Breakfast For Dinner!!

Today was a busy day at work.  By the time I got home I had a huge knot in my back that I begged Matt to attempt to get out for me (he gladly said yes!).  He asked me if I wanted to go for a run, but I just wasn't feeling it today. I just needed to stretch out and relax.  I decided to do a 30 minute pilates dvd followed by 15 minutes of leg strength work.  If I'm ever in a time crunch at the gym I usually skip over ab work.  I would rather get in my arms, legs and cardio.  So I'm glad I have my pilates dvd so that I can concentrate more on my core. 

After my short workout it was time for dinner.  I had no plans for dinner and couldn't decide what to make when I came up with this grand idea....breakfast for dinner.  I've lived with Matt for almost a year and we have never done breakfast for dinner.  When I was a kid we would do it all the time, but unfortunately Matt isn't a big breakfast/bruch person (I'm going to have to work on that).  To my surprise Matt agreed (most likely so I would stop begging him). 

look at that flip

Has anyone else ever noticed that the men in the family always cook the pancakes?? My dad can not cook to save his life but he always cooked the pancakes and he was the master grillman.  It's the same in Matt's family. His mom does all the cooking, but when it comes to pancakes his dad does them every time.  Well our litte family is no different. I do all of the main cooking in the house, not because Matt can't, but because I'm a control freak when it comes to cooking so I would rather do it myself lol.  But when I attempted to cook pancakes it was not so hot.  Pancake batter everywhere and I burnt them...oops. Since then it has always been Matt's job.

I had two pancakes and topped them with all of my favorite things.

banana

apple butter

plain nonfat greek yogurt

peanut butter

OMG amazing.  Matt took one look at it and said "eww what is that?" haha. He obviously doesn't understand my obsession with these flavor combinations. 

I'm heading up to my sister's house in Pittsburgh this weekend with my dad to help her with the kids.  She is 8 months prego and her husband will be working all weekend (they are both doctors...pretty crazy I know).  I volunteered to make dinner on Saturday night too and I think I'm going to attempt to make whole wheat sweet potato crust pizza.  Though the neice and nephew would like it.  We will also be watching Breaking Dawn Part 1 which comes out tomorrow on DVD!! Can't wait!

Falling In To Place

This week has been a rarity in my life...everything has been falling in to place in my life! Usally I'm a walking hot mess but this week things are just going RIGHT.  I submitted my application to UD fot the graudate certificate in biotechnology program and the next day I found this letter in my inbox:

I am pleased to inform you that our admissions committee has voted to admit you into the Graduate Certificate in Biotechnology at the University of Delaware for fall 2012. This innovative 15 credit graduate certificate combines a solid basis of biology coursework with advanced breadth instruction in biotechnology disciplines.  See http://www.udel.edu/professional/biotech/certificate/index.html for a full description of the program.  You will receive an official offer of admission from the UD Graduate School in the near future.

YAY!!!  I had no idea that I would know so fast.  I am very excited now, but I'm sure once I actually start taking classes and working full time I will be thinking "am I crazy?" 

I also had my first wedding dress fitting last night.  It was so great seeing the dress in my size and not 5 sizes too big.  It fit like a glove...literally. The dress was made specifically to my measurments so it was pretty form fitting.  It took two people to get the thing zipped up!  It's a little tight in my rib cage right now so I'm going to try to go a little lighter on my back workouts. No more pull ups for me. 

I'm also loving these new insoles.  The pain in my foot is almost completely gone. I ran 4 miles at the gym today and felt great. I've still been keeping my pace slower than usual just in case.  Even though it was a great run, I'm so sick of running on a treadmill. I miss the warm weather.

Look at that awesome weather. Some rain here, some snow there. YUCK

Me pissed because people don't know how to drive in the rain.

It was taco night in our house aka I couldn't thing of anything interesting to make.

turkey tacos with cheese, spinach and broccoli slaw on a whole wheat tortilla. brussel sprouts on the side. 

Well I'm off to watch the voice. Does anyone else out there watch it?? I like it a lot more than Idol. I love waiting to see if Carson Daily's face will ever show emotion and when one of XTina's boobs will fall out of the high shelf she pooshes them into (barf).

source

too much botox...cannot move forehead

Push the button.....Push the button!!!

