No TGIF For Me

This is a sacrilegious thing for a “peon” to say, but here it is: I hate Fridays. To me, they’re not indicative of the weekend; they’re a tease, because it’s so-near-yet-so-far! It’s especially annoying after moving the clock back, because I need to be home before sundown — and rushing in the door just at that time isn’t going to cut it. I need time to do some things first! I work until 2.00 PM on Fridays, but it seems like it’s hours longer than every other day of the week. I’d like to point out that candle-lighting these days is at roughly 4.30 … it takes me over an hour to get home. See the difficulty?

Another reason why Fridays are somewhat of a bane for me… I’ve long had anxiety surrounding weekends because of these “festive” meals, which, in my mind, automatically excused me from eating beforehand. I’m working on that one, but it’s slow going… and if, at the end of the day, it all evens out on a caloric level, it is still not okay with me that none of that eating happened while I was at work. That’s just a screwy way of looking at things.

On this particular Friday, Miss Genius here decided to get on the scale. Stupid, stupid, stupid.  I am horrified and disgusted and I don’t want to even think about any of this anymore.  I know, on a logical level, that I am this tall and shouldn’t weigh what I do; but on an emotional level, it doesn’t equate.  I still think it’s absolutely repulsive for me to weigh what I do; not for someone else of my height, but just me.  Because, well, I am special.  Ha.

One of my coworkers and I were chatting; he is taking a little trip down Memory Lane this weekend and meeting with a few of his childhood friends whom he hasn’t seen in years. One of these friends apparently fell into drugs, and I saw his picture on Facebook — both the way he was as a kid, and how he looks today. It’s kind of scary. It reminded me of a guy I knew from a detox program (I wasn’t the one detoxing — it was a mixed unit!)… I randomly ran into him a couple of years after we’d both discharged, and he was so obviously using again. He was about half the size he had been when I’d last seen him, and he was never a very big guy. Granted, I was also skinnier than when he’d last seen me. Says my coworker, But there’s a difference between being healthy skinny [meaning me] and wasted away from using drugs [him]. Oh, boy, did my nonexistent voices ever have a field day with that one! See, you really don’t need to gain weight; if you look “healthy skinny” now, you’ll just look fat if you gain!

That, combined with this morning, is making it really, really difficult for me to focus on what I “should” be doing.  I don’t want to be dealing with this crap for the rest of my life, I really don’t.  But I also don’t want to feel as … icky as I do right now.  It’s just not something I feel equipped to deal with on my own, and I have no other options but to deal with it on my own!

First attempt at a breakfast cookie:

I think my proportions were off.  This included oats, protein powder, peanut butter, and soy milk… but it wasn’t the right texture.  Once I got past the weirdness of essentially eating raw oats, the taste wasn’t bad, it was just … dry!!

Yves “chicken” burger on a toasted whole wheat hamburger bun — I realize it doesn’t look toasted, but that’s because I only toast one side.  Prevents my poor palate from getting sliced by a sharp edge.    And that isn’t a bite — I think my freezer must have eaten some of the bun.  I am weird, but I like the way toasted frozen bread tastes; it has the most awesome texture.  As for the burger, I used my Foreman grill this time instead of nuking the hell out of it, and I loved it.

Wheat puffs and banana… in an enormous salad bowl, because I hate it when the bowl can’t contain its contents.

With Boost.  Blah.

And of course, even though I want to cry / scream / etc., a challenge awaits.

Chocolate almond, this time.  “Review” to come, I suppose.

Sorry to cut and run, but it’s quite nearly 4.30!  Have a great weekend!

Go AWAY!!

This lovely fellow was in my head today.  Well, maybe not.  I’m not into the whole “anthropomorphizing” thing… I don’t have voices in my head.  I am not schizophrenic.  What I do have are thoughts that can get very loud and intrusive.  I killed my MP3 player battery today in an attempt to drown out all that mental noise; didn’t exactly work, I just wound up with more noise!  Quite literally, this time.

I don’t like this.  Mostly because I’m terrified that if I don’t watch it, I’ll fall right into this again.  As it is, at the moment, the best word to describe how I am feeling is crazy.  “Like a trussed turkey” is apt too, but we’re not talking physically here, are we? … I can be feeling perfectly “fine,” and then, either for no reason whatsoever, or for a really stupid reason, I suddenly want to run screaming out of my own skin.

Speaking of my own skin, my muscles are incredibly sore for some reason.  It’s odd — I can’t think of anything that I did that was unusual / out of the ordinary!  Then again, whatever could explain that might also help me figure out why my upper arms have been insanely itchy for the past few weeks.  TMI.  Sorry.

I’m trying not to count calories.  Once I reach a certain number, I start to freak out, and what I am supposed to be doing is well above that point.  You know how it goes… if I don’t know know about it, it didn’t happen.  Right.  Denial much?

