Movin’ On Up….

I now have a domain!! I won’t be blogging at this URL anymore, so please be sure to start visiting the new site instead:

http://www.ThatDeepBreath.com

Mornings Aren’t Pretty

The past couple of days have been crazy. Busy. Frustrating. Disorganized. Packed. Sleepy. Stressful.

But I really feel like the worst is over.

And now it’s time to get back into my normal schedule! While my days have been crazy, every morning started with the same drink…coffee!

I know a lot of people try to stay away from caffeine…but I love it! I really wouldn’t be able to get through my day without caffeine. I have to take medicicine that makes me really tired, so drinking a cup of coffee in the morning and a little caffeine later in the day really helps me stay at a normal energy during the day, and I’m still able to sleep at night.

In fact, I’ve been going to sleep around 10 every night, which is really early for me.

I think it’s important to do whatever works for you and not just follow the trends. I love coffee and I’m not afraid to show it!

One Wish

I only have one wish. I wish I could stop time. I have so many obligations and responsibilities and promises made. I can’t keep up! There are some moments of my day where I just feel too overwhelmed with everything that I can’t even answer a single text message. Phone calls are out of the question.

Last night was horrible. I brought my cat to the vet and was immediately met with the terrible sounds of dogs crying. I then overheard a woman finding out the dog she was babysitting may not have made it through surgery. Great.

Once we got to see the doctor, she decided Puff, my cat, needed to get his wound cleaned, cut and drained. Uh…drained?? She took my poor little cat to the “back room” and brought him back with a cone on his head and a sad look on his face

He has no idea what to think of this cone on his head, but he loves all this attention. He was pretty angry for a while after I brought him home, though. He kept staring at the wall and meowing, he couldn’t even look at me. Sorry Puff!!

I made him a comfy bed in the spare bathroom and he is now learning how to be an indoor cat for the next 3 days. He is not litterbox trained. I’m scared of what I may find tomorrow morning.

This morning I had a smoothie in a bowl that I put together last night to blend up this morning:

I am now off to work and will not have time to post again tonight after a meeting tonight. I will see you tomorrow morning with a (hopefully) non-cat related post!

My Night

 

Shop All Day, Party All Night

Yesterday was a bit wild.

I woke up at 7 am. Like was wide awake. I tried to talk some sense into myself to go back to sleep, but it just wasn’t happening. I had a 10:30 am doctors appointment that turned into a noon doctors appointment because the office was so busy. Even though I woke up at 7, I did not have time to eat breakfast. Why? Because I was searching for cute puppy pictures on the internet all morning. Priorities, people.

The truth is, none of them are as cute as my puppy, Pepe.

I love him.

After camping out in my doctor’s office, I decided it was time to eat something. I went to Quizno’s and got a small veggie sub on rosemary parmesan bread. My fave. According to their website, the sandwich includes olives, guacamole, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, sautéed mushrooms, mozzarella, cheddar and red wine vinaigrette. I opted out of the onions and mushrooms and added pickles. Because they should be added to everything.

Once I was stuffed to the brim, I headed on over to Best Buy. Apparently, I left my camera charger back in Huntington Beach. Instead of driving 9 hours for a little charger, I decided to buy a new one. Of course, I didn’t think to bring my camera to see which charger to get. Luckily, they only had one option, so it wasn’t a hard decision. Once I got up to the checkstand I opened my wallet to pay and found an old Best Buy gift card. I practically got the charger for free and now have $6 on my card. Score!

I then decided to head on over to Marshalls to check out the new clothes. I saved money on my camera charger purchase, so I might as well waste it on more clothes, right? Well, I forgot how overwhelming Marshalls is and I immediately walked right back out of the store. All those racks of clothes and people looking for good deals freaks me out. It’s too crowded and scary and I just don’t know where to start once I get there. Maybe someday I will actually get as far as the clothing racks.

