September Wedding Weekend #2

This weekend we celebrated the marriage of my two good friends Kris and Sean.  We’ve danced together for the last four years and I’ve loved every minute of it.  Last night was no different.  I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

The rehearsal dinner, complete with gifts:

The pre-wedding preparation:

The bridesmaids:

The ceremony:

The reception:

The hotel after party:

What a wonderful weekend.  Though I must say, wedding chew up time.  I can’t believe it’s already Sunday night.  I’m not ready for the week again already!  No choice though, here we go.

Questions: Ever re-worn a bridesmaid dress?
What’s the best wedding meal you’ve ever had?

Pudding To The Rescue

Metabolism.

That’s the word of the day.

I spent all day in clinic observing our biochemical geneticist work his magic.  It was a very long day.  Interesting but long.  Honestly, it’s kind of funny to think how exhausting it gets to not be able to say anything.  You’re a fly on the wall essentially.  And that’s fine, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes it’s nice to interact.  I do admit I have my “To Read” file full now with all sorts of metabolic disorders like propionic acidemia, glutaric acidemia, homocystinuria, and 3-MCC.  Lots to learn about.  But now down to the brass tax of today’s post: the food…because it’s a Wednesday and you know what that means!!

Breakfast came after a weights workout thanks to NROLFW.  I would consider this new routine, the new habit I’m “falling into”.  I’m on week two now and the plan called to move down in reps from 15 to 12 this week so I upped the weights and I was pretty tired when I finished.  I refueled in the shuttle with a chocolate and maca breakfast cake topped with flax peanut butter, maple syrup, and chia seeds.

This kept me full all the way until lunch time, through a whole morning of seeing patients.  Lunch was my time to relax and take a breather.  I made ate some carrots and a krab salad sandwich.  In the mix: krab, TJ’s jalapeno and cilantro hummus, and a touch of sour cream.  Simple but serious perfection.  I will be making this again soon.  I couldn’t get enough of it.

Following up in short order was an apple and a few dark chocolate acai berries from my desk mate Anna.  Oh Lordie, I really want to buy these but I really shouldn’t.  I probably couldn’t leave the bag alone!

After lunch it was back to clinic for the afternoon patients.  Afternoon felt much longer than the morning so I powered through with a carrot cake protein bar that I made yesterday.

While they don’t have a crunchy texture, more like that of a cake, they were still yummy.  I think if I make the recipe again (a distinct possibility) I would sweeten it just a bit. The overripe bananas I used certainly helped things but the unsweetened protein powder was mildly overwhelming.  Still though, you can’t beat 120 calories and 7.5g of protein per bar.  Awesome-sauce.

By the time I got back to the student room I was thoroughly exhausted and ready to call it a night.  Thankfully a first year, Jessica, was in the room about to head out and I bummed a ride home off her.  She really is too sweet, I must say.  When I walked into the my living room I dropped everything on the floor and collapsed on the couch.  It was already six o’clock so I took a little bit of time and worked on a neurology counseling outline then skipped off to the kitchen to work on dinner.  I made a stir-fry of summer squash, zucchini, shredded cabbage, onion, and garlic all in sundried tomato oil.  Some heavy dashes of salt and pepper too.  I served it all over some leftover mashed potatoes.

The beautiful dish looked even better in the evening sun and the steam was very pretty.  And enticing.  I downed it in no time.  Then it was back to work on the outline and when I wrapped that up it was time for the saving grace of this long (but admittedly productive) day: butterscotch pudding with chocolate sprinkles.

Seriously, this was delish.  Why is butterscotch such a great flavor?  I wish I knew but for now, I’ll take it regardless.  Now I’m off to watch an episode of MasterChef as I pack up for this weekend.  The plan is to be completely packed by tomorrow night so Friday goes really fast.  Peace out world.  Sleep well!

Questions: What is your top pudding flavor?
How do you manage having to be quiet instead of speaking your mind?

Homemade Protein Bars

Tonight I was on a mission to make my own protein bars.  I typically use things like this for afternoon snacks.  I have always bought them in the past so I figured it couldn’t hurt to try making them myself and saving a bit of dough.  (I admit it would be cool to have a price breakdown for you but I didn’t think about it earlier enough to do so.  Sorry folks!)  So when I came across this recipe for carrot cake protein bars, I was all over it.  I modified the recipe a bit because I didn’t have any coconut flour which was supposed to help the whole recipe achieve “dough” status.  In light of this, I only used 3/4 cup mashed banana, 3T maple syrup, no milk, and whole wheat flour. Also, I didn’t have cloves per say so I subbed in allspice instead.  I made sure to let the mixture sit for as long as possible but nothing was setting up well so I bailed on the idea of forming individual bars and I baked the whole thing in an 8X8 pan and then sliced them up later.

I would say they turned out super well but I haven’t tasted them yet.  So I’ll let you know exactly how they did when I have a bite tomorrow afternoon amid Metabolism clinic.  But now groups, I have to go and package the bars and get lunch ready for tomorrow. Then it’s off to bed with me.  I have to lift tomorrow in accordance with my New Rules of Lifting for Women plan and 6am is coming up quick.  Sleep well blogland.

