Ok, I know I’ve been sorely lacking in the posting area.  Things have been a little busy.  So I don’t have time to write all that much about what’s been going on, but here is a brief outline in pictures.

S has had exams all week.  His last one is today, and then this evening his parents are having a “party” get-together with family and friends at their house.  We will have raclette.  I have been waiting for it since we got here, because there is this HUGE round of cheese in the fridge for it that has been calling my name.  It’s not easy being cheesy.  S’s dad has also bought me some Coor’s light for the occasion, so fun will be had by all.  I also know of a few secret guests who will be coming as a surprise that S is not yet aware of (some friends of his)   I can’t wait to see his face!

So… here’s the recap.  I haven’t been diligent about taking pictures of my food   But I have been diligent about eating it, that’s for sure!

Wednesday morning I woke up and had stellar cereal for breakfast.  First of all, I tried these Choco Krispies – which I thought might be just like the Cocoa Krispies in the US but they weren’t.  They were huge chocolate puffs that had real chocolate inside…  NOM NOM NOM!!!

I also mixed it with a new cereal I got – Wheetabix Wheetos Choco Hoops.  I love all things Weetabix, but have a really tough time finding it in the US.  I usually majorly stock up when I go to England.  So I was soo happy to find it here!  I got two other kinds too, but that will be for a later post when I open them

S’s father and I went to Fribourg to meet S’s sister for lunch.  She goes to school there, and every day they get about a 2 hour break to leave for lunch!  S stayed home to study for his exams more.  After lunch, S’s father and I went sightseeing.  First we went to the cathedral of Fribourg:

Here is a picture of it from a little further away, on the other side of Fribourg.

The inside was beautiful.

And then we climbed up the stairs all the way to the top.  It was soooo cold and windy up there!

But the view was spectacular.  You could see all of Fribourg.

And here is me and S’s dad on top of the cathedral:

While we walked around Fribourg, I kept seeing a sign for a race that looked soooo cool.  It is this Sunday, October 18th, and it is an 8k run with 1300 stairs.  I have been wanting to do one of those stair races since I read about one in Runner’s World, but haven’t done one yet.  So I took a picture of one of the signs so that I would remember to look up the website when I got home.

The race looks awesome, but when I checked the website when I got home (and translated it, of course) it said that registration was closed.  They do have registration the day of the race, but it looks to be a small and elite group of runners so I have the feeling I would totally get my ass kicked.  We will be going to Wiler (where S’s family has another house) on Saturday and staying until Sunday, so I will see what the plan is once we get there.  But I’m not going to make their whole family come back early just so that I can do the race.

We stopped by a store, where I got these:

Smarties, my favorite!  Once again, a treat that I usually only get in England.

In Fribourg, there is this one little street that is like a “couples in love alley”.  There is a little walkthrough that has a picture of a couple from the front and the back.  The front side has a saying in French:

Which means:

This is the street of the faithful wives and the corner of the model husbands

The backside has a saying in Swiss German:

Which means:

Today, enjoy yourself Groom, you good man.  Most likely the wife will be wearing the pants tomorrow.

Ha!  I love how the French have this positive message about the couple being married, and the Swiss German are like… whoa man, the woman’s gonna wear the pants in this relationship!

Then we went to warm up with a coffee in a cute little coffee shop:

When we got home, the house was awfully quiet.  I expected to find S studying in the kitchen, but instead I found him like this:

Yep… sleeping.  Why was I not surprised???

I had the best sleep I have had in a long time last night.  Out like a light – and it felt sooooo good.  I was planning on trying to sleep in this morning, but when S’s alarm went off at 6am I decided to get up with him (and the rest of his family). We all had breakfast together – it was kind of old fashioned and cute.  It was raining hard and very windy, so I thought I was going to have to cancel the run I had been planning to take today.

Breakfast was another one of the delicious goat cheese pastries that S’s dad made yesterday, an apple, a banana and a hard-boiled egg.  Also french pressed coffee, tea and a few of those grapes.  I can’t resist those things!

After breakfast, everybody else left and I was alone in the house.  I felt like a Mommy – wishing everybody a great day, asking if they needed anything, and telling them I would see them this afternoon.  Everybody else was getting on their coats with their work clothes on, and I was saying goodbye with my pajamas on and my hair all disheveled!  At that point, I still planned to go back to bed after they left.  I still have some major sleep to catch up on.  Everybody was going off in different directions.  His parents to work, his sister to school, his brother back to where he lived, him to an exam.  And me to the bed.

