Resolution Recap

Taking a cue from Sarah and Chandra, I decided to review my 2009 New Years Resolutions and see how I did. That’s the good thing about having a blog, I can go back and look them up, otherwise I would not have remembered them at all!

Here they are:

1. Try a new recipe each week. I actually did really well with this one. I feel like I cooked more this past year than I ever had previously. I think part of it was because I discovered that I really enjoyed photographing my food. And I really didn’t want to photograph something from a box. Weird motivation, but it worked!

2. Keep up with running after I run a big race. I did okay with this. I ended up running quite a few races in 2009. I think I ran eight – three 5Ks, two 10Ks, a 15K and two half-marathons. Signing up for new races definitely kept me running.

3. Stop gossiping. I’m not really sure where this came from. I must have felt guilty for talking shit about someone when I wrote it. I declare this resolution N/A.

4. Dress better. Well considering I kept waiting to lose those 10 pounds before I bought any new clothes and never lost them, this was a major fail.

5. Stop drinking to get drunk. I think that I’ve gotten better about this. Sort of. Basically, I pretty much only drink when I’m out with friends in a social environment. I cut WAY down on drinking at home and drinking during the week. But I didn’t exactly cut down how many drinks I had when I’m out drinking if that makes any sense. Still, it’s progress.

6. Record what I’m eating. Eh, I don’t have the patience for this. I try to do it sometimes during the day but then never feel like keeping up with it at night.

I don’t think I consciously thought of these resolutions during the year, but it’s interesting to see what I thought I needed to change in my life one year ago and how that differs from what I feel like I need to work on for the next year. And what is that? I still have ten days to figure it out.

I kind of felt like a human garbage disposal today. These stupid sweets in the break room are going to be the end of me. I cannot stop picking when I go to refill my water bottle. Maybe they’ll get thrown away after Christmas. Hopefully. Really did I need a cup of stale caramel popcorn this afternoon? Don’t answer that.

I had my first Tempo run of my half mary training today. I think I was a little lofty with my time goal. I put in that I’d run a half at 2:12 because I wanted to PR in the next one. But really, my fastest time is 2:17. I just noticed that this plan says that if I follow it, I’ll run the half in 2:08. I think I might revise it to go just a tad slower. Or maybe I should just push myself. So yeah, tempo runs suck. That’s all I have to say about that. I did a 5 mile run which included a 1 mile warm-up, 3 mile tempo and 1 mile cool down. I wasn’t even running the tempo portion that fast; it was at 6.1. For some reason, I felt like the treadmill was on an incline even though it wasn’t. It sucked but I soldiered through. I’ve never had any sort of mantra before, but I kept telling myself, “You have to run faster to get faster.”

Just want to relax!

I feel like it’s been go, go, go since Thursday. We got to Jason’s parents house at about 10:15 on Friday night. The weekend was filled with eating, drinking, chatting, board games and crazy dogs.

Doggie cousins Murphy and Chief. Chief is my dog-in-law, I suppose.

They obviously take tug of war quite seriously.

I definitely ate a lot over the weekend. Jason’s mom made this cake that was delicious and I could not stop myself from eating another little bit here and there. Then I felt like I had to sample some of the cookies that I’d brought from the cookie swap. I am a sucker for sweets; I can’t help it. We opened gifts on Saturday night and took some family photos. I have one of all of us, but wasn’t sure if they all wanted their picture posted on the interwebs. So here’s me, Jason and Murphy.

Contrary to how it looks, I’m not choking the dog.

We drove back to Atlanta early Sunday afternoon. I really wanted to get back to eating healthy, but we didn’t have any food in the house and decided to go out to dinner. We went to The Brickstore in downtown Decatur. This is one of my favorite restaurants but there is always such a long wait that we never end up going. On a Sunday night, however, we only had to wait about 15 minutes.

Downtown Decatur is so cute.

I love the ambiance of the Brickstore. They have a lot of craft beers. In fact, I took my father there once and he had no idea what to order. You will not find Miller Lite on their menu nor will you find any tvs. I love it. Plus, a lot of their food is local.

