Recipe Stumped: Day 2

The thing about this challenge is that it is easy for breakfast, somewhat easy for lunch and impossible for afternoon and dinner. I really have no problem eating green smoothies for breakfast. I make them the night before (today's was strawberries, blueberries, mango (which I won't eat again cause it is hairy), pear and spinach in it) and scarf them down quickly. I had grapes for my mid-morning snack and hit up the salad bar at Hen House for my lunch. There sure are some things that I love that can't be on my salad these days, like cheese, boiled eggs and croutons, but I made it through.
After work was WAY harder. I had unsalted peanuts for mid-afternoon snack, but had to bust out the celery and peanut butter directly after work because I wanted crackers or bread so much. I resisted though and managed to make it to dinner. I did have to pop open a bottle of wine, partly because today was stressful, and partly because I was hungry and needed something to do. Not a great reason, I know, but I started from the beginning saying my cheat was going to be wine.
I was having quite a time deciding what to make for dinner. I really wanted something with black beans which is totally random because I never crave black beans, but I ended up making a red and white bean soup with the veggies and spices in my parents' house. I would have loved a piece of bread with my soup, but had to settle for sliced tomatoes instead. A healthier option to be sure. I did have a piece of cheese before bed. Somehow the block has to get eaten so it doesn't go to waste.
 I made it through day 2 after some serious doubts on whether I'd be able to do this. Can only take it one day at a time.

Eat to Live: day 1

A few people I work with bought a book last week: Eat to Live. There is a much longer and fancier title, but the gist of it is how to eat healthy and lose weight. After much hubub, these colleagues decided they were going to do this "eating plan". Ok, for real, it's a diet, but supposedly leads to a lifestyle change instead of just a temporary diet.
The initial plan is for 42 days and the food one can eat consists of vegetables, fruit, nuts and beans. In other words, not much. I decided that I would take this challenge with my colleagues, and decided against buying the book because I have read enough about not eating animal products and dairy to know that it isn't the healthiest way to live. My mom decided her and my dad were going to try the diet change too, so this past weekend we did what we could to eat meals that we would miss while on the challenge.
Saturday I had a burger, Sunday lasagna and apple pie. We went grocery shopping and only went to the produce department and the bean aisle. My house is sufficiently stocked. Except I had tuna and white bean salad in the fridge and a block of cheese.
We started the challenge today, but I didn't officially start, and won't, until the tuna and cheese are gone. Probably by the end of the week. I decided not to waste food, but won't buy any more dairy until after the 42 days.
This morning for breakfast, after the chest and back P90X workout, I had a green "popeye" smoothie with strawberries, blueberries, a banana and spinach. Yum.
Lunch I didn't really think was going to be difficult until a retailer decided to take a co-worker and I to Chili's. Let me just help you understand that Chili's is not a place to go if one does not eat meat or fish. There were two options. I was going to get fire roasted corn guacamole with a side of black beans, but they couldn't take the jalepenos out of the guac, so I got a salad with a bunch of fruit on it. Not exciting, but pretty tasty. The biggest problem though was after lunch. I was starving.
I had to eat some unsalted peanuts at my desk to hold of my stomach eating itself, and one of the other women came by with a sliced up apple to help. This is gonna be rough.
Dinner was the tuna and white bean salad.
After golf I came home and had two slices of cheese and a bowl of peas. The biggest challenge of this whole things is that I think about food for a living. We'll see how it goes. I'm going to try and blog everyday about what I eat. I hope this will keep me accountable and chronicle the challenge for anyone interested.

Perks of the Job

One of the perks of my job (there aren't a ton), is random tickets to Royals games. On Friday, the group sales manager brought me tickets to today's game against the Yankees. I called the only Yankee fan I know to see if he wanted to go to the game, but he couldn't because he already had two family events planned. Today is my parents' 34th wedding anniversary, and they decided they didn't want to go, so I invited some friends. Going to a game with these tickets is only slightly different than going and having to buy tickets. We got a parking pass and didn't get in the park til the top of the 2nd, but since it had poured rain this morning, the weather wasn't as hot as it was yesterday. We took our seats and admired the view. Not too shabby at all. The beers were still $9.50, but after settling in under cloudy skies, we only had to deal with a bit of hot sun. Sadly, we also had to deal with a 10-4 Yankees win, but that didn't diminish the fun had.

