Weekend Adventures- Success and Failure

 

This weekend involved lots of fun stuff.  Seriously... how could you not love a blog post that starts with a picture of Ax throwing?  Just wait, we'll get there.

 

 

So Friday I'm sick.  Go to patient first, get medicine and come home and go to bed.  Saturday I wake up and still feel like crap.  After several hours of being home and awake and not feeling better I decided to go to my team's football game (we play in a social touch football league) because I couldn't stand being in my house any more... The combination of beer and fresh air made me feel a lot better really quickly. :)

 

After the game the team walked from the park over to Fells Point festival.  Along the way we stopped at this house party when total strangers (sorry Mom) invited us to try their ice luge.  Luckily that picture is on Tom's phone so its not making it into this blog post.... So we stop by this party and then continue on our way to the festival.  I had not been expecting to be gone this long (I left the house at 3 pm and it was now after 5 pm).  I had packed some snacks but not a full meal.  So here I am, the super cool kid that I am, walking around Fells Point festival with a Tupperware container full of almonds and dark chocolate.  It gets better...  I also peeled 2 clementine's while walking around and ate them.  By the time it reached 6 pm I needed real food.  This left me with LOTS of unprocessed options.  I went with a buffalo chicken gyro.  I figured that at least there are not too many ingredients (plus anything is healthier then the fried oreos I really wanted to get).  

 

 

I had half and then Tom finished up the rest.  Shortly after, we went home and I ate the quiche I had bought at Whole Foods the day before.

 

The next day we were headed to the Maryland Renaissance Festival to celebrate a friends birthday.  I was disappointed by having to buy food the day before, so I decided to pack a tuna sandwich for the Renn fest.  I did not feel terribly cool pulling out my ziplock bag with a sandwich in the middle of the side show we were at.... but, it was good and cheap and unprocessed.  Go me.  I even resisted the urge to get cheese cake on a stick.  There will be no pictures of the cheesecake because if I had gotten close enough to take a picture I probably would have also taken a bite.

 

 

So now its Monday, which I know is not part of the weekend, but we happen to have plans for Monday night so I'm including it in this post.  Friends of ours came over for dinner.   I definitely made the spinach and artichoke dip again since these were different friends.  I have no problem eating that dip every day!  Tom makes the most delicious turkey burgers so those were on the menu too.  All unprocessed except for the breadcrumbs we used.  Normally we make our own but we just happened to run out a few days before and I hadn't made a new batch yet.  I have a bunch of half loaves of bread in the freezer just waiting to be made into bread crumbs.  Anyway... here is the handsome kitchen help and yummy burgers....



 

 

I had my burger on our homemade cheese and onion bread.  We served the burgers with a salad.  Delicious.  Yay for fun filled weekend that are (almost) unprocessed.

 

oh yeah!  I never went back to the ax throwing.  We did that at the Renaissance festival.  Along with drinking mead and watching jousting.  Fun times. 

Strep Throat Food

Friday morning I'm driving to work and my throat is hurting.  This is now like the third day of this.  Usually after an hour or two of being awake it goes away and I'm fine.  I take that same attitude on Friday morning and I get to work early to go to boot camp. 

Cut to the afternoon and it now feels like there are tiny pins sticking out of my throat.  Gross.  Luckily a good friend of mine on our kindergarten team is a mom (for some reason I think that only moms can look at someone's throat and tell if they should go to the doctors).  She tells me my throat is red with white things sticking out of it.  Yup.  Strep.  Awesome.

A patient first opened near my school recently so I went over right after school.  The rapid test came back negative but the doctor said he was pretty sure it was strep.  Antibiotics and sleep.  I can do that. 

On the way back to school (I had driven to patient first with another co worker who needed an xray on her ankle... its been a rough week in kindergarten!) my friend convinced me to stop at Whole Foods so I could get something to eat for dinner.  I really wish there was a Whole Foods close to my house.  There is one like 15 minutes away but its in the city and parking is annoying and the aisles are really skinny.  Anyway... I digress.  So we're at Whole Foods and I decide I want mac and cheese.  I check out the stuff in the hot bar but it has corn starch in it.  I found an Amy's organic frozen mac and cheese.  I also got tomato soup and a piece of quiche (impulse buy on the quiche... going to have it for lunch today). 

I got home and had the mac and cheese and tomato soup (for the record... Amy's organic is just not as delicious as cheesy, processed, chemical filled shells and cheese.  Seriously... what do they put in that stuff that is so delicious???  Also- this Amy's was low sodium so maybe that effected the taste?). 

 

 

As I'm writing this I'm enjoying a cup of green tea with a box of tissues next to me. 

 

I want to get better enough in the next 2 hours to play in my touch football game but I'm guessing that's not a reality.... so instead I guess I'll keep typing blog posts. 

 

Oh yeah.... and here is the delicious omelet I made for breakfast.  I used leftover spinach and artichoke dip in the omelet.  Yummm.

Staff breakfast

 So my school is awesome.  Every month one of the grade level teams hosts a staff breakfast.  It is always delicious.  ALWAYS.  So before I show you what we had at this staff breakfast let me show you what I had for breakfast on Friday....

