one!! I've never seen Illy anywhere besides in the infamous silver cans, but that stuff is so so good. And even better, they had soy milk!!! Almond milk would have just been over the top, but I never even ask for that delightful option. I went for the "large" cappuccino, but it wasn't very big. But tasted pretty good.

After a quick transportation debate, we took the silver line bus/train from the airport to Boston's South Station & then had drama-rama with the rest of our daily travels. First, we got tickets for the commuter rail to Providence, RI, about 30 minutes from my Dad's friends house but crazy cheap.

They first said they'd pick us up there, but then made a little stink about rush hour and blah blah and tried to convince us to switch to Amtrak. It cost double (we originally thought it cost like 7 times more, but I guess that changed), but we ended up doing it anyway. I got irritated by the whole thing at one point, as did my Mom. She pondered getting us a hotel in Boston the entire time (which I talked her out of), while I was thinking of asking my friend Marie if I could just crash with her. But in the end we all 3 made it safe and sound to Kingston, RI and settled in..in somewhat better moods.

Despite not haven eaten much that day, I was still more concerned with unpacking and resting, so I didn't take up the offer of a snack. No big thang tho, as shortly after that we ended up being served dinner unexpectedly anyway.

I assumed we'd just go out to eat as usual, but they had some food waiting for us that needed to be eaten up.

We started with salad, which we thought was the only course we'd be eating at the house. We also had strawberry infused water! We still thought we were just eating the salad before it went bad and then would go out for a "real" meal, but next came eggplant parm, quickly followed by penne.....and then cheesecake.....and some kind of boston creme pie or something, & mashed strawberries. I had a little of each and it was all fantastic. Nice surprise.

I thought my Mom would panic, as she's very polite, but also very picky. I didn't think there was any way she'd be able to eat the salad or eggplant, but she "choked" both down and LOVED them. Good to know! Will prove useful information for future meals ;) ;).

Also, the only salad dressings they offered were a raspberry one & a tomatoey one. My Mom ONLY likes ranch (and maybe italian). But she tried the tomato & loved it. SEE MOM. You DO like more than you think ;). It was really yum!

After dinner, I politely "snuck" back into the bedroom to watch my OBSESSION...Big Brother!! Come on, it was eviction nite. Obviously I couldn't miss it!! And it did not disappoint.

That's about it. Aside from the crazy traveling, it was actually a pretty low-key day.

At least we made it safe and sound. Phew.

xo,
Amanda

Bizzzzack

2011-07-20T22:27:00.004-05:00

I'm baaaaaaack. I actually got home late Monday nite, but basically rolled into bed, still airport-smelly & stayed that way until.

Well, should I admit it?

This morning. Yep. Wednesday. Oh boy.

I woke up to go to work on Tuesday and my neck would barely move it was so stiff and I was le tiiiiired. Ridiculous! I decided to "work from home," but I rarely spend adequate time like I would in the office. This time I worked just over an hour. Ha.

Ya know the old saying...needing a vacation from your vacation. Enough said.

I had a really good time, but was on a plane, train, bus, subway, car, or on foot every day, multiple times a day, in multiple ways. It was a lot.

I have stories to tell of course, which I will break up day by day, but the vast amount of pictures I took are overwhelming! Beautiful, but again, it's a lot. I have such a hard time picking and choosing what pics to post, because obviously if I didn't want to share I wouldn't have taken 'em! But I also know I shouldn't realistically post 200+ pics LOL.

I'll manage :).

See ya soon.

xo,
Amanda

July 7-in Pictures

2011-07-11T23:14:00.005-05:00

Cause Baby You're a Firework

2011-07-11T20:03:00.010-05:00

Monday marked our last day out of town.

We woke up with a MAYJAH breakfast dilemma...

Top of our list was Jimmy's Egg, but Sam found another place he thought sounded good too. We almost went there, until I saw bad reviews about rats. Yikes. At the last second I put a twist in the sitch & found a Guatemalan restaurant, kind of a divey hole in the wall place, but with rave breakfast reviews. I was super pumped. But when we found it it was closed. Noooo. I had mentally planned my order like 20 times by this point. WHAT...a disappointment.

Jimmy's Egg it was.

It was pretty Denny's like. Sigh.

My Dad & I decided to split a 5-egg (white), 10-ingredient omelet (green chiles, tomatoes, green onion, black olives, green peppers, potatoes, mushrooms, avocado, spinach, and cream cheese)

+ split a side of cinnamon raisin toast & grits

Sam asked for cheese added to his grits and my Dad and I thought they looked great, so we asked for a side too.

They were extremely bland with or without the cheese (and pepper)

We also got sweet potato pancakes to share. I think we made our way through about half.

& as always, coffee

But the coffee was weak as $%&*, so Sam took me to Starbucks immediately after....

I got an iced americano with a splash of soy there...and proceeded to accidentally ruin it by dumping way too much liquid vanilla stevia in there. I still drank it, but it was basically bad coffee:take two.

Then, we got my Mom a sandwich & returned some clothes I bought at Target that didn't fit right.

At some point I also ate this. I think partially the nite before? Who knows. It's one of those single serving ones.

It was pretty good.

We were planning on staying 'til 4, but there wasn't much left to do, we knew nobody would be hungry again by then, etc., so we decided to just head back to Texas.

After the requisite goodbye pictures to document our time together, that is.

At our first road stop I loaded up on necessary road trip supplies: candy & beef jerky.

I also got sour mamba's. I ALWAYS trick myself into thinking I LOVE mamba's and they're hard to find, so I always buy them. Then I always remember, eh..they're just OK. I'll prob give my brother the orange & lemon ones, but I'll finish up the raspberry...eventually. It takes me FOREVER to get through candy.

We also stopped at Cracker Barrel to stock up on candy for my brother & whatever randomness we could find to buy.

Remember how we didn't stop at my fave restaurant in Denton (college-town) on Saturday with the promise we'd stop Monday? Yeah, well, the bastards were closed!!!!! Not cool.

At least it meant getting home faster to dress up & love up these rascals!!

You understand.

It was wayyyy too hot outside for my long dress, so I changed into another dress that reminded me of fireworks. I'm cheesy that way.

& ran up to buy supplies to bbq!

What would the 4th be without that? If I couldn't have Hannah's (the aforementioned restaurant), then I wasn't missing out on this!

Cheeseburger, veggie hot dog, bbq beans

+ Salad

Traveling is fun, but it's always nice to get home!

xo,
Amanda