Things are looking up, up, up my friends! Today was my last full day of work in 2009 Tomorrow I just work until 1 p.m. and then I am leaving to get a pedicure, watch the Sooners play Stanford in the Sun Bowl, finish packing for Mexico, go out to dinner with friends and then go to a Flaming Lips show all before I depart for vacation friday morning. Woo hoo!

Lunch today was almost as exciting as my plans for the next 24 hours. Panera! I had the Pick Two, per the usual – and had a cup of creamy tomato soup

with half of a mediterranean veggie sando.

Dependable deliciousness – can’t beat it.

Throughout the day I also munched on this myoplex bar that I thought I had seen someone rave about on a blog – but I can’t find any evidence of that at the present. I know my fellow Okie Lisa likes the myoplex drinks, so maybe that’s what it was. Anyways, I saw it at the store a while back and felt compelled to purchase it.

It’s a post-workout bar and I definitely did not eat it post workout – just had a bite here and there when I felt hungry. I thought it was absolutely delicious in small amounts, but after a few bites I could definitely taste all the funky artificial ingreds that it’s composed of. Still, it was tasty, especially the ”white chocolate” coating, and I may just buy it again in the future – and perhaps even eat it post-workout as recommended.

I also had my tiny Panera apple as a snack later in the day.

Other than the food, the day was quite average.

Oh, and just a reminder… if you were thinking about writing a guest post for me while I’m on vacation there’s still time! I just need them by tomorrow morning sometime so I can get them set up to post. Thanks!

Have a good night guys! Live up the last few hours of the year

Hola amigas! How has your day been thus far? Splendid I hope

 It has been a hectic day over here, but I’ve gotten a lot accomplished I suppose. My stomach was absolutely bi-polar today, which just added fuel to my frazzled fire. One minute it positively abhorred the thought of food, and the next it was ravenous.

During one ravenous interlude, on my way to purchase mass quantities of medication, I had an egg and cheese burrito. The blandness and the protein seemed like a good idea.

At some point in the day I also consumed the other half of my Luna bar from yesterday.

Other eats included some clems and a mug of hot chocolate.

 And now we’re being sent home to work for the rest of the day because it’s snowing again… blah. I hope I can get my errands ran without getting into any more car trouble. The good news is we got cleared to work from home tomorrow as well, which is nice because I won’t have force myself out into the bad roads again like I did last week.

I hope you all have a wonderful evening!

Good morning! I am feeling a bit frazzled today – typical pre-vacation stress I suppose. The snow and ice, along with the chance of more snow throughout the week, is making it difficult to squeeze in everything I need to get done. It will all work out though

Last night for dinner I made a grave mistake. I ate leftover Chinese food.

It tasted fine at the time, but let’s just say that eating it was way more trouble than it was worth

I still managed to get in a good workout last night despite the revenge of the Chinese food. I did another cardio DVD, Level 3 of the Shred and 30 minutes on the elliptical.

Then I hit the hay and slept amazingly well (despite the fact that I had left the keys in the door all night and could have been murdered in my sleep – further evidence that I’m a bit frazzled lately).

This morning I had a hard time dragging myself out of bed due to the stomach issues, and once I was up I couldn’t think of a thing that sounded appetizing for breakfast. So I picked up a Naked smoothie so I could at least get something into my belly without further incident.

So far it hasn’t upset my stomach. There may be a lot more juice in my future. It’s times like these that I really really wish I had my own juicer. Sigh…

On the agenda today:

• Reschedule an eye doctor appointment that I had to cancel due to the snow storm.
• Schedule a car service appointment for the windshield wiper that was broken during the snow storm.
• Buy $70 worth of medication so that my Flexible Spending Account funds are not poured down the drain due to having to cancel aforementioned eye doctor appointment.
• Pay rent (blech!)
• Buy necessities for the trip (sunscreen, travel toiletries, etc.)
• Pick up check from random part-time job I had for one minute and get it into the bank.
• Pack.
• Line out New Year’s Eve plans with the bro, SIL and friends and decide if it’s even worth doing.

Fun stuff, huh? It will all be worth it though whenever I get to the beach and can kick back and relax! I just hope the snow doesn’t cause any problems with our flight.

How do you perform under stress?

Sometimes stress makes me super efficient and motivated, but not this time around. I think maybe I just hadn’t really anticipated these obstacles, so they are throwing me for a loop and causing me to become forgetful and scatter-brained. I’m really glad no one happened upon my keys in the door last night!

