Happy Birthday Dio!

I know what you're thinking... another birthday post!?!?!? I told you September is birthday month!

After all those movies yesterday, I needed some coffee to refuel. We headed to our favorite coffee shop for a cup 'o the good stuff.

Jones Coffee Roasters is in my top 3 favorites for coffee shops. It's local in Pasdena, walking distance from our apartment, and they really know what their doing when it comes to coffee.

It's cute and funky, with art all over the walls, amazing pastries, and live shows every so often. Starbucks eat your heart out!

 

(The lady on the left was hiding a big scone bite, doesn't she look like she's praying though??) 

After coffee, we swung by L & L to get some lovely local food. They even had poke today!!! Behold the deliciousness...

 

Poke is raw ahi chunks mixed with shoyu, onions, red pepper flakes, and limu (a particular type of seaweed). It is the best thing in the world! I have eaten many pounds of poke in my day and I am so happy to be able to get it her on the mainland occasionally.

In typical local fashion, it's served with 2 scoops of rice and 1 scoop macaroni salad! It's always too much food for me, but I at least managed to eat every. single. piece. of. fish. YUM!

Then it was off to Whittier to see the birthday boy! I can't believe Dio just turned 1! I remember Karen being pregnant like it was yesterday and now he's 1???

So cute with cake on his face!

You know who else is cute...

Uh yeah, that's the man I am going to marry! Inflating and deflating a Capri Sun packet with all his might.

And what kind of LA birthday party would be complete without a pinata?

I feel the need to sing "Chocolate Rain" when I look at this picture...

We just got home and I have a million more chores to do before bed! Is it really time for another week already?

Happy Birthday Ben!

Ben is Evan's brother-from-another-mother. Not only do they look the same, they are both teachers, way into disc golf and other games, and are born within 24 hours of each other!

We gathered at Carol's house this evening for a mini surprise party. There's nothing like giving your friend a heart attack for his birthday, he fell over when we turned the lights on and screamed!

After a few glasses of water and some rounds of "name that state's capitol" with friends, I had to go home, I was not feeling well at all.

I actually called in sick today and my doctor said there are multiple colds going around right now. The back-to-school germs are beginning to circulate through the population.

I spent the day laying in bed chugging juice. What would I do without my juicer!?!? It is the easiest way to get nutrients when I am sick and not interested in solid food.

First up was leftover watermelon with some lime. I was not a fan, the lime made it taste funky, but I guzzled it down anyway. Next was a foamy concoction of beet, carrot, apple, and ginger. MUCH better.

 

And even after this short posting session, I am already exhausted. Going to slip into a hot bath and then a big bed.

Happy Birthday Evan!

A BIG happy birthday to the love of my life! Today he is 29... just that much closer to the big 3-0! It's been over 6 years together and he still makes me laugh every single day.

Today was a bit stressful since I was dead set on surprising Evan at school for lunch. I didn't realize how bad traffic would be in Hollywood during lunchtime! I ended up making it to school just 1 minute before his lunch period after sitting in hellish traffic for almost an hour.

I ended up surprising him more that I had hoped, and it was nice to eat lunch together at his school.

I went back to work and around 3 I started to feel funny. Everyone in the office has been getting sick and I started to feel really terrible with headache, feverish symptoms, and an aching body. I was so happy to go home and lay on the couch.

Evan also had a lot of work to do tonight, so we just kept the celebration simple with a birthday dinner at Mike & Anne's in South Pasadena.

I've only been there for breakfast (which is fantastic!) and was delighted to see boatloads of seafood on the menu. :P


After devouring the sun-dried tomato and olive tapenade, we decided on mushroom risotto and clams with linguine for our entrees. YUM!!!


Evan's mushroom risotto was to die for! Creamy, smooth, and nutty... I would have given up my firstborn child for another plate of it. It was heavy on the cheese though, so I cherished my clams and linguini. With notes of garlic, shallots, and perfectly al dente pasta, it was insanely good!


We sat outside in a dark garden area so it was impossible to take pictures without blowing them away with flash. You'll have to use your imagination!


Now off to bed early to rest and recuperate. Only 1 more day till the weekend!

Long beans, long day

I finally felt comfortable waking up at 5:50am this morning! Normally I am very crabby that early, but being very strict about bedtime makes it much easier.

While Ev showered, I whipped us up something to eat.

Behold the poorly photographed breakfast! Honeydew, cardamom yogurt, coffee, and a scramble with potato, zucchini, egg, and cilantro.

After seeing him off, I pulled on some workout clothes and went for a 45minute brisk walk around the neighborhood. With the ipod bumping and the sun peeking through the clouds, it turned out to be a very beautiful morning.

After rinsing off, I rolled some curlers in my hair and went to work. I always take them out right before I go in so the curl lasts longer. Work was work, nothing exciting to report.

I was ravenous all day long and consumed a plum, a pear, half a lemon poppy muffin, and ate my lunch in little bits throughout the day.

It consisted of romaine salad, 1 red bell pepper, and a large bunch of minced cilantro (caesar dressing was added post-photo). On the side were two carrots, and that foil pack is a tamale! Salsa verde is hiding beneath the carrots.

