Goodbye September! and Vegan MoFo Topics.

It's already the final day of September. It feels like this month got sucked into a black hole. I have no idea how it went by so fast. I never got around to setting goals for this past month, so I'm doing a preemptive goal strike on October so it won't pass me by. 

I don't want to be overwhelmed with all the things I'd theoretically like to try to improve my life (studying, sleep habits, hours spent watching TV, fitness goals etc.), so I'll just set one: Vegan Month of Food! 

Check it out here.

In keeping with the guidlines of Vegan MoFo, starting tomorrow I'll be trying to get up vegan-food focused post an average of every weekday - goal of 21 posts this month. 

Topics to Include:

Restaurant reviews - "This all-vegan One was so great" and "What's Safe and Delicious at this Non-vegan One" and "The waiter here did not understand my words when I said 'no dairy, no eggs' so proceed with caution."

Product reviews - "This new soup was totally delicious" vs. "Probably wouldn't buy this again as I can still feel the salt coming out my pores"

A Day in My Food - "This is what I ate today. It's pretty typical." Or "It's pretty weird." I'll likely keep participating in What I Ate Wednesdays for this purpose. 

Wedding - As I continue making plans for my wedding next summer, I'll keep you posted on things like "This caterer was great to meet with and really understood our goals" vs. "I had to tell this guy 'Fish is not vegan!' No go."

Fitness - Technically this is month of food, but I'll likely tack in my workouts to some posts, if for no other reason than to clarify that I'm not actually trying to gain 20 pounds with the awesome food I will be eating. 

Cooking Time Audit - I'd like to see how my prep/cook skills stack up against the cookbook estimated times, so I may do a little Iron Chef-style speedwork and see if I can't get a recipe actually done in the estimated time frame. 

Finally, in keeping with Vegan MoFo guidelines, all food pictures I post in the next month will be vegan. That means if I go out with Fiance John and he gets something non-vegan, you'll never see it. 

Now I'm opening the floor: Any Vegan MoFo topic requests? 

Also, Are you participating? Let me know so I can be sure you're in my reader. 

WIAW: Meals at Home

Happy What I Ate Wednesday Foodie Friends!

My current rotation is outpatient pediatrics, which is a big reduction in time commitment from inpatient and surgery (at least actively working - studying never changes). I usually have about an hour and a half for lunch, I get to eat breakfast while it's light outside and get home before six pretty much always.

Long story short: This WIAW all meals were actually consumed at home. For the next month this will be my schedule. Yes I am counting my blessings. 

Breakfast: Yogurt Bowl - vanilla soy yogurt, golden flax cereal, strawbs (frozen), 1/2 banana, goji berries. And coffee.

Lunch: Warm (Vegan) Chicken Sandwich, Apple. 

Dinner: Roast Sweet Potato Rounds - olive oil, rosemary, salt, roasted for 20 mins at 400 degrees, Tall Glass of Soymilk (unpictured). Nectarine. 

This is a recycled picture...I didn't actually eat salad today. Just potato. 

and nectarine. 

I do not pretend this is really a balanced meal, but it's what I wanted. Sometimes I just don't question.

Dessert: Numi Decaf Black Vanilla Tea, with soymilk. This might be my favorite tea. 

Workout: 3 mile run. Slow, but felt good. 

Do you pack meals, buy meals, or are you able to eat them all at home if you want?

What? It's Fall?!

What's the date? September 27? Shocked. I am shocked.

Blogs all over are full of fall recipes - apples, pumpkin, baked goods. Also discussion of cooler temperatures. However it's still pretty hot here. I've mentally not transitioned out of summer at all.

This is a problem because Fall may well be my favorite season. Pretty sure it is. I don't want to miss any of it mentally lingering in the sweltering awfulness that is summer in the Inland Empire.

Things I love about Fall:

1. The seasonal produce. Apples especially. Also pumpkin. And coming up - the winter squashes!

2. Cooler temperatures. If we've ever spoken, or you've been reading for more than like a day, you may know that I absolutely despise super-hot weather. Summer here is terrible. Fortunately I've been on inpatient almost entirely and basically lived in the hospital. Still - give me my rain and snow.