But… I made the mistake of logging onto my computer and decided to work a half day instead.  I did a few hours, and then looked outside and saw that the weather had cleared up.  It was still wet, and still very windy, but the sun was shining and I decided to go for my run.  I had mapped out an out-and-back route last night on mapmyrun, and did something really cool that I have never done before – I converted it to a Garmin file and uploaded the course onto my forerunner.  I almost didn’t do it, because I didn’t want to take the time to figure out how, and I didn’t know exactly what it would do or how it would work if I tried to follow the course while I was running anyways.  But I am sooo glad that I did, because it was awesome!  I had planned a relatively simple out-and-back with very few turns because I didn’t want to get lost.  However, without that course on my garmin I TOTALLY would have gone the wrong way – more than once.  Each time I started heading in the wrong direction, it beeped and said “Off course”.  I was so thankful that I had it!  I managed to do my out and back, 6 miles, and get back home in one piece   It was an absolutely gorgeous run.  It is so green here – everything is green and healthy and clean and beautiful.

Here is the garmin of my run:  First run in Switzerland

And the Steelers won last night – that always makes for a happy day too!

After my run, I came back and made myself a fantastic lunch.  Since I was the only one home, I had free reign of a fridge full of terrific Swiss foods.  I had to be a little careful though, as I couldn’t read any of the labels on anything.  So I stuck to the basics – I knew that whatever I made, I was going to build my meal around goat cheese.  So I made a super salad:

• romaine lettuce
• tomato
• broccoli
• mushrooms
• baby corns
  
• carrot
• fried egg
• pine nuts
• goat cheese

That goat cheese is absolutely incredible.  So soft, fresh and flavorful… it melts in your mouth.

After lunch, S’s mom came and picked me up to take me to Murten – the town where she works.  It is about 20 minutes away from where they live, and it is on a beautiful lake.  It is such a cute, quaint little city.  This is the church where she works:

Everything is very small and close together, with cobblestone streets and windows with brightly-colored shutters and flowers under each window.  I think that is a very Swiss thing – here it is very popular and very common for people to put flowers under every window.  It really looks beautiful and brightens up the look of the buildings.

The whole city looks like a miniature model to me.

The lake is simply gorgeous.

During our trip, I snacked on Swiss white chocolate (fair trade!!)

And then…. we went up in a terrace to get a view of the lake and the city.

And there was the most beautiful rainbow!

The perfect ending to our time there.

S’s mom took some pictures of  me taking pictures and trying to figure out my new camera.  I didn’t realize she had even taken them until we got home and she showed them to me.  Pretty funny

When we got home, dinner was knoedel again.  Those are delicious!

For dessert, I had a chocolate yogurt with honey graham goldfish as I worked on my computer.

Check out this awesome dairy-free giveaway!

By mid-day, I was so exhausted I could barely keep my eyes open.  So I laid down to take a quick nap… and couldn’t fall asleep!  It made absolutely no sense… I was completely exhausted, and couldn’t sleep.  Argh.

I woke up hungry again and had one of my Swiss treats – the pretty heart-shaped almond cookie with marzipan filling:

But then, at least it was lunch time.  When I came to the table, there was a spread of delicious appetizers sitting out:

Freshly popped popcorn (on the stove, of course):

Tomato and mozzarella salad drizzled with olive oil:

The freshest, most delicious dates I have ever tasted.  These things literally melted in my mouth, they were like candy!

And roasted curry cashews:

Then it was time for the main meal.  S’s dad prepared the pastries that I had hinted to in my previous blog.  They were delicious, flaky pastry crust filled with melted goat cheese and olive oil, with sesame seeds on top.  To die for!  i can already tell that I am going to be a good 10 pounds heavier when I get back from this trip.  But baby, it will be worth it.  I have never had anything like this in my life:

After lunch, I really did take a nap.  I literally laid down on the bed, put in my ear plugs, and passed out.  I felt like I was just asleep for 10 minutes, but it was actually an hour and a half.  I had to force myself out of bed, but I knew that if I didn’t, it would totally mess up my sleep schedule.  I forced S out of bed too, and then we all went on a walk together to look at the beautiful neighborhood and surroundings around the house.  The hills and views were simply spectacular.

After the walk, I snacked on a Luna bar I had brought with me:

Once again, this was a new flavor for me.  Kind of funny how I had a Luna and a Larabar new flavor the past 2 days… and both were peanut butter cookie flavor.  And both were delicious!!

And one of my white chocolate bars!  I hope this whole stash isn’t gone by the time my trip is over…

And then we all talked some more, and S’s brother arrived.  And then it was dinner time!  I have only been here for one full day, but already I feel like I have eaten the best day of food in my life.  Dinner was homemade knoedel, which are small boiled German dumplings.  S’s dad is an incredible cook, I am so impressed!  He made these three weeks in advance, because they are really complicated and take a long time to make.  Then he froze them, and then just steamed them today.  We had them with chicken and mushrooms in a sour cream sauce, with steamed broccoli and carrots on the side.

And for dessert, Suzanna made the same homemade chocolate cake that she made when they visited us in California.  No more perfect way to end the day.

