Power of the Purse

Today I had the pleasure of attending the Power of the Purse Luncheon sponsored by the United Way of Summit County.  This luncheon celebrates the impact women have on giving in our area.  We had a terrific speaker named Jessica Clements.  Jessica was hit by a roadside bomb while serving for the US Army in Iraq.  She was given a 2% chance to live due to the massive brain trama she suffered.  Despite these terrible odds, Jessica was miraculously able to recover.   She spoke on the importance of persevering, challenging yourself, and giving back.  What an amazing and inspiring speaker! 

Breakfast #1

Last night, I cooked up two of my lil eggins with the 1/2 of a link of Jennie-O’s hot turkey sausage I had leftover from the Jambalaya! (I apparently can’t type that word without using an “!” after it 🙂 )

The eggins consisted of 3 egg whites, S&P, Franks Red Hot, Red Pepper Flakes.  I baked them up in a 350 degree oven for 27 minutes.  I also had the other half of the english muffin that was leftover from yesterday’s egg love.

Despite looking slightly creepy, the sausage/egg combo was so yummy!  🙂

Stats on eggins & 1/2 english muffin:  193 calories, 18g carbs, 6g fat, 23g protein, 4g fiber

  

Breakfast #2

Chobani Blueberry greek yogurt with 1/2 a serving of Bear Naked Maple Granola

As much as I L-O-V-E greek yogurt, I am seriously looking forward to making up some overnight oats tonight.  There are just so deliciously cold and creamy!  And addicting!

Stats on yogurt + granola:  205 calories, 31g carbs, 2g fat, 16g protein, 2g fiber

  

Lunch

Good news / bad news on lunch. 

Bad news = I didn’t make anything fun for lunch because of the luncheon, nor did i get any pics of what I ate! Bummer!

Good news = I jotted down a few inspirational quotes from the speaker at the luncheon:

Don’t give up the first time you do something and it turns out terrible.

Every day strive to be the best “me” you can be

I especially liked:  Live for today.  Yesterday is gone, and tomorrow may never come.

I’m trying a couple new recipes tonight!  Pumped! (as always 😉 )

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Early bird catches the corn dog

It’s Saturday, and you know what that means.  Yard work!     

You’d think for as much time as I devote to my yard, it’d be in pristine shape….  Oh what a pain in the ass homeownership is  the joys of home ownership 🙂    

There is one specific area of the yard that I leave completely untouched.  You can see I have quite the crop of poison ivy growing:    

area of infestation

 

     

I hit up the Home Depot this morning to pick up some spray to (hopefully) help with my poison ivy.  Did you know Home Depot opens at 6am???   I leaned this little nugget of information when I called them at 7am to see when they opened.  6am?  Those customers must be hard-core home improvers.     

Before I got to work in the back yard, I cooked up my favorite egg breakfast:  1 dippy egg & 3 egg white scramble with S&P, Red Pepper Flakes, and Frank’s Red Hot.  I always add a splash of liquid (usually skim milk or water) to the egg whites to help them stay fluffy.  Also, toasted up a Thomas’ multi grain english muffin on the side.     

    

    

Stats on breakfast:  218 calories, 28g carbs, 6g fat, 22g protien, 8g fiber    

After chowing down, I headed to the yard.    

Until last summer, I was one of those people who thought I wasn’t allergic to poison ivy.  Well, that is until I accidently weed wacked some of it.  I really didn’t know what poison ivy even looked like, so I was unaware of the horrible mistake I had made and basically let myself marinate in the poison ivy juices all day while I worked away in the yard.  This resulted in what I will call a immobilizing infestation of poison ivy all over my legs.  Since then I will not go near the stuff.    

Today, I put on pants and long sleeves (despite temps in the mid 80’s) just so that I could approach the “infested area.”  My luck, I’ll get poison ivy on the only part that was left exposed:  my face 🙁   I’m sure I’ll have nightmares about that tonight!    

I’ll have to post some before and after shots once I get it all finished (which will be never sometime soon).    

After all the yard work, I was starving!     

Sometimes I just get cravings for weird foods.  Case in point, today I had a sudden craving for a corn dog!  I can’t remember the last time I had one, but something triggered the corn dog eating machine deep inside me.  So, I decided to try and make a healthified version of a corn dog.  Even typing “healthified corn dog” makes me scoff.  How ridiculous sounding is that?    

I had some frozen Jennie-O turkey sausages in the freezer and also some Joseph’s Lavash bread, so I pulled them out to defrost before hitting up the yard early this morning.    

I cooked up 2 turkey sausages – 1 for the “corn dog” and 1 for a healthified jambalaya recipe I’m going to try later in the week.  Once cooked, I wrapped 1 turkey sausage in 1/2 a Joseph’s Low-Carb lavash bread, stuck in on a skewer, and threw it back on the grill.    

    

    

Ridiculous, I know…    

Once the lavash was crispy, I pulled it off the grill and served it up with a big squirt of mustard.     

