Category Archives: Rant

Some Updates and Some Cuteness :)

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Hey everyone! Hope you are all well! I wanted to say first of all that I’m so happy by the response my Pecan Pie Trio received yesterday. It was the first time in a while that I had experimented in the kitchen and was really happy with the result. I’ll explain my lack of food in a second but I just wanted to say that I’m really happy that you all liked the recipe :)

I’m sure you’ve noticed I haven’t been posting as many meals lately. It’s not because I’m lazy or busy or any other excuse like that, it’s mainly because I’ve just been having a hard time eating in general. I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been trying to get answers on why I feel so crappy all the time so I made another appointment with my doctor to try and figure out what the hell is going on. I walked in prepared with a list of symptoms and walked out with a prescription for extensive blood testing. She is basically testing for every autoimmune disease you can possibly think of lol. I went in to the lab to have my blood drawn at 7:30 am the following day to have a double digit amount of tubes drawn. That was fun, ha! I’m still waiting for the results to figure out the follow up tests that need to happen.

This all happened at the beginning of last week and I spent hours between the doctor and the lab. Wouldn’t you know it over the past few days I’ve been experiencing horrible stomach cramping and nausea. Then to top it off somebody hit my car on Thursday while swerving into my lane to avoid another car (I guess, I didn’t see that part because he was in an SUV). I’m fine and there wasn’t too much damage but it turned into an incredibly aggravating experience when he tried to completely avoid any blame in the situation. I understand it was an accident but at the same time he was making it seem like no fault when the accident between the two of us was his fault. It goes beyond that aggravation too but I’m not going to get into it in a public forum. I’ve said enough already lol.

So that’s what’s been going on and why my meals have been scant lately. I’ve been eating but nothing interesting or extensive so I just haven’t bothered to photograph it. However my inspiration and motivation has been renewed with yesterday’s success so hopefully I’ll be able to experiment more in the coming days.

Anyway, I can’t post this without any photos at all! I figured I’d beg for forgiveness for being a crappy blogger the past few weeks with some cute pics of the fur kiddies I’ve been watching for the past few days :)

I couldn’t pass by this scene without taking a pic of it! This is Eddie, one of the kitties. I don’t know how or why he decided to hang out in this position but he just stayed there for a while! I thought it looked so funny and I guess he was comfy. He’s such a handsome boy.

Here’s Tyler just hanging out and waiting for me to join him to snuggle. It’s been so nice being around him. He’s such a cuddlebug.

You have to love this face. It’s impossible not to. He’s the best!

Sorry to be a bit of a downer again but I figure part of the reason I have this blog is to discuss health. Sometimes the topic of health isn’t always fun but it’s life I suppose. I’m glad to have gotten the preliminary blood tests done though because hopefully we’ll be one step closer to figuring out what’s going on and one step closer to getting better. The car accident story was just a vent, sorry lol!

I hope that you are all doing well! I’m starting off this week feeling positive that the bad stuff is in the past and that good things are just around the corner. And hopefully the power of positive thinking will help me feel better so I can enjoy a giant birthday margarita on Saturday ;)

Have a great night friends!

Another Milestone, Some Updates and a Grocery Haul

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Hey everyone! Thank you all so much for your sweet comments on my last posts! All of you (commenters and lurkers ;]) are such a huge part of the reason I blog and I appreciate all of you so much! I’m happy to say that I hit another milestone today when I saw that I gained my 100th follower :)  I’m so happy and honored that you all decided to follow my blog. Thank you all so much!

So I mentioned the other day that I had an appointment with a physical therapist yesterday. After an hour and a half of evaluations, we have pinpointed that there is no shoulder injury at all and my pain, numbness and tingling are in fact caused by a bulging disc in my neck (C6 if you follow that kind of thing ;]). I’m really happy to have figured this out finally because over the last 6 months it has really gotten bad. I probably downplay it a bit but the truth is that my shoulder hurts most of the time, and when I do something to aggravate it I get numbness and pain down my left arm and into my thumb and pinky fingers. One major reason why I hate running is that 9 times out of 10 I will get off of the treadmill with horrible pain, numbness and tingling. The impact must aggravate it because it is terrible. I’m probably really lucky that the disc isn’t herniated given the amount of impact that I put my body through between the running, jumping and fight training that I do.

