Full, Fun Weekend!

Hi all,
Hope everyone had a great weekend. Mine was great, and now I am basking in that "end of the weekend glow," watching a little of the MTV Movie Awards and catching up on some blog reading. I was blown away once again by the inspiration Meghann provides for all of us beginning runners. She ran her first marathon (!) this weekend and wrote a wonderful recap of the journey it's taken her to get to this point.

My post won't be nearly that fitness oritented tonight. Infact I've been quite the excerise bum this weekend, but a little rest and relaxation is always welcome in my book! :D

My great buddy camp buddy, as I had mentioned earlier this week, and his wonderful gf came down from P-cola this weekend with their puppy, Scrubs.

Seriously, how cute is that face?







Cute or not, this duo of doggie energy had us all up before 7:30am! on Saturday morning, so we put our efforts into making these sweet signs for the Twins Vs. Ray's game that afternoon.

Chubs and Scrubs-the doggie duoApparently in Minnesota there is an announcer who will circle Twin's fans in the crowd. I'm not sure if it worked for us...well, and I may have messed it up, since I was in Ray's gear of course. :D But making the signs was great fun and I think they turned out pretty slammin'.

It was a fun game, espeically since the Rays, ahem, were victorious! Sorry boys. ;)

Now on to the eats. I have to admit, I wasn't a heath nut on Saturday. More of a beer nut. No photographic eveidence. sorry kids. I redemied myself today though, with a yummy cheese omlet and a delicious fugi apple with some pb for some protein power after the carb fest yestday.

I guess I was craving even more protein tonight, so my dinner centered around a chicken breast, which I turned into a slightly healthier, stovetop rendition of my Mom's Flanagan's Chicken which is a cheesy chicken, crout and 1000 dressing casserole that she usually serves over rice. I made mine by searing the chicken and then adding about 2tbs of Kraft Free 1000 Dressing, some crout and a slice of swizz cheese and letting that all melt together. Served on top of a bed of mixed greens with a side of sliced tomato really hit the spot. I highly recommend this as a quick- this took me about 10mins to pull together-pick me up from the standard chicken dinner.









Hope everyone is enjoying the remainder the weekend! Have a great start to your weeks.
Love all,
~a not really wanting to start the work week Jess

Oh-oh what a feeling, when we're dancing on the ceiling.....

Hi all,
Is everyone as anxious for the weekend as I am? I have been having an abnormally slow week and it is now 3:16pm and I am done with all my pressing matters at work with over 2hrs of free time staring me in the face. What's a girl to do but blog away some clock time? It's out of my hands right? hah.
Did anyone else see Lionel Richie on GMA this morning? He is such a sexy man! sigh. Apparently he has a new album out, "Just Go" I liked the first single off it so I might have to get it, add to my eclectic collection of music, you know. but I have no shame grooving to his old hits, "cheesy" (as some music critics have said) or no. Check out his website for even more eye candy!

I have a super fun weekend ahead since one of my good camp friends, known to some of you as Minnesota Hubby (which is a joke about a joke about the time we "got married" at Haagen Daz-it's a long silly story, but we are camp people, so our whole relationships are long silly stories and I wouldn't have it any other way!) and his gf (and their doggie!) are coming down for a weekend of baseball! Twins vs. Rays baby!
So, once I am free of work I have some errands to do, as well as a little housecleaning. Lucky for me my guests have a drive a head of them, so it buys me some time to tidy up!

Here are some tasty eats from yesterday, starting with lunch: My plate contained all kinds of yummy. A tiny sandwich on "breakfast bread" from the Publix bakery. It contains pumpkin and sunflower seeds, walnuts and dried cranberries! De-lish. I love having "sweet breads" as the base for my sandwiches because they are so filling and tend to be smaller too. Alongside it I had some carrot "chips" with babaganoosh, some grapes left over from the going away lunch for one of our fellows and a piece of pineapple-also leftover. I ended up not eating the pictured cheese cubes, just wasn't feeling it. I also tried one of those "So Delicious" coconut yogurts by Turtle Mountain. I remembered seeing a review that Meghann did on them and decided to try one myself. It was pretty pricey for the single serving cup but it was good. A little thin for my taste in yogurt and pretty sweet too. (Can you tell I'm a Greek kinda gal?) but I would try another one in a different flavor. I love raspberry which is why I got this one, but it had an after taste that reminded me of cough syrup...not so yum.



























