Last Day

So today was my last day at work and it turned out to be a busy day at the restaurant. Luckily, I got to say goodbye to most of my favorites. Also, it's better to be one of the first to leave than it is to be one of the last. "Quit while you're ahead". I guess that quotation works in this situation :/. Anyways, I just packed an apple as a snack for work today, so I ended up not eating lunch until around 4. My meal ended up being pretty randomly paired together. I snacked on some fruit with greek yogurt while I waited for my sweet potato half to cook. Afterwards I cut up some watermelon, but ended up eating a lot of it. I always lose my self control around watermelon. My parents went to a football fundraiser tonight for my brother, so I am alone for the evening. I've just been doing laundry, packing, and I walked the dog. I made dinner at around 9:30, but wasn't really in the mood for anything in particular. (except cereal, I could eat cereal for every meal). I ended up making some scrambled Egg Beaters with zucchini, tomatoes, broccoli, and peppers. I normally include banana peppers from the jar, but we were out of them tonight. Overall, it was okay but not the tastiest I've ever had.

Tomorrow's dinner will be much better since it will be my last night home. Let's hope I finish all of my packing in time! Tomorrow is dedicated purely to running and packing. Can't believe I'm moving on Monday!

Fun at Work

We had so much fun today at work! The restaurant turned out fairly busy for most of the day, but we managed to find time to play some fun games and joke around. I still can't believe tomorrow is my last day. :( I'm going to miss everyone so much! On the way home from work I stopped by my high school english teacher's house to drop something off and to pick some figs off of her fig tree. They're small, but oh so good! I've really only had figs once before and they weren't very sweet. But these figs were awesome. They had so much more flavor than the other ones I tried.
At home the temperature was way too hot to cook, so I put together another antipasto type platter. I made more roasted red pepper hummus using the same recipe from earlier in the week. I served carrots and celery sticks alongside for dipping.


The platter contained pretty much the same things as last time except I added the figs this time. It was delicious. I'm not a big pork fan though, so I just stuck to two chicken slices and the fruit and veggies. Light dinners and summer go so well together.

Tonight I need to go to bed early because I have the early shift at work tomorrow. My last day :( Good night!

Sore Legs

Hopefully this post will end up being short because I'm excited to get to bed tonight. Today started out with a 7 mile at 7:20 this morning. I got started later than I planned, but at least I still completed the goal. I think it's the longest distance I've ever run before. As soon as I came home I ate my usual breakfast of Cheerios and Special K with strawberries and bananas with grapes on the side. Afterwards, I showered and my mom took me to run some errands for various things I need for school. We ran by the post office, then searched for some storage containers for my closet at school. I found some cute and pretty inexpensive brown basket-type bins at Home Goods that I ended up purchasing. Shopping kept us pretty distracted I guess because all of the sudden we both were starving for lunch. Once we got home I made myself some sweet potato fries that I ate with some strawberries and cottage cheese mixed with cinnamon and topped with a little bit of Special K.
Then I plopped down on the couch to watch a little Samantha Brown and Julia Child. Before I knew it, I fell asleep! I never nap! That run really wore me out I guess. After vegging out a bit my mom and I took our grocery to the store to fill up the pantry and fridge.
At around 7 I began making a delicious taco salad dinner. First I made a salsa with 3 tomatoes, a banana pepper, a little onion, 2 ears of corn, a can of black beans (rinsed), basil, oregano, parsley, pepper, red wine vinegar, and some hot sauce. It was delicious! I used romaine as the salad's base then topped it with a few cucumber slices, roasted green pepper (from our garden), and an onion that I sliced and wrapped in foil to cook over the grill. The onions carmelize when you grill them for a long time, so by the time I put them on the salad they were sweet and very mild. We grilled some chicken to slice up on top of the salad, then topped it off with the salsa. For dressing I spooned a little salsa around the salad and topped it off with some balsamic vinegar. Delicious!


Time to catch up on some blogs then catch some ZZZZZs!

Table for eight?