I had the Sweet Potato Curry. Sort of a random choice for a brewpub, but it was good.

We had a nice time talking. Like I’ve said before, Jason and I don’t have the same work schedule, so it’s rare that we get to have a leisurely dinner together. Normally I’m in “I don’t want to go out on a school night” mode, but since it is a short week, I changed my tune. Plus, we went early and were home by nine.

I finally got some exercise in today at lunch. Sort of weird that I take two days off and am chomping at the bit to get back at it. I actually started the new half-marathon training plan that I got from Runner’s World. This plan has me running some SLOOOOOOOW short runs. I ran 2 miles today at 5.3 mph. I’m going to stick with it. I guess that you make up for the slow runs with tempo and speedwork training. I guess they know what they’re doing. They being the creators of these custom plans. I’m curious to see what my time will be following this plan.

After work, I went to Maggiano’s for a friend’s graduation celebration dinner. Maggiano’s makes me nervous. I know that’s weird and a little disordered, but it’s true. I don’t like how pretty much nothing on their menu is healthy. But what I really don’t like is the family style dining. Yes, this is the second time this has happened to me in 4 days! Everyone else wanted to get the family style and I wanted to get mussels. At first the waitress said that I couldn’t; if everyone else was getting the family style, I had to too. I mean, I understand that they don’t want people who aren’t paying to take advantage, but going family style at an Italian restaurant is kind of a nightmare for me. (No offense, Jaime!) Fortunately, she let me order the mussels after I promised her that I wouldn’t taste the family style food. How do you guys feel about family style dining? Love it? Hate it?

After dinner, I went over to Borders to pick up a present for my brother and stepmother. And now I’m doing laundry. Will I ever get to relax? All signs point to no.

Opa!

Just a quick post before I start packing for the weekend. Jason and I are going to visit his family in Seneca, South Carolina. It’s about a two hour drive from here, although with this rain, it might take longer.

Last night I went to Taverna Plaka for a friend’s birthday. I used to drive by this restaurant all the time and have always wanted to try it. The atmosphere was very fun. There were about eight of us at the table. I started out with a Pomegranate Martini. It was way too sweet. But that didn’t stop me from drinking it. Everyone wanted to do the family style dining option. I am really not a fan of eating that way at all. I like what I like and I want to eat what I like. But, I didn’t want to be a pain so I went along with it. Included in the family style special were a ton of appetizers. There was hummus that was mashed at the table with a mortar and pestle, some sort of pita and three dips, spanikopita, greek salad and some sort of flaming cheese. I tried all of it besides the cheese. For the entree portion, most people got skewers of meat, but another girl and myself requested a vegetarian entree. It turned out to be grilled veggies in an eggplant boat and some green beans and lemony potatoes. And then, if we weren’t full enough, they brought out some small pieces of Baklava and some other sort of cake.

There was also round of ouzo shots and a lot of yelling OPA! and throwing napkins. Oh, and belly dancers. It was a really fun restaurant. I’m not sure that I’d want to go there for my birthday, however, because they made the birthday girl stand on the table while we sang to her. And then they threw more napkins at her. This place must go through an extraordinary amount of napkins.

Afterward, some of the group went out, but I opted to go home. It was already 10 o’clock by the time we finished eating. I had some trouble sleeping because I kept waking up and worrying that I would have a hangover in the morning. Yeah, that’s how you know you’re old. I didn’t even drink that much! (And I don’t have a hangover, if you were wondering.)

At lunch today, I made use of the office gym and did a 20 minute walk at 3.7 mph with a 5.0 incline. Then I did the following:

Front squat/push press – 25lbs, 2 sets of 10
Step-up – 10 lbs, 2 sets of 10 each leg
Dumbbell One Point Row – 25lbs, 2 sets of 10
Static Lunge, Rear Foot Elevated, 25 lbs, 2 sets of 10 each leg
Plank – 60 seconds, 2 sets
Inclined sit up with an oblique twist, 2 sets of 10

I’m glad that I squeezed that workout in. I know that I’m not going to be working out tomorrow and I feel like I’ve taken way too much advantage of the cookies and other treats in the breakroom at work. I need normalcy. I’ll be happy when the holidays are over.