When I got home I was starving again, so I opted for a teeny Trader Joe's Raspberry and Cream bar. These bars are so small they don't even have a stick! Perfect for a quick sweet fix.

 

Ev wanted to go for a bike ride later so I sliced up two pieces of carby fuel. This is the tomato-basil loaf from Panera. It has a very slight pinkish color when you cut into it and the aroma is akin to tomato soup. Sadly, on the palate it is not very tomato-y or basil-y.

 After a short bike ride it was my turn to cook dinner. I happened to grab a bunch of these Chinese long green beans on our last trip. Have you ever seen beans so loooooooong??

 I love their texture, they are less crisp than regular green beans but taste just as good. Served up with 5 cloves worth of minced garlic, they stole the dinner show from the broccoli fried rice.

Garlicky, salty, filling, green. YUM! I had to run a few errands after dinner tonight (I HATE pumping gas and always put it off to the last minute) and made sure that Menchie's was included.

The left side is Dulce de Leche with roasted almonds, and the right side is Sour Cherry with mochi balls. The perfect end to a long day!

Safety first!

My heart goes out to Ashley after her accident, I wish her a speedy recovery!

Her fall reminds me of a very VERY important part of exercise: carrying ID at all times.

When I started training for my first 5k, I often had to stop and rest. My heart felt like it was going to burst out of my chest if I took one more step. 

I almost passed out once and a fellow jogger saw me wobble and asked if I was OK. I couldn't even say my name and barely had enough energy to nod yes. If I had passed out, I had nothing other than my Mazda car key for identification.

I did not know that I had a heart condition at the time. My doctor discovered it many months later when I saw him for a bad cold. He discovered that I have tachycardia, a potentially serious elevated heart rate. My heart beats faster than it should, even in a normal resting state.This can cause BIG problems if I am not careful. If I run too hard too fast, I can rip cardiac tissue or even go into cardiac arrest.

I am happy to say that I did completed my training successfully and crossed the 5K finish line smiling. On my race # there was a coupon for RoadID.com and I decided to check it out. The concept was so simple, the testimonials were scarily real, and I ordered one that very day.

Now I NEVER EVER EVER NEVER NEVER exercise without wearing my Road ID. It can speak for me when I am not able to speak for myself.

Since I just ordered my second Road ID (the blue one is the slim version), I have three $1 off coupon codes to share. I posted them on Caitlin's blog comments and also here. Try one of the following codes to get $1 off your $10 purchase (These are first-come first-served so I apologize if they've already been used!)

TAFHYHDEHJ , TAFHYHEB5G , TAFHYHF9EB

Go get your Road ID now!!!

Dreamweaver

Do you ever have recurring dreams? It's something that happens to me all the time. Sometimes I can even finish my dreams if I accidentally wake up in the middle of them.

I awoke around 5am with a splitting headache this morning. Normally I convince myself that if I just lie still it will work itself out and I will go back to sleep. Then after around an hour of tossing and turning, I will finally get up and do something about it.

Not this time though, I actually got up right away and grabbed 3 advil, an ice pack, and a big glass of water. I'm pretty sure I was back asleep within 5 minutes. However, I was too tired to wake up with Evan, so he had to get breakfast on his own.

I should have woken up with him though, because when I went back to sleep I had the SCARIEST dream ever!!! It also happened to be a recurring dream, but I got a lot farther into it then normal. I woke up in a panicked daze.

Luckily cardamom spiced yogurt and honeydew melon slices brought me back to the real world. Paired with a latte, I was almost normal when I went to work.

It was a long day of meetings and calls, but it went smoothly overall! Somewhere during the middle of the day I enjoyed a small lunch, an afternoon plum, and more coffee.

This evening we took a looooooooong walk when I got home and Evan treated me by making dinner while I got into a hot bath. The smell coming from the kitchen was intoxicating.

I was delighted by a pile of wonderfully un-photogenic stroganoff with lemon kale. Since I'm trying to cut back on wheat, we went for rice as the starch. I really wanted brown rice for this, but we seem to be out so I had to make due with the far less nutritional white version. :(

I already had a forkful before the camera came out, something about long walks and hot baths makes me ravenous.

I'm trying to wake up with Evan and catch up on posts in the mornings before work. When I become a teacher I will need to be on this schedule so it makes sense to start trying it now. I am such a bear in the mornings though!!!

Happy Birthday Vince!

Vince has the perfect house for surprise birthday shenanigans. With 2 easy access pathways to his backyard, I knew I had to arrange a sneaky birthday bash.

Everyone assembled down the street and around the corner, while Evan distracted him (conveniently) by checking out a bike in his basement he was going to buy. Then we went into stealth mode and hid in the backyard.


Hehe. We got him good. I believe the first sentence out of his mouth had a few expletives in it.

Nick, Vince's brother, also pulled together an amazing spread for grilling: corn, peppers, chicken, chips, etc. A pack of 30 Tecate (1 for every year of Vince's life) came in handy as well.

And Vince's frosting test had a special pose to it:

 

Cheeky.

We kept the neighbors up for a bit, shot off a few guns, and knocked back a few drinks in his honor. You know, just your usual Thursday night in Eagle Rock!