Dinner was a lite but spread out affair. Before I left to run at the park and my yoga class I had the leftover steamed brock from my yummy baked potato meal earlier in the week with a side of the breakfast bread smeared with PB & Co's Cinnamon Raisin PB and two dates stuffed with Panera's Lite Whipped Cream Cheese with Honey and Walnuts (aka fluffy crack!). After a good run, I think I'm finally starting to get a rhythm, still need a LOT more stamina though, I had an amazing class with Denise. We worked on more hip openers, including some cool inverted balancing that made my ex-dancer self happy, arm and full body strength with plank variations and some inversions and back bends. Basically all the same themes we have been doing this spring, but Denise always seems to find a new a different twist (haha, some times literally as well as figuratively!) on things. Love her, love yoga, love my strong (and getting stronger everyday) body!
After yoga I was hungry again but it was nearly 10pm when I got home, cause YogaGF and I were being Chatty Cathy's in the parking lot with some other students so I didn't want to eat a full meal. As a healthy treat to calm the hunger roar I melted a little dark chocolate and drizzled it on a small bowl of strawberries, pineapple and kiwi. I don't know why more people don't do chocolate covered tropical fruits. I think mango is next on my list. :D

Now I'm off to "stay busy" until 5:30pm strikes!

Enjoy your weekends everyone.
Love to all,
~A ready to hit the ballpark Jess

They be calling me....

...Jess-Lizard Wrangler now.

So, I got out of work a bit early today- and by a "bit" I mean, oh 10mins...but you take what you can. Hit up the library, took the pup for a long walk-still no running for moi, Dr's Orders :( and had just settled down for a nice dinner show casing these lovelies:
Basically my black bean-sweet potato salad, but I subbed fresh corn leftover from Memorial Day (my parents always send me home loaded up with food...we are Italian, it's in the blood). I paired it with more Memorial leftovers of a giant hotdog. Yes, hotdogs are one of my MAJOR weaknesses, but I am working on it. I topped this baby with crout and the yummy pear relish that my dad's toolroom guy makes. This stuff is awesome!
I was about half way through the above plate (it's a little sandwich plate...I'm a pig, but within reason!) when I got a frantic phone call from my YogaGF. She is petrified of lizards, which even she admits is an irrational fear, especially being a FL native like myself, but a fear nontheless. I've seen her in full freakout mode before, so I didn't hesitate when she said there was one in her apartment and she couldn't get it out. Enter Jess the Lizard Wrangler to the rescue. One zippy car ride and some creative dancing around her apartment later and we were free of the baby lizard. After a walk around the neighborhood to check out a few houses that have come on the market I called it a night and returned home in the hopes to finish my dinner. Well, someone finished....a big, furry someone. Poor Chub, he was freaking out when I left, as he tends to do once I get home for the "night" and I guess he couldn't help himself that I had left my plate out on the kitchen counter.

So, I had these beauties instead. Can't beat some fresh strawberries and half a banana drizzled with a tiny amount of dark chocolate. Yum o.
Besides, after all the lizard chasing I think I deserved a treat no? Now off to bed I go.
Love to all,
~A contemplative Jess- considering switching careers to "pest removal" :D

PS. No reptiles were injured in the making of this post's adventures.

A real food diary...

I just found this (from Good.is) link in PinQue's archives. It's a photographic collection of refrigerators across the country amongst various living situations. Fascinating. Give it a look, it's worth a few mintues of your time and will give you a real inside on how lucky we are to eat the way we do.
Love to all,
~A thoughtful Jess

I swear I'm not a Spaz....

...I just play one in real life. Oh crap, I guess that means I am a spaz. For example, after shopping at Publix today I proceeded to walk my full cart of grocery steals to my lovely white civic...only I realized that it wasn't mine after all....it was far too clean, the windows weren't tinted (yet) and it was on the wrong side of the parking lot! sheesh, Jessica Ann!

