MIA for a reason! ^_^

Sorry lovely people that I've been MIA without notice, but I had good reason for it! STAR is here!!! Yeah~~ He arrived on Friday night and will stay here until next Tuesday! So, with the craziness of work, commute and trying to live a normal life with blogging and work outs, I couldn't find time to blog. But fortunately it will work out soon! I already have some kind of "plan" for the work out!
So, first recap of Friday. Because of the excitement of Thursday night's climbing, here's the one pic of meI couldn't sleep well (5 hours) so I was sleepy and tired all day long.
Breakfast was a dessert style breakkie: chocolate pudding oatbran which was soooooooo delicious!

• 1/2 cup oat bran
• 1/2 cup almond breeze chocolate
• 1 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup silken tofu
• 2 tbsp flax meal
• topping: frozen strawberries

It was soooo delish and hold me until lunch time. For lunch I packed scrambled tomatoes with egg, bamboo with chicken and leftover eggplant with cucumber. And a big bowl of brown rice.We didn't have a break/lunch room so I had my lunch on my desk. Where I had my dessert too.
PM snack: a tomato (yes, I like it as fruit sometimes) and McCanne's packed flavored oatmeal.Back home exhausted dinner had to be quick and easy: sauteed chinese broccoli, bamboo with chiken, steamed kabocha and rice porridge.Dessert: two marrocsThen Star arrived!!!~~~ So excited and so happy!! ^____^
We slept well (fortunately he didn't have jet lag). I woke up an hour before him and went to the gym for some cardio (haven't done it for ages and really craved it): 30 min on the treadmill and 20 on Elliptical. Back home, he just woke up, perfect timing for breakfast!
He had pork buns with almond milk (I made it)And I had WW toasts with 2 kinds of homemade AB and a mango.After we did laundry (Star did it) and some cleaning (Star did it) we went to Farmer Market. It was my first time here in US and it was so exciting to see fresh produces! ^_^ Look these strawberries, soooooo appetizing! I had two boxes for $12 (so expensive!!! but so worth it!)
Lunch came late (2pm). I made sauteed pork with chili and lotus and sauteed bok choy for Star.I made a gigantic cleaning fridge kind of salad: a bed of fresh greens, tomatoes, sauteed mini peppers with mushrooms and 1/2 avocado, dressing was simply olive and balsamic.I had a belly expansion after this huge bowl. But there is always space for my fav dairy free chocolate pudding.We spent the whole afternoon watching chinese tv-series and snacking
kamut flakeskorean cookiesand etc....
All these snacks ruined my appetite for dinner, so I had a small bowl of porridge with some Chinese pickles and kabocha!You guys might think we should do something more exciting than just lying down and watch movies... but both of us actually enjoy more this way of relax! so boring but so enjoyable! Look how we look Hope all you guys have a great Sunday~~ ^_^

New food adventure!~~

After seeing Heather and Maggie having green oats, I wanted to try it out. But it took me a long while to actually do it. Yesterday I had my first glorious green oat and I loved it! As some of you know Heather latest combo is purple cauliflower oat and Maggie loves her spinach oat bran. Since I was adventurous yesterday, I combined them! I used 1/2 cup broco-flower puree and a big handful of spinach to make this amazing green bowl
It took me like 15 min to make it: puree the cauliflower, re-heat steel cuts with almond milk and then blend with spinach. I also added 1 small banana to give it more sweetness as well as vanilla for the flavor. Final result: DELICIOUS!!!
I topped it with Cinnamon Swirl PB (finishing another jar, I'm so proud of me!!!) and coconut spread.
I love love love this combo. But I need some technical advice. How to blend spinach and not splash everywhere? How do you guys do it? What I did was adding spinach directly to the pot and blend it, obviously the pot is not as tall as the blending cup, so I splashed all over the kitchen table. HELP!