I may or may not have had a second piece

And, to top off an already magnificent day, I am now watching the Steelers game LIVE.  We got it streaming on our laptop, and then hooked it up to the TV.  And I am pleased to announce that at this point in time, we are winning.  And we better not start to blow it in the second half, as we have been the past few games!  Here we go!

When this is over, I am happily going to crash into bed.  I am hoping to go for a run tomorrow, if I can get a little familiarity with the area and map out a route so I don’t get lost.

Before you go to bed, check out Rebecca’s Newman’s Own Giveaway!

G’night, ya’ll!

We are here!  After two flights, neither of which were nearly as bad as I expected, we have arrived.

We left our house at 3:30am (!!!!!) and headed to the airport.  We parked the car at a nearby lot, where we found the best rate for our three-week request.  Then we caught a shuttle to the airport where we had to wait in a long line to check in and check our bags.  We waited in this really long line to check in for our 7am flight, and then right when we got up to the front of the line, the woman started asking people behind us if they were trying to catch the 6am flight and let them all go ahead of us!  It was very frustrating.  I understand why they did it, because they didn’t want them to miss their flight, but it wasn’t fair to us because we had been waiting in line for so long and were punished by waiting longer because they were late for their own flights.  Oh well, I guess sometimes life just isn’t fair

I made S smile for a picture, because he kept complaining about the wait.

While waiting for time to board, we went to a coffee shop and I had a coffee and a chocolate croissant.

Not my usual, but it looked good and… I’m on vacation now!

When I got on the flight it was still dark and I ate a Larabar I had stashed in my bag.

I had never had this flavor of Larabar before, and I loved it!  I was starving, which probably helped.  The first flight we stayed awake and talked a lot.

It was about 5 1/2 hours, and then we landed in Newark. We had a few hours layover, so you know where I headed… straight to DUNKIN DONUTS! The best thing about being on the east coast, even if it is just in the airport for a few hours.

I also had a chicken salad from McDonalds.

By this point, we were both running on 36 hours awake with less than 2 hours of sleep, and were totally wearing our grumpy pants.  Boarded flight 2, 8 hours to Geneva.  The sun was rising when we boarded and it was really beautiful:

And when we took off, we had an awesome view of New York City – including the Statue of Liberty.

S managed to sleep for most of the flight, but I couldn’t sleep much.  I watched the movie “My Sister’s Keeper”, which I had already read the book for.  It was pretty good, but sad.  The flight was cool, everybody had their own television and also had a remote control and could play games and stuff.  For breakfast, they served us an egg, meat and cheese croissant with fruit and a little muffin.

As we got closer, I was getting very excited:

And finally… we landed!  We quickly got through customs and then got our luggage from the baggage claim (none got lost!!)

And then we were met by S’s dad and sister.  They live about 1 1/2 hrs from the airport, so it was an interesting and scenic drive.  They have these little radar boxes on the side of the road, every mile or so, that monitor your speed while you are driving.  If you go above the speed limit, they take a picture of your license plate and you get a ticket in the mail!  It was pretty crazy, you can’t get away with anything.

After driving for a while on the highways, we got off and followed many small, windy back roads until we got to his parents’ house.  It is an adorable house up in the hills, surrounded by green land.  As we drove up to the house, this was my first view of it:

It is simply adorable.

This is a picture of the back of the house, where they keep a cute little garden.

They grow vegetables (lettuce, tomatoes, etc.) as well as many fruits – they have apple trees, pear trees, fig trees, a cherry tree, etc!  I want to have a garden like this when I have a house and yard some day.

And this is the view from their front yard.

Breathtaking.

When we went inside, I fell just as in love with the interior as the exterior.  It is such a unique place, I’ve never seen a house quite like it.  Many large windows and skylights, letting in a ton of natural light that really makes the whole house feel light and warm.  His parents showed us to our room, and look what they had arranged as a surprise for me:

A huge table filled with chocolate, treats, and little gifts!  That’s right, folks, about 20 tons more swiss chocolate to add to my collection.  I am a happy girl.  They specifically got me a lot of white chocolate because that is my favorite:

But don’t worry, I am an equal opportunity chocolate lover so was equally grateful for the dark and milk chocolate they provided.

There were also cookies and other treats – my favorite being this little bag with special cookies in it.  Isn’t the heart one the cutest?

After quickly settling in (it took everything I had not to collapse in the bed… I was firing on half a cylinder by this point…) we headed up to the kitchen for breakfast/brunch.  The kitchen table is by this huge window – and my favorite part:

If you can’t tell, due to the bad lighting of the picture – those are huge, red grapes hanging all along the side of the house.  Grape vines, everywhere… enough grapes to feed a family of 10 for a year.  They are absolutely beautiful, and absolutely delicious!  I went outside with S’s father and we picked off a huge bundle for me to eat with my breakfast.  It was so great to just pick a bunch off the vine, wash them off, and pop them in my mouth!  They were so sweet and juicy.  Heaven in every bite.

