Woohoo! Pictures!

This post was not intentionally delayed. I did, in fact, have legit reasons...those reasons being a) I spent all of yesterday shopping and eating and bike repairing and packing and b) I now have a camera cord!

So I'll here's a recap of yesterday:

Breakfast was my "usual" of the week, which means Voskos honey-vanilla bean Greek yogurt with honey puffed wheat cereal

(I didn't take a picture but imagine a creamy, yogurt-y, carbohydrate-y breakfast of goodness)

Lunch was. absolutely. positively. yum. Every time I come up to the frigid north to visit my parents, my mom and I have a tradition of visiting Cosi, which I suppose you could just call an "upscale sandwich shop" but I love it.

My usual order is the roasted turkey and brie sandwich (which is to die for) but this time I opted for the TBM (tomato, basil, and mozzarella with vinaigrette) and a side Signature salad (mixed greens, pistachios, slices of grapes, gorgonzola, cranberries, and sherry shallot vinaigrette). I'm not so much a Rachael Ray fan, but it was yum-o.

After a long day of shopping (and I mean looooooooooooooooong; but I made out with some great new workout loot and a sundress from J. Crew!), the 'rents took me out to Olive Garden where I had the obligatory salad and deliciouso breadsticks followed by quite possibly the best Olive Garden pasta I have ever tasted: I had the Linguini di Mare, which was linguini with mussels, shrimp, and clams all tossed in an arrabiata sauce (fancy word for spicy marinara). Soooooooo goooooood.

My plate of clam and mussel shells:

I don't have any pictures from today, what with all the crazy airport traveling and realizing too late that my camera was buried at the bottom of my carry-on, but I will be back apres-dinner for an update!

Ahhhh...leaving my family is always sad but it's so nice to be home.

I love eating

Dinner was spectacular; my appetite is nearly back at it's full fledged annoyingness (yep, I'm one of those people who feels like she's hungry every 30 seconds) and although I could not 100% taste what I was putting into my mouth, I'm 99.9999% sure it was delicious because my dad is an *excellent* cook.

He marinated a T-bone steak (for him) and a sirloin steak (for us girls) in a garlic-olive oil-pepper marinade and even put little chunks of fresh garlic into slits that were cut into the steak. I'm an absolute garlic lover (hmmm...could that be why I'm boyfriendless?!) so I was head over heels for this steak-y goodness. The smell had me drooling.

To accompany my garlicky sirloin, I had a decent sized helping of mashed potatoes with lots of freshly ground pepper and a skewer of grilled red and green peppers.

Yum, yum, yum. I'm really wishing I had a way to get pictures on my computer right about now :(

A little laugh and lunch (!!!)

Since I'm stuck on the couch with nothing productive to do, I've been browsing the blogosphere and I happened upon Vanilla and his mini collection of funny videos. And I just could. not. resist. putting this video up on my blog because a) I heart Lance Armstrong and b) I'm currently training for a triathlon, with swimming being my weakest sport, so the little cracks during the end "interview" were that much funnier for me.

Just watch!



And....I was hungry for lunch! That's two meals in a row! I think I may have just broken a record for number of meals eaten in a row this week. I had a hunk of sharp cheddar cheese with pepper, an overeasy fried egg on wheat toast, and salad with balsamic vinaigrette. My salad was pretty gosh-darn boring but the kalamata olives made it that much better. Mmm, kalamata olives.

See y'all for dinner ;)

Newsflash!

I actually ate (and was hungry for) a real-like breakfast this morning! That's a sign that I'm getting better! Of course I still feel slightly horrible and I still resemble death, but I'll take any improvements I can get. Colds are so irritating.

But I digress. I actually ate this morning! Of course I'm still camera cord-less so here's a pictureless recap:

Breakfast was Voskos honey-vanilla bean yogurt with a handful of honey puffed wheat cereal and a nice glassful (as opposed to the beer mugful) of orange juice.

Before this morning I had never tried Voskos, and I was a bit put off by the liquid I had to pour off the top before eating, but I was more than pleasantly surprised. Voskos is not quite as thick as Greek yogurts such as Fage, but the flavor has a bit more "bite" while still being creamy; since I had the honey-vanilla bean flavor, I was worried that the sugary sweetness would be overpowering but found that it wasn't overly sweet at all. That may come from the fact that my nose is super stuffy and I can't taste everything 100% truly at the moment, but I was not disappointed by Voskos Greek yogurt.

Food Swings

Instead of mood swings, I'm having food swings; one minute I'm starving and the next minute I'm repulsed by the idea of eating. I did manage to groggily make it to Whole Foods, however, and stocked up on some "necessary" eats:

• Key Lime Pie & Coconut Cream Pie Larabars
• Cold Season Yogi tea
• Amy's Fire roasted Southwestern veggie & Thai coconut soups
• Fresh okra
• Endangered Species dark chocolate squares
• Dried ginger
• Dried papaya
• Voskos Honey Greek Yogurt

I've only ever had a few of these items so there will be product reviews to come!

Dinner tonight (when my appetite once again resurfaced for an hour) consisted of a huge plateful of okra in a olive oil/tomato paste "sauce", a huge hunk of crusty wheat ciabatta, and some extra sharp cheddar.

Now I'm taking my post on the couch, finishing up the Top Chef marathon, and drinking tea & orange juice like it's my job. I'm crossing my fingers that I'll feel at least slightly better tomorrow!

Still sick and craving chocolate

Unfortunately, I found myself still sick upon waking this morning; my fever and aches have turned into congestion and extraordinarily gross sounding coughs and I'm not quite sure which one is worse. I'm fairly sure I'd rather have neither considering my breakfast has consisted of a bite of homemade wheat bread with natural peanut butter, two squares of Hershey's Special Dark chocolate, more Red Rose tea with splashes of milk and two gargantuan beer mugs full of Tropicana orange juice.

My appetite has slightly returned (not quite with the vengeance it did last night) but the idea of eating anything is annoyingly unappealing. Except for more chocolate, thanks to Cowgirl Chocolate and Dagoba.

Dagoba has me wanting to run to Whole Foods just to load up on chocolate...which is something I just may do if I ever stop feeling like death run over...

(Also, check out Quaker True Delights. You can get a *free sample* of their dark chocolate raspberry almond bars!)

Sick as a dog

I've somehow found myself confined to the couch and watching Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern on this St. Patrick's Day. I was feeling the aches and coughs this morning but took a Mucinex and kept hoping that it was simply allergies and not some strange flu-like bug. Unfortunately, I was not so lucky.

My appetite was nearly nil throughout the entire day; I munched on whole wheat Fig Newtons and sweetened dried cranberries and downed more Red Rose tea with milk than I care to think about. I know that when I don't feel like eating something has to be wrong since I usually have an active appetite!

Thankfully my desire for food came back for dinner and I ate like a champ. My dad and I went to the local pizza shop where I had approximately 1/3 (slightly more) of a HUGE calzone with mozzarella, ricotta, spinach, tomatoes, and marinara. I also chomped on some Greek salad with vinaigrette dressing.

Needless to say, however, I had to skip my planned swim. I definitely was not in any physical or mental condition to hop into a cold pool and swim laps for 45 minutes! But I'm crossing my fingers that I'll be able to hop on the bike and enjoy the warm-ish weather tomorrow. If not, I'll be slightly disappointed but being healthy is far more important than getting ahead in my training.

Oh, and I'm hungry again! Woohoo!