Happy Wednesday! Last night I got a great night's sleep, which made the day start off wonderfully. I woke up at around 7:50, ate a breakfast of Cheerios and Strawberry Special K topped with fresh bananas and strawberries. I had a small bowl of grapes on the side. Luckily, I found some extra time before work, so I did the ab Beach Body DVD. I rushed through my shower and made a delicious salad for lunch right before leaving for work at 10:30. Darn, the restaurant was busy today! We had so many people come. At one point our estimated wait time was 3 hours! Because we were so busy, the day flew by. My shift ended at 6, so I took the time to buy some jewelry for some sorority stuff coming up, then I looked at Macy's for a black dress that I need. After finding nothing really exciting, I made the decision to use a dress that I already have. It's a bit formal for the occasion, but it should work fine. On the way home from the mall I stopped by the grocery store to pick up some ingredients for dinner.
Once home, I started dinner by making the flatbread first. I took the pizza dough (I made it earlier in the week) out of the fridge and rolled out a small portion of it until it was almost paper thin. Then I topped the dough with about two spoonfuls of plain tomato sauce. Next I sliced three tomatoes from the garden and placed them all over the top of the pizza. To keep the pizza lower in calories I simply grated a small amount of asiago cheese over the top for just a hint of cheesy flavor. Lastly, I sprinkled the top with chopped basil and dried oregano and left it out on the counter until my dad arrived home. With the spare time in between the pizza and my dad's arrival, I made a large salad of romaine lettuce, tomatoes, roasted red peppers, hearts of palm, and cucumbers.

My dad came home shortly, so I baked the flatbread in the oven on the hottest temperature (500) until the crust became crispy. It made the house smell divine!


Here's my plate:

Now I'm watching Pursuit of Happyness with my parents and sipping on vanilla sleepytime tea. Good night!

Home Depot= Coffee

Today got off to an early start (6:30 am) because I woke up feeling sick once again. I wish my stomach would just return back to normal. Anyways, I had a doctor appointment this morning so I immediately showered and ate breakfast to be sure that I had enough time to get to the appointment. I actually had some spare time, so I walked a quick mile on the treadmill to get some exercise in. After my appointment, which went well, I arrived home at around 11:15. I gathered some things to bring to school, then made myself a lunch of the leftover spaghetti from dinner, some carrots, two slices of deli chicken, a little cottage cheese mixed with yogurt, and an apple. It was small, but it kept me full through most of my workday (12:30- 7). Once I arrived home from work the sight of my dad finishing up dinner was quite welcome. He made a sort of stir fry of chicken breast, roasted red pepper, green bell pepper(from the garden), hearts of palm, and mustard greens(from the neighbors). My mom prepared a baked rice dish with arborio rice, green olives, and a can of garlic and herb diced tomatoes. I sliced up a tomato from the garden to go with my dinner because I'm not a big rice fan. Dinner sure was delicious!
After dinner my dad had to run to Home Depot and invited me to come, so I took him up on the offer. To me Home Depot is like coffee. I don't like it, but I love the smell of it. Odd analogy, but so true. Quickly, we gathered the things he needed then looked around for some storage units for my closet at school. We ended up just buying his items, but we stopped by Menchie's on the way home. Such a cool place! We each made a frozen yogurt for ourselves and then made one for my mom. My dad stayed simple with a trio of tart green apple, vanilla, and peach.

My dad made my mom's, so I'm not sure exactly what's in it. I believe he used chocolate, peach, and vanilla as the base for mini turtles, dark chocolate pieces, M&Ms, and brownie pieces.

For my yogurt I combined a taste of cake batter, original tart, peach, and vanilla. I topped it with some almonds, walnuts, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, mango, and a few peanut butter chips.

Surprisingly, the yogurt made my stomach feel better! Yay! Now I'm watching The Office reruns on TBS while catching up on some blogs. So cozy! What a great way to end the day! :)

Wacky Jacks

Got off work almost an hour and a half early today, which left me with some unexpected time to be productive. First I attempted to get an appointment with the doctor at my mom's office, but after driving all the way there the schedule was too busy. Luckily, the trip wasn't completely unproductive because I stopped by the bank on the way home to make a deposit. Once I got home I snacked on an apple, some baby carrots, and some of the roasted edamame. So good! Afterwards, I did a Beach Body workout DVD. Today I did the ab workout. I prefer running, but it was waaaayyyy too hot outside this afternoon. I have to run super early or else I might melt. After the Beach Body I got busy in the kitchen making pizza dough for later in the week and prepping for dinner. First, I made some dips I've been wanting to try: baba ganoush (sp?) and roasted red pepper hummus. The hummus definitely tasted the best! And it was super healthy. I simply poured a can of garbanzo beans(rinsed), a good amount of roasted red peppers, a little basil, and water into the food processor and blended until it was smooth. Then I stirred in oregano and red wine vinegar and topped it with some sesame seeds.

For the other dip I roasted an eggplant until the skin was charred, then I scooped out the "meat" and mixed it with some pepper, paprika, lemon juice, and a few other random things from the spice cabinet. Honestly, I will probably not make this dip again for a while.