Now we are relaxing while S’s dad works to prepare lunch.  Here is a sneak preview.  Look at these beauts… my mouth is watering looking at him make them before they are even put into the oven.

More on what exactly they are and the finished product later!

Adieu

And the hourly countdown begins.

Yesterday was a very aggravating day, but it was still very productive.  I scratched some stuff off of my to-do list.

My first aggravation was with the post office.  Last weekend, I submitted a request to put my mail on hold starting this Saturday for the three weeks we will be gone.  But, I haven’t gotten any mail since last Saturday, so I thought that they probably accidentally started the mail hold a week early.  It wouldn’t let me log in on the USPS site to view my hold order details, so I called the help phone number available.  Basically, after getting transferred twice, put on hold once, and explaining my situation to three people – they told me that my suspicion was right – my mail hold was already in place.  However, they couldn’t tell me when it started or when it would end.  They said once the hold was in effect, there was nothing they could do to view the details of it or edit it.  Are you kidding me?  So I asked them if I could submit another hold request, for the last week of my vacation – my reasoning being that if my hold started a week early, it would probably end a week early, so I could submit another hold request for the last week so my mail didn’t get delivered while we were still away.  They told me – NOPE.  Once one hold is in place for a person, you can’t submit another one.  So basically… absolutely nothing I could do to change or even find out about my own mail.  Yeah.

After that, I was ready for breakfast.  It was two more pieces of pumpkin pie cheesecake, which finished it off.  Boo hoo!  You can bet I will be making more of it when I get home from my trip.

My morning was jam-packed at work.  Unfortunately, not much interesting to report except the usual chaos

Lunch was reheated leftover enchiladas that I had made for S for dinner the night before.  Not exactly the healthiest, but those things were good!  The picture was while it was still cold, so looks a bit funny.  But after a couple minutes in the toaster oven I was good to go.

Enchiladas

2 tbsp cream cheese
3 tbsp sour cream
8 oz ground beef
1/4 cup red peppers chopped
1/4 cup green peppers chopped
1/4 cup yellow peppers chopped
1/4 cup onions chopped
2 tbsp salsataco seasoning
1/2 cup salsa
1 cup mexican cheese blend
4 whole wheat tortillas

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Combine the first 9 ingredients (up to taco seasoning) together in a mixing bowl.  Divide the mixture into four dollops and put each dollop inside a tortilla, wrapping them up.  Place the wrapped tortillas, seam side down, in a baking pan sprayed with non-stick spray.  Pour salsa on top, and then spread cheese on top of that.  Place in the oven and bake for approximately 30 minutes or until cheese is melted and bubbly.  Enjoy!

In the afternoon I ran some quick errands and crossed a few things off my to-do list.  I had a copy of our house key made, baked brownies, and picked up the Jack Daniels.  Then came my second aggravation of the day – I went to the bank to deposit some checks in the ATM.  But when I put in my debit card and pin…  the ATM spit my card back out and gave me the message “Card invalid”.  ARGH!  I tried again, nope.  So I went inside the bank.  They tried and could not figure out what the problem was.  Finally, they told me that they would have to mail me a new card.  By that time, I just wanted to get out of there and back to work.

So the bank will send me a new card in the mail, while I have no idea if and when I will be getting my mail again.  Ha.

I had a quick snack of a Kashi chocolate pretzel bar.  I had never tried this flavor before – it had a little bit of an aftertaste but I still loved it because I am completely biased and am obsessed with all things Kashi.  Oh Kashi, I love thee.

I also had some Kashi crackers.  I think I will name my firstborn Kashi.

Then came the non-aggravating highlight of my day – I received a package from UPS (Ha – USPS might hate me, but UPS still loves me!!!) with the Vitamin ID I won from Josie at Yum Yucky!  THANKS, JOSIE!!!

When S got home, he managed to tear me away from my computer and we made a library run to return all of our checked out items.  We had 19 things checked out between the two of us… that has to be some sort of record?  Expecially considering he doesn’t really read books???

For dinner, I used up the rest of my eggs by making protein french toast.  I also had a slice of bread with some of my White Chocolate Wonderful peanut butter on it, LOVE THAT!

And this, ladies and gentlemen, was the highlight of my day.  I baked brownies this afternoon (to help pay my neighbor for looking after my cat while I am on vacation.)  So I took some brownie crumbles and made us each a chocolate brownie madness sundae!

• crumbled brownies
• melted swiss chocolate
• Keebler’s waffle bowl
• Edy’s Double Fudge Brownie ice cream

S almost passed out when he saw this baby:

I believe his exact words were:

1. Is this my last meal or something?!?!
2. What did you do that was really bad… or what do you have to tell me that is really bad?
3. What did I do to deserve this?  Am I in trouble?