Anyways I'm going to try to crank this out really quick, because I'm getting blogged down (haha, get it...like, bogged down? oh nevermind) and need to quick post before my next one is a real monster.
I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend and eased back into the workweek as painlessly as possible. My remaining weekend was restful but alas I relapsed with this respiratory crapola AGAIN. I do not get sick....usually. My body is betraying me, but I finally surrendered to the fact that this must be something more than a little virus and got some antibios today. Hate taking them, but if they work this time I guess it will be worth it. Ok, back to the weekend...I didn't take any food pictures, not because I wasn't eating...oh, no when this girl is sick she still eats, but trust me it wasn't really picture worthy.
Subs on Saturday at Hogan's Hero's- they are seriously yum though...even if I didn't snap some photographic evidence, every sub should come with a scooner of Blue Moon (which my mum and I shared) Subway has just been missing the beer tab (or tap!) all this time.
Everything else was typical holiday weekend at home food. Mom made grits and eggs for me on Monday and then we just grilled out giant dogs. Good but not blog-worthy...although I guess I just blogged about it, right?
Mom did send me home with these beauties and not a moment too soon. I had just finished off my egg supply on Friday, before I headed north. One of the parents at her school has quite the flock of free range chickens and thanks to her my family (me included!) haven't had to buy eggs since February. Yum.





On to the pictures I did take today:So, yep that was my dinner tonight. One of my fave comfort foods, baked potato topped with brock (ok, and ranch and honey mustard...yes, I have a condiment problem. But at least they were both the "lite" variety). I also grabbed a can of Annie's Aurthur O's at the store. I guess they are an organic version of Speggitti-o's? I'm actually not a fan of the aforementioned Chef Boyardi product, but I have been hearing good things about Annie Products in the blogworld and I love Aurthur (see him in the spoon?)! Yes, I am 23 and I watch children's PBS. Clifford the Big Red Dog and Aurthur are my personal faves. Oh and if you are on portion control police...and with me you should be, no worries I only ate 1/2 of the above food.

Time to drag my wheezy ass to bed and dream about the running I can't do this week.
Love to all,
~A well dosed with antibodics Jess

Vroooom, Vroooom

Those are the sounds resonating through my parent's house right now, as well all sit anxiously awaiting the end of the Indy 500. We are on 188/200 laps right now. My man Tony Kanaan is out of the race, sadly. There have been quite a few spectacular crashes this race, starting on lap one, which sadly took another one of my favorite cuties, Marco Andretti out before the race had really started. [FUN FACT: I have met his grandfather, Mario Andretti twice. The man is a great hugger! haha] I love how safe the IRL cars are, they are the open wheel variety if any of you are not familiar with motorsports, but it is sad how one brush with the wall can put you out of the race for the rest of the day, since these cars just disintegrate. Oh and for those of you who are opposed to motorsports because of the gas usage (something that does bother me a bit too) these cars run off of ethanol.

It's been a fairly quiet weekend thus far otherwise. Mass last night was wonderful. We had Father Tony, who is by far the most inspiriting, spiritual man I've ever encountered in my life. St. Augustine's of Gainesville is very lucky to have 4 of the best priests in the region, thanks to being the Catholic Student Center for UF, but Father Tony takes the cake. He is from Nigeria and has this voice that just makes you melt. Yes, I think my priest has a sexy voice-deal with it! haha. Actually, he is an incredibly talented singer and during his homilies he will say "let us pray" and then sing part of a song that ties in to the readings plus whatever message he has chosen to focus on for that sermon. It's hard to put into words how moving this man is, but if you ever are in the Gainesville area try to catch one of his masses. Catholic or not, it will totally be worth the mere hour of your time.

[Newsflash: Helio Castroneves wins the Indy 500 from the pole position! Nice race ladies and gents, nice race. Classic, he and the whole team just climbed the fence. He is a 3 time winner of this race.]

Now I'm off to visit my grandparents, who just live 2 miles away, before another race tonight The Charlotte 600- NASCAR's longest race of the season. Keep enjoying your Memorial Day Weekends!

Love to all,
~A racecar driver loving, Jess

Give me a W, Give me an E

Give me an E-K-E-N-D, what's that spell? WEEKEND! yay.