 

 

 

Greek yogurt, honey and granola.... delicious, but not compared to this.....

 

 

Bagel, quiche, doughnut, and cheesy potatoes.

 

 

 

 

Oh yea, and don't forge the most delicious scones ever.  Cinnamon chip.  Yummm.  But made with regular flour, sugar and other processed things for sure. :( 

 

 

So obviously it's safe to say that when Unprocessed October is over I will be partaking in staff breakfast once again.  But here it is.... my plan.... going forward I will only eat home made things at staff breakfast... cheesy potatoes, scones and quiche.  I'll stay away from the doughnuts and bagels.  Sounds fair right?

Morning snack

 Yesterday a student comes in with this bar in his hand and says "This is your morning snack."  I was only half paying attention so I say to him "You know your morning snack goes in your cubby.  Please put it there."  Then I turned around to keep taking attendance....

 

 

 

10 seconds later he is tugging on my shirt going "No Mrs. Ceiri... this is your morning snack.  Look."  He turns it over and sure enough he has written my name in marker.  He goes on to say "You never have a morning snack so I brought you one."

 

 

I'm reading the list of ingredients thinking I might actually be able to eat it.... but then you get to the end and see "soy lecithin, mixed tocopherols added for freshness." I slid it into my lunch box and told him I would have it at lunch today.  After lunch he was sure to ask me if I liked it.... I don't generlaly like lying to 5 year olds but I figured telling him it was delicious was better then telling he I refused to eat it because it has gross checmicals in it....

 

How I will survive October...

 

Thank goodness for Trader Joe's chocolate!

 

Also.. I have an AWESOME coworker who made me dinner for tonight since we have to stay late for literacy night.  Here's today's breakdown:

 

Breakfast- apple, yougrt with granola and honey

 

Lunch- Tuna sandwich on cheese and onion bread, cheese stick, clementines

 

Dinner- Salmon with brown rice and green beans and tomatoes

 

4 squares of dark chocolate.  Yummmm.  

 

October Unprocessed Day 1

October unprocessed started today!  If you haven't checked out the blog for this yet please check it out:
http://www.eatingrules.com/category/october-unprocessed/

Eating rules is how Tom and I first got into unprocessed eating.  After a very hectic summer and start to the school year... I am really excited to commit to unprocessed October and get back on track as far as eating is concerned (Papa John's has gotten WAY to much money from me in the past few months).  I'm also hoping to workout like a crazy person this month (because very soon I will be out of pants that can comfortably button.... ).  I'll be attending boot camp at school 3 mornings a week, cardio dvd after school on Wednesdays (it was kickboxing for the past 2 weeks), yoga at lunch on Thursdays, AND running 3 times a week at home.  Sounds exhausting, but since 5 of the 8 workouts will take place while I am at work, it shouldn't be too bad.

Anyway... over the past weekend we were visiting friends in VA so I was TOTALLY unprepared to start unprocessed October.  Luckily, Monday was still September because I had to buy lunch from the cafeteria (for anyone new to this blog... I teach elementary school).
 

Cheese dippers with marinara sauce, carrots and an apple. Not terrible, but definitely not unprocessed.  (Cheese dippers are essentially mozzarella sticks).

After school yesterday I went to the grocery store and picked up organic whole milk (good bye caramel flavored coffee creamer), almonds, greek yogurt, and a new food discovery:

Not all of this brand would pass the kitchen test, but these two do.  Yay.  This will make unexpected schedule changes or quick meals so much easier.

After grocery shopping for healthy food, I of course ordered Chinese food for dinner (it was between that and Papa John's). 

Today was a success.  Here's the run down of what I ate:

Breakfast- apple, yogurt with honey and Bare Naked granola

Lunch- Amy's organic enchilada, rice, black beans, orange

Dinner- Tuna with whole foods mayo on homemade cheese and onion bread, Nature's promise string cheese, apple

Wow, as I was typing that I realized I ate no vegetables today.  Shame on me.  Will have to double up tomorrow. :)

Food discoveries

Some good and bad food discoveries recently.  I'll start with the good.....

Good food discoveries recently:

* Cheese and onion bread.  Yes that's right, I said cheese and onion bread.  It is amazing.  I'm guessing because it has a cup and a half of cheese in it.  It makes the bread really light and fluffy.  We've made three loaves in the last week and a half.  Seriously, but this bread maker and make your own bread:
http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/store/product/Black-Home-Bakery-Supreme-Bread-Machine-by-Zojirushi/1017407503?_requestid=276952

I know I've said it in previous blog posts, and I really, really mean it.  I love this bread maker.  Homemade bread is one of the best things ever. EVER.

 

See all the cheese and butter?  Delicious.

 

* Amy's organic frozen meals.  They aren't all totally unprocessed, but I found 2 that pass the kitchen test as far as I am concerned.  I had the enchilada one for lunch today and it was pretty good.  I bought two of each to keep on hand for quick meals.

 





 

 

Not so good food discovery:



Natural string cheese isn't stringy!  Something that is added to string cheese must be what makes it so much fun to eat.  I tried to peel a nature's promise string cheese into strings without much success :(  Boo.  What fun is eating string cheese if you can't eat it like your 5 years old?