Geez… I didn’t realize making a sundae for each of us would be so shocking.  Maybe that means I have to put more efforts into our dinners and desserts????

So here’s where the to-do list stands now.  I crossed off a few things, but had to add some   And I’m sure I will have to add more!

Things I have yet to do:

1. All the laundry
2. PACK!!!
3. Return all the library books/dvds we have checked out
4. Get a copy made of the house key
5. Print out boarding passes
6. Bake brownies and buy Jack Daniels for my neighbor’s “payment” for cat sitting
7. Go to the bank and cash some checks
8. Pay all my bills that are due in the month of October
9. Finish the to-do list for work (a whole separate list, OY VEY!)
10. Buy some Gu/energy gels for the marathon
11. Stop at Kohl’s (I have a gift certificate to use that expires tomorrow!)
12. Meet with neighbor, give him instructions and keys and “payment”

I’d better get on it…

Ok…  let’s see how quickly you picked up on my German lesson yesterday.  If Drei yesterday meant three… and today is the day after yesterday…

Are you smarter than a 5th grader??

It’s starting to hit me how much I have to do before we leave.  The good news is that I got a few things taken care of yesterday.  I…

1. Got my cat-sitter all lined up (poor JB, I am going to miss him so much for three weeks!) – actually, my cat sitter is my neighbor who will come over every day to look after him so I’m comfortable with that.
2. SOLD S’s desk!  The big one that had been sitting in my garage.  So now almost all the extra furniture is gone and I can park my car in the garage again, yippee!!  And there’s a story about the selling of the desk that occurred today that I will outline below, Oy Vey.
3. Bought some essentials – Since I’m not really sure what the food is going to be like in Switzerland exactly, I bought some CLIF bars, Luna bars and Kashi bars for the trip.  If only for the days/hours right before the marathon – I know that they work well for me as running fuel and don’t want to mix things up right before a long race.  That’s asking for trouble.

JB was happy about it too:

Things I have yet to do:

1. All the laundry
2. PACK!!!
3. Return all the library books/dvds we have checked out
4. Get a copy made of the house key… I only have one key to the top lock and need to make one to give to S and one to give to my neighbor taking care of JB so that I don’t get locked out of my house when I come back like I did last time…
5. Print out boarding passes
6. Bake brownies and buy Jack Daniels for my neighbor (no… that’s not a joke.  My neighbor refuses to take any money for looking after JB while I am out of town, so I “pay” him in his requested form of currency:  brownies and Jack Daniels…)
7. Go to the bank and cash some checks
8. Pay all my bills that are due in the month of October

I also have to call the stupid post office.  I put my mail on hold starting on Saturday, since that is when we leave.  However, they somehow messed it up and started holding my mail last saturday, so I haven’t gotten any mail since last Friday.  I don’t really care about not getting the mail (although it’s annoying…) but my concern is that since they started the hold a week early, they will end the hold a week early and try to deliver a boatload of mail while we’re still out of the country.  Argh.

For breakfast yesterday, I had a CLIF bar.  Not great, but things were so busy that it was either that or no breakfast… so I chose the former:

I really love that Oatmeal Walnut Raisin flavor.  Yummy in my tummy!

Lunch was a huge salad with a Mushroom Mozzarella Boca Burger as the protein source:

• romaine lettuce
• zucchini
• tomato
  
• egg whites
• Boca burger (Mushroom mozzarella)
  
• mozzarella cheese
  
• almonds
  
• olive oil/balsamic vinegar

For afternoon snacks I had some pumpkin pie cheesecake I baked.  I made it in the morning, because I had a can of pumpkin, some cottage cheese and some cream cheese to use up:

Pumpkin cottage cheese cheesecake

1 can (15 oz) pumpkin
3/4 can (12 oz) evaporated skim milk
1/2 cup cottage cheese
4 oz cream cheese
1 egg
3 egg whites
pumpkin pie spice to taste
cinnamon to taste
splenda (or sugar) to taste

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Blend all ingredients together in a blender or food processor.  Pour into greased baking pan, and bake for 50-55 minutes.  Enjoy!

I like mine cold, so let it sit in the fridge for a few hours before I eat it.

I love pumpkin and am very glad it is the season.  I really want to buy a pumpkin to carve, roast the seeds, etc… but it will have to wait until we come back from our trip.  Hopefully there will still be some available!

So my snack was:

I had two more slices a little later on in the afternoon too.  That stuff is good, and good for you!

I also had some cereal. My Kashi GoLean standby.

For dinner, operation use up perishable items continued as I made this masterpiece:

There is a fried egg on the bottom, a turkey sausage, hard boiled egg whites, steamed spinach and a wedge of laughing cow cheese all bundled into a mixture of pure love.

That was my last turkey sausage, which makes me sad.

