My Amazing Green & Fruit Salad

You know how I love that Strawberry Chicken Poppyseed Salad from Panera? Well, if you don’t know, I do. But Matt and I are trying to eat out less and make more things at home. Last night I was craving a big salad to munch on while I watched the Emmys so I thought what better time to practice my restaurant-knock off skills!

Salady Goodness

This wasn’t a true knock-off since I actually just added what sounded good rather than basing it off what is in my favorite Panera salad. Here’s what it had in it:

• 3 cups Romaine lettuce
• 4 strawberries, cut in halves
• a few dried blueberries
• <1/8 cup pineapple chunks
• garlic croutons
• 1/4 cup green squash
• 1/4 cup yellow squash
• 1/8 cup Feta cheese
• 4 tablespoons Low Fat/Low Calorie Raspberry Vinaigrette

This salad was so sweet and so tasty! It almost didn’t need the dressing because the juices of the pineapple chunks and strawberries blended everything together really well! It was a success, I will make it again and next time maybe add slivered almonds in place of the croutons? We’ll see.

Today I started off the day with Chobani Greek Yogurt with Strawberries and a delicious, juicy, amazing soft Pear. Mmm, mmm :)

Chobani Greek Yogurt with Strawberries

This was my first time having Chobani, since you all know I am faithful to Voskos. The reason I had it? Voskos was completely sold out at Safeway yesterday! Not only were they sold out but they didn’t have any in back either. I was so bummed. Chobani is around 50 cents more than Voskos, so I only bought 4. It was delicious though and the fruit was super tasty. Still, though, I prefer my favorite!

Also, I took these photos (all in this post) with my cell phone so please forgive the quality!

For a mid-morning snack I had a 100-calorie pack of Monterrey Jack and Sharp Cheddar cheese. The package seemed small but it hit the spot!

Lunch was:

Lunch at my desk, per usual!

Grey Poupon moistened my Orowheat thin, which was topped with a slice of cheddar cheese and oven-roasted turkey breast with lots of romaine lettuce. On the side I had my new Organic Corn & Flaxseed Sweet & Spicy Thai Chips with some leftover green and yellow squash from last night’s Super Salad. The banana served as an afternoon snack. It was great!

I had a dentist appointment this afternoon so when I got home to blog, I was starving. I snacked on a Chocolate Brownie Z Bar by Clif:

Day 49

Now I’m off to make dinner, elliptical, and then head to softball tonight (yeah, I’m on a company softball team!).

Hope everyone had a super terrific (Seinfeld, anyone?) Monday! :)

P.S. Have you entered my LARABAR Giveaway? If not, go do it! It ends SOON!

P.P.S. Below are the 3 most recent photos from my 365 Challenge. If you wanna check ‘em all out, click here.

Day 47

Day 48

Day 49

(Lovin’ that whole EMO thing on DAY 48 Huh?! I was having cell-phone case malfunctions! But the EMOness was funny so I kept it) :)

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(GB is a running fanatic?!)

(Yeah, this picture just made me laugh. And he’s number one in the race. Heh.)

This morning I came across a really cute and funny article on FitSugar.com titled “Top 10 Signs You’re a Running Fanatic” and I just had to share it with you guys! And if you are shaking your head yes to these, you have to tell me! Because I was laughing at how true some of them are! :)

1. For your birthday, you’d rather see a box from Nike than a box from Tiffany’s.
2. You own more sports bras than regular bras.
3. When someone asks you out for a date, you assume it’s to go running.
4. At least one of your toenails is black or missing.
5. When your heart is pounding, you’re breathing heavy, and you’re covered in sweat, you’re not in the bedroom.
6. You’d rather kick up some dirt than kick back a beer.
7. Your typical conversations involve words like fartlek, negative split, and pronate.
8. You’re overly familiar with the iliotibial band and just refer to it as the ITB.
9. You accessorize your outfit with a heart rate monitor watch, sweat band, and band-aids on your feet.
10. You wear sneakers at all times, just in case you can squeeze in some quick intervals.

I don’t know about number ten, since I loove my heels, but I can totally relate to a lot of these! And hey, if you’re doing the work you might as well embrace the lifestyle, right? So this brings me to my question:

How does being known as a runner (or an active person) make you feel?