After breakfast and blogging, I called my mom and talked about an hour. It was great to know that my Dad is feeling better. My mom also told me that my Dad was doing great on managing Diabetes. He started to exercise, like walking 2-3 times a day for at least 30 min; he is eating less and counting calories/carbs; and his glucose has been declining steadily. I'm so happy to know. I started to think that this Diabetes thing might be "good" for him to force him to finally decide for a healthy lifestyle and that will lead him to actually live longer and healthier! ^_^

The rest of morning was spent doing errands, buying some little things for my new apt. I love going to ROSS to find cheap but great items for home. Do you guys go to ROSS?

For lunch I made a big fresh salad with mix greens, tomatoes, mushrooms, olive and balsamic. And the main course was black/brown rice with smoked salmon frittata. Mi, you can find the recipe here.
Dessert: dairy free chocolate pudding and tea. Gina, I think the secret to get a smooth pudding is blend it well and add exact amount of liquid. And the brand of the silken tofu might be a reason too. I use Nasoya.I spent the afternoon watching TV, deal hunting with Qiao and office hour at school. Munching on strawberries. I think I had about 1 pound of it. And before I went to the gym I had the last half bar of Honest Food.
When I was running on the treadmill I began to plan for dinner. Mental thoughts: what do I crave? Nothing really. Then What do I need? Some proteins. What do I have? Chiken, rainbow carrots, onions, etc. What can I make from them? Balsamic grazed chicken!
I wasn't especially hungry for meal... so I had small portion of the chicken and some broco-flower puree over spinach. But I did have appetite for dessert. So... 3 course desserts:

Steamed kabocha (a big bowl)
White fungus drinkBlueberries cottage cheesecakeQuestion: When was your last vacation? How long it was and what did you do?

Heat makes me dizzy!!!!

It's so hot here in Maryland that I feel dizzy all day long. The air conditioning is still not on so I keep sleeping bad: moving between bed and floor; opening and closing windows; cursing the birds and trash truck every morning to wake me up (5am). grrrrrrrrr.......... I love summer..... but not this unpleasant side effects!!! Does anyone also feel dizzy during summer too? I think it's the low pressure that makes me feel dizzy all the time. I always have low pressure (60/90 is pretty good for me, sometimes during summer I got as low as 50/80). Any suggestion?

Feeling dizzy made me unproductive in term of work and eats. Didn't do much research and didn't do other things either... which is even worse. If I stop working when I realize that I'm not productive anymore, I could do something more enjoyable, like reading this book that I'm so fascinated and kept me going bed later than I want to. But instead, I kept trying to work a little more and end up wasting my time. :(

Anyway, lets move to my un-interesting eats.
Breakfast combo (which was the best meal of my day)

• 1/3 c. flax seed porridge
• 1/3 c. almond breeze chocolate
• 1/4 c. wheat bran
• 2 tbsp pumpkin
• 2 tbsp egg white
• 1 tbsp flax meal
• Cinnamon swirl PB and blackberries.

AM snack: Argentinian chocolate filled with dulce de leche
(I know, I have to go to manicure urgently)
Packed lunch since I had to go to a seminar. Avocado Sandwich on a English Muffin.pretty simple: 1/2 ripped avocado + laughing cow + baby spinachThe rest of the lunch: sweet peppers + appleLunch left me not satisfied so when I came back (3pm) I had two cookies with tea.these cookies are soooooooo good.... not too sweet, crunchy and full of flavor. Thanks Krista!
Official PM snack: my latest favorite snack combo, strawberries, kamut puffs, almond milk.Then I went to a spin class, all sweat!!!!
I didn't crave anything for dinner except veggies, so another warm/cold salad

• cold: baby spinach, tomatoes
• warm: sauteed firm tofu, mushrooms, broccoli slaw, more spinach, light soy sauce, sesame oil, sesame seeds. And microwaved egg white.

And a bowl of seaweed soup (cold)
Dessert was very chocolate: chocolate dairy free pudding and 1/3 bar of dark chocolate I hope either we get air conditioning soon or it starts raining to cool down, otherwise I can't go back to my productive mode!

Question: Do you get annoyed with yourself when you're not productive?