Oh! Speaking of cookies, sort of, I get a lot of presents from vendors (printers that I use) this time of year. Normally, they send cookies or some other sweet treat. Yesterday, I opened up a box and it was a snuggie! How cool is that? It had the printer’s name embroidered on it, but it’s still really cool. And no, it’s not the leopard one. I’ve had like 5 people ask me that!

A big oops

I made a costly mistake at work. I hate that feeling. Now, I have to go in tomorrow and tell the CEO about it. It was on his account, of all people. Argh. I hope I don’t get in trouble. It might cost like $9,000 that the company will have to eat.

Anyway. Not going to think about that right now. Jason and I exchanged Christmukkah gifts today. I got him a new leather jacket (sorry vegans!) and he got me some hot yoga classes and this cookbook. Yay for holidays.

We’re about to go the gym. My knees have been sort of sore lately. Not painful, just sore. Should I be icing them? I’m really not running more than about 8 miles a week; I’m not sure why they’re bothering me. I’ve been told that my running form is bad and is going to cause me trouble in the future which I hope is not what’s happening. It’s so hard to correct your running form thoug, especially since what I am doing feels normal to me.

We’re going to Jason’s parents house for the weekend and don’t have many groceries in the house, so I think we might pick up some Chinese takeout after the gym. I almost always get some sort of vegetable soup and then steamed shrimp (or sometimes chicken or tofu) with veggies. It comes with a sauce, so although it’s not quite as good as if it were stir-fried with the sauce, it’s still pretty tasty and it’s much healthier. I did make a recipe earlier in the week that went unpictured.

Portobello Mushroom Chili (from allrecipes.com)

Sidenote: I love that you can upload your own pictures to Allrecipes. I do it with every recipe that I make from there.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 medium onions, diced
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tablespoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
1 1/2 pounds portobello mushrooms, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1 (28 ounce) can Italian-style diced tomatoes
1 (19 ounce) can red kidney beans
salt to taste
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
Directions

Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat, and cook the onions until tender. Stir in the garlic, chili powder, and cayenne pepper. Mix the mushrooms into the skillet, and continue cooking, stirring frequently, 10 minutes, or until tender.
Pour the tomatoes and beans into the skillet. Season with salt and pepper. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer 40 minutes.

Serves 6

I have a go to chili recipe but felt like switching it up some. This was good, but I don’t think it’s going to replace the other recipe. You have to like mushrooms to enjoy this chili; it had three packages in it!

Have you ever made a big mistake at work? Did you get in trouble or (gulp) get fired? I don’t think I’m going to get fired. I know I’m not but still, $9,000 is a lot of money.

Me want cookies

3 miles is my least favorite distance to run. And it’s also the distance that I run the most often. It almost always takes me at least 3 miles to get into a zone when I run. So if I only do the 3 miles, I’m not feeling it the entire time. So why do I end up running this distance so often? Well, for a couple reasons. One being time. It takes a half an hour. When you factor in changing my clothes, going to and from the gym and showering, it takes a little over and hour, give or take. It’s the perfect distance for getting a quick workout in. Secondly, it feels like a workout. Two miles feels too short. I know I’m probably wrong, but when I run less than three miles, I feel like I don’t get a good enough workout. Anyway, as you can probably deduce, I ran 3 miles today. I made myself do it at lunch. As much as I don’t want to run during lunch sometimes, I never regret doing it.

I’m about to start training for another half marathon. I’ve always used Hal Higdon’s Novice Half Marathon training plan. For my next race, however, I want to switch it up. I thought about doing the Intermediate, but it was too many days of running. I also looked at the FIRST program, but it had me doing almost 10 mile runs for my long run right off the bat. So I plugged in some numbers into the Runner’s World custom training tool and I liked what it gave me. This race is in 14 weeks so I have plenty of time to train.