Today I did a very scary thing.  I submitted my application to the University of Delaware to get my Graduate Certificate in Biotechnology! Ahhhh!!! I'm honostly so glad I'm done with the application process, but now I will be waiting impatiently until I hear a yes or a no. 

In other news, I have run small distances the past 2 days with my new insoles and have been completely pain free :).  I've been iceing my foot every night and applying the anti-inflammatory cream and I am happy to report that I am getting relief finally. I did pretty similar workouts the past two days that consisted of this:

I can tell my butt is going to be hurting tomorrow!

I finished off my workout with a 20 minute run yesterday and a 30 minute run today.  

Updates From The Weekend:

 The lace lanterns were a success! Thank you pinterest!  I'm going to trim around the edges and then hang them with clear sting outside our venue.  Now I just have to make a lot more haha.

Dinner tonight was easy. I made my whole wheat pizza crust up and topped it with turkey sausage, peppers and cheese. YUM

Recipe

3/4 cup all purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

pinch of salt

3/4 cup warm water

1 tsp dry active yeast

Mix water and yeast together until yeast dissolves.  Let it sit until a froth forms at the top.  In another bowl mix together flours.  Make a well in the middle and add water and yeast misture.  Mix well with your hands and knead until dough is smooth.  Wrap in a greased sheet of saran wrap and put in a warm place for a few hours while it rises.  Preheat oven to 425 degrees.  Roll out dough and place ona greased baking sheet.  Bake 5 minutes, add toppings and bake 5 more minutes. Enjoy!

Tomorrow is my first wedding dress fitting!! I'm soo excited to see the dress that's been stuck in my head for the past 7 months!

I sarted off my day today bright and early! I was up before 8am (which is way too early for a weekend) and headed off to my hairdresser. I got my first haircut in a year. I think I took the whole growing your hair out for your wedding thing overboard.  I just got a half an inch taken off and some layers put in but boy did it feel good. I got home and did this workout real quick before my friend Leah visited:

old pic from last summer!

Leah is one of my bridesmaids and we had some wedding things to do.  We went up to Wilmington to pick up her bridesmaid dress and then I showed her the wedding venue. Then we came back to the house for some crafting.  On the menu....Vintage Lace Lanterns

source (found on pinterest)

All we needed were some balloons from the dollar store, lace fabric from JoAnn's and fabric stiffener.  Leah later pointed out that the name of the fabric stiffener was Stiffy hahaha. Amazing!

All we did was brush the fabric stiffener on the lace fabric and place it on the balloons. Tomorrow when they will dry I'll pop the balloons and hope for the best. We are hoping to hang them outside of our wedding venue.  They are up to dry in our garage as we speak.

After the crafting we went out to dinner and then Leah headed back to New Jersey :(.  Then Matt and I went to pick up my new insoles.

Im currently walking around the house in them to try and get used to the new support. I'm going to the gym tomorrow morning and am hoping to get a short 1 mile run in with them just to see how they feel.  Then I will ice my foot when I get home. I'm trying to get better with this ice thing.

The rest of the night I'll spend with my puppin snuggling up watching a movie.

Tomorow is superbowl sunday and even though I hate both of the teams playing we are still having people over to watch.  I will of course be making the famous Vitale Family Hotwing Dip.  All of my friends are obsessed with this dip.  I got reemed out on New Years for not making it and trying something different...sheesh.  I will provide the recipe tomorrow....not the healthiest thing in the world but boy does it taste good!!!



The Results Are In...

Today was my podiatrist appointment! I've been having pain in my right big toe joint since November when I was training for my 10k.  Well I finally have answers.  Basically my first and second metatarsals are too far apart which is causing a bunion to form at the joint of my big toe. 

He said the normal angle for between the big toe bone and the second toe bone is 9 degrees and mine is 13.  It was crazy to see it on an xray just how much room there was between my first and second toe. I could fit a whole other toe between them (by the way I'm horribly sorry for those of you who hate feet...because I'm atually one of those people myself).  He said I also had a case of Hallux Limitus or decreased range of motion in the big toe...sweet.  So there's not a whole lot I can do about it unless I want some surgery that will take me 8 weeks to recover from NO THANKS.  He said it was most likely hereditary since I have it so young...thanks mom and dad!  He prescribed me some New Balance insoles for my running shoes and gave me a sample pack of some anti-infammatory cream.

