A genetically mutated potato.

This morning, nothing we had at home sounded good for lunch so I planned to make a repeat trip to Jason’s Deli for the Best Lunch Ever. I was planning to order a whole bowl of the broccoli cheddar soup, instead of just a cup like I had last time, but as I was looking at the menu, the Spud Au Broc stood out to me.

 

The combination of my two current loves – the best broccoli cheddar soup in the world and a potato. Naturally, I got the full size potato because I’m pregnant and was starving.

Well, the potato was so monstrous that I’m convinced it was genetically mutated:

No worries though. I took it down.

I’ve been paying for it a bit since lunchtime with a very uncomfortable stomach (whether from eating too much or eating cheese, I’m not sure) but it was worth it.

My only complaint? That I burnt my tongue since I couldn’t wait for it to cool off before digging in.

And bonus points: there’s my veggies for the day. Never mind the calorie count of that bad boy. Ahem, 1,510.

 

 

Worth noting.

Even though I’m really enjoying my relaxing weekends, it really doesn’t bode well for the blog. I mean, you guys don’t want to hear about how much I didn’t do every single post. But here are a couple of things that are {somewhat} notable:

1) Watched the entire first season of Downton Abbey. I had heard how awesome this show was from fellow bloggers and friends so when I saw it in Redbox, I snagged it. And I really enjoyed it. Now I’m scheming on how to watch Season 2.

2) Watched Drop Dead Diva on Lifetime. It is one of my absolute favorite shows of all time. And I am so thankful that it’s on during the summer when Bones and NCIS aren’t. I don’t know how I would survive the summer without at least one weekly show that I die for.

 

3) Veered from my cleaner eating habits. I ate Taco Bell for dinner Friday, Chinese for dinner Saturday and McDonald’s for lunch Sunday. But enough’s enough. Back on the horse today.

4) I went on my first bike ride since the beginning of marathon training. Travis and I got caught in a downpour and hid under a tree. At first, it was an adventure. Then, when the tree got saturated and stopped protecting us, it was just kind of irritating. But it was fun to ride home through all the puddles!

5) Got really sad watching the men’s Olympic marathon. (Spoiler alert) Ryan Hall seems like a such a great, down-to-earth guy and I really respect the way he involves God in his training, so seeing him have to drop out so soon was really sad. It’s also sad that Abdi Abdirahman had to drop out, but I know less about him so it didn’t affect me as much. But YAY MEB KEFLEZIGHI!!! I was SO excited to see that he came back from being in something like 10th place to being 4th. I told Travis that if the course had been longer, I think Meb would’ve been able to come in 3rd. But alas, no medals for Americans in the marathon this year.

6) I got ambitious yesterday and deep-cleaned my bathroom. Even though I really dislike cleaning, I love things being clean. If I ever have extra income burning a hole in my pocket, I would consider hiring a maid. (And I’ve already suggested to Travis that when we try to sell our house, we have a cleaning service come clean the house for me.)

And that’s all that’s worth telling you about!

I realized last week that I haven’t posted my thoughts on my new Garmin yet so stay tuned for that sometime soon…

Cleaning It Up…

Since I’ve cut back quite a bit on my activity levels (hello 4 rest days last week!) and I have a Labor Day weekend on the lake in Minnesota looming, I’ve decided that I need to clean up my eating habits a bit. Any runner knows that it’s a little too easy to justify eating a cookie here, some chocolate there, because “Hey, I just ran xx miles.” Well, I no longer have that excuse. (Though I did run a full 6.75 miles last week.)

There’s a reason why I said I’m cleaning up my eating “a bit.” I don’t know about you but when I read about a “clean diet” that includes protein brownies, or look at eating plans that specify every piece of food that can pass your lips, I get overwhelmed. I don’t want to have to figure out how to make my brownies healthy with brown rice flour, agave nectar and greek yogurt. I don’t want to weigh and measure every thing I eat. (Some people do, and more power to them.) For me, food freedom is where I’m happiest. I’m a big fan of Intuitive Eating, if you can’t tell.