On the topic of denial, I was thisclose to hitting my therapist today.  (For the record: that is an expression, nothing more.  I don’t hit people.  I only hit inanimate objects.)  She asked me if I think I have an eating disorder.  Um… is it 2005 again??  I told her that I don’t think I have one, I know I do.  So then she decided to have me list all the reasons why I think / know that.  ’twas frustrating.  Apparently all for the purposes of bringing me out of my denial.  Except that I don’t really think I am in denial!

Also quite annoying: I was told this now, so that I have time to “digest” the information, but the lease is up on her office next month.  The new office is a few subway stops away from my own office.  Which means that by the time I get there, I’d have to turn around and head right back to work because my lunch hour will be over.  Oy.

Enough of my rambling.

So I steamed this cabbage and tofu, and I was actually pretty sure I wouldn’t like it.  I’m not a fan of raw tofu, and steamed tofu isn’t too different from that.  I packed this away in a container and then refrigerated it to take to work with me.  Apparently, when refrigerated, steamed tofu develops a sort of chewy consistency.  Me like.

There was so much agonizing involved in this, it isn’t even funny!  Skipping right over that, I made a couple of discoveries.  One, Cluckphrey “chicken” patties taste much better when baked in the oven than when microwaved.  Two, while the allure of saving time is there, quick-cooking barley has nothing on the original; not bad, but nowhere near as good as the “real” stuff.  And, yeah, Steamfresh broccoli, carrots, sugar snap peas and water chestnuts.  I am going to turn into a big vegetable one of these days.

It’s barely even 10.00 PM, and I am seriously considering going to bed.  I think I’m averaging four hours a night this past week, and that just isn’t working for me.  I worked on two PowerPoint presentations and on a paper, and I should have done far more than I did, or paid more attention so that it isn’t so shoddy… but I am just too tired.

I’m going to be an old lady and head off.  Have a great weekend!

Long Day, Long Post

Thank you for the lovely comments on my last post!

Today has been a very long and anxiety-filled day.  I know it’s not unusual to feel dizzy and lightheaded from not eating enough; I’ve never heard of feeling that way from eating too much.  But I guess anxiety can cause that, too.  And those Boosts certainly did a great job of causing anxiety.  I spend way too much time in my own head.  Must get new earbuds, since mine are crapping out again, to maybe shut myself up by stuffing my ears with music all day instead.  This mental cacophony is especially unwelcome at this time because I have a really insane amount of work to do for school.  And a presentation due… I am terrified of that.

It definitely didn’t help on the school front that my priorities are such that I absolutely needed to watch Game 6 of the World Series.  I am thrilled to pieces that I did, though, because I am a Yankees fan.  Hate me if you must, but I am very very happy about this. 

Being the fastidious freak (hey, I had to toss in some alliteration somewhere, you know ) that I am, I hate hate hate hate having chips in my nail polish. Last night I noticed a small one, but it was too late to fix it because it wouldn’t have had time to dry. So this morning I grabbed the bottle of polish on my way out the door, figuring I’d just fix it up when I got to work.

I’m sure you see the problem here. I had to spend all day staring at the chip. AUGH.

I was in the supermarket, standing near the grapes, and this very devout-looking man next to me reached in and sampled a grape. Not that I’m advocating that, but I can understand trying one, to gauge its sweetness or whatever. But he took a bag, stuck it in his shopping cart, and kept eating them. It’s not like buying chips and then giving the cashier the empty bag to have the bar code scanned… these things are sold by weight. AKA, what he did was stealing. Am I being a “prude” in thinking that? And then he was standing next to me near the bananas too — I wanted to ask him if he was planning on ripping one of those open to try it, but I restrained myself. :p

I bought red grapes, but I added some black ones to the bag because I wanted to try them.

I prefer red.

A “jumbo salad” for Katie:

Romaine, roasted baby portabellas, sprouts, roasted carnival squash, and soy nuts. The carnival squash was a much greater success than it was last time! That said, this salad was kind of … bizarre.

The individual components were each good, but together, they added up to the strangest combination of flavors. The sweetness of the squash and the raspberry vinaigrette were competing against the earthiness of the mushrooms, and the soy nuts’ salt just didn’t really fit! (They’re salted because I bought them with the intention of making soy nut butter, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet… and I figured that would be less of a drag than salting it myself!)

I bought these chicken “burgers” in Whole Foods today:

Okay, not the most photogenic of plates — there’s not a lot of color here!  Steamed chopped broccoli, millet, and the aforementioned chicken “burger.”  Points of note: to make millet properly, I need to remember to toast it first.  And, uh, turn off the stove before it starts to dry out and burn.  As for the chicken “burger,” I definitely microwaved it for too long; so I’m not going to render judgment on it yet!  I know I didn’t hate it, but that’s all I’m going to say for now.

