A story of meals

For breakfast there was oatmeal, attempted in the microwave, topped with pumpkin, cinnamon, brown sugar, vanilla, granola, and some homemade raspberry lemon muffin. The microwave won’t be used again.

Snack attacks were calmed by trail mix and a tangerine while lunch was spinach and a leftover chicken tender, a delightful combination.

Pilates was mission accomplished and there are hopes for soreness tomorrow.

To refuel there were ten of these gifts:

one of these:

many of these:

swimming in some not so memorable Trader Joe’s carrot ginger soup:

a bite of failed kale chips:

and about four bites of this:

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Most of the recipes I’ve seen for kale chips involve baking them at 350* for 20 minutes or so. Mine were cooked at 350 for 12 minutes and still were disappointing. I might try again tomorrow or I might just make the massaged salad again.

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I believe that talking to my coworkers about Rose yesterday and talking about how it was the kinder thing to do (for all involved) actually managed to convince me at the same time. I didn’t cry last night and I don’t feel nearly as sad today. I even looked at the humane society’s website just for fun. We won’t be ready for a new dog for awhile and agree that we want a puppy, which means waiting until we have the time or space for training. A kitchen we can block off until house trained and time to watch the pup and Gypsy together to make sure Gypsy doesn’t play too rough.

I do however know what kind of dog I want when the time comes (Jack Russell) and have since Meghann got her Maddy. And I already know what name I want to propose when the time comes (Katydid, Kady for short). I want a puppy so that I can train her to be as much as a cuddle-bug as Rose was, something that Gypsy is lacking.

At the same time I know I’m going to be on a bit of an emotional roller coaster for the next while thanks to the change of hormones, so I’m not putting much stock in the fact that I suddenly feel the grieving is over. There’s still a huge hole in my life and I can’t say how lonely I feel without her here.

Well the sadness isn’t as gone as I though. I’m going to say goodnight now and go seek the company of my husband and his dog.

TGFHP

… or Thank God For Heating Pads. Since Rose is so weak and already has a bit of hip displasia she has trouble standing these days, so I’ve been carrying her up and down the stairs. Well this morning, well away from Rose, I made some move in my office chair and pulled something in my lower back. I’ve done this before but I think I can confidently say that this is the worst its been. If I don’t focus on supporting myself with my abs simply taking a step twerks it. Not to mention stepping down a step. That one really hurt. But after some quality time with ye olde heating pad and Dan’s recliner it’s feeling lovely. Yay and thank God.

Well Rose still isn’t eating, so she’s looking like this:

Her belly bulges because she’s been spayed twice and we think they cut her abdominal muscles during the second attempt (don’t ask, the story incurs a lot of eye rolling). But she’s lost so much weight. I picked up a new medicine today, a ‘mild appetite stimulant.’ So far no good, but maybe later.

And here’s what Gypsy decided to do to our couch the other night:

It’s a hand-me-down, but still extremely frustrating.

In other news most of today’s eats were pretty basic. Pumpkin oatmeal with pumpkin granola and part of a pumpkin muffin for breakie (wooo, if that doesn’t prove the obsession I don’t know what will). Camera at the picture.

Snack was basically last week’s combo of roasted almonds, cashews, and cereal. I ate half in the morning with a tangerine and the other half in the afternoon. This week’s cereal of choice is Post Shredded Wheat n Bran. It is very bland, but I don’t mind too much.

Lunch a spinach salad with the last of a bag of almond slices and the best hard boiled egg I’ve had yet. As far as I can tell it was almost verging on soft-boiled, the yolk still nice and bright and soft. It’s seemed to have more flavor that way. Loved it! Boiled for 7.5 minutes then run under cold water to stop the cooking. It’s so tempting to grab another out of the fridge, but I’m still satisfied from my yummy dinner.

I had been planning on making shrimp stirfry with cashew rice since I have a whole batch of rice that Rose won’t eat. After hurting my back I didn’t much want to be standing in the kitchen cooking so I took some of the brown rice, about a third of a can of light kidney beans (drained and rinsed), and some Mrs Dash tomato, basil and garlic seasoning. And then I added the most exciting ingredient… Kale! I was determined to get some at the farmer’s market this weekend and we got there as multiple stands started selling out. I nabbed a bag! I just massaged it with some olive oil and kosher salt for a few minutes until it was nice and bruised and doused it in lemon juice (too much salt and citrus, really, but that worked well with the rice and beans). Easy peasy. I didn’t realize just how big a bag that was, I don’t think I used quite half of it and there was a ton for Hubs and I! I’m thinking I’ll try my hand at kale chips tomorrow 🙂

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One of my best friends, who I haven’t seen in over two years, emailed me the other day asking me about the blog. She wanted to know how I started eating healthy while sticking with a budget and in a very, very long reply, I decided to also make it into a blog page! Check out the new My Healthy Journey page! I’ll be adding to it as I think of things and probably making things less convoluted as I go, for not its just copy and paste! Enjoy!

Brunch When we got up at 10:00 (after I got up at 6 for the dogs) Hubby kindly made me an omelet with Italian blend cheeses. Yum! I love eggs. And cheese makes everything better!

Soon afterward I made myself some toast (which got a bit well done) with cinnamon and sugar and ate a pear.

Snack After my nap and trip to the grocery store I had a minibag of popcorn to see me over till dinner.

Dinner Our second wedding anniversary is Tuesday 🙂 We were originally going out of town this weekend, until our dogs decided to rack up some major vet bills. Because of that original plan, Hubby’s working on our actual anniversary. So we went to a restaurant called Last Resort tonight to celebrate.

We started out with a bottle of zinfandel. We had a great zinfandel on the last night of our honeymoon and brought home a bottle which we drank on our first anniversary (we somehow didn’t  actually receive the top tier of our wedding cake). This isn’t the same brand, but it’s quite good.

I had about 2.5 pieces of bread which was literally fresh out of the oven. We had to wait for it! Quite tasty.

I also had a salad with a balsamic vinaigrette.

I ordered one of the specials for my entree:

The catch of the day was tilapia over red onion and red peppers, topped with a chipotle mint pesto. It came with kale and cheese grits.

The fish was seared and then baked in parchment. I was so excited to try kale! I read about it on almost every blog out there but haven’t had the guts to try it myself. It was so good! I loved the lemon juice and how it brought out the flavor of the greens (Hubby’s reaction to the kale was that “some greens should be left alone”). I totally cleaned my plate.

Hubby got the salmon and grits which was Atlantic salmon on a bed of Charlestonian grits with a caper cream sauce. Pretty tasty. I liked mine better 🙂

On a whim I ordered some decaf coffee while Hubs ordered regular (study study study) and was so excited to try another new item! They had Truvia! I’ve been curious about stevia too and was pleasantly surprised with Truvia. The coffee was perfect with a single packet. Not sweet, but not the usual bitter either.

My excitement was soon eclipsed by dessert… Hubby was set on a mocha toffee cheesecake so I opted for my own cake slice of tiramasu layer cake. It wasn’t tiramasu but it was still fabulous!

I ate it all. No regrets. Hubby gave his two week notice at work this past Thursday so we won’t be eating very adventurously for quite awhile. It will be good for him and we’ll get creative about budgeting even further. Dinner tonight was absolutely fabulous and such a treat.