friday in pictures

My friday in pictures:

wonderful photography skills showcasing my yoga attire =

yoga @ lululemon ann arbor at 10

healthy food shopping =
trader joe's, whole foods, and plum market (plus a little loft and ulta shopping)

trader joe's finds=
so good (please ignore the glorified ritz bits - i'm a bad person)

recent snack/lunch of choice=
bagel or english muffin with melted provolone cheese, fresh michigan tomatoes, and italian seasoning

new runner's world =

FALLING IN LOVE WITH RUNNING AGAIN

plus a swim, dinner and a movie and going out in ann arbor.

an awesome day indeed.

how was your friday?

Things I Love Thursday - 7/20

Things I Lovve Thursday! - 7/20

Jack's Mannequin's - My Racing Thoughts

NEW JACKS SINGLE. Jack's is my favorite band by far, and nothing could make my week like new music. Concert is next month with buster and I am DYING to go. Plus I love the subtle running reference ;)

Chi-town this weekend!

When this is posted, I'll be on my way to Chicago for 3 days! I'm so excited for pizza, lincoln park zoo, shopping, lake michigan and going out! 

Nordstrom's Anniversary Sale

Nordstrom's anniversary sale started last friday and you bet your butt I was there bright and early friday morning. I got my hands on a nordy's debit card (much better idea than a credit card, and they've already pulled money from my account, so no accidental credit card deal like at target), as well as nike tempos, socks, and a michael kors watch that i'm in love with. super awesome.

Long but awesome days at work

At work on Tuesday, I took a 15 minute lunch (usually I get an hour), but there were just so many things to do and so many awesome families and kiddos to interact with that I couldn't tear myself away. Despite the lack of a break, it was one of the best work days ever :)

This smoothie. raspberries, banana, milk, chocolate sun warrior and starbucks via (although next time i'll go with half a pack of via)

And I'm off! :)

Fracture Update

Wednesday morning bright and early I headed to the orthopedist for the month later follow up appointment to the first foot visit.

The first hint of trouble was when I walked in and the receptionist gave me a funny look when I gave her my name. Turns out my appointment was for Thursday at 7AM, not Wednesday. Luckily, they snuck me in (the beauty of 7AM appointments?), and X-ray's #3 occurred.

As soon as the x-rays were up I started feeling anxiety. The fracture was still pretty prominently displayed on the x-ray, despite the reassuring cloud of bone growth. I was preparing myself for the worst, and then my wonderful orthopedist assured me I was right on track. The fracture wasn't going to just disappear, but it was healing accordingly, and then I got the best news I have heard in a long time.

2.5 weeks to my grand return to running. Which is now just 2 weeks. Now grand return just means running half a mile, walking half a mile until I'm 100% pain free. And only working up to running 2 or 3 miles by the end of August. Which doesn't bode well for that non-transferable half marathon I signed up for last MARCH. But we will see how it goes. For now, the countdown to running has begun. 14 days.

Lately I've been doing a bit of thinking about what lead this fracture to occur in the first place. Surely running 13.1 miles. I looked at my daily mile training  record the other day and saw this, and it really all made sense:

See that nice SEVEN miles a week 6 weeks before the half? Or how about that 14 miles 2 weeks before? No wonder I gave myself a stress fracture. Plus toss in some HARD runs, as well as differing surfaces (trails, sidewalk, gravel) and I'm not all that surprised.

To ensure a safe return to running and no re-breaking, I'm going to run in my frees to start out with. I will get back to VFF running, but just not right now. I'm also going to keep up swimming like a champ.

Oh running, watch out. I'm coming back to you.

Why I love my Job

Today I'm going to take the time to blog about work, and why I love it so much.

For those who haven't followed my blog since my oh-so-awkward intro post, I work at C.S. Mott Children's Hospital as part of the Child Life Department. What this really means is that I get to interact with kids all day in a hospital setting, which I think is much different from any other working with children setting.

Regardless, work lately has been wonderful and here's why:

Sparkly Tom's Compliment Count: 7 10 (between Mon+Tues)

(+ One comment that I could be in the wizard of oz with these shoes. Hell yes, I could.)