Home in Oregon - Nov 2010. 

3. It gets dark earlier. Therefore, I'm less of a crazy if I want to go to bed at 9 pm. Hey, it's already been dark for a couple hours!

4. I can bike during the day without arriving at my destination flinging sweat onto people. Nora! I missed you!

5. Soups. Soups. Soups! I love soup. I didn't ever stop eating them over summer, but they did feel less appropriate. 

And so, if anyone else was mentally stuck in summer, I just want to say I understand - and I guess we ought to head on over to Fall. 

What's your favorite thing about this season?

Vegan MoFo and Quick Update.

Thing 1: First of all, let me be clear - Vegan MoFo isn't something bad. October marks Vegan Month of Food (MoFo), when vegan bloggers from all over do their best to post each day about all things vegan and delicious. Check it out at Veganmofo.com. Would that it had been named something family-friendlier, but that's those crazy vegans for you. I'm signed up to participate, so expect an upswing in the food-focused post frequency coming up starting next week. I've been stockpiling reviews and I'll be focusing on keeping things quick and easy to stay healthy and vegan when life is busy (because you know it is.)

Thing 2: We very likely have a wedding venue. It's a big deal. Perhaps more details later when things are more concrete.

Thing 3: I finished inpatient pediatrics with the busy nightmare call including Saturday morning rounds. Oddly enough, I already miss it. Tomorrow I start outpatient, and that means the return of morning runs, because clinic doesn't start until 8:30. I haven't arrived somewhere (medical) so late in the morning in months. It's funny how perspective changes out of necessity.

Proper post soon!

Still Alive

Remember back when I used to write sometimes? I just felt the need for a bit of a break over the past week, especially given how down I was feeling this time last week. It wasn't a crippling kind of downer mood, but I've just had minimal energy for anything but making it through my days in the hospital without looking like too much of a hot mess disaster. 

Breakfasts have been eaten in the dark. Usually with a side of some kind of studying. It still feels like my head is barely above water with these rotations and I can never study enough.  I need more sleep. Also I love it. 

It's been a week and not too much has happened - I was on call Sunday, so Saturday was my only day off and I drove to Santa Barbara and back for a baby shower.

In other news, Fiance John bought an ipad this weekend. He's calling it Girlfriend Number 2. As long as I'm Girlfriend Number 1 I guess.

Food's been basic. A new Amy's Bowl, a new Trader Joe's soup (LOVED), fruits, veggies, Katie made some vegan strawberry cupcakes for the Bachelor Pad finale. 

Also piles of unpictured nut butters and various chocolate. I also made cookies for call and ate too many again. The goal this week is to clean up my diet a bit - I'm not really feeling very well and I think it might help. Mostly I blame the piles of kids with infections that we see every day, but all the sugar intake probably isn't great either. 

Wedding planning is progressing...I'll keep you posted on that. 

Melancholy Monday

I just read Krista's post (My Journey to a Healthy Berg) which mentioned that she was originally going to complain about the fact that it's Monday, but she changed her attitude.

She's great. Inspired.

I however, my cherished readers, am not so shiny today, and I'm going for it with the mopey Monday post.

It's bright sunshine, but the sun feels malicious today. Like it's just trying to burn me and make me a sweaty mess. Check and check. Thanks Sun. 

I woke up with a frown and stubbed my toe on my bed.

I ran this morning, but I just felt anxious the whole time. No good reason. It wasn't anxiety about my day or my run. Non-localized anxiety. It's the worst - I don't know how to fix it.  

I went to the hospital, where I'm on my third week of inpatient pediatrics, which I love in theory. I'm reminding myself today that I like it, because if we took today as an isolated day, I would just hate everything. Everyone was nice. I did an admission and the 2 or 3 questions I forgot to ask in my history-taking became a way bigger deal than they actually are. I found myself thinking, "Gosh, you really suck at this."

