Hello Honey!

After a long start to the week, and a full eight hours of sleep last night, today was better and the evening was much more laid back.  It started out with a big bowl of overnight oat bran (yes it works the same as rolled oats) mixed with plum and banana, topped with wheat germ, homemade sunflower butter, and a drizzle of honey.

[In the mix: 1/3 cup oat bran, 1/3 cup Chobani
plain yogurt, 1/3 cup plus 1 tbsp almond milk,
1/2 tbsp chia seeds, 1/2 tsp Stevia]

Seriously, the honey made this whole breakfast! It has been so long since I’ve had straight up honey and I had totally forgotten how stellar and sweet it was.  Nomnom!  When I arrived at school I worked on patient prep all morning until Cytogenetics class at 10am.  We learned about mitotic and meiotic checkpoints along with cyclin and CDK degradation.  It was a major review from Molecular Genetics class in undergrad but I was thankful for it.  It has been a while.

After class I went back to the student room for, you guessed it, more patient prep before Preclinic Conference.  I looked up information about the possibility of a familial form of cerebellar angiomas as well as the potential laboratories to do testing for the causative genes.  Sadly I think insurance may be an issue in this case which poses a new problem for me to deal with tomorrow.  Superwoman patient calming skills ACTIVATE!

Lunch was eaten at my desk while buried in a book about human malformations.  I dug into a turkey, Swiss cheese, sweet & spicy mustard sandwich along with a side of new parmesan & herbs Sun Chips I scored as a free sample being handed out in the city this past weekend.

When I presented my research at Preclinic I got grilled about specific test results when it comes to cavernous hemangiomas.  Basically they are occult to particular type of MRI because they are "slow flow" vascular lesions.  It felt great to show how much I knew to my supervisors.  After doing a bit more work in the student room before heading home I snacked on some raw broccoli and hummus before talking a brisk walk with Mary to Sweet Tooth Bakery for cupcake happy hour like last week.

This time around I nabbed a red velvet cupcake (their best seller) while Mary picked up one each of cookie dough and Xtreme chocolate flavors.  We may just make this a weekly date because one can never go wrong with $1 confections!  Shortly after returning from the bakery, I headed to Catechumenate.  Carl had cooked up another great dinner for all of us tonight.  The menu included ham and white bean soup, whole grain flour cornbread, and veggies with Western dressing.

Prayer in the nave post-dinner was interesting.  We learned how to make our way through the Book of Common Prayer picking out the proper psalms for the day, the proper readings.  I like this part but I was a bit put off by the message that prayer needs to be structured and needs to have a set-aside part of the day.  She said the more we pray the better we get at it, the more good it does us.  I’m not sure I agree.  I think some of my best prayers are the unplanned ones, the ones that come straight from the heart (do not pass go, do not collect $200), the ones that are raw and uncensored.  Those are the ones that best express my needs, my fears, my wants, my gratitude.  Anyways, I suppose everyone is entitled to their individual opinions on prayer, just as everyone is entitled to their own favorite form of prayer.  After all, prayer is pretty exclusively between you and God, right?

During the lesson for the night, on the nature of the Gospels, we had dessert.  I tried small slices of both pies available: key lime and berry yogurt.  I also had two blobs of perfectly whipped cream.

A delicious end to the day wouldn’t you say?  I liked both though honestly, the key lime couldn’t hold a candle to the those key lime pies from Key West, FL.  My family loves to spend Christmas vacation there so believe me, I know my key lime pie!  Oh well, one day I’ll get back down there for some of that goodness again, I’m sure.

When I got back home after Catechumenate I had my nutritionist appointment for the week.  We discussed nourishment of the adrenal glands in order to allow them to better handle stress.  Another thing we talked about again was doing a vegetarian week.  After some thought (we have been throwing this idea around for the last month), I decided I am starting tomorrow!  I’m going to be listening to my body to see if it feels any different when I take out meat and poultry.  I will, however, be eating dairy and eggs mostly because they are very important protein sources of me.  Cross your fingers!

Questions: Have you ever gone vegetarian or vegan?
What are your favorite vegetarian protein sources?
What’s your favorite vegetarian meal/recipe?