So the main thing I’ve done to clean my eating habits up is to be mindful of what I eat. No eating food just because it’s there and it’s free. I can get into a habit at work of eating whatever someone brings in – donuts, cookies, cake, etc. – just because it’s available. But I want everything I eat to be intentional chosen – it should be either nutritious and filling, or amazingly delicious.

Balanced with that, I’m also focusing on getting the majority (like 95%) of my daily calories from actual good-for-me food. I’m not specifically focused on cutting out sugar, refined flour, saturated fat, sodium or what have you. I just want to get more bang for my buck.

The main result of these two ideas taken together has been a severe decrease in my consumption of ice cream, cookies, chocolate, wine, etc. And I’m down a couple of pounds. Maybe it’s because my appetite has decreased from not working out as much, or maybe this whole ‘clean eating’ thing actually works (note the sarcasm), but I’m not complaining.

Do you “eat clean”? What does it look like for you?

Five for Friday

1. I ran 7.88 miles last night after work, which I haven’t done in a long time. Despite it threatening to rain and the wind blowing me around, it was actually a pretty good run. I averaged a pace of 10:46, which I’m pretty excited about.

And right now is my favorite time of the year to run because of all the beautiful flowers. Especially the lilacs. They’re at their peak:

I’m pretty impressed that my phone took that picture.

I’m willing to bet that the Russian Olive trees are out in full force up in Boulder too, which has me contemplating a run around my 9 mile loop again tomorrow.

2. My parents are flying to Mexico tomorrow and conveniently, they have a layover in Denver! So Travis and I will trek out to the airport early tomorrow morning (like 7 am!) to have breakfast with them. It’ll totally be worth it though. Maybe I can convince them to squeeze me in their carry-on and take me to Mexico too? Work has been incredibly busy this week so I am feeling very in need of a vacation.

3. On my run last night, I discovered the secret to making gels easier to eat: heat them up in your pocket. When the gel is warm, it’s a lot more liquid-y and less gel-y so it’s easier to eat. I think this will be my strategy for future runs – store a gel in a pocket until I use it, then replace it with another gel until I need that one. (And a big THANK YOU to Lisa for hosting a giveaway that gave me lots great, free running fuel!)

I received my package from Lisa last Saturday, which was perfect timing because I was out of fuel and had forgotten to go to the store. I packed a Chocolate Cherry and a Chocolate gel.

4. I think I may have solved my blister problem by using different socks and slathering on the Body Glide. We’ll see how things go tomorrow on my 10-miler!

5. I tried out a new frozen yogurt shop on Wednesday with some friends from church. It’s called Zinga! and I really enjoyed it.

They had fewer flavors than Yogurtland but every flavor I tried was delicious. I loaded up my bowl with Raspberry, Cake Batter, Cherry Amaretto, and Mocha Latte, and loaded on the toppings.

Flavored wafers = score.

M&M’s = fail.

The M&M’s got all hard from the frozen yogurt, which made they really crunchy. I will not make that mistake again.

That’s all I got.

Have a great weekend!

Getting Gas, Eating Mexican

Despite what you may think from the title of this post, getting gas and eating Mexican were two separate incidents. Which I will relay now…

Last night, Travis and I went out to eat at El Tapatio to celebrate the fact that he is 95% certain he’s going to graduate next month. He defended his Masters report yesterday in front of 3 professors and it went really well – which was a huge answer to prayer! Driving to work today, I realized that I even felt like a weight had been lifted – I can’t even imagine how great Travis feels! It’s been a long, hard spring for him but the end is in sight!

Even though Mexican is my least favorite food to eat at a restaurant, El Tapatio has many options that aren’t smothered in cheese (which is surprisingly hard to come by in most Mexican joints). I had the breakfast platter that included eggs and sausage. It was spicy, but delicious.

…………………..

This morning, on my way to work, I had to stop and get gas. While I probably would’ve stopped anyway (even though I was running late because I took time to hot-glue the insole of my nude heels that are falling apart), Travis had specifically requested that I stop if the gas light came on. Which it did. He claims that it’s bad to drive your car until the gas light comes on because your fuel pump ends up sucking up into the engine all the crud at the bottom of your tank that’s naturally in gasoline.

