Three-Sixty

Heyyyy lovess. Early Tuesdays! In case you’ve forgotten 😛

I’m so glad we’ve finally got sunshine back – and I hope you do, too! It didn’t start out that way, though – I did not want to get out of bed this morning for anything! I even “slept in” (aka. 6:30 – but I dragged it to 6:45) and was still groggy. The thoughts of having to go to class were not helping my mood, and I woke up with a slight headache. Not a happy camper. But – don’t worry – this isn’t going to be a whiner post! You’ll see 🙂

After much grumbling and stalling more, I dragged my bum into the kitchen and rocked some cherry oats.

By “rocked,” I mean that the base was equal parts oat bran and rolled spelt flakes, vanilla extract, frozen cherries, trail power, and topped with flax, chia-acai icing, crystallized ginger, dried currants, coconut, and frozen cherries simmered in almond milk and some chopped almonds. Additionally, even I couldn’t deny the fact that this bowl was deserving of a couple dark chocolate chips!

But the real star of the show?

Remember how I mentioned I ordered 3 nut butters from Naturally Nutty way back when I placed my order? Well, I’ve stil only had the White Chocolate Coconut because I don’t like having toooo too much open at one time. Well – I’d be a fool to not use White Chocolate Cherry Almond Butter while it’s sitting in my cupboard! And I was not prepared for what I saw upon opening:

Uhm, are you KIDDING me?! Naturally Nutty, you’ve outdone yourself. I already thought you were simply amazing for your White Chocolate Coconut peanut butter – but can you believe that cherry goodness in this jar?! Me neither. But how did it taste? Oh, you know, no big…just similar to how winning the lottery would taste. I cannot wait to try every single one of their flavors. I need to step up the nut-butter consumption so I have justification to order again soon.

It was so frigid out this morning. I guess not by Vermont standards – but by recent standards, for sure! It’s been relatively warm in the mornings – 25 or so – but not this morning! I snapped these photos as fast I could, and had to microwave the bowl before digging in.

This meant I also wanted to nuke my coffee – and this operation turned into one gigantic fail. Try fitting a square bowl and a cup of nearly full coffee in a microwave (re: a turntable microwave, as most all are) and imagine the outcome when the plate tries to turn and there’s not enough room for both objects. Got it? Okay, if you’re imagining correctly, you’re seeing coffee all over the place. Yeah – not my brightest moment. And given that I was still in a “I hate school.” mood – this did not help.

Eventually, I sat down and generated a list of reasonable excuses to not attend class:

1. It’s supposed to be nice out today.

2. I don’t feel like it.

3. I have better things to do. Like…watch morning talk shows. Or something.

4. I could design my business cards.

5. See numbers 1 and 2, and repeat twenty times.

Enter voice of reason: Jess, you’re going to class. Go get ready.

Eventually, my funk started wearing off and after changing my outfit and trying to get a reasonable hairstyle situated, I decided I was just going to make the best of my day. I mean, I was already up. And what else was I going to do all morning? That’s what I thought.

Still – I would need some motivation on the drive in.

Enter: music...music can either totally pump me up, or totally bring me down. I needed some Jay-Z to kick off my morning commute. Never mind that Eric Clapton’s Layla came on immediately afterwards – it made me happy just the same. More Jay and some Matisyahu kept my mood up as I thought about going for a run after class. Ooooh, a run!

After a boring class, I was still super-duper pumped at the thoughts of going for a run, and my mood had done a complete 360*. I was in the best mood! I credit it to the drive in and making the best of everything. I was almost floating – not to toot my own horn or anything 😉

I did have some quick grocery shopping to do, for some produce and fruits – and fueled with a nanner.

nanner lovin'. can we just look and laugh at my stray hair on the right there for a second, though? kthanks.

haha I’m so weird. Uhhhh – anyways. Grocery shopping happened quite possibly the fastest I have ever done it. No joke – I was so pumped! And I didn’t want to lose my motvation. I was in and out of there in twenty minutes. (Hey – it only took that long because it’s really hard to fit kale in those dang produce bags.)