    

    

Ok – so it’s not exactly a corn dog, but eating it off a stick sure made it seem like one and it definitely hit the spot 🙂  I’m a BIG fan of Jennie-O’s hot turkey sausage.    

Corn dog stats:  210 calories, 7g carbs, 12g fat, 22g protien, 3g fiber    

BTW –  yesterday while volunteering I had a Smores Luna Bar – and I wasn’t a big fan.  It wasn’t bad tasting — just didn’t remind me of a smore AT ALL.  Definitely the least favorite of all the flavors I have tried to date.  I also had a few bites of a Chocolate Cherry Bear Naked Grain-ola Bar.  It was OK – but again, I wasn’t super impressed.  Apparently I was hard to please yesterday…   

What did hit the spot, however, was the Gioniono’s pizza we had for dinner:    

Abundant vegetables to make me feel better about eating pizza, amazing Gionino's pizza, pool of hot sauce goodness 🙂

 

    

Still trying to decide what to cook up for dinner tonight…  Suffering from foodie’s block.

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Taco salad does the trick

This morning started off on the right foot:  Trader Joe’s coffee for the road as I headed to a breakfast meeting for Akron’s Knowledgeable Network of Women. 

Check this guy out, he thinks he lives at my house:

I also have a stray cat who calls my side porch home.  I’ll take these guys over the possum who had a brief stint in my backyard :-/   Ugh, possums are so creepy!

On my way to the breakfast meeting, I started to recall the days where I loved breakfast/lunch work meetings.  The more the better!  Bring on the free food!  Pass the rolls!  Dessert?  I’ll take one of each, thank you!  Nowadays I dread them.  It’s so hard to make healthy choices when you have no idea what the restaurant is actually putting in the food.  Unless I’m at a chain restaurant that posts the nutritional data online, I have thee hardest time picking out the healthy choices on the menu.  It can be downright frustrating!

Today’s meeting was at a small locally owned restaurant, so I was left to fight the battle on my own.  I went with a plain english muffin (no butter, thanks) with blackberry preserves and a bowl of fruit.  What I REALLY WANTED was the strawberry stuffed french toast… Maybe I’ll attempt a healthified version this weekend 🙂

Check out the KNOW by clicking here.  I always encourage people to get involved and do something that is outside their comfort zone.  That’s exactly why I joined the KNOW a few years back.  I HATED networking events and always felt uncomfortable entering a room full of unknowns.  I’ve made drastic improvements since then.

For breakfast #2 I decided to go with my newly declared indulgence:  Dannon Vanilla Greek Yogurt, blackberries, and 1/2 a serving of Bear Naked Maple Pecan granola.

Stats of B#2:  190 calories, 31g carbs, 2g fat, 15g protein, 3g fiber

 

  

Lunch

I really didn’t have a plan of attack for lunches this week.  While scrounging around in the freezer looking for hidden treasures, I found some frozen lean ground beef I had cooked up with taco seasoning a while back.  So I decided to make a taco salad using romaine lettuce, tomato, onion, banana peppers, and black beans (STILL trying to use these up from the stuffed peppers I made last week!).  Topped it all off with some hot sauce and some fat free breakstones sour cream.

The best part of eating salads for lunch is you can consume an enormous amount of food and still feel good 😀

Stats for the taco salad:  326 calories, 32g carbs, 10g fat, 29g protein, 9g fiber

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Hump day crackalacking

Happy Hump Day!  😀
 
Seems like the past few days I have been entirely devoted to preparing for the Jewelry Party!   Well today’s the day friends!  Those of you who know me well know that I L-O-V-E hosting parties.  I tend to over dedicate myself to them — but I really enjoy the whole preparation process.  Slightly weird, I know, but I’m ok with it.
 
Since this fervent foodie has to leave work early today to get ready for the ladies to come over for the Jewelry Party tonight, my meals for the day needed to be quick and light. 
 
Breakfast #1
3 Egg Whites, 12 Grain Bread with Sunflower Seeds, Broccoli, Squirt o’ ketchup

Breakfast #1 Stats:  173 Calories, 23g Carbs, 2g Fat, 17g Protein, 2g Fiber        

Breakfast 2:  Oikos Greek Honey Yogurt, Blackberries, and some Bear Naked Maple Pecan Granola     

      

Delish. I <3 Greek Yogurt

 

Love this

 

 Breakfast #2 Stats:  200 Calories, 32g Carbs, 2g Fat, 16g Protein, 3g Fiber     

      

Lunch:  Buffalo Chicken Lettuce Wrap!  broccoli (meh..)  carrots and Trader Joe’s Jalapeno Cilantro Hummus (A-MAY-ZING).      

Lunch spread

 

     

 Lunch Stats:  283 Calories, 24g Carbs, 6g Fat, 33g Protein, 8g Fiber     

      

Looking forward to trying out some new recipes tomorrow and this weekend!!!   

Countdown til food and Bling:  T-minus 6 hours 😀

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