February 7, 2012 - Loving Morning Workouts

Workout

Mike and I woke up early together and went to the gym. I ended up doing an interval run and went 2.61 miles. Then I did some ab work for 15 minutes. I absolutely am loving morning workouts now. Who would have guessed? Not me.

Breakfast

For breakfast I had some walnut and raisin bread with a greek yogurt. The pineapple chobani is seriously heaven. 

Lunch
For lunch I ended up just getting a veggie sandwich from Jimmy Johns. I am already obsessed with this sandwich.

Dinner
For dinner I ended up eating some gnochhi and a bowl full of steamed broccoli. The sauce I used in the gnocchi was just some le madeline tomato soup, with some grilled onions, some bacon, and some cheese on top. Not my favorite creation, but pretty tasty.

February 6, 2012 - Exhausted

Breakfast

Yes, that is yogurt. It is back in my life. 

Snack
Then some kix cereal I brought to work a previous day but forgot to eat.

Lunch
I love having chili leftovers, especially when I have leftover cornbread. This was a marvelous lunch.

Snack
Is it bad I was eating a string cheese and cheez its? Probably gross at least. I did feel gross after eating it.

Workout
After work I met up with my friend Lindsay for BodyJam. The class was one of the hardest classes I have taken. I was actually sweaty and sore after. It was great.

Dinner
I was exhausted once I got home. Work has been absolutely intense (far more than usual) and on top of that I have been emotionally exhausted, as one would suspect given the circumstances. I ended up just eating cereal for dinner because it required zero effort.

February 5, 2012 - Great Choice

Breakfast

Mike bought an amazing loaf of bread from the farmer's market. It had walnuts and raisins in it. He decided to use it for french toast. 

And oh was that a great choice. Mmm. It was spectacular.

Lunch
For lunch we all went to the Alamo Drafthouse and watched The Artist. While there I ate the Asian "chicken" wrap. I of course did not eat chicken. I had them replace it with tofu. It was a great substitution, and I love that they offer that as an option.  The movie also ended up being great, even though I thought it was going to be horrible. Worked out nicely.


Dinner
I spent a lot of the morning/afternoon prepping for this meal. I made a 4 bean chili with jalapeno sausage and a lot of veggies. I served it with some cheese and fritos and of course cornbread. It was heavenly. I ended up even getting a hug for how good it was. Yay.

February 4, 2012 - Red Snapper

Breakfast

I had plans to go to a Texas State MBA info session and needed a decent breakfast to stay alert. An egg it was. It did the job. 

I am thinking about getting my MBA right now, and think now is the best time to get started. I keep getting a lot of people trying to question it, but I am pretty sure I am going to have to get one anyway at some point so why not start now? I would prefer to go to UT Austin, but Texas State is more economical, and I have much higher chances of getting in. Have any of you gotten an MBA? What do you think about it?

Lunch
On my way home from the info session I stopped by MT Market and then picked up a tofu bahn mi sandwich from a place right next to it. It was so amazing.

Right after lunch my father in law and brother in law got to our house. They were planning on spending the weekend with us. Once they got there we took them for lunch at a food trailer on east 6th. We then went to Quality Seafood Market to pick up some fish. Mike and I really wanted to test out our new oven with a whole fish. We picked up a red snapper.

Dinner
Once we got around to making dinner, we stuffed it with some garlic, onions, lemon, parsley and dill.

We cooked it so it was crispy on the outside and tender on the inside.

We served it on the table whole, and then we all just dug in and put it on our own plates through out the meal. This is how you eat it in Brazil, and possibly other places? Do you know?

We served it with rice and some beets.

As a group of 4 we demolished it. It was really delicious and perfectly cooked. Hat's off to Mike for this wonderful meal.

We ended up ending the night with some leftover carrot cake. Mmm. This carrot cake is so good too. Mmm.

February 3, 2012 - Not As Good As I Imagined

Breakfast

Work provided breakfast so I had some. I ate about half of a sausage breakfast sandwich. Not as good as I imagined it would be. 

Lunch
For lunch I ended up getting a sandwich from Jimmy John's. It was my first time eating there and I fell in love with their veggie sandwich.

Dinner

After work Mike and I made some grilled salmon, kale chips and rice. We spent dinner watching television, but the rest of the night was spent cleaning the house. We were having guests over the next day, so we definitely needed to tidy up. 

February 2, 2012 - Breakfast Crepe

Workout

I started the day off with a Nike Trainer Club workout while watching The Lying Game. Yes, I do have guilty pleasure television shows.

Breakfast

Since we had already made crepe batter in the house I knew I had to have one for breakfast. I made one and added some cheese and ham. Holy delicious.

Snack

Lunch
For lunch I had a packed sandwich from the day before. Worked out pretty perfect. It was just a veggie basil, tomato, mozzarella sandwich.

Dinner
After work I met up with a few friends for a UVA meet up. I didn't go there, but several of my friends did, and I was invited to learn about the economics of craft beer and enjoy some tasty NXNW food. It was a lovely night, I was really glad I went. I ended up just eating a few of their appetizers for dinner. They were quite tasty and quite garlicky.

February 1, 2012 - Crepe Surprise

Breakfast

I ended up having some cereal for breakfast.