I treked home to Bell last night (to the surprising disappointment of some of my St. Pete pals, sorry guys) for a long weekend with my parents. I've been spending more time with them in the past few months. I can't really tell you specifically why, it just feels right for some reason. And in my book if it feels right, than it likely is. Plus the pup-er-roo gets to roam our 60+ acres and I know that makes him happy too. Gotta take care of the 4 legged boy!

I got in a two mile walk/run (soon I'm going to be able to switch those "run/walk") on my parent's driveway this morning. It was a taste of "trail running." Felt pretty good. Shins are still bothering me, which I was suprised by considering I was running on packed sand (thanks to all the rain FLA has gotten this week) and it would be a better surface than sidewalks but I guess it is just the name of the game for me. I'm going to start tying to run laps in my complex or something to get more asphalt time in until the ground drys out in St. Pete some more and I can run on it, which is currently a swamp.

Now I'm off to help Mom do some gardening. We are rebedding all her day lilies and hopefully the sun-which is out right now, yay!- will hang on so I can get in sometime with this beauty:

Yes, of course once I officaly move out my parents put in a pool! I acutally spend my last Sunday at home (back in August of last year) helping my Dad dismantle this beast of an above ground pool from a nice lady's house in Gville- he had bought it off her on Craig's list. Naturally. I thought he was bonkers. And of course, as all his crazy ideas typically do, it turned out great. One hand dug pit, a new liner and some pump parts later my parents have a lovey little in ground pool for less than two grand. Frankly I'm jealous. haha. I helped do some land scaping with them last time I was home (after I took this picture) so it looks even better now. Now you see why I wanted to go home this weekend? Nice pool, free food, good company. What better mini vacation can a girl ask for?

Also, I'm finally starting Marley and Me, which my Orlando Bestie loaned me months ago. I read a few chapters last night before turning out the light and I was giggling aloud already. I love a good laugh over a book and was in need of something a bit more light hearted, as I am still in mouring overing finishing the wonder that is With.

Love to all,
~A relaxed, and happy for the holiday weekend, Jess

Maybe, baby?

Hi all,
No, that title isn't a song this time. I'm mixing things up?! (Psst, not really, I just couldn't think of a fitting song and I'm busting out this quickie while I run a B-Cell Panel.

My plea's to the rain lords were answered last night and it cleared up around 6:45pm last night so I zoomed off to Crescent Lake to get some run/walk time in. I only got to do one lap, since it took me a bit longer to get to the park than I had anticipated and I didn't want to be late for my fave Thursday night yoga class. But one mile is better than no miles. My left shin is still really bothering me, but my knee felt much better since I took a page out of Caitlin's book and found some Chondroitin/Glucosamine supplements at Target for pretty cheap (my dad takes the genetic Ostio-bioflex and I know how expense those are) and started trying them this week. So far so good. I know it might seem kind of lame taking a sup when I can't even run a mile straight yet, but if my knee is hurting this much just training for a 5k I'm not sure I would ever be able to run more. An ounce of prevention, right?

Yoga was AMAZING, though. We are working on shoulder and hip alignment this week and it was just what the doctor, or yogi....or rather- body, ordered. Especially those surprise pigeons at the end. Denise read my mind, again! Love it....I would go into more detail, but I don't have my copy of Light on Yoga with me and want to get Iyengar's quotes correct. I'll probably do a whole post on him soon, so stay tuned.

The main purpose of this blog though was to tell everyone about this great giveaway that Zesty of ZestyCook is giving away this week. A blog Makeover! And since I'm such a newbie in this "advanced" blog world we all know that I need all the help I can get. I really hope he helps me out. He did Meghann's header and it looks fabulous.

Back to data analysis land! I'm taking my work laptop home to my parent's house this weekend so I'll being doing a few Holiday Weekend (yayayayay!) posts too.

Love to all,
~A very anxious for 5:30pm Jess

Rain, Rain go away.....

....this little girl wants to go out and play. Or at least haul her ass around the lake twice before yoga. That's probably not happening....but I must admit that the rain beating on the studio windows is very soothing, so all will not be lost. Seriously though, if this volume of rain keeps up for another day or so the pool is going to overflow. I've never actually seen that happen so I am kind of excited. Yes, I am easily amused as well.