Today was the cookie swap at work. Here’s the good and the bad. The good: my cookies were the favorite!! Everyone wanted them. The bad: I think I ate five cookies today. Oops. Tis the season?

If you’re a runner, what’s your favorite distance to run? Mine is probably 7-8 miles. I really feel like I accomplished something but it’s not completely exhausting. What’s your least favorite? You know mine.

On a gray day, you can walk the dog forever

Guess what? Guess what? Or rather, guess who ran two miles in 17:56? That would be yours truly! I figured that if I could run a mile in less than nine minutes, I probably could run two miles at the same speed. And I could! You have to understand, this is very, very fast for me. I’ve been running for years but have always focused on endurance and not speed. I’ve run a marathon before (if you want to call it running; I walked the last 6 miles, long story) so it’s not like I’m really going to hit another PDR so I have really been feeling the need to challenge myself in the speed department. I’ll admit it; running fast sucks. It’s hard. But I know that I’m not going to get faster unless I make myself run faster. It’s kind of a no-brainer, right? Honestly, I felt like I was going to puke afterward. But I walked for two minutes and then did the elliptical for 15. This was yesterday. I have no idea what I did the rest of the night. Big fat nothing, I suppose. Not that there’s anything wrong with that; it was cold and rainy out.

This afternoon, after it finally stopped raining, Murphy and I went for a 4-mile walk with Ira Glass (in the spirit of giving, I just donated $10 to TAL.) which doubled as a photography walk. I’ve always been very interested in photography. I took classes in high school and college, but it kind of fell by the wayside for a few years. I’m not sure why, but lately my interest has been piqued. There might be a new camera in my not-so distant future. We shall see. I did not get very many good shots today. It’s pretty hard with a 60 lb dog tugging at the leash. I got a couple of good macro pictures though.

And one of this eyesore. Call me Scrooge, but seriously?? Those things aren’t cheap either!

Walking for four miles with the dog actually takes a fairly long time. He likes to mark every single bush. Towards the end, it seems physically impossible for him to have any more pee left, but he tries anyway. After we got home, I stopped at Kroger to buy the ingredients for some cookies that I’m making for a work cookie swap tomorrow.

Since I can’t follow a recipe to save my life, baking is not my forte. I was combing the internet looking for something that would be hard to mess up when I stumbled upon these Oreo Truffles. I’ve had something like this before and they were good, plus they only had three ingredients.

Oreo Truffles (from Allrecipes.com)
Ingredients

1 (16 ounce) package OREO Chocolate Sandwich Cookies, divided
1 (8 ounce) package PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, softened
2 (8 ounce) packages BAKER’S Semi-Sweet Baking Chocolate, melted
Directions

Crush 9 of the cookies to fine crumbs in food processor; reserve for later use. (Cookies can also be finely crushed in a resealable plastic bag using a rolling pin.) Crush remaining 36 cookies to fine crumbs; place in medium bowl. Add cream cheese; mix until well blended. Roll cookie mixture into 42 balls, about 1-inch in diameter.
Dip balls in chocolate; place on wax paper-covered baking sheet. (Any leftover chocolate can be stored at room temperature for another use.) Sprinkle with reserved cookie crumbs.
Refrigerate until firm, about 1 hour. Store leftover truffles, covered, in refrigerator.

Yield 42 truffles.

A food processor is absolutely necessary for this recipe. I have no idea how one would combine the cream cheese without it. My recipe only made 36 for some reason. I let them chill in the fridge for an hour before I dipped them in the chocolate. When they had cooled, I melted the chocolate in small batches. I would only do 2-3 squares at a time so it wouldn’t get hard. Some of the reviews said that they had a hard time dipping the balls, but I didn’t. I dropped them in the bowl and used two forks to pour the chocolate over them. Worked fine. For whatever reason, I only used about 60% of the chocolate that was called for. I also only poured the reserved cookie crumbs over a few because I thought it detracted from the look of the truffles. So, I’ve been asking everyone that’s mentioned a cookie swap the same question. What exactly am I supposed to do with the 30 cookies that I get tomorrow??