When I was in Whole Foods, I saw a Fuyu persimmon.  From my past experiences with persimmons, I don’t like them.  But my nutritionist told me that Fuyu persimmons (every time I try to type “persimmon,” I type “permission”!) are nothing like regular persimmons, and I just have to try them because they’re so amazing.  I was about to buy one, but then I realized they are $2.99.  Each.  Can you imagine what a disaster that would be if I really did love them?!  Have you ever tried a Fuyu persimmon?  Did you love it?

And I finally bought soy protein powder.  (The agony… with spirulina, or without?!)  Very excited, because now I can attempt a breakfast cookie.  Recipes welcome! 

I’m going to indulge in a quick little rant here about why I hate public transportation.  I check for service advisories every day before I leave the office, and if the subway line I usually take is having delays, I take a different one.  That’s what happened today.  And then the train I did take wound up going out of service in the most inconvenient of places; i.e., I couldn’t transfer.  Rather than waiting, I hoofed it out of there and to the next station.  Which is only about a ten-minute walk, but, um, I have an awful sense of direction and didn’t really have any clue where I was going.  As commutes go, I’ve had worse, so I can’t call it the Commute from Hell; maybe the Commute from Purgatory.

I haven’t shared one of these in a while, but Snapple “Real Fact” #797: In Youngstown, Ohio, it is against the law to run out of gas.  Any Youngstown residents reading this? … Is that actually true??

Whether or not that is a fact, this is certainly weird… my dad showed me this dime.  I wonder how this happened!

Have a great Thursday — the week is almost over!

I caved…

I want to watch Game 6 of the World Series tomorrow, and since the pool was closed today anyway because of Election Day (don’t even get me started on that), I saw my nutritionist today instead of tomorrow.  I was really terrified either way — I didn’t want to find out I’ve gained a crazy amount of weight, but I also didn’t want to deal with the backlash if I’d lost.  As it turns out, I maintained.  To the ounce.  It is insanely late, so lucky for you who is reading this, I am not going to get into it… but I gave in.  I went to CVS after my appointment.

It isn’t Boost Plus, obviously… but I guess it’s better than what I was using before.  (It helped that this one was on sale… it is insane how expensive these things are!!)  Just thinking about what I have to do for the next week makes me want to cry… and I really, really can’t afford this now, because I have so much work to do for school that I am just not doing.  I wish the World Series would have ended last night… would have freed up my schedule some!!

And my Bolivian ram died.  It was one of my favorites. 

My “best friend” from elementary / high school and I had a little talk the other day. She claims that I “disappeared” once she got married. It’s true that I might have been a little distracted around the time she got married — that happened at the same time that I broke up with my boyfriend of four years. The one time I tried to talk with her about it, she interpreted my “It’s hard to pretend to be happy when you’re not” as “I am jealous of you and it is difficult for me to pretend I’m happy for you.” Which is not what I meant at all, but she always seems to turn things around so it’s all about her. That was the last time I really tried to talk to her about anything of true value. And besides, I thought she might have aligned her priorities a bit differently, considering she has a husband, and all.

Fast forward to the present. She’s going through some medical issues, and I’m the only one of her friends who really knows. I guess she felt that since she knows about my ED, I was a safe repository. (When I say she knows, I mean just that; we never talk about it at all.) So in our recent chat, which was the first time we’d caught up in a while, I stupidly (because I keep doing that… trying to get through to someone when I know I won’t) told her about the problems I’m having because of this thyroid medication, because it’s making me lose weight. Her response was, “Now you can eat more of the foods you enjoy without worrying that you’ll gain extra weight.”

I’m not judging her on her inability to understand where I’m coming from. She’s very lucky not to have ever been in that position. But seriously — did you listen to a single word I just said?! If I was just able to “eat more of the foods I enjoy without worrying,” the weight loss wouldn’t be a problem!

I think that a major part of why I might withdraw from people is due to my black-and-white thinking. If I’m not extremely important to someone, I automatically equate that with rejection and decide that I am just useless, so there’s no point in sticking around.  It’s just that I already feel like I’m extraneous, so it seems sort of … self-destructive, in a way, for me to subject myself to the possibility of being hurt over and over and over again.

Anyway, enough of my babbling. On to the pictures.

I said I was indecisive… so much for my making a decision! I love these shirts so much that I went back and bought another one. (Naturally, they didn’t have my first choice in my size. Oh, well.)

I’d never tried this flavor Larabar before, for the following reason:

Yeah. Frightful. But I have to say that even after I got past that, I didn’t actually care very much for this bar. The banana flavor was way too pronounced for my taste, and there were far too many nuts. But at least now I know, right?

New bar alert!

NuGo10, in the lemon flavor… this is very similar to a Larabar, but the citrus taste is much stronger than the lemon bar Larabar. In fact, I think it might be a little too strong! If you like citrus, you’d love this; if you don’t, you will definitely hate it.