P.S. Did you enter the LARABAR GIVEAWAY yet? If you haven’t, you definitely should!! :)

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Playing Photographer in Our Honda

This isn’t like when I said I was bike shopping and then the next day got a bike. Or at least I don’t intend it to be! Here’s the situation (I’m laughing at you if you clicked that): When Matt and I got together, he had a truck and I had my car. His truck was kind of a gas waster and we got along fine with one car, so we sold his truck. We lived together and went to school together and worked at the same place (wow, this sounds really stalker-creepy-of us) so one car worked perfectly! Plus it helped us save money so that was nice. Then a couple years later his mom bought a new car and gave us her old one to use. It runs pretty well but it’s rather old and blah. My car–well, our car–(now the car that Matt drives) is a Honda and it’s great. It gets really good gas mileage and it’s in good condition. I have been very pleased with it’s performance.

Now that we’ve done the other big purchases we wanted to–bought a house, new appliances, remodeling our kitchen, etc–we are thinking it’s time to get rid of our hand-me-down car before it kicks the bucket and we have a bill on our hands. This next vehicle, however, will be a “family” car because we will most likely start a family within the next 5 years. Unfortunately, we have only really thought about two! We are unsure if we want to spend a little more now and get something nicer OR if we want to go slightly economy now and purchase something nicer later on. Tough!

Here is the main contender:

Honda Element SC

The Honda Element SC. We like this because it’s a mini SUV which means we can take it camping, use it to haul our big purchases, help friends move (I hope we don’t have to ever do this), put the seats down and go to a drive in (woo, woo!), and things like that. It would be nice to have a vehicle that can actually cart stuff around. We’ve driven small cars for such a long time, an SUV of this type would seem huge! Plus this is pretty affordable for what you get. Here are some perks about this vehicle:

The really good news? 25 MPG highway and 20 MPG city. Woot! That’s pretty good for a mini SUV. Another perk is that it is a HONDA and then we’d have to matching Hondas! :) Actually, it is a HONDA which means we know it is reliable, like our other car.

We thought about going big and getting a Chevy Tahoe (the other contender), which would be good for a slew of little children in the future, as well as camping & hiking gear, loading the bikes, snowboards (Matt’s snowboard), and all that. But does the higher price tag necessarily equate to a better vehicle? I’m not sure and I don’t know that much about Chevy’s.

Are Chevy’s good vehicles? Have you had a good or bad experience with them?

Of course if I got to pick anything… I would choose this black BMW m5 Sedan:

BMW M5 Sedan

But a payment on one of those suckers would probably be more than my mortgage and that’s just not right. Still beautiful, though!

A more affordable luxury car would be a Lexus, and I really like these LS 460‘s:

Lexus LS 460

These things are so pretty! Can you tell I love black? Ahh, to dream :)

As you can see, we’re pretty much set on an SUV. If anyone has any experiences with the Honda Element, I’d love to hear them! Also, if you had to pick a dream car, what would you choose?

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Package to ME from CLIF BAR :)

Why was Friday amazing? Oh, let me count the ways.

1. Because it was Friday and that, friends, is simply enough.

2. I got a very, very, very generous package (& giveaway offer) from Clif Bar, my favorite energy bar & granola bar brand.

3. See #2 because it IS amazing enough to count twice.

4. I got to take a magnificent mini-nap after dinner. I know, I know, don’t SLEEP right after you EAT. Unless it’s Friday evening and you’re pooped, right?

5. Fruit and veggies, free of charge. Keep reading for the deets.

When Clif Bar said they’d send me some samples, I figured a few bars but not in a million years did I expect such a sweet swag package! I was completely thrilled and it made me love Clif that much more!

The Inside of my Clif Goody Box

I got 3-12 bar boxes of Clif Bars and 4-10 bar boxes of Clif Crunch Bars. I can’t wait to crumble one of those Crunch bars up into my yogurt for breakfast tomorrow morning. YUM :) And before you get jealous and roll your eyes at me from behind your computer (you know we all do it), let me tell you what else rules about Clif Bar Company: They are giving 4 boxes of Clif Crunch Bars away to ONE LUCKY SHELBYSTIDHAM.COM READER! Yes! You can’t win this amazing package until my other BONDI BAND GIVEAWAY closes, so be sure to go and enter that! And keep your eyes peeled for the Clif Bar giveaway, because it’s next! Along with a complete product write-up reviewing the Clif Crunch Bars.

Free fruits and veggies. That’s what I got today. I traded my dad (who has a garden that he shares with my grandpa, yet I hardly see my fair share of veggies but I figure my grandpa’s earned them, since he takes care of the garden and all) some chicken for veggies & fruit. Here’s the random assortment of goodness that I scored:

Fruits & Veggies... Home grown!