After my shopping extravaganza I decided to head home. It felt like 5 pm and I was exhausted! I looked at the clock: 2:30 pm. How did this happen? Time had gone by really slow and all I wanted to do was go home and cuddle in bed with a S’more Cupcake. So I did. While watching the psycho ladies of Real Housewives of New Jersey ruin a Christmas party, I realized I was supposed to pick up my new prescription. I realize this sounds like my prescription has something to do with being psycho, or New Jersey, but I promise it doesn’t. I rolled out of bed and drove on over to the store to pick up my medicine and my soda of the week, Diet Cherry 7Up. At least it has fruit in the name.

At 6 I went to a yoga class at my gym

Let me rephrase that. At 5:15 I went to a yoga class. That started at 6. There was a lot of sitting in the car playing with my iPhone time. While sitting around in my car, I realized that my phone can take pictures from the front. Funny thing is I knew iPhones did that, but for some reason it didn’t connect in my head that my iPhone could do that. I’m really bad at taking pictures of myself, so this is fantastic news. Plus, I won’t look crazy taking pictures of myself in parking lots anymore. Oh I’m just playing Checkers on my cell phone…no need to stare. 

Then I came home to a disaster.

Meet Puff

Puff is my cat that likes to sunbathe, get his belly rubbed and make you sneeze.

I came home to poor little Puff laying in the driveway with a giant chunk of fur missing on his neck. Upon further inspection, I noticed a giant gash on his neck. I immediately called my mom and told her about it. She then interrupts me and says
“Oh that? Yea, he’s had that for a while. Must have gotten into a fight or something.”

Uh…madre is now in big trouble for not saying anything about this to me before.
I felt terrible for my poor little kitty so I made a vet appointment to get him checked out. On the phone, the vet tech asks if his gums are pink.

My response:

“Uh, well, his gums are pretty white. Like really really really really light pink”

Her:

“Well are they  light pink or white? There’s a huge difference”

I don’t know!! I don’t inspect my cat’s gums everyday to see what color is normal.

I then brought him inside the kitchen (he’s an outdoor cat) because I felt bad for him. We had a cleaning party and did the dishes together while listening to Backstreet Boys.

Loungin’ while I’m doing the dirty work

rollin’

more rollin’

modeling

After our cleaning adventure, I let him back outside, and now I have to catch him again later today for our vet appointment.

I may need an extra cup of coffee today.

Do you get totally intimidated by giant clothing stores? 

What’s your adventure for the day? 

My Food Philosophy…Part 1

My parents cooked home meals every single night, even though they both worked full time. They never fed me “little kid food” like blue boxed macaroni & cheese or frozen chicken nuggets, and when they did it turned into a disaster.

I remember one weekend when I was seven years old my mom was on a work trip and my dad was in charge of feeding me. He’s a great cook, so my mom wasn’t too worried about it.

One night I begged my dad to make me macaroni & cheese “from the blue box”.

source

It’s not that difficult to make, boil water, pour in neon orange powdered “cheese”, stir in milk & butter. I figured if he could make delicious chili and amazing roasted chicken, he could handle a little Mac & cheese.

Wrong.

When I came into the kitchen, I noticed the room smelled funny. I hesitantly looked into my bowl and found my neon orange pasta covered in black stuff.

Pepper.
“uh dad, did you see pepper on the ingredients list I gave you?”
“well, no but I wanted to give it flavor”
I looked back into the bowl and noticed a bunch of other random colors.

“why would you season macaroni and cheese?? I’m calling mom!”

I then called her and told her my dad was trying to ruin my life because he made the mac & cheese wrong. I may have been a little dramatic back then. Ok, I still am dramatic.

I then called my mom and begged her to come back home to make me real mac & cheese.
Looking back on this day, I realize that my dad was trying to turn fake food into something that tasted a little less boxed. This disaster was the turning point in my food choices.

source

I used to be obsessed with the show “Arthur.” He was an aardvark (or was he an anteater?) that taught me to try everything once. Unfortunately for me, my mom watched this show with me and picked up on his food lesson. She always made me “try everything once” including zucchini (yuck), onions (yuck) and squash (double yuck). I quickly became the little girl who would try anything. I ate everything my parents made, which was always a healthy, balanced meal.