This is one of the most irritating bits of information I’ve heard in a while. In my opinion, that’s the whole point of a gas light: to tell you when you need to get gas. In fact, getting gas before the light comes on seems like overkill when you live in a big city and there are gas stations on every corner. It’s so much easier to just wait until the handy little reminder flashes its little warning light at you that you’re going to be abandoned on the side of the road and carrying a red plastic gas can that you just bought in one of the 20 gas stations in a 2-mile radius if you don’t stop and get gas relatively soon. (Why yes, I have experienced that exact situation I just described – 3 times.)

I’m clearly not a model car owner. I do absolutely nothing to keep my car running other than filling it up with gas – and apparently, I’ve been doing even that small thing incorrectly by waiting so long to fill the tank that my engine suck up contaminants and clogs itself.

Whether or not this tidbit is true (this site says yes, this site says no), no one will ever know.

What do you think? Do you wait until your gas light comes on, or do you run your tank dry?

The Blessing of a Broken Routine

Vacations are great. It’s actually been proven that simply planning a vacation makes you happier. I can vouch for that. During the past 2-3 weeks of being crazy busy at work, knowing that I was going to have 3 days off was like a ray of sunshine through clouds of gloom. And now that that trip is over, I’m looking forward to our Alaska trip where I’ll run my first full marathon.

But something about vacations has always bothered me: the break from routine. You may think that sounds ridiculous but for me, a person who values routine, having many days in a row without my usual routine makes me feel naked and unproductive. It also makes me worry that my routine must not be that important to me, if one little vacation makes me throw it out the window. The result is that I come back from vacations feeling like, for however many days I was gone, I wasn’t really living my life. I was living someone else’s life, a life in an alternate universe.

I can hear some of you saying, “That’s the sign of a good vacation.”

And now, I’d have to agree. I was thinking about this while we were down in Evansville, how feeling so separated from normal life bothers me. And then I realized: the break from reality is God’s blessing. True, I come home from vacation feeling like I was someone else for a while, but that reinvigorates and refreshes me for my everyday life. It makes me even more excited for my routine, more thankful for my own bed, more loving to my pooches, more grateful for my house. Without the break from reality that a vacation provides, I wouldn’t feel that new life instilled in the “same old.”

So now, I’m looking at the break from routine as a good thing… and trying to keep that positive perspective when I look at what happens to my eating habits on vacation.

Over the course of doing my Food Log for Lent, I have experienced many of the “diet downfalls” that normally trip me up: group meals, vacations, baby or bridal showers, date night, post-long run food fests. It has been very interesting to me to see how my body naturally regulates itself so that higher calories days (or weeks) are balanced out with lower ones.

On our recent trip to Evansville, I kept up my food log as much as I could (though I’m pretty sure I missed a mini Twix bar or two). And looking back on what I ate and drank, I was interested to see that 20% of my calories were EMPTY. Meaning they were in the form of chocolate (not dark), alcohol (white wine), and soda (Mountain Dew), and provided no nutritional value (there were other things consumed that weren’t the epitome of health but they had some nutritional value). I compared that to a “normal” week of eating and found that my empty calories then were only 8% of my total calories. Sure, the numbers aren’t a night and day difference but when I look at days where I ate 700 calories of pure sugar, it’s not hard to see why I feel sluggish and blob-like on vacation.

You know what they say, Knowledge is power. It’s been helpful for me to see the truth of my eating habits, even when they’re not pretty. And even though at first, I was surprised at how much I ate (which ended up being a higher-calorie week than average anyway), I’m now surprised that the times when I feel like I’ve eaten “so much food” and have “gained 5 lbs” really aren’t that big of a deal calorie-wise in the end anyway (it’s still a big deal glorifying-God-wise). And because I can relax over “the damage that has been done,” I can focus on what really matters: finding my satisfaction and joy in God alone.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy a little more chocolate than usual while I’m on vacation.

Keeping the wheels from falling off

Can you believe it’s almost the end of March? And that Easter is only a little more than a week away? Crazy, I tell ya.