The leftover spaghetti squash served as the star of the show tonight. I mixed the squash in a medium bowl with a large chopped tomato from the garden, roasted red peppers, hearts of palm, basil, oregano, pepper, and some balsamic vinegar. Spaghetti squash is the best because it resembles pasta, yet its texture still has a crisp bite to it. The combinations are endless.


Lastly, I rounded out the meal with a tomato salad using some tomatoes from the garden. Made with tomatoes, basil, oregano, pepper, and balsamic vinegar.

Such a good meal!

Dinner Al Fresco

I love my job! I can't say where I work, but I will say that it's a bunch of fun. Where else do you see banana splits like this everyday? Pretty much nowhere. On another note, throughout the past few days I slacked off a bit with my blogging. So to catch up slightly I'll recap a new breakfast I tried the other day. It's called "overnight oats" because you simply mix oats, yogurt, and milk then let it marinate in the fridge while you sleep. In the morning it turns out thick, creamy, and delicious! For my recipe I used a little plain Greek yogurt, some light peach yogurt, and skim milk. When I took it out of the fridge in the morning the consistency was a bit thick, so I added some extra milk and stirred it up.

Next I topped it with chunks of strawberries, bananas, and some strawberry Special K. I rounded out my new meal with a peach. What a great start to the day!


Now back to today. I got home from work a little bit before dinner, so I had a small snack of Jello sugar free dark chocolate pudding and some carrots. It was enough to keep me satisfied until dinner was ready. Originally, we planned to have spaghetti squash with grilled chicken, but it was just too darn hot to cook. We put the squash in the oven to roast, but made the decision to create more of an antipasto platter instead. So my dad and I ran to the store to purchase the needed ingredients. Once we returned home the meal took only minutes to prepare. In no time we were enjoying our delicious antipasto outside on our deck as the temperature finally began decreasing with the receding sun.




On another note, my stomach acted up all last night and all day today, so let's hope that it returns to normal very soon. In fact, all I ended up eating today was a little cereal for breakfast and the antipasto for dinner. I never skip lunch. Trust me, I never miss the opportunity for a good meal. I even made myself a delicious salad this morning. Oh well, at least lunch for tomorrow is ready. Good night and have a pleasant tomorrow! :)

The Great Buck Howard

Looks like the past two days have gotten away from me. Luckily, I have a few minutes this morning before I need to head to work. Let's see.....on Friday I worked then made a yummy dinner of grilled tilapia on top of a salad of romaine, tomatoes, roasted red pepper, hearts of palm, beets, and cucumbers. I topped mine with balsamic vinegar. Unfortunately, I completely forgot to take a picture. :( Yesterday I had the early shift, so I was off the clock by the time late afternoon rolled around. It gave me the chance to try to finish up some errands that I need to complete before moving back to school in a week. Overall, it was pretty productive. When I arrived home my awesome parents already had dinner prepared. My dad made some grilled salmon and tilapia with a basil sauce accompanied by a tomato salad with the tomatoes from our garden, some grilled cornbread from the neighbors, mustard greens (also from the neighbors), and some steamed broccoli. My grandma came over to share the meal with us. Once again, I completely forgot to take a picture of dinner until after my plate was cleaned. But after dinner we went into the garden to debate the ripeness of our largest watermelon. Our eager selves decided it was ready, so my dad did the honor of picking it off the vine. We excitedly rushed inside to split open the hard rind in hopes of finding sweet, juicy "meat" inside. Well, this is what we found:

Haha. Not quite ripe. This is the second time it has happened. Can anyone out there (dad) tell me how the heck to tell when a watermelon is ready to be picked?

I have to go to work now, but let me post a picture of our family's new obsession. Dry roasted soy beans. So good! They went great with our Netflix movie last night, The Great Buck Howard. Excellent film! Go rent it right now.

I've got more to blog about later! Wish me luck at work!