I’m clearly a stubborn girl because none of this has stopped me in the past. I was advised to put the activities that involve impact on hold for a few weeks and I definitely need to listen. I’m tired of being in pain and struggling through it. I’ve been training probably at 60-75% for the past 6-12 months and it is really sad because I remember all of the things I used to do and want to be able to do them again. So I’m going to have to take it easy for the next month at least. I’m working on figuring out a new workout plan that will help me get back to 100%. I’ll definitely keep you posted on that. I have an idea but I’m going to run it by the physical therapist first. For now I’m replacing running with the elliptical (did 30 minutes of intervals this morning) and doing all strength training with my trainer (45 minutes this evening… omitting overheard presses for a few weeks).

Anyway, I know this seems negative but I’m really happy that after 3 years of searching for answers I finally have one. I’m disappointed that I have to stop my Tough Mudder training for a little while but I know that it is the smartest decision to avoid more serious injury. I’ll have to play it by ear in terms of Tough Mudder. It’s pretty clear to me now that I’m going to avoid all obstacles that may aggravate or worsen the problem. Side note – I told my physical therapist that I was training for it and he said he was doing it to! How funny!

Anyway, sorry for the long update but you’ve all been so supportive throughout the whole thing so I figured I’d keep you in the loop. I may be on the sidelines for a bit but I can definitely still kick ass ;)

So I can’t do a post with no food to show you so I am going to show you my mini grocery haul! I’m working weddings on Saturday and Sunday this week so I didn’t get too much because I won’t be home all that much. Check out the haul!

2 Two Mom’s in the Raw bars (to bring to work as a substantial snack), Goji berries (finally!), organic salsa, stuffed grape leaves (shocking) and some golden sesame tofu.

For produce I got organic blackberries, spring mix, some corn, carrots and some tomatoes on the vine. Yum!
Thank you all for sticking with this long post :) And thank you all for reading, following, supporting me, and inspiring me. You are the best!
I hope all of my Northeast Friends are doing ok in this heat wave. My air condition isn’t doing anything because my room is above ground level and therefore like 120 degrees. I just cleaned out the filter so hopefully that’ll help a little. Wouldn’t you know I locked my keys (and phone) in the car AGAIN today. On the hottest day so far. I’m just good like that ;)
Have a great night friends!

Vegan MoFo Day 17: Thing(s) People Say to Vegans

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So I am going to apologize for the less than inspired post today but I figured I’d take my lack of interesting food as a break to tell a story from work yesterday.
The day was great until I encountered an obnoxious comment at the hall. I had my amazing baked oatmeal for breakfast but like an idiot forgot to pack any food to bring with me. This is the first time that happened and it was the worst time for it to happen. During the day I felt like I was getting sick again and run down and really needed food to give me energy to get through my long day. We had to shoot through cocktail hour but I managed to grab some pineapple and a small bunch of grapes.
They took our dinner orders which was actually nice because a lot of places don’t give you an option and serve you chicken. Luckily I know which places do this and bring dinner with me and tell them not to bother. I asked what the vegetarian meal was and they told me it was eggplant rollatini. I told them I can’t eat eggs or dairy either and if it was possible to get a plate of grilled vegetables. He said they have grilled veggies in the cocktail hour and I should grab some now and I held up my camera and was like I can’t I’m working…so it remained unresolved (I don’t know why they couldn’t throw grilled veggies on a plate but I didn’t want to cause problems so I let it go). Now the thing that annoyed me wasn’t that they couldn’t accommodate a vegan, it was a comment that followed.
One of the other photographers was giving his order to someone else and mentioned something about my being vegan. The person he was ordering from apparently said something along the lines of “I’ll go outside and rip up a plant for her.” I am sure they found it funny but I didn’t find it funny. And to be honest, these people really should think about what they say because I’m a single women with a lot of single friends…aka potential clients for them. You can be sure I wouldn’t send them there as my first choice. It left a bad taste in my mouth…or no taste really…I ended up with no meal (even though the clients paid for it) but it just sucked because my energy was just zapped by the end of the night.
Anyway, I can’t post without showing you ANY meals so today I tried to eat a bit heartier to make up for the very little I consumed yesterday. I had to eat breakfast super fast because I was running late but it was just some oats. For lunch I got myself some Chipotle ;)
Let’s be honest, some meals just are not “pretty.” This is one of those meals. Rice and beans and pico de gallo, guacamole and lettuce. So instead of trying to make it pretty I mixed it all up into the delicious mess it is supposed to be. And I enjoyed every bite of it with that bamboo fork :)
Hope you all had a good Monday. The weekend went too fast.
*Edited to add – I just remembered this…we did an all vegan wedding at this same hall in August. I’m going to reiterate that my problem is not that they could not accommodate me. I get that their job is to accommodate the clients. My problem was the comment. I know it wasn’t mean to be mean spirited but it just gets old to hear that.