I Walk In This World

Blog Friends. 

Well.  Today has been a doozey at work.  I don’t get into it on my fun food blog, so I’ll just let y’all know that when work is crazed and you want to scream , go get a pedicure on your lunch break.  It’ll melt that stress away.

The hot stone massage on my legs is particularly nice!!

See ma toesies…

Tuesday night Din was fabaluss…

• a bowl of homemade sweet potato bisque (with chicken, white beans, extra sweet taters)
• a side of breaded and baked zuke slices
• a pile o whole grain toast
• a spoon
• a glass of water
• a side of Seinfeld on TBS

This was a VERY good bowl of comfort on a gray, cloudy, rainy night.

My gym is still mondo hot, which annoys me.  Like.  A lot alot.  I only did 20 minutes Level 10 on the elliptical before giving up and coming back home to do arm weights and walking pushups in the living room.

  Workityworkworkwork. 

Lunch was Heee-UUUGEEE.  I am experimenting with higher calorie versus lower calorie lunches to keep my metabolism on its funky toes.

• whole wheat wrap with turkey, cheese, garlic hummus, avocado smash, spinach, tomato
• tossed salad with basalmic
• sliced peaches

I was stuffed and shoulda just eaten half of that wrap.

Breks was a smoothie cuz what else do I ever eat?  Instead, let’s focus on the message in the background…

It’s pretty good right.  That Ghandi…he was pretty dang smart.

Hey.  Quick question.  Do I have any PA readers?  If so, shoot me an email or drop me a line to say hi and let me know where in PA you are.  My home state has to reprizent!

 Woah holy flooding river right across from my home!!

But first, last night’s dinner.  The in-laws are visiting, and Hubz requested that we go to our neighborhood TGIFridays for a fun dinner out.  And it WAS fun!  They actually have a very good menu, so long as you put health and nutritionals away for the evening, lol.

I got the Sante Fe chopped salad (romaine + olives + black beans + corn + tortilla strips + chicken) with the chipotle ranch dressing on the side.  I only used about 1 T of that for the whole salad.  It was good it didn’t need much dressing. 

Oh yeah.  You see those fries back there?  I snarfed ‘em all.  Just shooting for some healthy + unhealthy feng shui.  I also had that Blue Moon up there. 

My MIL is an excellent maker-of-desserts, and she brought this blueberry graham cracker creamy dessert to our house for the weekend.  It’s one of my faves, so I indulged in that bit you see there.  Yum!

 Now.  About the Roaring Rivers.  We got torrentially bad storms mid-day yesterday.  I am not sure how much rain we got, but it was enough to raise the river (across the street from our home) SIX feet and crest at its bank.  In stream ecology terminology, this is called a Bankfull Flood.  It normally happens during storm events that only occur once every hundred years or so (statistically, based on the amount of rain those storms generate).

Woah.  Who’s bored of science already??

Pics of the River!

 Nutty, right?

Look, Hillary is really intrigued.  In fact, I don’t think she even can see the river from her vantage point.  Poor short-legged little doggy…

The inlaws checking things out (and lovin on Hilly dawg).

They pointed out a bunch of wild blackberries.  They told us they’d likely be ripe for our picking by Wednesday!  I’ll report back later in the week to let you know if they’re right. 

Wet toes from tromping across the squishy wet field to see the river.

During the ugly weather, we compensated by having a lovely lunch!  Crockpot potato leek soup with broccoli, white beans, and chicken.  Served with toasty whole grain bread and a bowl o cheeries and grapies.

 Delicioso.

We had friends over for a typical NJ bagel breakfast.  Look at all those mahvaluss carbs!

I got a cinnamon raisin, toasted that beast, smeared it with a little butter, and ate it very very slowly, savoring each bite!

And with that, I leave you, for today, with this gloriousness…

Um.  She’s sitting on his shoulder.  What IS she doing??!!  LOLOL!!

Evenin peeps.