I believe I'm supposed to be planning my wedding. I feel like the worst fiancee ever because I'm frustrated with it and the fact that we don't have a place or much of anything finished and nothing's quite right and I think I'm taking it out on John, who's been nothing but supportive and doing a ton of work himself. 

And I ate a pretty substantial amount of peanut butter directly from the jar. With maple syrup, because that's what I do. I feel a little sick. It's that kind of day. 

I now ought to study. No matter how much I do, it won't ever feel like enough.

Melancholy Monday indeed. 

Now everyone click over to Krista's and read something that's not depressing. 

WIAW: Detox Day

[It's WIAW!]

Happy What I Ate Wednesday friends and foodies.

Here's the bad news: I was on call last night, so I was up late and pretty snacky. I also brought cookies to share and ate a fair few of them - suffice it to say I felt gross when I woke up. Major sugar hangover, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to show you what a day of super-healthy feel-better eats might look like after some overindulgence. 

Breakfast: A peach. I also had some orange juice before rounds. Okay, this doesn't look healthy [as in, not enough food], but it gets my little metabolism going without feeling like too much, considering I was still snacking at 11 pm last night. It gave me a chance to actually be hungry for lunchtime. 

We label our fruit with initials because 4 of us live here and we share a fruit bowl. There wasn't a sticker on this one, so that's the explanation of the red marks to the left of the stem. 

Morning Snack: Apple. Organic Gala post-health food store grocery shopping. Seriously like the best apple I've had in ages. 

Lunch: New-to-me meal: Amy's Kitchen Black Eyed Peas with Veggies and Brown Rice. This was really good. I really wish they didn't cost so much. 

Snack: Grapes. These were a favorite childhood snack, but I think it's been like a year since I last bought grapes.

Dinner: Homemade Curried Farm Vegetable soup. 

Dessert: Frozen [soy] yogurt. 

I'm pretty sure I got about 6 servings of fruit and 6 servings of vegetables today. I'm feeling way better - I think a high-produce day really helps turn it around when I haven't been eating well.  

What do you like to eat when you wake up [sugar] hungover?

Happy Birthday to My Man.

My Fiance turned 25 this week. Happy Birthday! For the next 2 months he's 2 years older than me. I kind of like this time - I get to act way less mature and blame it on our age difference. I have no excuse the rest of the year, not that it stops me.

We celebrated this weekend with a convening of some favorite people, and it was wonderful. I realized I hadn't seen some of them since we got engaged (and that it's been 3 months since then!)

We played in a park (or two), had a picnic lunch, and went to a movie - The Guard - heavy on the language but also on the awesome.

Typical. 

We also climbed a tree. I don't climb enough trees anymore. When I changed that evening a pinecone and leaf fell out of my dress. As it should be. 

Ryan.

Ryan in the tree. And Evan. Contemplating nature?

Joe at the very top. 

And me at the very top!

Still me. 

And that's how tall the tree was. 

We also went to dinner, saw an enormous orange balloon and the weirdest park I've ever been to (Orange County Great Park), and played a complicated card game. Mostly we got a chance to celebrate being alive - all of us, but especially John - Happy Birthday sir!

Joe and Becca. They're moving to Portland soon. (I'm jealous.)

Him plus me. 

Evan - sorting out the complicated rules like a champ.

"Okay, everyone smile."

"Okay, now have a philosophical coffee-shop discussion." I think someone said, "Neitzsche."

Sunset at the Great Park. There's a weather balloon you can ride, footballs you can borrow, a slightly ghetto carousel, a walkable timeline, a community garden, and it used to be a military base. It's kinda weird. Also kinda fun. 

John, Eric.

It's free to go up in the balloon, but the wait was too long, so we mocked it from afar.

Ryan, Evan, Eric, Arisa, Me, John, Becca, Joe

It was wonderful to see you all.

Did you have a good Labor Day weekend? What's the weirdest park you've ever been to?