To this day, she still tells me I should “try everything once”. In fact, just a couple days ago she encouraged me to try a piece of zucchini.
“Remember what Arthur always says?”

I quickly reminded her she wore that phrase out on zucchini 11 years ago. Yes I remember exactly how old I was, It was that bad.

Just because I loved my healthy “grown up foods” doesn’t mean I didnt love my sweets. I was a cookie, cupcake and brownie fiend. My childhood food memories include cooking with my dad, and baking with my mom.

I ate pretty healthy, but I definitely never deprived myself. I never really thought about calories, nutrients, fat or anything like that. I was a cheerleader from ages 7-15, so of course I was a little aware of what I was eating, but it was never obsessive.

sorry about the akward blurry spot…had to cover up the front of the uniform!

Everything changed during my Junior year of high school, but I’ll save that for part 2 🙂

What were your childhood meals like? 

Were you picky? The kid who ate anything? 

Chocolatey S’mores Cupcakes

Chocolatey S’mores Cupcakes

(makes 6 cupcakes)

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1 cup water

1.5 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup applesauce

marshmallows

graham crackers

preheat oven to 350

mix wet ingredients together

sift dry ingredients into to wet mixture. mix until batter is smooth.

bake 15-17 minutes (take them out before they are completely done, the broiler will bake them a tiny bit more)

once cupcakes are finished, slit two lines in cupcakes with a knife. place two (or as many as you can) marshmallows in each slit, and a couple more in between. basically, as many as will stay on. for me, it was 6. place under broiler until golden. make sure to keep an eye on them, never look away! you want them to get golden and melty. crush two graham cracker sheets and sprinkle over top. eat & enjoy!

These are really dense chocolate cupcakes and sooo good. If left over, make sure to heat before eating and add more marshmallows if they fit!

Meal Planning: Weekly Food Staples Part 1

Shopping:

I was planning on going to Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods, but it turned into TJ’s and Raleys. Oh well!

TJ’s Finds:

almond smooth almond milk

sugar, chocolate coffee bean grinder (yum!!!!)

unsweetened applesauce

s’mashing s’mores (double yum!!!!!!)

Raleys Finds:

coffee house vanilla caramel cream

rosemary

lemon

honey graham crackers

Now that the boring stuff is over, can we talk about this?

This, my friends, is a S’mashing S’more. It’s pretty much a baby s’more covered in chocolate. I’m addicted and I want to eat the entire box. But I won’t because that’s a $3 little box of deliciousness.

Lunch:

So, I didn’t really have a “real” lunch..once I got home from shopping I really had good intentions. I started off with a leftover smoothie and 1 S’mashing S’more and then everything went downhill! I decided to finish up a recipe I’ve been writing (which you will see very soon), and I ate one of the baked goods. So pretty much for lunch I had a smoothie, baked good and a s’more.

At least the smoothie had spinach in it.

That cancels everything eles out, right?

Dinner:

For dinner I had leftover Annie’s leftover White Cheddar mac & cheese with shrimp and a little buffalo sauce added in, and on the side a rosemary butter baked sweet potato! So good.

Rinse sweet potato & dry off. Rub potato in olive oil and place in microwave until fully cooked. Once finished, cut upen sweet potato and top with butter and chopped up rosemary. Delish!

Meal Planning:

Today is Sunday aka my favorite food day of the week.

Sunday’s are kind of random, all over the place days where I rush to get everything ready for the week. A typical Sunday includes taking an hour to get out of bed, an extra cup of coffee, walking all the out to the mailbox in my sweats and realizing there’s no mail Sundays, trying to work out, sometimes failing, hours at the grocery store, talking myself out of hours at the mall, calling businesses and remembering no one is open Sundays, oh yea, and preparing food for the week.