Dessert was some cottage cheese cheesecake pudding with chocolate pudding, dried fruit and some Total Blueberry Pomegranate cereal:

So today I used up my cottage cheese, my turkey sausage, most of my veggies and a whole lot of eggs.  Operation continues tomorrow.

And you bet I finished off the night with some (carefully measured, 2 servings) CANDY CORN!

Then I had a meeting, while S does a little bit of this:

Yes, that is Donkey Kong.  And yes, he got to play while I had to work.  Grrrr.

For you non-German speakers out there (pretty much like myself, ha) Drei means “three”.  Because in three days I will be going to Switzerland.

Today was a good day, which I’m happy about because I feel like I needed it. Breakfast was Kashi GoLean crunch cereal with blueberries, and milk again for the second day in a row!  Just call me Dairy Queen   I had a bowl of strawberries on the side, too.

Lunch was a huge, delicious salad:

• romaine lettuce
• mushrooms
• tomato
  
• egg whites
• Gardenburger tomato basil burger
  
• cheddar cheese
• almonds
  
• olive oil/balsamic vinegar

Afternoon snacks included a Clif bar:

I’m not really that impressed with that flavor.  I was really excited to taste it, because I love the taste of toffee, but I couldn’t really taste toffee at all.  I could only taste peanut.  I like peanut and all… but I like the regular Crunchy Peanut Butter flavor better.  I also bought some Oatmeal Raisin Walnut flavor, and took a bite of that.  It was delicious, I love it!  I also snacked on a little trail mix:

I totally have to measure that stuff out ahead of time, it is so addictive and I will definitely eat the whole bag.

Because work is busy and I’m tying up loose ends before I go on my trip, I didn’t have time to go to the gym.  I was planning on taking a rest day, but then I got some free time and really felt like going for a run.  It was perfect running weather.  I put on my Garmin and planned to only go 5 miles… but I ended up going 10!  I did an out and back route and almost kept going at mile 5 because I still felt good.  I thought I could do 6 and get in a 12-miler total.  But I’m glad I turned around, because by the time I got home it was completely dark.  I always get nervous running in the dark, especially as I get closer to a race, because I am afraid I will trip on a rock or a curb or something and hurt myself.  But the run was great and I was very happy when I got back.  My average pace for the 10 miles was 8:54, which I was really happy about because I usually am really slow in the evenings.  I’m much faster on morning runs – morning is when I am the most energized.

I was starving when I got home.  I had some cucumber salad that I had marinated during the day in olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper.  I also had an omelet with laughing cow cheese, a lean turkey sausage, and a whole wheat tortilla with mozzarella cheese:

These pictures don’t really look that appetizing.  Especially the sausage.  But it was delicious, I PROMISE!

For my sweet spot, I had me some cottage cheese cheesecake pudding with dried fruit and some Kashi Honey Sunshine cereal.

And then I ate the rest of my s’mores candy corn.  I measured them out ahead of time – 2 servings only.  Not as good as one, but much better than eating out of the bag.  I’ll take it!!

I have some trip fears to work through that I hope to write more about tonight or tomorrow.  Also, on Saturday while I will be flying to Switzerland… my younger sister will be getting married.  I can’t believe it.  As I mentioned before, I’m sad that I won’t get to attend the “wedding” (I put it in quotations because only a few people are going, they only decided to do this a few weeks ago, after I had already bought my ticket to Switzerland, and they are just getting married in the courthouse.)  But I still wish I could be there.

I can’t believe that in four days I will be on a plane to Switzerland.  I remember months and months ago, S and I talking about moving in together and then our trip to Switzerland and it seemed light years away.  It is scary how fast time flies.

That also means that it is just 19 days until my marathon.  I’m not really feeling nervous yet, because I haven’t had a chance to think about the trip much let alone the marathon, but I don’t feel confident in my training… I haven’t been doing as much as I should.  Once again, last weekend I didn’t do a long run at all…  Between the dinner party and the binging and the moving, it has just been difficult to fit them in.  And that is no excuse – clearly I need to work on my priorities.  But I am excited for the race because even if I walk the entire thing, I will be walking in a beautiful place where I have never been before, enjoying the sights.  I am trying to figure out how I can take my camera with me to take pictures along the route.  And I know S will be walking a lot of it, so I have yet to make the decision as to whether I will just stay back and walk with him or actually try to run as much as possible.

I’m still really feeling anxious and in a state of flux with all that is going on, and my anxiety an inability to deal with it properly is still showing itself in my eating.  Unfortunately, yesterday was not much better.  Actually, it was good until late at night… again.  That’s when my problems start.

Breakfast was some strawberries, veggie sausage and an omelette:

Lunch was a grilled chicken salad.  I have to use up all of my produce and perishables in the next few days… hopefully that means I will be eating pretty healthily (ha… can’t you see how it’s working for me so far??  Who knew that candy corn was a perishable good???)