I was hoping he would give me some sort of quick fix, but it look like I'm just going to have to learn to live with this :(

I left the doctor and headed to Joann Fabrics to pick up some supplies for some wedding DIY I will be doing this weekend (more details to come).  And then I headed to Saladworks to pick up dinner because I was starving.

Mixed greens with tuna, hard boiled egg whites, broccoli, cucumbers, blue cheese and craisins with light balsalmic dressing. 

Tomorrow I have a haircut at 8:30am.  Then I'm hoping to get a quick workout in before my friend Leah comes to visit and do wedding activites all day!!

Proof That I'm A Grazer

Today I really did graze all day. I ate 6 small meald today which is not unusual for me.

Breakfast: 6:30am

1/3 cup old fashionede oats, 1 container apple cinnamon nonfat greek yogurt (amazing by the way), splash of milk, 1 tsp chia seeds, 1 tsp wheat germ with a spoonfull of almond butter, craisins and granolla on the top.

Mid Morning Snack: 10am

An apple and a half of a kashi granolla bar left over from yesterday

source

Lunch: 11:45am

whole wheat pasta, homeade falafel (fail), snow peas, carrots, and carrots.

AND

mini 100 calorie cliff bar. obsessed with these lately

Pre-Workout Snack 2:30pm (hate being hungry at the gym)

banana and handfull of utz pretzels

WORKOUT!!!

I went to the gym and took it very easy on my foot. I did about a half hour of weights concentrating more on my arms and abs and then I hopped on the stationary bike and then the eliptical for a total of 35 minutes. 

Dinner 5:30pm:

Leftover arctic char from Sunday night with brussel sprouts and rice

Snack 7:30pm

cut up pear with a scoop of nonfat greek yogurt, apple butter, peanut butter and crumbled cliff bar

Now that's a lot of meals.  Happy Hump Day!!

Ouch My Foot!

Today started out....well very interestingly.  We have oil heat here and last night the oil ran out.  We made it through the night without freezing but getting ready in the morning I was miserable.  I do not do well with cold.  Even Champ was cold so we put his scarf on.

Manly men wear camo!

I think I was so flustered when I left the house that I forgot my lunch!  I ran home during one of my 30 minute incubations (thank goodness I live close to work) because I worked really hard the night before trying to think of something differnet to eat for lunch.  Different than my usual. This is what I came up with.

I cooke up some whole wheat pasta, carrots, snap peas and green pepper and then added some egg whites and cheese in at the end. YUM!!

AND THEN IT HAPPENED.  So I'm sitting at my desk, I go to get up and think "ow my foot really hurts." Awesome.  My foot has been so good the last 2 months, and now the pain is back...and I didn't even do anything! Bah! This afternoon as I was hobbling around at work I decided to call the podiatrist and make an appointment for this Friday.  Fingers crossed that he doesn't tell me I can't run.  That would be the worst. 

Since my foot was bothering me I decided just to go for a walk with the dog today after work.  It was soooo nice out today I couldn't just sit inside.

We walked 2.5 miles around the hood. 

Then I started on dinner. On the menu tonight, our favorite black bean burgers.  For some reason they turned out huge and extra mooshy this time around.  But they still tasted good.

Sweet potato fries on the side.  Baked them at 400 degrees for 30 minutes and sprinkled them with salt, pepper and cinnamon.  After dinner Matt and I watched an episode of weeds. I wasn't sure if I would like it (since I'm not a pothead) but I actually really do.  We needed to find another show to watch since we are done with Lost and Dexter.  Then it was time for a snack.

I chopped up a pear and then topped it with one spoonfull each of apple butter, natural chunky peanut butter and plain nonfat greek yogurt.  I'm in love with this combo. 

I'm going to head to the gym tomorrow but stick to low impact activities like lifting and the stationary bike.  Time to go ice my foot!

If anyone has ever had pain around the joint of their big toe I would love some feedback.