Because of that, I thought I’d give another update on how my eating plan for Lent is going. When I first started tracking my food, I realized that my eating was haphazard. I already knew that I did well until about 4 pm and then ate everything in sight. A couple of weeks ago, I said that I was being more mindful of what I eat, but I was still struggling with emotional eating.

Well, I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that the wheels still fall off my eating habits around 4 pm, or more specifically, the minute I walk in the door after work. It probably doesn’t help that I plan what I’m going to eat on my drive home…

The problem is two-fold. The main issue is that I come home from work hungry. That is caused by either not bringing substantial enough snacks/lunch to work, or by eating my afternoon snack too soon after lunch, leaving me hungry by the time I go home. This whole ‘figuring out exactly what I will eat for the day at 8 am in the morning’ thing is tricky. Most days, I get it right. Other days, I totally underestimate (I guess I’m optimistic about my willpower early in the morning).

The other issue that causes the wheels to fall off is that I eat while trying to avoid doing what I know I should do. A couple of days this week, I came home from work and just didn’t want to run. While I was hemming and hawing and talking myself into putting my running clothes on already, I had a snack, almost always in the form of refined carbs. The things I crave the most often usually come in the form of cereal and white grains – bread, buns, tortillas. Usually topped with butter. Mmm…

My remedy to these issues is also two-fold. Stop coming home from work hungry and stop stalling by eating. (duh) To actually make these happen, I need to get creative. I’ve tried the whole “I’ll bring a snack for that afternoon slump” and eaten it at 10 am instead, because let’s face it, it’s the best snack I bring. I would totally be up for a salad then (because I’m still in love with salads right now) but my lungs vehemently disagree that a salad is good pre-run fuel. I’ve also thought about bringing a box of granola bars to stash in my office but that could be dangerous…

Anyway, the good news is that beyond my hunger-induced and distraction-providing eating snafus, I’ve been doing pretty well. Some victories: I went to a baby shower last Saturday, a situation which usually causes me to eat more than I should (I don’t know why, but for some reason, I eat more when I’m around people than I would by myself), and left feeling like I had eaten the perfect amount.

Travis wanted ice cream tonight and even though we went to Dairy Queen to get him something, I didn’t have anything because I honestly didn’t feel like ice cream. Funny how some people just naturally would choose that, but other people (like me) have to make that conscious choice – and it feels good.

And this isn’t a victory, per se, but more of an interesting observation. I’ve been keeping track of my calories since starting this journal (but not changing what I eat based on the number – it’s just for recording purposes) and have seen the amazing power of the body to regulate itself. Consider this: the average calorie intake for my “rough” week that involved quite a bit of emotional eating and made me feel gross was 2,398 calories a day. But that week was followed by a week that averaged 2,008 calories a day. The average for a month (2/27 – 3/25) was 2,203 calories a day. So even though I had a “bad” week, by listening to my hunger cues, my body corrected itself. That’s why I think it’s so easy for me to maintain the weight I’m at – it’s my “happy weight”, as they say.

Finally, to lighten up this copy-heavy post, here are some adorable pictures of my pooches:

Charlies likes to chew on blankets (naughty!), and she gets the blanket strands stuck in her floppy lips. It’s hilarious.

And Katy hates getting her picture taken. She refuses to look at the camera.

But she’s still cute.

That’s the blanket that Charlie gets stuck in her lips. It’s actually really cute because she likes to adjust her bed with her mouth. When I see her doing it, I’ll just sit there and watch her. If she sees me watching her, she’ll stop right away, like Crap, she saw me.

Do your pets have any quirky behaviors?

So tired. Need chocolate.

A couple weeks ago, I mentioned that I was starting a food log as part of the Love to Eat, Hate to Eat book study I’m doing with my church, and as a way to be more mindful of what I eat. I have been faithful in logging my food everyday, even on Tuesday when I was stuck in a meeting in the same freezing room for 12. hours. straight. Well, we did get a few breaks. But it was a looong day. Everyone at work was still exhausted yesterday. I feel mostly recovered. Wowza.

At first, I thought that my eating log wouldn’t be a true representation of my eating habits – wouldn’t knowing I was going to write it all down motivate me to choose wiser than normal? Perhaps it did for the first few days. But just like I can slouch on an exercise ball, I can eat for emotional reasons even if I’m tracking it.