Cat Strollers

Man, my legs are sore. I started out this morning with a nice 5 mile run, which I know isn't crazy far or anything, but combine that run with the other workouts I did this week and hours of standing and frantically rushing around at my hostess jobs and you've got a recipe for some barking dogs. After the run I ran some errands around town and chilled out before my shift started at 5. The restaurant was busy for a weeknight, but luckily time seemed to move pretty quickly. Oh, and I just happened to see something at the restaurant tonight that easily made it on the list of top ten weirdest things I've ever seen in my life. So a man walks up to the host stand and asks for a table for two inside. Okay, no problem. Once the table opens up, I head outside to let the man know. Well, as soon as I walk out I notice a strange looking stroller sitting just to the right of the restaurant. Instead of looking like a normal stroller, it is much smaller and any potential openings are completely covered in small black mesh. As soon as I call the man's name he and his wife stand up and she immediately rushes over to the stroller. Normally I wouldn't give this scenario a second thought except that the couple is in their sixties, which means they most likely do not have a baby. Upon closer inspection I notice the real contents of the stroller. Locked inside the mesh dungeon is a cat. What. the. heck. I didn't know how to approach the situation, so I acted like I saw nothing and headed to their table inside. This crazy, sick cat lady rolls the stroller right inside the restaurant not even thinking that it might be weird or not allowed. Immediately the waiters and the manager all notice the strange scenario taking place. Luckily, my manager explained to the lady that she couldn't bring the cat into the restaurant. End of the story in nutshell: the couple waited a bit longer for a table outside and enjoyed their dinner with their faithful "cat locked in a stroller" enjoying the 90 degree heat inside its mesh jail. There are such sick people in the world. These were two of them.
No pictures were taken today, so I'll attach a beautiful picture of a caprese salad I made a while back. It was tasty and makes my mouth water everytime I look at it. Enjoy!

Short Shift

The day's pace started off a little rushed this morning, but later on it became much more relaxed. I started the day off with some oatmeal with banana chunks, a teeny bit a peanut butter, some chopped peanuts, and some cinnamon. It was a new combination that turned out okay. Next time I think I'll leave the banana on the side and use pecans or almonds instead of peanuts. Oh well, you have to improvise sometimes. :) Today at work I only had a four hour shift, so my afternoon ended up being pretty free. As soon as I came home from the bistro, I made myself a delicious lunch. I scraped out the inside of a spaghetti squash (from the garden) that I roasted earlier, then I added a chopped tomato(from the garden also), roasted red pepper, hearts of palm, and plenty of basil. I heat up my creation in the microwave for a couple of minutes, then devoured it. And, gosh, was it delicious! I rounded out lunch with an apple, then waited for my food to digest. Instead of being lazy bum for the rest of the day I put in a Beach Body DVD and had a nice ab workout. I didn't want to do too much since I'm going for a long run tomorrow. Anyway, while I worked my butt off, Daisey served as a distraction by trying to find a comfortable position to nap in. I think this was her final choice:

After my mom got home from work I started dinner. Basically, the only plan was to use some chicken we had. The sides resulted in some forgotten veggies in the fridge that needed to be used. I grilled the chicken along with a giant zucchini from the garden. To go on the side, I made some corn salsa using leftover corn on the cob from last night's dinner, a chopped tomato and banana pepper from the garden, and black beans. Oh, and just a tad bit of chopped onion. This tasted great with the chicken.

Also in the fridge was a head of napa cabbage. I barely ever cook cabbage, but it turned out pretty tasty tonight. I simply sauteed an onion until golden, added the cabbage and let it cook down for a minute. To help it along, I added just a dash of soy sauce, some sesame seeds, and a bit of oregano. At the very end I added some finely diced roasted red pepper for a little punch of color.

Finally, here is the complete meal:

After dinner I made my mom a mini peach cobbler. I didn't get the chance to take a bite, but she loved it! I simply mixed half of a sliced peach with a little brown sugar and topped it off with a mixture of brown sugar, melted butter, cinnamon, and whole wheat flour. The picture is a little dark, but you get the idea.

Good night!

Attacked by a Sidewalk

Since this is my very first post, no one out there knows that I just returned from my London/ Paris vacation last week. I've only been home a few days and already the Eiffel Tower's siren song pulls me back. Unfortunately, I can't quite move to Paris yet (I need to fatten up the bank account a bit more first) but I will be moving back to Athens in a few weeks to begin my sophomore year at UGA. One of my "projects" for the semester involves me running a half marathon in October, so this morning I continued my normal routine of running early in the morning. I always bring my dog, Daisey, with me so that she can get some good exercise. Well, today we were on our way back home when she saw a lady walking two dogs across the street. Suddenly she gets the urge to jump in front of my legs, come to a complete stop, then jump out of the way to give my body a clear path straight to the sidewalk. Result: some nasty scratches all over my left hand/elbow, a pulled muscle in my hip, and some scratches on my right hand and thigh. Needless to say, it was not the best way to start off the day.
Fortunately, my day improved rather quickly. My dad took me to get some new glasses(more on this later) and some paint while he ran some errands. In no way am I a painter, but I wanted to create something for my room back at school. Here's a picture of the final product. Not bad for a non-painter if I do say so myself.

Lastly, I ended my day with a delicious salmon dinner created by my dad and I. I prepared the salad with beets, roasted red peppers, our homegrown tomatoes, hearts of palm, and our cucumbers while my dad grilled the salmon with a basil pesto he whipped up the other day. The picture isn't the best, but it sure tasted good.