Another embarrassingly huge salad! This one had romaine, baby bellas, baby peppers, whole grain rotini, and “roasted” tofu. It was so enormous that I managed to complete a crossword, two sudokus, and a ken ken in the amount of time it took me to eat it.

Steamfresh broccoli and cauliflower, (deformed) vegetarian drumstick, and quinoa… the addition of which was extremely anxiety-provoking.  I have found, however, that I would probably love anything if it was seasoned with garlic salt.

…and now that I have another sleep-deprived, terrifying day ahead of me, I bid you all adieu.  Have an awesome Hump Day!

Wuss in Boots

Apologies in advance for the extremely corny post title… but I just couldn’t resist it.

Wuss

To make what could be a very long, drawn-out rant very short, I am (mentally) exhausted and absolutely terrified.  (Hence the “wuss.”)

I finally made “proper” overnight oats!  Since I had never done this before, I didn’t want to waste the ingredients if it was a total disaster, so I made a small portion, using old-fashioned oats which I soaked overnight in soy yogurt mixed with Truvia.  In the morning, I stirred in some raspberry jam.  I am officially a convert.

I know you can hardly see it under the banana, but there’s Kashi Cinnamon Harvest under there.  An entire serving’s worth was crushed at the bottom of the box, and I felt bad throwing it out!  I didn’t add the soy milk until after I took the picture, because I don’t like soggy cereal.  But then I took another one anyway.

I was going to use vanilla Boost instead of soy milk.  I guess Wuss in Boots is too much of a wuss for that.  But, full disclosure: I have been known to dilute my soy milk.  (This is clearly crazy, because I remember someone once telling me a couple of years ago that she diluted her skim milk, and even I thought it was crazy!)  I didn’t.  So I guess it counts for something.

I bought this on a whim at Whole Foods on my way home on Friday. Ice cream isn’t a fear food, exactly, because I force myself to eat it so often.  But never out of a container like this; just in single-serving units.  And we ate this on Shabbos, so I couldn’t really measure it either.  Supportive environment?  You got it.  (“Let’s see how bad this tastes.”)  For the record, I don’t think peanut butter is a flavor that ought to be in ice cream.

I found whole wheat English muffins I can eat!  I used one to make an “egg McMuffin” with All Whites.

When they say to toast for optimum flavor?  They mean it.

Remember this?  Apparently they’ve been reformulated and put in new packaging.  (The new recipe has hubbard squash in it, too.)  The calorie count went up, and the product itself seems to have shrunk, even though it says the size is the same.  Either way, I bought a new one because I wanted to compare it to the old one; they taste pretty much the same.

Roasted portabella mushrooms, zucchini and yellow squash; “chicken” patty; and millet.  After my last attempt at millet, I decided to attempt to follow the package directions.  Big mistake.  I prefer my grains to be, well, grains; this had a consistency more akin to that of mashed potatoes.  I don’t think I’m a big fan of millet… but I have to finish the package, so maybe by the time I get there, I’ll have found a way to prepare it that will mean I do like it.

Another totally pathetic Wuss in Boots moment: I actually called my nutritionist while I was staring at all of this food prep paraphernalia on my kitchen counter because I felt like I needed permission to make “extra.”  Why on earth should I need someone else’s permission for that, I’d like to know?!  In a similar vein, I feel like it’s “wrong” to eat the same thing twice in one day.  That is equally stupid.

Well.  Moving on.

Boots

I’ve mentioned that I have major issues finding boots.  Not long after that post, I actually found those boots!  (Sorry about the horrible pictures… as it turns out, it’s quite difficult for me to photograph my own leg.)  These are my old boots:

Excuse the mess!  Anyway, these are a little big around the calf, but they were the most decent-looking boots I’d ever managed to find.  So I was quite excited to finally find them again… imagine my dismay when I tried them on (which I wasn’t going to do!) and found that the calf circumference has increased!!  I bought them anyway, because what else am I supposed to do?  Then my mom started driving me crazy about how I lost weight in my calves (which is ridiculous because I don’t have any weight to lose there; it’s the only place on my body that never did); I had to hold up my old boot next to my new one to show her that they actually were not the same size.  In fact, they looked quite ridiculous.  So, off I went to Amazon to find boots by calf circumference.  Just look at what I wound up with.

Combat boots!!  I would have given my eyeteeth for these boots when I was in high school, but I am no longer in high school.  They’re still a little big around the calf, even after I pulled the (miles long!) laces as tight as they go; but since they’re so huge and clunky in general, it’s not as bad as the other boots.

Speaking of the other boots, I couldn’t return them; I could only exchange them.  So now I also have these boots, which I don’t exactly need.