I need to chillax, a bit of a stressful day here at IWITW.  Without further adieu…

Dinner!  Yesterday I sauteed all of these TJs Organic Free Range Chicken tenders, which, you’ll note, were also sustainably farmed and raised without antibiotics.  This is an indicator that the chickens are, in fact, free range.  Antibiotics are administered, preemptively to birds to ward off the horrid diseases they can contract from massive over crowding in wire battery cages in a traditional chicken processing plant.  Free range birds, not subject to overcrowding (and the horrific treatment that goes along with that….crowded birds become mean to each other and I will let you envision the rest), don’t need antibiotics to be healthy.  Also, don’t be fooled by labels that say “raised without hormones, or hormone free.”  The use of hormones in raising chickens has been banned since the 1950s.  But these producers are smart and know that this phrase makes people feel “good” about the chicken they’re buying.  Don’t fall for it!  Just a little bit of Ethical Eating trivia for today.  I’ve created an Ethical Eating page up there at the top, where I’ll be posting my thoughts and snippets of info for y’all. 

About 2 of those tenders went into making my latest crockpot wonder…Cashew Carrot soup with chicken, white beans, wild rice, broccoli, and sweet taters.  Served with a side of locally baked whole wheat bastone with buttah.  Look at this bowl of delish!

Oh, I forgot.  I got my rings back on Saturday!  I had them at the jeweler (for 2 weeks *cry*) to get re-rhodium plated and cleaned and checked for damage. 

A little Hilly-Hubz wrestling goin down.  Who says little dogs aren’t tough?

So, the blog title.  At the store tonight, I found this FreeBird chicken.  You can read the label, like I did, and see what you think.  I need to do some more research about this company before I give them a good ranking from IWITW regarding Ethical Eating.  I am hopeful they’re legit…but I need to check it out.  Will get back to you.  Or, let me know if you know anything about this company!

A little pre-workout snack.  I had a GENerous handful.  At the gym I ran for 30mins on the treadmill.  I was a hawt mess afta, but man, I continue to be supa psyched at how long I’m now able to run!

Lunch.  Today was my boss’ birthday, so there was a lovely homemade cake to celebrate.  I couldn’t *not* enjoy with everyone else.  :)  Plus, I’m a sucker for homemade cake.  Store cakes get the heave ho, but homemade puts a smile on my face.  And ya know what, it was REALLY good!

• ham + American + lettuce on run-of-the-mill whole wheat
• organic sliced carrot
• cherries
• CAKE

I’ll leave you with a pic I snapped of the bag of farmers market goodies I took to my sister in Philly on Saturday.  This bag cost me $4 and contained that yellow squash, 2 Jersey maters, and 4 ears of corn. 

There are definitely farmers market perks to living in the Garden State, that’s fo sho.

Nite people!

 Good morning blog friends!

I’ve got an enormously busy day today and a super SUPER fun surprise I hope to get to share with you guys in the next few days.  It has to do with my work and it may or may not involve a helicopter!!

Sunday was a Funday in the IWITW (um, that’s the acronym for my blog name apparently) household.  Hubz and I bid my sista farewell and then got some cleaning and paperwork done.  Did a big grocery shop (but still stayed under $100) and then spent the afternoon with Hubz’ brother Darren.  And of course I didn’t snap any pics.  Stupid Erin.  I won’t get started on how much I hate Sunday nights, but the day was fun.

We did share some fun Sunday night brick oven pizza.  The boys ate pizza.  I ate a ginorm salad with a side of pizza.  I ate this, plus 1 more slice and was very content to stop there.  And a glass or 2 of a pleasant New Zealand sauvignon blanc. 

• spinach and green leaf salad
• shredded carrot
• chopped cherry maters
• cuke
• shredded lf cheddar
• 3 hummus flava’d Dr. Krackers crackers
• tossed with my new fabulous homemade honey dijon dressing!

There may have been some camera shy Ben and Jerry’s Coffee Heath bar  to round out the evening while we watched West Wing (thebestshowever) on DVD. 

I spent mucho of the afternoon reading your blogs and enjoying the weather.  So even if I didn’t comment, I promise I did read!

There may have been a solid 40mins where I could have been found at the pool, solo, with my book and the sunshine.     Pure alone time heaven!

Lunch.

•  crockpot cauliflower and white bean poblano corn soup with HOT sauce
• carrot sticks
• toasty piece of whole grain panini with buttah

I swear.  The teeniest smidge of butter on toasty whole grain bread is one of my absolute favorite things to eat.  Real butter makes all the difference.  And just a smidge is all I need.  Yumz.

I made egg sams for Breks for Hubz and Sis before she had to jet back to Philly.

• half an egg fried in canola with mixed peppers, onions, and mushrooms
• whole wheat english muffin smeared with LC cheese
• HOT sauce
• COFFEE! 

OK, Erin has NO time to dilly dally…work demands my focus.

Ciao!