I have been encouraged to see that 85% of my eating is not emotional. Some days I don’t even make one emotional choice. But then I have days like yesterday, when I’m exhausted and grumpy, and I just want sugar, sugar and more sugar, and throw all discipline and control out the window.

The biggest surprise shock has been to actually see how many calories I eat. In the past when I’ve counted calories or tracked my eating, I’ve conveniently ignored the times when I eat a little bit too much, or regret my dinner choice. “The damage is done – I’m moving on” was my mentality.

But if I am really trying to please God with my eating habits, I can’t just ignore the ugly parts. “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). So to bring everything into the light, I’ve kept track of everything – the little bites here and there, the candy, the condiments, everything (even Tums!).

During the first week, I counted calories as I wrote my food down. But I could feel the temptation to become obsessed with the numbers and this is supposed to be about gaining insight and not about making changes. So last week, I decided that I’d leave that part off.

This morning, though, I went through my log from last week and tallied it up (mostly out of curiosity). I don’t believe that our bodies operate on a 24-hour schedule like we do, so I am using a 7-day average as the measuring stick. While some days are scary high (pushing 3,000 calories), the weekly averages for both last week and the first week are around 2,190 calories a day. According to this calculator of Daily Calorie Needs for a moderate activity level (I sit around at work but am fairly active otherwise), I’m eating the right amount for my body size and activity level. My scale agrees. I’m still at the same weight I was 2 weeks ago, 2 months ago, and 2 years ago. My body just likes this weight. So while the sticker shock has yet to wear off, I think that I’m feeding my body an appropriate amount.

That leaves me to tackle the whole emotional aspect of my eating habits. I wish it were as easy to solve that issue as it is to tally a bunch of numbers on a piece of paper. But it isn’t. On days like yesterday, when I am so moody and emotional in general, the idea of not eating the delicious-though-they-cost-$1.25 Reese’s peanut butter cups awaiting me in the vending machine makes me want to yell or hit the first person who dares to annoy me. Glorify God? Respect the temple? I. Don’t. Care. 

Even though I don’t have the solution figured out when I’m already in a bad mood, I do have one insight into prevention: SLEEP. It is no coincidence that yesterday was my roughest day eating-wise, and also the day I felt like a walking zombie. I’ve known for a while that Tiredness + Kathy = Bad Life Food Decisions. I think I also channeled my frustration over having to be at work into eating – Maybe this donut will send me into a wonderfully numb sugar coma so that I don’t realize I’m still here.

“Need to get more sleep” has been written on my log more days than not over the past 2 weeks. I haven’t been doing my morning routine of Bible + writing because I wake up sooooo tired (which is not normal for me). Several days, I’ve woken up to see that I had been hitting my snooze for 45 minutes without even realizing it. Yesterday after work, I walked in the door and promptly laid down on the couch. I didn’t even take my jacket off. I seriously would’ve gone to bed right after dinner if I hadn’t had my ladies group, and I would’ve skipped that, if I hadn’t been the one leading the discussion. I left right after we were done, went straight to bed when I got home, and then… I couldn’t fall asleep. {My mind was running a mile a minute. Even about work stuff. Seriously? So I finished reading Robinson Crusoe. The book was okay. It was pretty slow moving, which isn’t that surprising since it was first published in 1719 (100 years before Dickens was even born!).}

Anyway, to sum it all up, my eating log has helped me be more mindful of what I’m eating, but I have yet to eradicate emotional eating. Stay tuned for more on that…

Do you like reading old classics like Dickens, Tolstoy, or Twain? Which book is your favorite?

My Running Nemesis

Monday night, I almost died.

Well, at least that’s what it felt like.

I got home from work tired (because I had stayed up too late Sunday night) and didn’t feel like going on a run outside in the brisk air. So I talked Travis into going on a walk with me and the dogs, and I’d go to the Rec after dinner.

Bad idea. Remind me to never do that again, will ya?

My mistake was eating an antelope burger (they’re actually very tasty) and about half a pound of brussel sprouts for dinner.