Have a good Tuesday everyone

Hello again! With the Oklahoma Blizzard 2009 and Christmas in the past, I woke up this morning freakishly early for me this morning - 5:45 a.m. I didn’t sleep great last night and I was sick of tossing and turning so I just got up and got started. Very very unlike me. I know that is pretty standard for some of  you, but for me – not so much.

I did a cardio workout video and then took my sweet time getting ready. I even ate breakfast at home. Since my food supply is pretty meager I just had some toast and coffee.

One slice of toast had some very hard to spread peanut butter, and the other slice had cream cheese and craisins.

It was strange eating so early. I really like waiting until I get to work to eat breakfast because it gives me time to work up an appetite.

The drive to work was still a bit unnerving this morning. I saw a pretty bad wreck happen and it almost caused someone to hit me, but I made it out okay.

Since I ate an hour earlier than usual, I got hungry earlier as well. So I snacked on some clementines throughout the morning.

When it finally came time for lunch I had some more leftover soup.

My appetite was raging today for some reason. Later in the afternoon I had an unpictured Amy’s Cheddar Cheese Burrito (seriously, they’re just not very attractive) and I tried a new-to-me Luna.

I never really like chocolately bars, so I’m not sure what prompted me to purchase this. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t delicious. I ate about half of it and saved the rest for later.

Oh, and since Christmas is over I wanted to do a recap of how I did on my December goals. To make it quick I will be rating my performance on a scale of 1 – 3, with one being a fail, 2 being meh, and 3 being a success. A report card of sorts I supposed. Here it goes!

Computer off by 9 p.m. and TV off by 10 p.m. 3 – Pretty easy to do when you have no Internet or cable

So, all in all I did alright with my goals. I didn’t knock them out of the park or anything but I think having some goals to focus on in the back of my mind kept me from completely letting go of all my healthy habits in the busy month of December.

What are my goals for January and beyond? I’m not sure yet, but I will be doing a separate post on that soon I promise

Have a good night kiddos!

Hello long-long friends! I’m so sorry I’ve been away so long, but I spent the majority of the holiday weekend stranded in my apartment with no car and no Internet. Makes the blogging/blog reading quite difficult I assure you.

When last I left you I was at work wondering if I was going to make it home for Christmas… and then things got interesting. After we got word that the office would be closing down, I got in my car and headed out into the snow. I really didn’t think it would be that bad because when I had left for work that morning, the precip hadn’t even started yet.

But it quickly became clear that I should never have left my apartment that morning. I could barely see because my windshield wipers kept freezing over and because the wind was blowing the snow so hard that visibility was terrible. At first it was just really scary, but then I started getting stuck. At one point I was stuck in the middle of a major highway and sure that I was going to be plowed into by a semi or something.

I took that picture during one of the periods that I was stuck and waiting on someone to help push me. It doesn’t really even illustrate how hard it was to see that day. After getting stuck the fifth time, I finally had to pull into a gas station and figure something else out – there was just no way my car was going to make it home.

Thanksfully a friend of the family had been out Christmas shopping (CRAZY!) and offered to come pick me up. I don’t think I have ever been more grateful to another human being in my entire life. I honestly had no idea what to do and if he hadn’t come along I would have been among the poor, unfortunate people who had to spend the night in their cars.

It took me about 5 hours to make the usual 20-minute commute. I immediately turned the news on to see what was going on, and realized that I was definitely one of the lucky ones. I have seriously never been more scared in my life than I was during that drive home, and I may not have made it home on Christmas Eve of Christmas Day to see my family – but I made it to my apartment where it was warm and where I had food. I couldn’t have been more thankful.

I also realized that once you were off the roads, a white Christmas really is beautiful.

The rest of the weekend was spent watching House and Sex and the City on DVD, Shredding, ellipticizing and, of course, eating.

Right when I got home I was perhaps the hungriest I’ve ever been in life so I immediately chowed down. I started off with some leftover butternut squash raviolis.

Then I had some leftover Fiber Baby Stew.

Later that night I snacked on some trail mix.

I think I was in bed by 8 p.m. that night and slept until 8 a.m. the next morning. Then I made breakfast.

Three egg whites with hot sauce.

Li’l Zippers, how cute is that? ;)

And toast with avocado.

My solo lunch on Christmas day was a personal pizza on whole wheat crust topped with some artichokes. Obviously the produce was not plentiful in the apartment.

I had some coffee in a Christmas cup at some point to try to make it feel like it really was Christmas.

