Mediterranean Miss

Archive for March, 2010

Kalinihta my lovely readers, and I can’t believe I’ve managed to make it to telling you so!!

I’ve been so, so busy these past few days. Between monday morning and now I’ve written three end-of-term essays. One of them was a lot of fun, I interviewed and profiled Steve, the organic grocer I’ve mentioned before. The others were just long busy work filled with research and quotations, etc. The fact that they were all due one after the other made for sleepless nights, sore eyes and a total lack of social/workout ~anything.~

I’m also in the process of finalizing the purchase of a car (!!) so while all of this was going on I had dealers and insurance brokers calling me nonstop. My poor body was forced to take a backburner while I put out work/school/car fires, so by the end of the three days I was definitely feeling it. I’ve got that “weird” feeling in the back of my throat that means I’m juuuust on the brink of getting sick. D’you know what I’m talking about? It’s kind of a general “ugh” that hints at the possibility of something really crummy later.

It’s no surprise, really, when you look at how busy I’ve been.

Today started off at a painful 5:00 a.m, after a night of writing that stretched way past 2:00. I decided to treat myself to my new favorite oat combo, Banana Whip Mocha Oat Bran:

This is the only thing that could keep me and my essay draft cheerful at 5:00 in the morning

The usual suspects here:

• 1/2 cup of organic oat bran
• 1 cup lukewarm water with 1 heaping tbsp vanilla nescafe
• 1 package stevia
• 1 banana, chopped & millet flakes for garnish
• 1 dollop of Dark Chocolate Dreams PB&Co

The fact that I took a break to take a spoon shot (with a looming 9:00 am deadline) has ~got~ to mean something!

I got home after a day of class, work and a trip to the dealer. Lunch ended up being an on-the-go affair that consisted of a chocolate chip clif bar. I’m pretty obssessed with these already. I want to try and make my own to cut back on some of the preservatives, but for the meantime these will do just just fine:

Win in a bar ^^

I haven’t been able to go for a run for several days and even though I was pretty tired and feeling pretty grubby, I considered the idea for about half an hour. Then I realized that my body seriously needed to be pampered after it had put up with my neglect all week.

I started off by making the greenest dinner I could given the ingredients in my fridge. In the process, I proved that there’s no such thing as “too much spinach” ^~

I loaded this pan up with as much greening goodness as it could handle. I love that wilted spinach tastes almost nutty :3

This made for a great (warmer) version of my usual salad: kale, SP, 'cado, MM dresing, lots of spinach annnnd a secret ingredient.

... can you spot it? A Mary's Gone Crackers cracker I loved these as croutons and totally used them to scoop up some of the 'cado. Yum! This will be repeated.

I continued the pampering session with a pretty bowl of berries and one of my favorite Whole Foods bulk-bin treats: dark chocolate covered cherries. ~swoon~

Chocolate and cherries were just meant to be.

After dinner (as pretty as it was greening up at me) I still didn’t feel so great, and I decided to give up on the run for good. There are a few things that I’ve learned throughout my pursuit of a healthier lifestyle. The most important is that you should always, always listen to your body. This evening, mine was telling me to pull on some sweatpants, grab some nail polish, a kitten & Disney’s Hercules.

Boom. Which way to the Acropolis, baby? *flex*

• I am a ~total~ suck for Disney. What are your favorites Disney films? Hercules and Beauty & the Beast are way up there for me – Belle is by far the best ‘princess.’ I love how comforting these movies are, especially when you know all of the words to ~every~ song, haha.

Now I’m tired, but relaxed. It was such a good idea to listen to my body and take it easy – even though I’m feeling like I’ve been a lazybum over the past week or so. After this blog post I’m going to jump straight to bed to give my body the eight hours it’s been dying to enjoy since the weekend. Three days of four hours just isn’t enough – and I tend to be a morning person who requires around six to function.

Before I go, though, two things:

I got some ~amazing~ news today. It looks like Andrew is probably going to be getting a job in Toronto this summer!! He’s being called for an interview, but is such a shoe-in that I’m allowing myself to get excited. A whole summer of living in the same city – already I’m dreaming of weekend trips and patios and baseball games and ugh <3

• This is my first summer in Toronto. For my lovely Ontario readers: what are some things I should make a point of seeing/doing? I’m making lists of things to do! Date ideas are also a lot of fun ^~
• What are some of the activities ~you~ look forward to every summer in your hometowns?

I’m SO happy. I know I’ve mentioned (read: complained) about how difficult it can be for me sometimes so I’m really beyond delighted by the fact that last summer was our last summer apart! Ever. Ugh. Thank goodness

Secondly, and lastly, tomorrow is the 1st of April, and the start of my 1st FRIDGESPIRATION giveaway!! Do you remember the rules?

Here's an example of one of my fridge's glamor shots ^~

1. Keep on buying, cooking, eating, & ‘leftovering’ your favorite healthy foods.
2. Take a picture of your fridge and walk us through the foodstuffs we’re looking at. Leftovers? What recipe? What’s your favorite thing in there?
3. Send me the picture of your fridge (stephmaris@gmail.com) with your descriptions. Interesting leftovers get points, with recipes get even more. Uncommon produce is a bonus, too. Give me the grand tour! ^^
4. Please comment here to let me know when you have, and link to my blog so that other readers can participate!
5. Next Thursday I will look through all of your pretty pictures and send a surprise to the lady (or gentleman) with the freshest, greenest, most delicious fridge!

This tired girl is off to bed to kill this cold before it can take over. Can’t wait to get Fridgespired ^~