I can get away with Dora bandaids

I have become a namesign creating master
(these name signs end up in the patients' rooms. Just a way to brighten up the icky hospital rooms)



We make the coolest crafts

Yes, this is pop tabs. and my new favorite jewelry piece.

Is your job as cool as mine? ;)

More Swimming

So swimming is going just swimmingly.

Went to the pool yesterday with the intention of swimming 2000m - the distance required for a sprint tri.  WHOOPSIES. that was a total lie. While wikipedia-ing triathlons, I completely got the distance wrong. A sprint tri is 750m. aka 30 laps. Sprint Tri's involve biking 20 km, so maybe thats where I got this weird misinformation from. 2000m is actually the swimming distance required by a little less than a half ironman. An olympic triathlon is only 1500m. 
There was no way I was swimming 2000m without stopping, so I did it in sets of 10 laps - ten laps breaststroke, 10 laps freestyle, repeat x 8.

I allowed myself to stop and take a breather when necessary and pounded it all out in about 40 minutes.

post swim blackberry photo - looking like a fish

Goal for July? Swim 2000m without stopping. 

Also remaster flip turns just so I look like less of an incompetent swimmer (not that I would need to do flip turns in any sort of triathlon).

Starting now, I'm planning on swimming 4 days a week (Wed-Sat), and biking Monday+Tues with Sunday as a rest day. Fingers crossed that this actually happens.

Also something that has jumped to the top of my to-do list.

sunscreen, oh yes oh yes. that is not pretty

Just Keep Swimming!

So I think I've finally found my running substitute. and unsurprisingly, it is the other sport I've ever competed in (keep in mind this is in middle school, and I'm pretty sure for both sports I was never actually a top competitor, at all).

Could you guess that it's swimming?

actual pool that i swim in, see those lanes??

On Wednesday, I bought my pool tag for the summer (flat rate for unlimited pool access = totally worth it), gathered the swim cap and goggles, and put on the speedo one-pieced that I bought two years ago when I told myself I was going to swim and probably never actually wore. 

First things first.

Swimming is hard. Definitely not as easy to hop right back into as running, but I guess what can I expect 9 years after doing it with any sort of consistency. 

But being in the water was great. Really moving and getting my heart rate up was great. Feeling like I was doing something seriously good for me was great.

I alternated between breast stroke and freestyle. I used to be a badass at backstroke, but I'm scared that with my sorely out of practice arms, I would run into the lanemarkers over and over again, and I didn't want to embarrass myself yet. also have yet to attempt the flip turns, but I'll do it soon.

Today there was part of a swim team there doing some drills, so there was a large glowing digital stopwatch. I used it to time my lengths and found that my 25m free is about 25 seconds, and my 25m breaststroke is about 33. which I'm pretty happy with.

Random things of note:

- I can feel myself using muscles in my foot that haven't been worked in a month. I LOVE IT.

- I seriously need to get my hands on some serious waterproof sunscreen if I want to be without some very sexy tan lines.

- Any hardscore swimmer's out there know if I should invest in some anti-chlorine shampoo even if I always use a swim cap?

- $3 goggles from tj maxx are pretty damn good at keeping out water and allowing me to see all the nasty things at the bottom of the pool.

- Fingers crossed that this will build up my calves again. I was so proud of them when I was running, and lately I've been a little disappointed. 

- At the pool you apparently need to be 18 to swim in lanes. When I was there on Wednesday, I of course am asked to confirm that I am 18. GOOD LORD. do I really look that young??
- The foam roller is totally necessary for swimming as well as running. After these past two swims, I've had weird soreness in my neck (maybe from breathing during freestyle??) as well as random cramping in my calf, which i've had off and on since the fracture. Regardless, I will be foam rolling like a champ today.


I think the addictive personality is shining through on this one. Pool-going has happened Wednesday, yesterday, and will for sure happen today. It's similar to the running thing where as soon as the clothes are on (or the suit in this case), I will go.

So happy I found a sweat-once-a-day activity that I love again!

Do you enjoy swimming? Would you ever consider doing it as a form of cardio?

More Kitchen Adventures

The star of this morning's breakfast was strawberries from the ann arbor farmers market. (seriously, nothing beats farmers market berries).