Thanks to the lack of nice outdoor weather I have been able to read a lot more this week and I am about 5 pgs from finishing this book. It is absolutely amazing. It is written in a style I've never seen before as part of it is narrated by a dog. Actually it ends up being narrated by several dogs, a bobcat and a ghost. That sounds a little lame and to fantasy-ish but it's not. It's really about survival, being self sufficient and in the end, love. It's one of those books that men and women alike will relate to and enjoy, so please check it out. (Then tell me, so we can talk about it, without me giving away all the good stuff).
Here is a list of the other books written by D. Harington:

Farther Along
The Pitcher Shower
The Architecture of Arkansas (A Novel)
When Angels Rest
Butterfly Weed
Ekaterina
and quite a few more....check him out, totally worth it.

I went to this great little Cantina last night with some of the girls (and ex-girls) from work. It is actually a branch of Red Mesa, which I ADORE, so I was very excited to check it out. Turns out that A (I've decided to use initials since this is public, and I'm not sure how everyone would feel about being on the Internet) and one of her friends are considered "regulars" there so we got the best service! Totally going back. Especially since I didn't really get to eat anything. I can say that their homemade tortilla chips and trio of dips were very tasty though.

Um, makes me want Mexican food...I might have to make some veggie quesadillas for dinner.
Time to shove off and brave the rain home. And walk the dog in the down pour. Again. sigh.
Love to all,
~A hungry, but not wanting to get wet, Jess

It's raining men....

Ok, it's not raining men, but it's raining. STILL. And don't get me wrong, I love the rain (especially when I'm in the studio...so peaceful. Best "music" to practice yoga by, eva), we need the rain, but I do wish it could stop monsooning long enough for me to walk my dog. But no, so we just got soaked, again. Well, I didn't get soaked thanks to my handy dandy purple umbrella (ella, ella) but he did and then he shook. Allover! Now my house seems like wet dog. But atleast it's sweet wet dog! and I have the sinking feeling my morning run will be rained out again too. Boo.

Here is my darling dog, drying out. Yes, he likes to lay next to his bed. But he lays on it enough too. Gotta keep things blanced out! hah.

In other news, my brilliant archiving idea isn't fool proof yet. I deiced I want to make a separate page for all those archives or something. I'll figure it out...maybe with some help? HELP!? (I'm quite technical, but not that web-savvy. Le sigh)

NEWSFLASH: My girl Shawn Johnson (and Mark!) just won DWTS! yayayayay.


Now, a foodieflash: I tried to revamp my so-so buffalo tofu as a wrap for lunch today.

The first half was tasty. I layered the tofu with jalapenos, Swiss cheese, sprouts, sliced plum tomato, green leaf lettuce and of course ranch. I had wrapped it in foil for transport and then for lunch just threw the whole thing in the toaster oven to get all warm and melt-y.
That second half though, phew. It was spicy. Those pickled japs really kicked in and my poor tastebuds were crying uncle!
I haven't given up on tofu, because I know I like it. I just need to find a way to cook it at home. I think I will check out that recipe from Gliding Calm's site that everyone has been raving about.

Time for me to hit the hay. More blurbs to come and watch out for those archive links!

Love to all,
~A sleepy, soggy Jess

And it hit me like a lightening bolt....

I have been fussing about this week (and most of last weekend) trying to create my new WordPress blog "Nourished on Life" but I kept getting frustrated with it and with what I was writing. I finally just figured out what it was...I wasn't being myself. Yes, I love food and eating it and writing about it. And yes, I certainly have been inspired to eat more health consciously and take pleasure in exercise thanks to many of the "healthy living" blogs I read on a daily basis, but that isn't me. That's why I was so feeling off. I do plan to include alot of my "nourished" content in this blog, but I don't want to give up my Chronicles, not even one bit. I am snarky and judgemental not to mention I think about stuff wayyy to hard and for too long. And all of those traits are displayed in my post. Love it, hate it, you will love ME or hate ME. But I hope you love me and soon your Google Reader will be filled to the brim with fabulous content from yours truly!
Love to all,
Jess