Blogging

I'm having issues blogging, both for my personal blog and the one I have to write for Advertising Week. I have lots of topics, just seems like a monumental task to me right now and I don't want to sit down and do it. For the Ad Week ones I even have outlines of the blogs, but I need some essential Kansas City pictures for one of them and I haven't gone out and taken them. I'm in a funk. I'll try to snap out of it here soon.

Back to travel

On Thursday of last week I received a call from a sales rep in Alabama asking me if it was possible for me to fly to middle-of-nowhere Alabama on Tuesday (yes, 5 days from the current day) to give a 30 minute presentation. You read that correctly. I asked the bosses if that was indeed how they wanted me to spend 2 days and approximately $1200. They agreed that the account was big enough and the time would be well spent. The planning commenced. Now let me just say here, that after almost 4 years of traveling multiple times a week, it is REALLY hard for me to just send my travel details off to someone to plan for me. The first email to the travel girl looked something like this.

Kate -; I need to be in Geneva, AL at 8am Monday morning.

the second email looked approximately something like this:

I'd like to fly on March 12 at 10:45am out of MCI to Fort Walton Beach, through Atlanta, landing at 5pm. I would like a mid-size rental car, and I found a Hampton Inn in Enterprise, AL where I will stay for the night of March 12. I will fly out of Ft. Walton Beach on March 13 at 1:10pm and arrive back in Kansas City at 7pm. Thanks.

I just do it better myself. Anal? Maybe, but travel is no joke.

Here are some random observations about this trip.

- Florida is HORRIBLE at signing their streets. Alabama did it fantastically well.

- After 7pm in mid-March bugs in Alabama attack vehicles like rain drops.

- Luckily the humidity in mid-March in Alabama is also horrible, so first thing in the morning there is lots of dew on the windshield which has soaked the bugs overnight so that they come off easily with windshield wipers.

- In relation to when I traveled 4 times a week 3 years ago, there are way more healthy options to eat in the airport. Way to get with it people. Still overpriced, but at least they are now available.

- Taking one's own lunch is an even better idea.

- People have to get stupider when they travel. Why stop in the middle of a concourse and talk on your phone or text when 300 people are behind you trying to walk to their gate? Why go to the front of the boarding line when you are in zone 3 and first class is the only zone boarding now? The plane will not leave without you if you are sitting 100 ft away in a seat. Get a grip people.

- I'm not all together convinced that 13 hours on an airplane or in airports, 5 hours driving and 8 hours in a hotel are worth a 30 minute meeting. That is yet to be determined.

I did feel good getting back to traveling. Two days out of the office is great. The new phone that gives me my email on the run is even better.

Fancy Fancy

I manage digital media, yet until last Saturday I didn't have a smartphone. After telling my employer that I most definitely would not just "add" my work contacts to my personal phone and having them scoff at me for weeks for being so unreasonable, I finally convinced them to put up the fee for me to have a phone that they can contact me on at all times*. (*which means when I'm supposed to be working).
So Saturday I went to Sprint and got a shiny new (EXPENSIVE) Galaxy. I've had the phone for almost 5 days and I've added some apps, created a foursquare account, synced up my emails, transferred all my text campaigns to my work phone so every time I get a text message it isn't a dumb store telling me about their special (clarification, none of these stores have specials in my city, thus, they're dumb), and generally got used to the ginormous smart phone that I now carry with me when I'm "working". I'll tell you what, I don't get the hype.
Maybe it is because I spend hours a day on facebook and updating text campaigns and devising fun promotions, but I just don't really give two hoots about having extensive phone access. I know I needed it, so it was about time, but I have probably really used it 3 times. I'm sure I'll adapt as I have it more and try to figure out this app world, but it sure seems like a lot of work to me.

blogging

This blogging thing is taking some getting back into. I started blogging again because I really do like writing. Now that my kitchen remodel is finished and I have my house back and will be spending more time here again, I'm going to try and get back into the blog. I'm not without topics. I seriously think of things to blog about left and right. Sometimes I write the whole blog in my head. In fact, often I'm convinced I have already written a blog, then I come to find out that I haven't blogged in 6 days. I've never had a good memory, but that is getting ridiculous.
I also determined that I need a phone with a camera so that I can have it with me at all times to take snapshots of what I want to blog about. Visual support is so much more entertaining.

I just got distracted by a grocery store commercial on TV. I haven't been to the grocery store for food for my own house in a month. The fridge is really bare. I should stop blogging now.