Also my peanut butter drizzling skills are unmatched.
(don't worry I added another glob of peanut butter prior to eating, but for aesthetics, it was added post-paparazzi)

These oats were just your run of the mill old-fashioned variety cooked in water, but I think next time I need to do some sort of milk. Oatmeal is best when creamy.

Yesterday was my mom's birthday, so I, of course, baked for her. She requested carrot cake, and I found some great recipes before realizing that any sort of baking dish that i owned (i.e., 9x13 dish, 9x9 dish) had been sent home already. Luckily, among the recipes I found was one from the Gourmet Today cookbook for carrot cupcakes. Sold.

Getting recipes from fancy cookbooks and fancy bloggers has lead to a bit more work than just mixing up a batter and popping it in the oven. This one called for toasted walnuts as well as toasted coconut.

The walnut toasting went great - in the oven for ten minutes on 350. perfection.
Coconut? Not so much. The coconut browned much more quickly than expected, and my tiny kitchen didnt leave me a ton of room to let it hang out and cool, so I attempted to immediately pour into the batter bowl.

DISASTER. the 350* baking sheet was heavier than expected and I walked away with 3 burns, and lots of toasted coconut on the floor. frick.

Yay battle wounds.

Regardless, the cupcakes turned out fantastic.

pre-frosting

 I went against the recommended cream cheese molasses frosting and just stuck with the tried and true cream cheese frosting. so delicious.

 This was my first foray into frosting using a simple plastic bag and not my fancy pampered chef icing gun (obviously not the real name).

I think I did okay. 

delicious.

My tuesday night kitchen adventures also included a pretty awesome casserole.

While at work, I realized I had all the ingredients necessary for Iowa Girl Eats' Cheesy Chicken & Broccoli Casserole (found through the always lovely kate.) Again, sold.

This has been the only thing I have wanted to eat lately.

My alterations? Horizon organic shredded cheddar for the sauce, TJ's shredded pepperjack on top, and no green onions, just because I didn't have any.

Baking

So the baking.

The biggest baking successes of the weekend were the two things I made on Saturday, totally randomly.

The first is Joy the Baker's browned butter blueberry muffins.

I was at the farmers market Saturday morning and came across fresh blueberries and just knew it was blueberry muffin time.

Now since Joy is a fancypants baker, this recipe required browning butter. I was feeling very apprehensive about this, but browned the butter anyway and while I'm not sure how much it contributed to the deliciousness of the muffins, they were delicious, so I'm not changing anything.



beautiful blueberries

pre-baking

so much potential

Since I followed the recipe pretty exactly (minus 1% milk for the whole milk), I'll just link you to Joy.

yum

yum

and yum

My other great success (please say like Borat) was Gina's Coconut Chocolate Chip Crispies.

I just completely randomly had all the ingredients and it sounded fantastic, so I made it.

SO GLAD THAT I DID. this is going to be my go to make-in-ten snack from now on.

Gina's recipe is pretty flexible, so my variations were: sunflower seed butter as the nut butter, and white chocolate chips in addition to regular chocolate chips.

On Friday I made Bethenny's oatmeal raisin cookies, and they were just not great. I didn't feel like they had a ton of flavor, and I didn't really enjoy them.

I also made banana chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, which were good.

This was Tina's Recipe.

So baking baking all day. I can't complain.

Also, any suggestions on the blog title are VERY appreciated!

Preview of the Baking Extravaganza

I've been thinking of moving away from the name as a blog title and moving towards something of what this blog is evolving into.

Since last night and all morning have been a baking extravaganza in the almost empty apartment (lease ends July 10!), I was thinking something combining baking and running, my currently sidelined love.

The first and simplest thing that came to mind was Bake and Run, which I tested out on the blogspot platform and what do I find but:

1. A blog with the same background as mine (I really need to lose the book thing. duly noted and on the to-do list)
2. A blog just started in April
3. A blog written by a girl named LAURA

So the next simple variation is baking and running, which is available, but I'm a little unsure how I feel about the gerunds.

Insight? Opinions?

Oh and how about some sneak peaks into what I've been baking:

blueberry muffins

banana chocolate chip oatmeal cookies

chocolate chip coconut crispies