I know you can’t really see it here, but they’re brown.  And also a little big, but I got these over any others because the ankle actually fit.  I don’t think I’m going to wear these enough to invest in fixing the rest of the shaft to have them fit, but… whatever.  I need to clean out my closet.

I spent a couple of hours working on the paper that will kill me.  I think it might actually be long enough now, but it’s a mess.  I can’t even say screw it and just hand it in that way, because I have to present it to the class.  (Eek!!)  I am so looking forward to the end of the semester… vacation destination suggestions still welcome!

Wow, this post is interminable in length… I’m going to shut up now.  Have a great start to your week!

Problems and Passions

Yes, I’m apparently back to alliterating post titles. Apologies.

There are actually two Verbal Vomits in this post. Projectile verbal vomiting! If you want to avoid the first, ED-related spurt, skip straight down to the pictures serving as a dividing line.

Like I said yesterday, my nutritionist had plans to yell at me. Apparently, she called my therapist instead. If I had to sum up my gut reaction to her reaction, it would be that for someone who claims to be concerned about my (perfectly healthy!) heart, she’s certainly doing her best to send me into cardiac failure. I really do not understand how I could have possibly lost as much weight as they say I did over the past week. I send my nutritionist
pictures, for heaven’s sake, so she can see that I’m not calling two grains of rice a serving. I know I’ve said it before, but it’s embarrassing to even think of the volume of food I eat. I feel like I just never stop, and it disgusts me, and this is what I get for it? Nice. So “they” decided that I should add not one, not two, but three Boost Plus supplements (for the record, that is over one thousand additional calories). Every day. Which is clearly not happening, for a million different reasons. Such as, they taste nasty; they have about a million grams of sugar, and I do not need to be in a sugar coma; liquid calories freak the hell out of me — this is more than bad enough; and, um, this one isn’t on the list, but I really don’t think all of this fuss is necessary. Nor am I going to lie and say that I will / did drink it if I know I won’t / didn’t … so I’m supposed to be eating even more now. Honestly, I don’t know whether to cry or scream. I’d go with the crying option, since other people in my house would hear me scream (a bad thing to happen in an environment devoid of “support”); but as I haven’t cried in so long that I don’t even remember when I last did, I’m pretty much out of options.

But.  Though I might not be sure what I want, I’m adamant on what I don’t want.  I absolutely have zero interest in going IP.  Going last time only created more problems for me… it’s not like I was “medically compromised,” so it was just stupid.  And I’m kind of in the same position right now.  While I’m happy about that — why would I want to feel sick?! — it also aids in allowing me to adopt a somewhat cavalier attitude to it all.  I need to get over that, but I can’t seem to break free of the mindset that if I just don’t think about something, it will go away.  Clearly, this is not going away, not if I don’t make it go away.  Too bad I’m such a wuss about it.

I did, however, do this.

Wheat couscous and chickpeas with paprika, and then garlic salt; and Italian blend vegetables… with garlic salt, of course.  I hate to toot my own horn, but seriously?  This was absolutely genius.  The only problem with it was that there was an awful lot more of it than I would have liked there to be, no matter how good it was.  (Doesn’t it say something that I ate that two and a half hours ago and I am still uncomfortably full?!)

This was my “decision” …

Now that I’ve made the choice, I can go buy more.  I absolutely love this shirt.  It is so comfortable and deliciously warm… and I really like that it’s not too snug a fit.

Matching earrings.  Naturally!

As for the “passions”… lately, I’ve been wondering about my chosen field of study / career. Some of the people with whom I go to school are just burning with passion for it, and I’m simply … not. I can’t help but wonder: is this because I’m just not a “passionate” type of person, or is it a sign that I’m in the wrong field? I hate doubting myself that way, but really, if this isn’t “it,” I don’t know what is. Just another way in which I feel completely and utterly lost.

Like a true procrastinator with piles of work to do, I am doing this instead.  How’s that for priorities?!  And then I wonder why I have a rapidly mounting stress level…

Have a great weekend!  And a happy Halloween, if you “celebrate” it.

Blah

For some reason, I’m feeling kind of “blah” … so I’ll try to keep things simple here!  Though knowing me, I’ll end up with some Verbal Vomit at some point.  For the moment, some pictures.

Romaine, baby peppers, ginger teriyaki Tempehtations, roasted asparagus.

Honey wheat braided twist pretzels… I had never tried them before, and I loved them.  I kind of go through stages where I crave pretzels, and then sometimes I don’t touch them for months.  I am weird.

As planned, I put a Garden Gourmet veggie burger in a pita.  While I did like the “burger-in-a-pita” concept, the burgers are definitely not Tivi Valley!  They are a bit greasy, and there are some weird chewy chunks in there.  Not a major fan.  Nor am I a fan of the turnip greens you see in the background… at all!