Lunch at Spicy Pickle
Although I spent my most of my morning at a career fair to recruit interns, I was able to come back to work with a sandwich waiting for me. Lunch was catered by work. I ended up eating a veggie sandwich and some chips. Delicious.

Dinner
For dinner I had some green beans.

And then some leftover lasagna.

Later Mike got home and made crepes. I ended up having one with nutella.

A friend was over to bring us some sympathy beer and cake. It was perfect. We had a good time catching up. Although we ended up eating the cake on a later date. The cake though was a carrot cake and it was delicious. Mmmm.

January 31, 2012 - Training, Taco Deli & Peanut Curry

Breakfast

We had breakfast brought to us from my boss because of more training. I had 1.5 kolaches.

Lunch at Taco Deli
After training a few of us went out to Taco Deli, my favorite lunch spot in Austin hands down. Mmm this amazing taco just fills me with joy.

The Beautiful New Stove
Mike and I got a new stove recently and I wanted to show you. It has 5 burners, including an oval shaped one in the center for cooking things like fish or making pancakes on a griddle. Amazing.

Dinner
Although I have a new pretty stove I ended up some leftover peanut curry soup. I ate the rest of it and am sad. I want to make more of this stat.

January 30, 2012 - Comfort

Breakfast

We had no food in our fridge that sounded good for breakfast so I just had a pb & j bagel at work. 

Lunch
We had plans for some training at work so they ended up buying us lunch. I got a sandwich from Jason's Deli.

And a cookie.  It was good, but I regretted eating it because I definitely did not need that entire cookie.

Dinner
After work I went to the grocery store to pick up a few basics, then I went over to my friend Lindsay's house who had made Mike and I some delicious biscotti. It was really nice seeing her and having her comfort in hug and cookie form.

For dinner I ended up just eating cereal. I wasn't really in the mood to cook.

January 29, 2012 - The Egg & I

Breakfast at The Egg & I

I ended up waking up and taking my father to the airport. He came out to help support the family. It was really nice to see him and I was really glad that he was able to meet Diva at Christmas. After the airport we went to brunch with Dean and the Iowa Family. I had never heard of this place before but Dean said that him and Diva went there before. I got the french toast special, which was essentially eggs and sausage between french toast. I ended up eating half of this. I wanted to eat more because it was so delicious, but regretted even eating half of it because I was beyond full after.

Although not the best picture, here is proof of the bird again the next day.

Dinner

Later that day we met up with some of Dean's extended family in Houston for a family dinner. They do a family dinner ever single weekend and I love it. I have always wanted to have something like that.  Perhaps someday we can. 

They were serving make your own fajitas. This was a spectacular dinner, especially with those jalapeno poppers. Mmm.

The whole family shared even more stories about Diva, and how she affected each and everyone of them, and how she even helped several of their friends. It was a very therapeutic dinner.

After the dinner, Mike and I headed back to Austin for a long yet mostly uneventful drive home. We did end up hitting something on the side of the road, but no flat tire this time. We were paranoid though and stopped and made sure.

January 28, 2012 - The Funeral

Breakfast

We started our morning off with a tasty breakfast. Look how perfect that egg was cooked? Definitely not by me. Mike and I keep talking about how one cooks an egg so well. haha.

Early that morning we saw this bird in the tree. We thought it was so strange because this is not a bird one normally sees in a backyard. We spent a lot of the morning trying to figure it out. We finally did, but I somehow forgot the name. I liked to call it the penguin bird.  We kept talking about how it mus be Diva watching in on us. The funnier thing is that this bird stayed at the house off and on in the same spot for several days after and might still be there. With this, we definitely just thought of it as Diva watching over us.

We also spent some of the morning trying to take cute photos of the dogs.

Lunch was another sandwich and salad.

The Funeral
The funeral ended up being uplifting as well, similar to the viewing. One of Diva's closest friends and boss spoke about her and told really great stories that represented her very well. After the funeral we went to a reception after and spent the time sharing fun stories about Diva.

Dinner
Once the funeral was officially over we went back home and talked with close friends and family until late in the night. We ended up eating a lot of crackers and then getting some pizza, from the the place that Diva loved. We continued to share stories about Diva, honoring her in the only way we knew we could at the time.

January 27, 2012 - The Viewing

Breakfast

One benefit of staying at La Quinta, despite having to sneak our dogs in, was that they served us a pretty great breakfast. I ended up getting the blueberry texas shaped waffle with some pecans. How obnoxious were these Texas waffles? I love how much  Texans love Texas. It makes me smile. 

Lunch
Once we got the tires fixed, and finished our journey to Dean's place we were able to get some lunch in us. We ended up showing up just in time for sandwiches. Dean's family from Iowa was there which was really nice. We hadn't seen them in awhile and they are amazing people. It was nice to have them there to support the family and make everything a bit better.

Dinner
We ended up eating an early dinner, because we were headed to the Viewing for Diva. I had some meatloaf that was pretty fantastic, and some salad and green beans.

The Viewing
The viewing was actually much better than I thought it would be. It was mostly just family and friends gathering and telling amazing stories about Diva and celebrating her life. Mike and I ended up smiling most of the time with all the great stories we were told. After each story, Mike and I kept commenting about how we had no idea how Diva made so much time to touch so many people's lives. It was a great tribute to her and made us all feel really happy that with such a short life, she was able to make so much out of it. It was inspiring.