Afternoon snacks included a veggie and hummus plate with some more chicken.  I got one of those ready-to-eat rotisserie chickens from the grocery store last weekend (I had a coupon, baby, and I love those things…) so have been pretty much putting chicken in, on and around everything that goes in my mouth.  Except for my ice cream.  That would be gross.

Also had some cereal, some frosted mini wheats.  I even had some milk with it, which is unheard of for me – I never have cereal with milk.  I don’t like the taste of milk on its own, and when I put cereal in milk it gets soggy too fast and I hate soggy cereal.  But we have a gallon of S’s milk to use up before we leave too… so cereal and milk it is   I don’t know why it is virtually impossible for me to throw away ANY food – even if it’s not mine.  I hate to see it wasted, so I end up eating things I don’t want just so it doesn’t get thrown away.  Even at restaurants.  I order healthy meals for myself, and then end up eating other people’s yucky, unhealthy leftovers because they don’t want them and I take them home so they don’t get wasted!  WTF???

When S got home, I made us dinner.  I made pizzas with whole wheat tortillas, tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese, and I crumbled a tomato and basil Gardenburger on top.  Totally easy and yummy!

Sorry the lighting in my pictures has totally been sucking lately.  I don’t really have any natural lighting in my kitchen, and not really that much in my house in general, so I need to figure out a good place and way to take my pictures.

I had some cottage cheese cheesecake pudding with strawberries and golden grahams to satisfy my sweet tooth before my basketball game:

All was fine with my eating up to this point.  Then I went to my basketball game, which was GREAT!  I played the whole game, my team was nice and didn’t make me sub out since I would be missing the next three games due to my trip.  Also, I was playing well… it was a low-scoring game but I had a few points and was doing some mad big-hand defense, baby.  We got our jerseys, too:

And we won our game.  So the Warriors totally represented last night!  I really wish S had gone – I wanted him to watch and also wanted him to take some pictures!  But he had to do an oil change on his car so opted to stay at home

The problems started when I got home.  I had a meeting for work at 9:30, and thats when the candy corn cornucopia began.  And it was all downhill from there.  It started with a (BIG) handful…

And went to the BAG.

I have decided, for these last four days, to clean up my act.  The sweets and other crap that I have been eating is killing me – I feel tired and sluggish and heavy and it’s certainly not going to help me in the days leading up to the race.  Plus, I don’t want to go on my trip feeling like this because I really just want to enjoy my trip to Switzerland and eat the “local” food there.  There will be so many great things I want to try that I can’t get around here… so I don’t want to be stressing out about what I eat because I went there already feeling like I need to eat healthier for a while.  I just want to relax and enjoy this incredible opportunity.

So for the next four days, I’m going to eat as cleanly as possible.  I am going to use up my perishables – and I’m not going to say no desserts or anything, because that always leads me down a slippery slope, but I’m going to try to eat healthier sweets and focus on everything in moderation.  I can have some candy corn, just not the whole bag of candy corn.

I have to admit, I have a lot of anxiety about body image for this trip.  But I have to get back to work for now, will write more on those later.

For now, check out Michelle’s soy giveaway!

I did not have a good weekend – not overall, and particularly not health-wise.

It seemed to start out ok.  Friday night, some friends visiting from Switzerland came over for dinner.  I made tri-color rotini with marinara meat sauce for dinner – along with salad and garlic bread.  It was the first time I had met these people, and they were absolutely delightful.

I also baked brownies for dessert – my triple chocolate chunk brownies, which are always a hit with everybody (especially myself, which is part of the problem.  Note to self:  do not bake things that I LOVE and that are irresistible to me and have extras lying around my house for the days to come…)

We will see them again when we go to Switzerland, so I’m looking forward to that.  By the way, we leave for Switzerland in 5 flippin days…  Holy meltdown mode, Batman!

Saturday started off well.  We woke up at 10 because someone came (finally!) to pick up my dining room table that I was trying to get rid of!  One less piece of furniture sitting in my garage.  Now all that is left is a big desk…  We hit Barnes and Nobles:

Where I had cereal, and apple, my coffee, and caught up on some serious magazine reading.  When I took that pic, I was reading about some awesome marathons around the world.  There are so many destination races that I want to do…  Lausanne will be my first one (20 days from today!) and I hope to do one each year after that. Note to self:  Do not do the Rio De Janeiro marathon which is at the end of June and has temperatures in the HIGH 80s and is extremely humid…  But this one they wrote about in Iceland is definitely on my list.