On the topic of Garden Gourmet, I tried this too:

I kind of liked this… again, though, it was definitely not the same as Tivi Valley’s schnitzel.  It wasn’t bad, but it did have a lot more grease.  I think it goes without saying that I do not like grease.

I know there are hummus purists out there, and those who say that if it doesn’t have tahini, it’s not really hummus.  This is true.  However, I do not like tahini, and therefore, I love the zero-fat hommus from Oasis Mediterranean Cuisine. I had a little issue, so I contacted the company, and they very graciously sent me a package “for my inconvenience”:

I’m especially excited about the black bean dip, because I haven’t been able to find that anywhere.

Mini Verbal Vomit (told ya!)… Part of the reason why I am feeling so … flat is probably because of the weather.  It’s been raining for two days (and the umbrella that I bought yesterday seems to be leaking — I don’t think I ought to have blobs of rain dropping onto my head when I’m under an umbrella!), and that’s depressing enough.  But I always feel like I bloat due to the humidity.  Is it possible to bloat but not actually gain weight?!  Hmm.  It must be, I guess, because after my dash onto my nutritionist’s scale, she wasn’t too happy with me.  I quote: “You are in trouble; I am going to have to yell at you.”  Or something like that.  Apparently, if I feel like I gained X, I lost that much.  Does that mean I need to start flipping around every thought in my head?!  No, I should just stop thinking right now, because it’s been a very very long day and tomorrow looks like more of the same.  It feels like I am always so busy, but doing what?!  You would think that I might actually have a life, but I don’t.  Come to think of it, that’s not so odd under the circumstances.  But sometimes, it really does suck to live in a bubble like that.  I live in my own world… but that’s okay, everybody knows me there.

This is totally random, but I found it really amusing for some reason.  Hair that styles itself?  I wish.

Enjoy your Thursday.

Mold and Ulcers

On Sunday night, I really did not want to make a sandwich to take with me to class on Monday.  But I went down to my freezer to dig out one of the loaves of bread I knew I had put there.  And couldn’t find it.  After emptying out the whole freezer, and then doing the same to the one in the kitchen upstairs, I called my mom to find out if she knew what had happened to my bread.  No dice.  I, obviously, was a little happy — no bread means I can’t make a sandwich, right?  And then I found my bread.  In a bag hooked over the seat of my brother’s bike, which is near the freezer in the basement.  Apparently, someone took it out to put something else in, and forgot about it.  Does this look like it would make a tasty sandwich?

I don’t care how ill someone is; that amount of penicillin is never, ever necessary.  And, obviously, I still had no bread to make my sandwich.  The reason why I had two of these in the freezer is because there is only one store in my neighborhood that sells it, and it’s extremely expensive; so when I found it somewhere else, I stocked up.  But it was Sunday night, and there was only one grocery store open, and so I had to settle for something else.  I was understandably turned off bread for the moment, so I bought a package of whole wheat mini pitas instead.  Behold:

And it made a really good sandwich.  But now I have a nearly-full package of whole wheat mini pitas in my freezer.  I suppose I can stick a veggie burger in there.  (Speaking of which, I think I’ve heard that these are same thing as the Tivi Valley; so when I saw them when I went to buy my pitas, I grabbed one!)

Moving on…

Wheat berries, edamame, and carnival squash.  I baked / roasted the squash whole, because the sticker on it said to do so; I do not think I will be doing that again.  I have no idea why, but this squash tasted bitter.  I doused the entire plate in salt and pepper, and dumped some cinnamon on the squash too, but … I have another carnival squash, and I am definitely going to cube that one first.

For my salad on Monday, I used a different tofu than my usual:

With romaine, whole grain rotini, and Brussels sprouts roasted with seasoned salt.  I know I said I hate Brussels sprouts, but I don’t know what happened… I loved them here.

I really liked this tofu; it has a totally different texture than what I’m used to.  It’s also insanely expensive in comparison, so I don’t think I’ll be buying it on a regular basis!  (I am actually mortified at how much I used… even if it is “under orders.”  I guess I’m inherently a volume eater, and even if it’s mostly low-calorie things, I just find it embarrassing to post pictures of such… volume.  The close-up shot is my best friend here…)

Oh, yeah… I did end up going to Target for a shirt.  My decision was made a bit easier by the fact that they had all but sold out… I had decided that I wanted this one, but there were none left. I tried on this one, which wound up in my cart along with this one … because I am an indecisive freak.  My mom was no help at all: “Get them both!”  When I explained that the whole point was for me to learn to actually make decisions, no matter how stupid, she told me to get the blue one because “It matches your eyes.”  She’s been telling me that for years.  I did end up getting the blue one, though.  And now I’m going to stop thinking about the purple one.