Health Acorn?

Yesterday was the office holiday party. The CEO is friends with a restaurant owner in Buckhead so we always go there for the party. I behaved myself relatively well. We sat at three tables. They put some appetizers on the tables – hummus and pita, some sort of pizza type flatbread, spanikopita, grape leaves and a few other things. I had some hummus and some of the pizza thing. (Obviously, it’s a Mediterranean restaurant!) For the entree, they had a fixed menu. It wasn’t actually printed out; the waiter just told everyone that they had a choice of chicken, bbq salmon, steak or scallops. I chose the scallops. When they came out, they were wrapped in bacon. Umm, I think they should have told us that! I asked if they could be un-baconized and they took them back and brought me a plate of plain scallops. They came on a bed of spinach and jalapeno grits. It was quite tasty. For dessert, I had a small piece of cheesecake. I also had a cosmo and a glass of wine. Hey, it was on the company so do you blame me?

We did a Secret Santa gift exchange and here’s what I received:

A reusable grocery bag. Perfect since I have two and always end up buying more groceries and having to use the store’s plastic bags.

And two cute plates. Funky Monkey and Health Nut. At first I couldn’t figure out the health nut one and was like, “Health Acorn? What is that?”

And an Itunes gift card. Apparently my Secret Santa knows what I like.

After lunch, about 6 of us went to another bar. I dominated a game of darts with one of my co-workers. Granted, he’d never played darts before but I’ll take my victory anyway, thank you very much! I was home by 9 or 10ish and had a simple cup of hot chocolate before bed. No drunchies for this girl!

Though it wasn’t the healthiest of days, I feel good about what I ate and drank. I allowed myself to have some treats like cheesecake, but didn’t really go overboard and gorge myself.

Hair Reveal

Presenting my dark hair:

Oops, wrong photo! That would be my dinner. Jason made Chinese style chicken and broccoli from Diabetic Cooking magazine. We get a lot of magazines at work and sometimes I flip through them looking for recipes if you were wondering why I was reading a magazine for diabetics. Although my father does have type 2 diabetes. This was quite tasty. I think the key was that I stopped at Kroger and bought Organic chicken breasts to use. I’ll confess, we normally just buy frozen chicken breasts (the kind that come with rib meat) and use them. There was such a difference in taste and texture! I think that’s going to be one of my New Years resolutions, to pay more attention to where my food is coming from and try to pay more attention to eating ethically. I have made a huge change this year when it comes to eggs and dairy, but still don’t really pay much attention to chicken and fish, which I know I should.

Here’s what I was looking for:

What do you think?

Gym time was short but sweet tonight. We didn’t leave the house until 8:30 and Jason has to work at 11 (bleh) so we didn’t have a lot of time. I did a 5 minute warm-up on the elliptical and then a brief modified NRFLW workout:

1. deadlifts, 30 lbs, 2 sets of 12
2. bulgarian split squat, 25 lbs, 2 sets of 10
3. underhand-grip lat pulldown, 2 sets of 10, 1st set at 50 lbs, second set at 62.5 lbs
4. reverse lunge from box with forward reach (this one killed me!), 15 lbs, 2 sets of 10 each leg
5. dumbbell prone cuban snatch, 10 lbs, 2 sets of 10
6. swiss ball crunch, 2 sets of 20
7. reverse crunch, 2 sets of 15
8. oblique twist with medicine ball, not sure the weight of ball, 2 sets of 50
9. prone cobra, 2 sets of 60 seconds

So, my dad is the hardest person ever to shop for. He never wants anything. I usually end up just getting him a book or something easy. But I found something really cool this year. I had to shop around to find a place that actually had it in stock, but check out these Iphone gloves!