(This Tune Tuesday pick was what I was rocking out to in the grocery store tonight.  I may or may not have busted out the booty shake in the pudding aisle to this song.  Haha.  Yea, I’m that awesome.)

Questions: Ever made your own protein bars?
What is your current favorite song?

September Wedding Weekend #1

This weekend Jack and I headed to the first of three weddings we have this month.  Crazy, right?  I guess we’re just that age.  This one involved our good swing friends Tyler and Heather.

As you can see they are happily married now.  It was a wonderful ceremony complete with lots of songs, prayers, and smiles.

They even had us all fill out cards with words of wisdom or positive messages for their guestbook.  Cutest part of this: Jack got really nervous to sign this because he didn’t want his handwriting to mess up the prettiness of what I had just written.  Awww, he concentrated so hard and it ended up just fine.  No messy “Jack” here!

The couple decided to take pictures after the whole service was finished so there was a lull of a little over an hour to kill before the reception.  The drive to the country club took about a half hour so Jack and I grabbed Starbucks to kill some time.

Venti mocha light frapp for him and a grande skinny vanilla latte with a pump of caramel syrup for me.  We chatted and I amused myself by blowing waves in the foam of my drink.

Yea, I’m easily impressed, huh?  Anyways, before we knew it we had to dash back to the car (to avoid as many of the raindrops as possible) for our short five minute jaunt to the club.  When we arrived we were greeted with an umbrella and a sign telling us we were in the right place.

Very few people we were there, even though we arrived on time, so we randomly picked a place to sit.  Thankfully some others sat with us but Jack and I were a bit worried for a while there that we would be the only people at our 8-top.  While we waited for dinner to start we munched on spinach parmesan dip and veggies while admiring our sweet favors.

There were also “reception distractions” to keep us occupied.  I rocked the hard sudoku in no time flat.

Notice the copyright sign at the bottom.  That’s because my boy decided to copy, that’s right, cheat!  Though he called it teamwork, lovingly enough.  He also cited me.  Haha.

We also had some mad drawing talent at the table too.  The young man next to Jack really knew how to draw and busied himself sketching the water glass.

Before we knew it, the dinner got rolling.  They had a buffet line with mixed greens, cheddar biscuits, twice baked potato casserole, carrots and green beans almondine, London broil, and spiral ham.

I tried a bit of everything.  Loved the potatoes and biscuits the best.  Figures I gravitated toward the carbs…  After dinner there were many, many, many speeches followed by cake cutting.

Tyler and Heather ended up choosing three flavors of cake: chocolate chip, vanilla, and some chocolate concoction.  Jack and I only got to try the first two because the caterers seemed to, for some unknown reason, slice a grand total of three pieces of the chocolate variety, and we missed all three.

The bites we did have were scrumptious though.  I really do love wedding cake and wedding frosting.  Nomnom.  The chocolate chip was the best though.  The cake essentially tasted like cookie dough.  I couldn’t ask for more!  After cake, we had a swing dance lesson.  Jack and I decided it would be best to join in after the lesson since we already know how to dance and the floor was rather small.  We did enjoy some dancing afterwards though.  A few good songs got us moving and we were complimented by one of the staff.  Kind of reminded us of the time we went to Jamaica and we were the first people out on the floor during the New Year’s Eve party.  For the rest of the trip we were called “the dancers” all around the resort and we were stopped and complimented several times a day. =P  It was a nice way to wrap up the night of a wonderful wedding day.

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Other interesting things of the past couple unplugged days I’ve had include a delicious paleo “oatmeal” endeavor.  I might venture to say that it wasn’t really an oatmeal texture but more of a porridge one.  However, that didn’t stop me from absolutely loving it!  I paired it with some paleo almond butter and some not-so-paleo cookie butter remnants.

While I’m not going paleo by any means (Hello did you not just read about my potato and wedding cake relationship earlier?) I do try and figure out some recipes that I can use when Jack is around.  He tries to be paleo more often then not so it pays to have some options on hand.  Other yummy stuff include the berry hibiscus refresher from Starbucks.  Not too shabby my friends!

I ended up fishing out the berries at the end with my fingers.  They were delicious.  Also of note, our Labor Day pancakes this morning.  Chocolate protein powder cakes topped with mocha cappuccino hazelnut spread and peanut butter along with maple syrup and flax seed. 

Just look at the height on these bad boys?  They were a welcome sight coming home from a weights workout at the gym together.  Finally, on the weird side of things, I came across this sad sign last week.

Seriously, what male model allows their picture to be used for this kind of ad?  I know someone “has” to do it but damn, I feel kind of bad for the guy…  Anyways, moving on, I hope you have had a wonderful Labor Day.  I admit it’ll be nice to only have a four day week.  I’m finishing up Neuro clinic and starting Metabolism clinic this week.  Should be a packed couple of days.  Then it’s off to our second wedding weekend of the month.  I’m a bridesmaid in this one so that makes it incredibly easy to pack.  G’night one and all.  Catch you later!

Questions: What’s your favorite kind of wedding cake?
Would you pose for an anti-rape or STD public service announcement?