That should be fairly easy, because I am so so so so so overwhelmed… I’m telling you, I am developing an ulcer.  A big one.  I thought one of my papers is due next Monday.  I am nowhere near ready to hand it in, and I don’t feel like I will ever be.  I seem to get dumber and dumber the older I get!!  There was actually a mistake on the syllabus and I have two weeks; my ulcer got a tiny bit smaller.  But it’s still there.  Very much so.

Though it was a little bright spot that we got our evaluations back for the project that was responsible for my battle with Dreamweaver, in which I was not the victor.  I got a 20/20.  I hate to brag, and I’m sorry if it comes off that way, but it was just such a relief to me to not have totally bombed on it.

I have an appointment with my nutritionist tomorrow night.  I called her today to inform her that there is a situation, the severity of which I am sure she will not appreciate.  She said that since she is a Yankee fan, I can come earlier just for a quick weigh-in, and we’ll have a session on the phone / via e-mail.  To ensure that it is just a quick weigh-in, I am going to stop at the supermarket first; I am buying Steamfresh, which is on major sale, and we can’t have that melting, now can we?!

As usual, there is a lot more I could / would write… but I am on my mini while a DVD is playing on my laptop, because I have no time to do anything, so… yeah.  Have a great Tuesday.

Some Nonsensical Babble

Thank you for the good thoughts / wishes on my last post … I am very tentatively feeling a little more “stable,” but I don’t want to get too excited over it just yet because Saturday nights / Sundays seem to be the times that I am most susceptible to falling into the trap all over again!

Because of the weather, I found myself with some free time tonight.  I was determined to knock out at least five of the ten required pages for one of my papers.  (What is that all about, by the way?!  What if I’ve already said everything I need to say, and I’ve only filled seven pages?  Do these professors really want to read three pages’ worth of filler drivel?  Is seven pages not enough?!)  Well, I am — surprise, surprise — in a bit of a panic here.  I think I have five pages –  I’m not sure because it’s such a mess and mixed up with a bunch of random insertions for now — but they seem to be mostly regurgitated crap.  Not surprising, considering I’m attempting to write a paper without having any real thesis, when finding one should have been Step One in this process.  I know I keep saying that I no longer care whether or not I get an A, so long as this interminable semester ends; but I also know that I absolutely will be devastated when I don’t get an A.  Panic, as it turns out, is a very poor motivator.

I need something to look forward to at the end of the semester… where should I go on my post-semester vacation?!  Open to all suggestions… only requirements are A) warm-water diving and B) will not bankrupt me!

On a completely unrelated note, I am a confirmed Target addict, as I am there at least once a week.  Last Sunday, I saw these shirts and sort of fell in love, which is odd because that is completely unlike anything I ever wear.  I didn’t buy it because I am so indecisive that I couldn’t decide which color to get.  (Hey, give me a break — there are fourteen of them!)  I happened to mention that to my therapist, which wasn’t exactly news — we all know that I tend to turn stupid decisions into massive processes.  So now I have an “assignment,” since I’m going to Target tomorrow (to be a nice sister and return something for my sister… okay, and because I want to go anyway)… I’m supposed to buy one shirt and not spend more than five minutes thinking about the color.  And I’m supposed to try it on so that I don’t wind up buying the wrong size and effectively getting to obsess over the color twice, since I’d start the whole process over if I had to exchange it.  Which is really annoying; I don’t like trying things on in stores, especially in the winter.  This isn’t so much a result of ED thinking as it is inconvenience; why should I take off all of my winter layers just to try something on?!

I’ve babbled nonsensically for long enough.  Moving on…

I tried another flavor of the Primal Strips, this time Teriyaki.

I was particularly amused by the fact that this contains “unrefined evaporated can juice.” Whatever, I think I finally figured out how to eat this. What a skill. But I really liked this flavor! It didn’t taste much like teriyaki, but that’s not a bad thing; just a misnomer.

I think kasha might have some serious competition for the distinction of being named my favorite grain. This is garlic salt-spiked bulgur mixed with peas and carrots, plus chopped fried eggs microwaved All Whites. I knew that the ratio of bulgur to water should be 1:2, but I was reading the box and stupidly put in more water than I should have — because that was a “recipe” for bulgur as a hot cereal. As a result of this display of my inherent genius, it was a bit “soupier” than I’d like, but still delectable. I think I am in love with bulgur.

Vanilla yogurt mixed with Puffins, cinnamon, and peaches, because I had to do something with them.  Um, hello?  Why did I not think of this before?!  I loved it!  I tried it with cinnamon applesauce the next day, and it was equally good.  I love discovering things that are so simple that I feel like an idiot for not having thought of it sooner!

I also tried the burgers I bought last week:

Well… they don’t even come close to Tivi Valley.  They had a sort of weird texture that I guess some would describe as “rubbery.”  Ordinarily, I wouldn’t mind it… it’s just that when I compare them to their predecessors, well, it makes me sad!!  They are incredibly filling, though.  (16g of protein; I like that.)