And then we hit Game Stop to look for some games for our new Wii!  I haven’t really played with it yet – video games usually aren’t all that interesting to me.  However, one that I do love is Donkey Kong… back from the old school Super Nintendo days.  So when I saw this:

I knew I had to get it.  S got some shooter game too, along with a gun, but he ended up liking my Donkey Kong game better!  We played almost all afternoon

Sometime in the late afternoon was when the trouble started.  It began with the remaining brownies left over from our dinner party.  It continued with the remaining Krispy Kreme donuts S had brought home the other day.  And it was all downhill from there… ice cream, candy corn, cereal, chips.

At first, S didn’t know what was going on.  I was hiding it (didn’t have to try that hard… he was 100% consumed with the Wii…) but soon enough it all came out.  It was very surreal – it felt like two completely separate parts of my life had just merged and I had no idea how to handle it.  There was my binging, which doesn’t happen very often anymore but always takes me back to the past and freaks me out.  And there was him – my boyfriend and the person who now shares my house and my life and who takes me into the future.

From the beginning of this relationship, I’ve been determined not to let the past and any issues that I have had with food and eating control my life or impact the relationship at all.  That has happened to me in the past and I was not going to let it this time.  And I’m still not – but this weekend led me to the realization that as long as it still plays any sort of role in my life, even if it is smaller than it used to be, it’s something that we have to deal with together now.  We live together now – we both come home to the same place at the end of the day.  So even if I wanted to just have a bad night or a bad weekend to myself now, I can’t.  I can’t just hide myself away to binge to an oblivion and then re-enter society on Monday morning.  There is someone else involved now – in my house and my life.  That comforts me and scares me at the same time.

So enough about that – it’s a new day, a new week, and I’m moving on.   But once again, I feel like we have reached a milestone.  As S says, we’re “in it to win it.”  He loves me, warts and all.  So now I just have to work on loving, and forgiving, myself.

Sunday was a bit better.  I went to the gym – 40 minutes on the stepmill which always makes me feel better!  S fixed my old iPod Nano which was having a problem with the headphone jack.  Of course, I bought a new one months ago, so I told him he could have this one.  He was really excited because he never had an iPod before.  Then the STEELERS pulled off a stellar victory against the Chargers, although I was a little worried during the second half.  We got to pull together our 2H play, boys!  Oh well, a win’s a win… and we will be in much better shape once Polamalu is back, although nobody seems to know when that will be.

Although I wasn’t exactly binging, my eating was anything but clean and healthy on Sunday and I slacked on the picture taking.  I’m ready to get back on the track, have a good week, and get ready for my trip!!!

ps:  Check out Julie’s candilicious giveaway!

This whole week, I have not been feeling so great and have really been having a tough time.  I don’t mean that I feel sick…  I don’t exactly know how to describe it – it’s like I’m just feeling antsy and like I need something more in my life.

When I step back and look at my life, I realize that I have so much.  So many blessings, so many things going for me.  It’s not that I don’t have enough to do… I have plenty to do and am always too busy to get everything done that I need to.  But I just don’t feel fulfilled, if that’s the right word.  It’s not rational and doesn’t make sense to me – but I guess feelings aren’t rational.  So I don’t really know how to deal with it and where to go from here.  I’m just trying to take it one day at a time and figure out what I am missing and what I could add to make a difference.

A big part of it is my job.  I really like my job, but I am having a tough time working at home all the time.  I feel very isolated, and that I am constantly alone.  I am jealous of S when he comes home talking about going out for lunch with his coworkers, or just talking to them during the day and being able to work face-to-face with other people.  I took this job because I thought working at home would give me freedom and flexibility in the future when I have a family.  But I’m starting to realize that it’s not what I need right now and it’s not making me happy.

I also feel like I am missing doing something for other people.  I have always done some sort of volunteer work or been involved in some sort of community organization.  But I stopped doing that at the beginning of this year, when I took on a second, part-time job and just didn’t have time.  Since I stopped that job, though, I never started back up again and I really feel like I am missing that.

Last night, S came home from work later than usual.  I was pretty frustrated, because we had a lot to clean up from the move still – and we have people coming over this evening for dinner so it had to be done.  We also had to go to the grocery store to get stuff for me to make for dinner.  But, when he walked in the door, he surprised me with this:

Krispy Kreme Halloween donuts!   Needless to say… I didn’t stay mad for very long.  I immediately polished one off, and then we went to the grocery store.  We got a ton of stuff (gulp…) and on the menu for tomorrow night:

• Salad
• Tri-colored rotini pasta with tomato sauce and ground beef
• Garlic bread
• Brownies
• Red wine

So tomorrow will be spent cooking and baking, I’m afraid.

I made a quick dinner when I got home, because then I had to get to cleaning.  I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on two Kashi GoLean waffles:

For dessert, I had some homemade chocolate ice cream I made in my ice cream maker with a banana and a pudding cup on top:

And after a couple hours of cleaning, I dug into another Krispy Kreme.  I’m going to kill that boy if he doesn’t stop bringing those home.

What kind of things do you do in your life, outside of work, that make you feel happy and fulfilled??