Questionnaire Work, Anyone?

Today was a very nice and relaxed Saturday.

It started out with my first run in two weeks.  I fueled with a date filled with peanut butter and went for a 30 minute run.  I got around 2.6-2.7 miles and my shin pain came back.  Crap!  I guess two weeks wasn’t enough huh?  This whole resting thing is going to be harder than I thought.

When I got back from my run I showered quickly and shoved my protein packed breakfast into my mouth as I skipped out the door.  I had a piece of wheat toast smeared with Trader Joe’s hummus, sweet & spicy mustard, full-fat feta, and a poached egg.

On my way to the chiropractic office, I caught up with my mom who is visiting her mother, her brother, and his wife on vacation.  It’s been a while since they’ve had time to spend together so I bet they’re having a blast.  Once I arrived, Dr. J adjusted the heck out of me.  I’m all out of whack so it’s no wonder that I’ve been dizzy lately.  After I was all back in alignment, I started my long grocery run.  Target was first for store-brand protein bars, bath tissue, and paper towels.  Whole Foods was just across the parking lot and I picked up some goat cheese (still the best price around), bulk oat bran, and bulk Turkish apricots.  Sam’s Club came next where I scored lots of blueberries, plums, apples, and 6+ pounds of chicken breasts for under $2/lb (which I promptly came home and portioned out into 4oz bags and froze).  Last on the list was Aldi.  I grabbed celery, green peppers, party mix (think generic Chex Mix), and yogurt for myself; pineapple and BBQ sauce for a crockpot chicken dish later in the week; and cheese and crackers for my turn at providing refreshments for clinic on this coming Friday.  Like I said, long grocery run, so I was really glad that I brought an apple along with me.

I ate it drenched in sunshine in the Aldi parking lot.  This held me over until I got home and had put everything away.  When I finally settled down and started working on my graduate thesis questionnaire, I was hungry again so I chowed down on the last of my Bold Chex Mix (there were only dregs left hence why I got more earlier in the day) and a sliced pear.

The combo may have been a bit odd but it was really what I wanted so it hit the spot and really satisfied me.  I spent the rest of the afternoon/early evening working on writing questions for my graduate thesis.  It is so much harder than you think to write up completely unbiased questions and to anticipate all the possible answers someone could give to a certain inquiry.  Every time I thought I was done, or at least at a stopping point, I would come up with a few more tweaks, a few more specifics that I needed to include.  I’m afraid it’s going to get too long, have too many questions, that people aren’t going to want to fill it out.  Well, I suppose that is what my committee is for.  Perhaps they will know better than I do at this point.

Around 6p I started getting rumbly in my tummy so I decided to whip up a pizza inspired by Bazbeaux’s quattro formaggio greatness.

I used an Italian 6 cheese blend, goat cheese, and ricotta on top of a crust covered in tomato basil sauce, center cut bacon (already cooked), and mushrooms that I nuked for one minute after tossing in worcestershire sauce.

Seriously, this may have been one of the best pizzas I have ever made.  Damn it was delicious.  I ate the whole thing while Skyping with Jack.  We really enjoy doing this.  It makes us seem so much closer.  If you’re in a long distance relationship I would highly recommend it.

The weirdest part of today was realizing that not all regular yogurt can be made into greek yogurt as I demonstrated a week ago.  I picked up yogurt at Aldi while I was there and figured it would work like any other plain nonfat regular kind.  Boy was I wrong.  I let the contents sit for 4.5 hours and I got absolutely nothing in terms of drained whey.  Seriously, like four drops.  The yogurt was completely unchanged.

I guess I’ll just have normal yogurt for this week but you can believe I will be getting Great Value from now on.  I like my homemade Greek yogurt wayyyy too much to care about the $0.20 I save by getting it from Aldi.  Tonight, I used the sadly undrained yogurt for dessert in the form of a plum and blueberry bowl topped with chocolate/caramel sauce and the awesome sugar, chocolate, and coffee grinder.

Seriously, ridiculously delish.  It was a great way to end the day.  I’ll admit that when I went to put the bowl in the sink I had the urge to eat my weight in cookies and sweets but I allowed myself a piece of homemade chocolate I made last week and, to my pleasant surprise, that urge to eat a ton went away.  That is a big victory for me.  Now I’m off to read in bed for a while.  I’m getting up semi-early tomorrow to make breakfast for my parish at church.  I can’t remember what’s on the “special” schedule but I’m sure whatever it is, it will be delicious!

Questions:  Have you ever had to write a survey/questionnaire?
What is your favorite “special” for breakfast?