Remember how I discovered less than a month ago that I couldn’t eat a salad before a run? Apparently that same thing is true for brussel sprouts.

Only this time, the brussel sprouts really tried to finish me off. I was running around the track at a really easy pace (11:30ish/mile) and I started feeling a little sick. Assuming that the ketchup on my burger had given me acid reflux (which it has been known to do, and of course I forgot to eat Tums before running), I was just going to muscle through. I was on my 17th lap (1.6 miles) when in the span of ten seconds, all of a sudden I couldn’t breathe.

I got off the track and sat on a bench, and I was actually really scared that something bad was happening. My chest felt like an elephant was sitting on it, like I just couldn’t inhale enough oxygen to expand my lungs. My face was tingly and hot, and felt like it had swollen up to 5 times its normal size (but I felt it with my hand and it seemed normal). This was exactly what had happened during my run after eating the salad, only 10 times worse. That time, the symptoms had slowly subsided on their own, so I felt okay to just wait it out – even though it was incredibly painful!

After about 5 minutes, I started to feel better. I sat there for another 5 minutes and then granny-walked to get my stuff and leave. My stomach hurt as I was driving home and immediately after I walked in the door, I laid down on the couch.

I felt ok for about 10 minutes and then my hips and legs started aching – like how your body feels when you have the flu. Then the chills set in – I had two blankets covering me and I was still shivering. Finally, I got the worst headache I’ve ever had – stabbing pain in my forehead. I asked Travis to make me some tea and bring me some Tylenol, which he did willingly. But it was hard to drink the tea because I had to sit up, which made my headache worse, and I had to take my hands out from under the blanket, which made me colder.

After at least 10 more minutes of agony, Travis suggested a warm washcloth for my forehead. I didn’t think it would help, but what could it hurt?

That was the ticket. My headache and chills didn’t go away immediately but by the third re-warming of the washcloth, my headache was bearable and I wasn’t shaking anymore. By the fourth, I was sleeping. Wonderful.

I don’t plan to go to the doctor because 1) I’ve had this happen before. 2) I woke up yesterday morning feeling fine. 3) I don’t believe in doctors.

No but seriously, I went to the ER once for chest pains. It was the same kind of scenario – my chest felt tight, I couldn’t breathe deeply, etc. They diagnosed me with acid reflux, gave me some meds, and sent me on my way. Apparently, the combination of chocolate, coffee and ibuprofen caused acid reflux to such an extent that the acid inflamed the lining between my lungs and ribs, causing friction which feels like chest pain. It took several days for the chest pain to go away. I had to literally sleep sitting up because it hurt too bad to lay down.

Then another time, I gorged myself on fried food at a friend’s house (hello sweet potato fries and arepas!) and woke in the middle of the night convinced I had to throw up. After racing to the toilet and sitting there for 10 minutes with nothing happening, I realized that it was probably acid reflux. Sure enough. I propped myself against the wall and was fine in the morning. Acid reflux is a weird condition.

Since my brush with death (I’m being melodramatic if you can’t tell), I’ve done a little research on acid reflux and discovered that there are more offending foods than I thought. Here’s the short list of Food to Not Eat Before You Go on a Run if You Have Acid Reflux from WebMD:

• Meats. Ground beef, marbled sirloin, chicken nugget-style, and chicken/buffalo wings.
• Fats, Oils & Sweets. Chocolate, regular corn and potato chips, high-fat butter cookies, brownies, doughnuts, creamy and oily salad dressings, fried or fatty food in general.
• Fruits, Vegetables & Juice. Orange juice, lemon, lemonade, grapefruit juice, cranberry juice, tomato, mashed potatoes, French fries, raw onion, potato salad.
• Other Beverages. Liquor, wine, coffee, and tea.
• Grains. Macaroni and cheese, spaghetti with marinara sauce.
• Dairy. Sour cream, milk shake, ice cream, regular cottage cheese.

Um, doesn’t that include about everything? Except spoonfuls of peanut butter I guess. My most-often offender is tomatoes or tomato-based anything.