Once home, I grabbed a quick snack

half a bagel thin with Rumi’s and dried apricots. These organic dried apricots I picked up from the co-op are handsdown the best I’ve ever had. I think the ones from the bag I’d been eating previously are a joke, or something. They are so…uh…not dry…and have this awesome, vanilla-y flavor. Heaven. Dangerous addiction. I made a side note that this would make a really good sandwich.

Laced up my choos – and off I went!

I’ve been saying a lot lately how I want to get back into horseback riding and/or running. I decided I want to start and see how I like running. It’s been quite a while since I’ve gone for a run, so I set myself goals:

1. Don’t push yourself so it’s not fun. I want to see if I enjoy this – I’m not doing it for weight loss or anything like that. Simply to get a little more physical exercise in my routine, and enjoy the outdoors and feel good.

2. Start out easy. You don’t need to even run a mile.

3. Walk when you want to. It’s your first time in a while. While I’m not unfit – I’m still relatively active – once again, I want to see if I enjoy this, and if I don’t – I’m not going to do it. There’s plenty of forms of exercise that I do find enjoyable.

In addition – I decided I would just do walk-run intervals. So basically, I didn’t exactly work-out much – I went a little over a mile, but again – did walk-run intervals – but I loved being in the fresh air, enjoying myself. It did get a little unpleasant towards the end, but only because of a n00b mistake: it was pretty windy, and my ears got quite cold. I always have had this problem when running, though. I almost wore a hat, but then didn’t. I think if I were in the sun more, it would have been fine…and I almost drove into town so I could run a little loop – but didn’t feel like going out again. Next time!

Once back, I did some stretching (since, you know, that was oh-so-strenuous…hah) and some quick sit-ups, bicycles, and push-ups. I should have reversed that order – I stretched last. haha.

And then feasted! This is where you realize that I’m really totally awesome, or really totally wacked.

Aw, yeah – look at that waffle lovin’. But what did I concoct this time? oh, you know – just a spinach buckwheat waffle with the lovely Mae‘s humnut cheese…

And hardboiled egg whites, red pepper, and roma tomatoes. Remember when I made these waffles? Well – I made enough dry mix for two meals knowing it would come in handy. I was planning I’d have it for dinner tonight – quick and easy! But got way too excited to wait until then when I thought of this during class 😉 I know spinach is pretty unnoticeable in green monsters (not from personal experience – just from hear-say!) and bought a huge thing of spinach last time I went shopping. Wanting to pump up my waffle and use some spinach – I just blended some handfuls with some almond milk, added some fresh basil and a garlic clove, and added that to the mix in addition to some egg beaters!

I won’t lie – my first bite was cautious. It didn’t smell so hot. It smelled quite spinach-y. I was nervous that this ended up being a drastic fail. Um, no, sir, not at all! No taste of psinach whatsoever. Just deliciousness! I love buckwheat. Although – I do hate how it looks, hah. Wouldn’t these be such a pretty green if it was a spelt flour or WW flour base?! Oh, well. Beggars can’t be choosers. Or something.

Additionally – loved the humnut cheese. I was just going to do hummus and melt some mozzarella – but then I’d realized I’d never tried the humnut cheese, and this would be the perfect humnut cheese vessel! Although – I still don’t have any tahini, so I went without. Ah, well.

So – have I completely weirded you out yet, or not? Heh – sorry guys 🙂 Love me?

So – this is it from me for today! I’m craving a tempeh-almond butter-jam sammie for dinner – that one from Sunday was delish! So I may do that. And if I don’t…you won’t be missing anything exciting, either way. But it’s way easier for me to not have to worry about blogging Tuesday nights! I hope you all have a beautiful rest of the day, and a great night!!

What’s your favorite music to listen to when you need to get motivated, or “out of a funk”? Or are there other things you do to motivate you?

If you’re a runner – how did you get into it?