But it didn’t really work. I was thankful that my family was all safe and that I wasn’t stranded out in the snow, but it just didn’t feel like Christmas.

Later that night some friends came and picked me up and we went out to dinner and had drinks. It was fun, and they had 4-wheel drive so we didn’t get stuck

The next morning I woke up pretty late and since I had relatively no food left in the house I had some beans for breakfast.

Then I rode with my Dad’s girlfriends’s daughter (did you follow that?) to Enid, Oklahoma to hang out with my Dad for a late Christmas. I didn’t take any pictures while I was there but I got to eat some good food and enjoy some family time.

The next morning my Dad drove me to my car and bought me a snow shovel and an ice scrape. He’s a good Dad

Upon arriving back at my apartment, hunger struck once again and since I had no food I ordered Chinese.

And followed it up with some apple pie ice cream. The Chinese served as both lunch and dinner since there was so much of it.

And that concludes my Christmas wrap-up! Definitely a Christmas unlike any other

I am hopelessly behind on reading all your blogs, but I’m going to do my best since I want to read about the fabulous holiday celebrations you had.

Hope you’re having a terrific Monday!

Good morning! I am one of three people who braved the elements and made it into work this morning. It’s looking like I might be off earlier than I thought today, because we have a little winter storm coming through the state.

It would make you Northerners giggle, I’m sure, but here in Oklahoma we tend to freak out about any possible winter precip. Plus, winter weather here usually means sheets of ice on the roads as opposed to pretty white snow.

Last night I was kind of in a daze, I just didn’t really seem to know what I should be doing at any given moment! I did manage to do my first day of Level 3 of the Shred plus some ellipticizing and make a yummy salad for dinner.

I meant to pack for spending the night at my Mom’s, but I was just in a weird state. Some strange happenings are occurring in my love life and I think I’m just already mentally on vacation, so my level of responsibility is lacking a bit.

But hey, tomorrow’s Christmas!

I had an avocado sandwich for breakfast this morning because I have two avocados that are on their last leg. I just used one though. I’m thinking I’ll try to sneak the other one into a dish of some sort at Christmas tomorrow

I’m slightly worried that I might not make it home for Christmas. My parents will both be super worried about me driving if the roads get too bad. Hopefully everything will work out okay though. I know they both wish I would just have taken off work today, but I didn’t really think the weather was going to act up, and I couldn’t really afford it.

I hope the weather is lovely wherever you are. For those of you who enjoy snow – may you have a lovely White Christmas I hope you enjoy the time with your family. Have a happy and safe celebration.

Hello! From what I gather from intensive GRR (Google Reader Research), many of you are already on a holiday break of sorts. Salud! Enjoy the time off with your families and have a wonderful and safe Christmas! If you don’t celebrate, have a wonderful rest of your week Only a few more of them left to savor in 2009.

Lunch was okay today. Definitely not the healthiest or most exciting meal I’ve ever had but it was still a good time. Sorry, no pictures! I had a plate loaded with salad and veggies, and then some sushi and (my weakness) cream cheese wontons. I think I kept it in check for the most part.

Then I got back and was given, hands down, the best Christmas sweet I’ve had so far this year.

Fudge topped with toffee. OMG. Fudge is my favorite Christmas candy by far, and I love toffee. To top it off this was the most velvety, melt in your mouth fudge I’ve ever eaten. It was pure heaven.

It was a gift from a coworker. I didn’t mention it but I did bring in a big tub of my Mom’s homemade Chex Mix (she’s famous for it) as my office treat for the office. It may have been taking the easy way out, but it is seriously delicious and she won’t give me the recipe so I couldn’t have made it on my own.

You may be wondering what that napkin up there ^^ was all about. Well, that was a gift from another coworker, who was recently divorced.

She gave all the single ladies in the office one of these. Ummm, thanks but I can operate a grill sans man thankyouverymuch. I guess it was a nice thought though.

Oh, and speaking of men (terrible transition) I wanted to give a big fat CONGRATULATIONS to Angie from Caffienated Cardio!! She got engaged on Monday and I am so happy for her. If you’ve ever read her blog you know that she is the sweetest and most caring girl in all of Atlanta. And her rock is gorgeous! Congrats again girl

Okay well that’s about all I’ve got for today. I have to head to the library to turn in some books and then go somewhere to buy some last minute Christmas items. Could be interesting.

Itching for something to do this weekend? How about write a guest post for Low… and Behold! Just something to think about.

Have a good evening and Good Tidings