Because Elise wouldn’t try this , I finally did!!

Roasted pineapple!  Probably should have roasted longer, but, what can I say, I ran out of time… roasting just brought out the sweetness, really.  And it was warm.  I have no idea what would have happened if I’d let it cool, because I ate it all before it got to that point.  Sorry!

Google Reader is getting scarier by the moment, so I think I will attempt to tackle it now… enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Acting As If

There is a Yiddish expression that translates into, “Think good and it will be good.”  While it’s never really worked for me, I still grew up with it, and that’s just about the only thing that is left when everything just seems so… blue.  That’s why I am going to pretend that I am not enormously stressed out, overwhelmed, depressed, whatever, etc.  Maybe if I think I’m not, I really won’t be.

However, before I get to the part of this post in which I begin ignoring that, I just have to say that it is very late, so excuse my incoherence; I got back from my nutritionist appointment not long ago.  I am annoyed — I lost .2 lb.  Yes, .2.  And for that, because my nutritionist is convinced that the thyroid medication is making me lose weight, I was gifted with an increase of epic proportions.  Are you kidding me?!  So off I went to the supermarket (I was never someone who freaked / stressed out in supermarkets, and it is annoying when that happens now… but I got another turnip!)… after which I tried to go to another supermarket to buy diet Snapple because it was on sale there, but I have no sense of direction and I got so totally lost.  And now (since this paragraph was inserted after I took care of what comes below), I am thinking that I should have made my lunch for tomorrow, but since I didn’t want to think about sandwiches of any sort, I didn’t, and now I just want to go to sleep.  Did this extremely run-on paragraph make any sense?!  Well, too bad… I’m too tired to proofread.  On to the “acting as if” …

A couple of salads from the past few days.

The baby peppers were starting to turn, and so I needed to finish those up. Pardon the massive pile. With broccoli, tofu baked / roasted in seasoned salt, and romaine (yeah, it’s under there somewhere).  This was actually a really good salad.  It’s just a pity I was in such a mood that I couldn’t even appreciate that.

Romaine, alfalfa sprouts, carrot chips, Lightlife chick’n strips, and homemade cinnamon croutons.  Like the true genius that I am, I completely forgot the chick’n strips at first, and the whole point of this salad was to finish the open package!  It looked prettier without the anti-sogginess baggies:

Speaking of the chick’n strips…

I made chicken tandoori!! Well, not really; I used the same “chicken” as in the above salad. And I used the soy yogurt which I bought last week.  That was more along the lines with what I had in mind for it!  This was paired with steamed brown rice and steamed broccoli stir-fry vegetables.  I have no idea whether this is what real chicken tandoori tastes like, but I suppose it makes no difference, since I’m never going to taste the real thing in any case.

I never really venture near Whole Foods’ freezer, since I can’t have the majority of the things in there anyway. Not to mention the fact that I don’t have a freezer at work, unless you count this communal one, which obviously needs a major defrosting.

It worked okay for me, though, I guess.  Because I saw these in Whole Foods, and I just had to buy them, considering what happened to the line of veggie burgers / chicken patties I loved!

I bought the burgers too, but I tried this one first.  (Burgers … buns …. kind of “sandwichy” … get it?  Agh.)

It was… interesting.  I wouldn’t say it tasted quite like chicken, but it wasn’t bad.  The only problem is that if you don’t eat it pretty quickly, it gets kind of crispy.  Not that that’s a bad thing, necessarily.  There are three heating methods written on the box, and of course I used the microwave!  Maybe I’ll try the oven or my Foreman next time.

Two mini product reviews:

Whole Foods 365 Organic Honey Crunch & Oats — honestly, I think I’ll stick with the Peanut Butter Pows! These just tasted like sweetened corn flakes.  In the whole bowl, I found exactly one cluster of … honey crunch and oats?  Whatever it is.  It didn’t taste bad, it just wasn’t anything spectacular.

Yogi Baked Cinnamon Raisin Granola Crisps — I have now tried all three flavors of this, and I think my favorite is the mountain blueberry flax. There was barely any cinnamon flavor to this; there was, however, a very strong raisin flavor!  Which doesn’t work for me, since I pretty much hate raisins.

And this isn’t really a review at all, but I think I’ve given up on the whole Starbucks experiment… it’s confirmed, I don’t like coffee!  So, at Ellie’s recommendation, I tried the chai tea.

Not that I’m going to be purchasing this on a regular basis, since I could buy an entire box of tea bags for the price of this little cup; but I was pleasantly surprised that I actually kind of liked this.  The caffeine didn’t hurt, either — West Coast games kill me.

And on that note, I am newly reminded of all of the things I need to do and have not done.  Cue freakout, which is my exit.  Have a wonderful Thursday… the week is almost out!