Among that bunch are some store-bought bell peppers I ripped off from my parents house. They weren’t home and my food-stealing side couldn’t be stopped. I know, I’m a monster. Everything else was MINE FOR THE TAKING, according to my dad, so I took: a monster peach, a couple of white nectarines, some green and yellow squash, red onions, and some apples. A goooooddd trip. And guess what the best thing of the bunch is? Lemon Cucumbers.

Lemon Cucumber

You haven’t had a cold, crisp and refreshing summer salad or sandwich until you’ve had one with a lemon cucumber. Seriously, these little jewels are tasty! They are the size of a medium or small apple, but crunchy like a normal cucumber and they have a lemon-zest flavor! Soo goood.

I hope everyone had a great Friday and a safe and fun Friday night.

Here are some things cookin’ for next week:

• The end of my BONDI BAND GIVEAWAY!
• A post on portion size: how much is too much? Foods that are easy to over-eat and photos of what amount you should actually be eating of them.
• 4-Box Clif Crunch bar GIVEAWAY! Keep your eye out for that one ‘cuz it’s gonna be Suuuwwweeeeeet!
• Ways to Buy Healthy Food & Not Go Broke

Are there any subjects you want me to research or write about? I’m willing to write about almost anything, except Jon Gosselin so please, don’t go there.

Goodnight peeps.. catch ya on the flip side :)

32.

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Brace yourself.. it's brace time

My knee still hurts so I decided I’d be proactive about the situation and go out and buy a brace. Last time I hurt my knee the brace helped greatly when I wore it on the days I’d be moving around a lot. So let’s hope this baby helps me this time around, too.

The down side of the brace is that it makes my leg feel like a sausage.

Help my knee, brace! HELP IT!

And when ANY PART OF YOU feels like a sausage, you inevitably feel sort of like this:

Bummer man :(

A plus to this new knee brace (besides the obvious plus of it perhaps helping my knee) would be a 365 challenge picture that differs slightly from the usual picture of my big head.

26/365

I am trying to be really positive about this crappy, poopy, stupid injury. Wanna hear? Ok.

1. It will heal and I will be able to run again.

2. I may not be able to run the 1/2 marathon at the end of August. There will be more. It’s okay if I can’t do this one.

3. This should make me more careful in the future–now is an opportunity for me to read up on form and prevention.

How’d you like that? I thought of 3 positive things about this injury. Ha! Ok, moving on.

It’s the weekend. Which means Matty and I get Starbucks. We got Caramel Light Frappucino’s made with Soy Milk. Then I ate a Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Clif bar. It was amazing!

For lunch I had a bowl of 2% Cottage Cheese with a handful of BBQ flavored Soy Crisps. They are very similar in idea to BBQ Pop Chips, which are MY FAVORITE!, but they are the “Eating Right” Safeway brand I am forced to buy when Pop Chips are sold out.

Soy Crisps and Cottage Cheese

After running some errands around town (where there were a billion people out, it was hot, and my knee hurt… I came home with a headache!) I came home and had 1 serving of Voskos Nonfat Greek Yogurt with 2 heaping tablespoons of Sugar Free Strawberry Jam and 1/2 cup Kashi Heart to Heart cereal. A cold and refreshing snack, to say the least! And shortly after that I had a Chocolate Brownie Z Bar. It was so good! That was the first one I’d had and I loved it! A great fueling up snack!

Greek Yogurt and SF Jam

Kashi Heart to Heart makes a super crunchy topper!

Chocolate Brownie Z Bar by Clif

For dinner I am making homemade hot wings (Matt loves them and he’s been doing yard work in the heat all afternoon so he deserves something special!) with celery, green salad and broccoli. I actually don’t like chicken wings so I will probably be having my protein in another form tonight, but we’ll see!

Guess what happened today, friends? My BONDI BAND shipment came. Yup, that’s right. All 5 headbands I bought came today in the mail. I was soo excited!

I love getting packages!

Bondi Band package!

Do you guys know what that means? A giveaway just might be coming up. But first GO AND ENTER MY EMILY GIFFIN BOOK GIVEAWAY! It ends on Wednesday at 8:00pm. As soon as it’s over and I ship the lucky winner the prize, I will start my next giveaway.

Stay tuned.. Want a sneek peak at the next giveaway and what could be up for grabs? :)

Beautiful Bondi Bands

Like what you see? One of those beautiful babies could be yours! Keep reading and stay tuned :)

Happy Saturday night peeps :)

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