Sleep Does A Body Good

I am feeling much more like myself today. I went to bed really early last night and managed to get over nine hours of sleep. I whole-heartedly believe that getting enough sleep is one of the most important things you can do for yourself. I really like to have at least eight hours, preferably nine. When I woke up, I decided that I am getting used to my new hair color. I will post a picture soon; it’s wet right now so there is no point in taking a picture.

During the month of December, we get a lot of goodies at work from vendors. It started this week. First there was a giant tub of popcorn and then came cookies, random chocolates and chocolate covered strawberries. This is just the beginning. More will come in the next week. I think I took a picture of it last year. It’s very, very hard not to take a little sample here and there. I’m trying to apply the “worth it” principle. Neon orange popcorn from a tin, although I do like it, is not worth it. A freshly made chocolate covered strawberry, however, is totally worth it. I just need to find my balance with it all. If I have a treat during the day, I should just not have dessert at night and it’ll all work out.

Jason and I went to the gym tonight. I love it when we can go together. I did 3 miles on the treadmill at 6 mph. I realized that since I plan to run the ING Georgia Half Marathon again, I have to start training again in about 2 weeks. So there goes training for a fast 5K, although I guess I can do both at the same time. Jason and I are also considering running the Cooper River Bridge Run since his brother and sister-in-law live in Charleston. I really like having a racing schedule planned out.

For dinner, I had a taco salad.

Close up.

See that soda in the background of the first picture? I won a 6-pack of Zevia soda from Morgan. It came in a fun little bag that will make a good lunch box.

There was six different kinds of soda – natural, cola, root beer, ginger ale, orange and black cherry. I tried the natural kind tonight. It tasted sort of like sprite but sort like pee. Not that I know what pee tastes like! Sorry Zevia, but I didn’t like that flavor. I have hope for the other kinds though.

Off to watch a DVD.

Moody

I think I’ve mentioned that I have an egg sandwich nearly every morning for breakfast. I make different variations though. Sometimes I use 1 whole egg and two egg whites, sometimes a half cup of egg beaters. I usually use a slice of reduced fat cheese but sometimes I use laughing cow. Then I vary the bread. It might be actual bread, an english muffin, an Arnold Thin or a wrap. So this makes my breakfast interesting each day, right? I guess I was in the mood for change today, because my breakfast did not resemble an egg sandwich in the least.

This would be a smoothie in a bowl with some random cereal floating in it. The smoothie was made of 2/3 cup milk, 1 thing of apple pie yogurt, a handful of spinach and a handful of mango chunks. It was pretty good but I missed my eggs.

I’m kind of having a bad body image day. I know I just posted that whole thing about accepting myself the way I am, but I definitely still have my moments. First of all, I let the scale dictate my mood this morning. My weight was up a pound or so and I didn’t like it. Secondly, I’m not sure if I like my new hair color. It’s very dark. I know I’ll get used to it and it will fade, but I am just not sure about it right now. Also, I felt frumpy. The clothes that I wore to work were on the baggy side. I tend to buy clothing that’s too baggy. I just don’t feel comfortable in form-fitting stuff, but then I feel like a slob all the time. Solutions? I’m trying to overcome my mood. It’s rainy and gross out though, so it’s sort of hard. I bought some really soft socks and have those on and they are making my feet happy.

I thought about having a leftover enchilada for dinner but wasn’t feeling it. Instead, I went with what’s definitely becoming my go-to I don’t feel like cooking meal. Pita pizza. Or rather tortilla pizza in this case. I guess one new meal a day is a enough.

and undercooked Brussels sprouts on the side. I was so worried about over cooking these, that I didn’t cook them long enough. What should I do? I boiled them and then put oil and some spices on them? Microwave? Would that taste bad? They’re just pretty hard right now. (I can’t help it – TWSS).

Murphy is totally giving me the evil eye right now. It’s raining outside and he either thinks that I control the weather and am punishing him, or he keeps forgetting that it’s raining and barks until I open the door. Then I get the evil eye again when he realizes that it’s still raining and yes, it’s raining at the front door too.