I also discovered this about heartburn (a symptom of acid reflux): “Heartburn usually is described as a burning pain in the middle of the chest. It may start high in the abdomen or may extend up into the neck. In some patients, however, the pain may be sharp or pressure-like, rather than burning. Such pain can mimic heart pain (angina).” {source}

So I’m convinced that my chest pains were caused by acid reflux. I do have a doctor appointment scheduled in March and will ask about this then (ok, Mom?).

Not one to be deterred, yesterday I was back to running. A 3.5 mile tempo run with Travis. I was admittedly a little nervous but the run was good. Legs felt strong. Lungs felt strong.

My takeaways from this whole situation are:

1. Stop eating vegetables before a run.

2. Go on a run right when I get home from work, instead of eating dinner first.

3. Avoid running at the Rec. There are bad vibes in there.

4. Take Tums before every run, even when I don’t think I need them.

I’m a slow learner, folks.

Have you had any brushes with death while running?

My Current Food Obsessions

Last Sunday, we had lunch with about 3 other couples from church. Ana Helena was the cook and as always, everything was delicious. My favorite part was the crepes for dessert. We piled them with warm berries, homemade chocolate syrup and whipped cream, ice cream, fried bananas, and walnuts. I am in love with crepes. Thanks again Ana Helena for such a wonderful dinner (we didn’t go home until 4 pm)!

As I was eating the crepes, I remarked to Travis that I need to learn how to make crepes. I crave them all the time. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized they probably weren’t that hard to make. Then on Friday I saw the Blueberry Cream Cheese Crepes post on Part-Time Housewife and knew: I need to make crepes.

I didn’t have the ingredients on hand to make her recipe so I used her crepe recipe and improvised the rest. (Note: I think it would be easier to combine all the ingredients at once instead of in steps, but perhaps that’s just my rookie thinking. The egg/flour mixture got stuck all up in my whisk.)

We don’t have much food in our cupboards or fridge in general right now, but I had thawed a chicken breast and we had a few marinated artichoke hearts left from making little pizzas. So we combined those with some garlic and spices. I also found a long-forgotten tupperware in the freezer, full of a soup that had failed but could be used as a sauce. So while Travis went to work on grilling the crepes, I prepared the rest.

Our crepes actually turned out well, if you ignore a few lumps.

I put the chicken mixture on the crepe, topped with some cheese.

Then I rolled them up, placing the seam on the bottom, and topped them with what looks like disgusting green poo, but actually is a pureed vegetable soup.

Yes, I realize that picture does not want you want to eat this. But I have two more that you will want to eat.

After we ate our crepes, we went to see Sherlock Holmes 2 at the cheap seats (and it was just as good as the first!) and THEN we went to…

Yogurtland!

I still had not made it to Yogurtland after my January of not eating sweets. The night we had decided to go was the day we got about 2 feet of snow and even though Travis and I slid our way over there, they were not open “due to the weather.” Single tear.

So I was determined to make up for it with this run. Travis kept making jokes about not going. After the movie, he said, “You wanna just go home instead of going to Yogurtland?” Um, NO!

And then when we got to Yogurtland and saw that it was the high school hang-out and pretty busy, Travis was like, “It’s too busy. It’s going to take forever. I don’t think we should go in there.”

“I will wait as long as it takes,” I replied.

This girl needs froyo, yo.

I chose 4 different yogurt flavors, and a slew of toppings. Travis was boring and chose 1 yogurt flavor and “2″ toppings (it only looked like 1).

Mmmmm… I’m so glad that Denver has Yogurtland.

Saturday morning, I had yet another treat awaiting me. We had 2 crepes left over from the night before, and this one I determined was going to be a dessert one.

So I slathered it with almond butter, topped it with blueberries and frozen Cool Whip, then folded and doused it with chocolate syrup.

Savory crepes have their place, but dessert crepes are the best. It was good, I actually wanted to eat Travis’ crepe too and went to our bedroom to ask if he was going to eat his crepe. After no response from him, I decided that I actually was full. So when he got up, I made the same crepe combination for him!

I was hoping that my crepe and frozen yogurt obsession would be cured, or at least decreased, by these treats. Nope. I just want more.

What food can’t you get enough of lately?