There are a few items that I absolutely always have to have.

greek yogurt

almond milk

strawberries

oats

spinach

nut butter

blueberries

frozen bananas

carrots

other random fruits (this week it’s peaches)

Every Sunday I cut up some fruits & veggies for the week. Today it was bananas to freeze and carrots to turn into carrot sticks

I sometimes plan out my meals for the week, so Sunday is my day to prepare everything for those meals. This week isn’t action-packed so I should have time everyday to prepare things as the days come.

Be sure to check out more of the Meal Planning series. This is just Part 1…I will be back again with Weekly Food Planning soon.

Shout Out Sunday Numero Dos

Good Morning!!

Remember how I said I’m getting used to waking up at 7 am or earlier? This morning I automatically woke up at 8. Who am I!?!? The past week has felt like a complete blur. I don’t remember much from (I just accidently typed frum….ugh) the past week at all. I don’t remember anything I did besides worked and coming home mentally and physically exhausted. I am so happy things have slowed down so I can finally focus on the things I’ve been neglecting…exercise, recipes, blog, myself!

I started off this morning with a piece of toast with butter (real butter) before I went to yoga. I still go to yoga classes at my gym, but I’m thinking of completely quitting the gym and joining a yoga studio. They’re pretty expensive but I think it’s worth it if I’m able to go a few times a week. I’ll need to match up my school, work and volunteer schedule up with the yoga class schedule. I pay $50 a month at my current gym, but I literally only go to yoga classes there (and they only offer them every couple days) so I don’t really feel like it’s worth it anymore. I could do yoga at home by myself but I don’t think it’s as fun! It’s great to use podcasts (I love Dave Farmar) while traveling or when your too busy to attend classes, but I think it’s fun to get into the social aspect of going to an actual class.

And now…it’s time for Shout Out Sunday #2!!!

Peas and Thank You-Taking a Minute (the sweetest post I’ve ever read)

The Bloggess-And Then I Staged A Live Zombie Apocalypse in Utah (the video is super inspiring..and hilarious)

Faith Fitness Fun-Comments That Make My Skin Crawl (completely agree with this post..someone needed to say it!)

Then Heather Said-Why Don’t You: Choose Happiness (reminding ourselves you control your own happiness)

Picky Palate-Gooey Cookies and Cream Double Chocolate Cake Bars

And now I’m off to Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods, my two favorite places!

Obsessed

The First Aid class I taught today went really well! I was done after only three and a half hours and all of the students really seemed to enjoy the class. Those are obviously great things. Not so great, I had to buy a $6 bottle of Advil with about 5 pills in it. I don’t want to talk about it.

Anyway….

I’ve been completely obsessed with a couple applications on my iPhone. Like every other blogger, I’m obsessed with Instagram, and you should be too. It’s an application that you can use to take pictures and edit them to have different effects, or just edit the pictures you already have on your phone.

I’m also obsessed with Fooducate. It includes a barcode scanner to scan for products, grades them and explains the grade. I love that it explains what each additive in the food is and why it can be harmful.

Fooducate also offers alternative products that have a higher rating and are similar to the product you searched for.

I’m not sure if these applications are available on every phone, but I definitely recommend them. Instagram is a fun, playful application and Fooducate is a helpful and interesting tool for watching what we eat. I don’t pay attention to the calorie portion of the application, but knowing what is in my food is really important to me and the barcode scanner makes searching for foods really simple.

Dinner:

Smoothie in a Bowl!! I really think I’m obsessed with these. Smoothies are slowly becoming my favorite food. Is that weird? It’s so strange, after I drink a smoothie I suddenly feel energized & in such a better mood.

(recycled picture but it looked pretty similar)

The Mix:

6 ice cubes

1 handful spinach

1/2 cup greek yogurt

1 cup milk

1/2 banana (ran out of frozen ones & forgot to put new ones in the freezer)

1.5 cup frozen fruit

1 tbsp peanut butter (blended in)

granola for topping

I also took advantage of Gap’s 40% off promo. 40% off all sale items! I’m addicted to online shopping!!

What are your favorite phone applications?

What are you obsessed with?