I Went Shopping. Ruh-roh.

WHAT UP bloggie boos!!

How was everyone this beautiful and POURING DOWN RAIN Monday? Well, maybe it wasn’t so bad where yall are, but in Cincinnati, it was like a torrential downpour! Craaaze!

Then this happened…

Seriously, it was like the last five minutes of my run and I was in a full out sprint! The sky was practically black, and it was crazy scary! And I may or may not have looked like someone pushed me in a pool by the end of my run. Cooool.

The run was pretty easy today though, except for one MAY-JAH hill – but I at least knew about it going in. Seriously, I had to walk up it and by the top, my HR was at 180 and my calves were on fireeee. I always forget how hard big hills can be!

When I got home, I finally did a video I’ve been meaning to for a long time, Jillian’s 30 Day Shred Level 1! It was wonderfully difficult and I was feelin’ the burn big time!

Before I got started with the work out though, I had a nice bowl of cereal… sortaaa. A while ago, Gabriela posted about eating raw oats with almond milk, and I loved that for a long time! This morning, I decided to try it with oat bran.

Oat bran with vanilla almond milk and blueberries! I’m almost finally out of the berries I bought at Whole Foods on Friday, and I’m so sad to see them go!

Although this was pretty good, I’m not sure it was a breakfast worth repeating. The raw oat situation was actually much more fun to eat than this was, because with this all the oat bran sunk to the bottom and got really thick down there. It tasted great, but I love my textuuuures (:

Post-workout lunch was a mixed green salad with beans, carrot, apple, and tomato. This was mostly leftover from last night, but it still tasted pretty good! I also had a fruit plate of sliced kiwi and sliced peach afterwards for a little somethin’ sweeeeeet. Whatttup sweet tooth!

After lunch, I had a couple of errands to run, including a trip to the malllll (: Probs one of my favorite errands to run, period. I bought like, four new sundresses – the haul is up at the end of the post! I only ended up getting things from J. Crew and Francesca’s, but I love both those places so it all worked out!

When I got home, I was feelin’ a carby-type snack! Two slices of cinnamon-raisin Ezekiel bread: one with dark choc dreams and one with dark choc cocoa powder. And to top it all off, dark chocolate chunks. Did I possibly OD on chocolate after this snack? Possibly. Will that stop me from possibly having this snack tomorrow? Hell nah, brah.

Granted, snacks don’t hold me off for too long… so this happened pretty soon:

My Dad was out for dinner tonight, so Will [the bro] and I were on our own. He doesn’t eat dinns til like, nine or ten? And I’d rather gnaw my own arm off than wait that long [hey dramatic.] So I turned to the freezaaah for some food! TJ’s Meatless Meatballs and Garden Medley frozen veggie blend. This dinner totally hit the spot!

However, it also made me realize that I really want to avoid frozen veggies. It’s just the look of them that’s so weird… I feel like they don’t look like real vegetables! Really, it just looks more like… clay replicas of it or somethin’. So, moral of the story – efficient in a pinch, but probs not my go-to plan.

Now, how about some pretty clothin’ pic-tuurrres!

J. Crew chino shorts

J. Crew “Vacay” slip dress [super cute with a belt and wedges whaaaaat?!]

Francesca’s dress with rope detail [this one and the next one look much longer than they really are… they both fall a little above the knee.]

Francesca’s. This one is actually solid yellow, not two-toned the way it looks here because I accidentally covered the flash with my finger!

Francesca’s. Black t-shirt type dress, really cute and comfy!

Sorry about the blurry picture… I accidentally deleted the good one! Hey there, Clemson orange necklace (:

I literally own no bracelets, save for one from the Return to Tiffany collection.

Long chain necklace (Francesca’s)

Close up of the chain necklace – it’s so pretty!

 

Alright yall that’s all I’ve got for tonight! Not really sure what I’ll do for the rest of the night, but I’m sure my Twitter feed will let ya know (;

Question:

Do you have a staple piece of jewelry?

I have an Elsa Perretti necklace from the alphabet collection with an ‘S’ on it, plus two medals from this thing I go to in August… I’ll be able to talk more about it lataaah!

Sam

Til the World Ends

Happy Sunday!

So surprise – THE WORLD DIDN’T END! Never saw that one coming, did ya? Nope, didn’t think so (:

Of course, that meant that I had to have a little celebratory breakfast for this Sunday-Funday!

Voluminous oats made in the style of Carrie… ps, if you wanna know how to make KILLAAAH delicious oats & laugh your butt off at the same time, check her tutorial out. I died.

This was supppah tasty though! I cooked 1/3c oat bran in 1 2/3c water (for like five or six minutes? I forgot!) and it TRIED to explode on me. And kinda did for like two seconds… but I fixed it (: #winning! After letting it sit for a couple minutes, I stirred in 1/4c peanut flour (cause I’m out of protein powder! Sad!) and then topped it with a BOATLOAD of cinnamon and half a banana I had sitting in the fridge. It might have been 80degrees in Cincy this morning, but that was SOOO not gonna stop me!

You might be thinking… “So why exactly do you have only HALF a banana in the fridge?” And the answer is so, so simple – and so, so delicious! Last night’s dessert was courtesy of Gracie, in the form of a pumpkin-banana-bread bowl. TADAAAAA:

So it doesn’t look as pretty as Gracie’s. But I’m fine with that. It’s what’s on the inside that counts after all! And inside this bad boy was 10+ g of fiber and over 30g protein!! (I used peanut flour instead of ww flour cause I was out!) This was so good, I had to stop and slow down so I didn’t scorch the eff out of my tongue while eating it! Really, I just wanted to show yall a picture of it cause I was so proud that it even came out of MY oven!

Back to Sunday! After breakfast, my dad told me that it was gonna be pretty rainy later in the day, so I decided to knock my run out early! I went to a five-mile trail pretty close to my house, and even though I walked a lot of it, it was still a great workout! My HR like didn’t even drop below 150! The five miler lasted about an hour, which I’m totally fine with! Plus, it was actually really fun to get out of the house and just be alone for an hour (: The not so hot part of my run? The blister I scored on my left Achilles tendon. Sah-weetttt. Good thing I was already planning on a yoga day tomorrow haha

Post-run lunch was typical: the daily salad beast!

Spinach, yellow carrots, yellow bell peppers, tomatoes, black beans, and Annie’s Lite Honey Mustard dressing! (I’m obsessed with this!) So, quick confession: the game plan was to use chickpeas in this salad, but then I had YELLOW peppers, and even YELLOW carrots, so the natural choice was…. black & yellow (:

One of the first things on my to-do list for the day was grocery shopping! Which I actually love doing, so it wasn’t TOO much of a chore! I stopped by Trader Joe’s – which is WAY less crowded on a Sunday as opposed to a Saturday – and then hit up Whole Foods on the way home! Of course, I had to go for a Kombucha once I made it in there, my immune system just needed it (; But I was drinking it while I was driving home & it totally almost fizzed all over the place on me! I was kiiinda freakin out haha!

This wasn’t my favorite flavor, but it was still pretty good!

Another task on the to-do list? Graduation announcements. Blech. I spent about an hour hand-addressing and bugging my dad to call people for addresses! I got almost all of them finished, except for one or two! They’ll be getting mailed out tomorrow, which is probably a good thing since my graduation is ONE WEEK AWAY! That’s right, May 29th is the big day! The better news? My dress will be finished with being hemmed on Friday, just in time! I’ll totally post TONS of pics the Monday after, since I’ll be at a graduation party all night Sunday!

All that addressing took it out of me, so I made one of my favorite snacks: chocolate toast!

Two slices TJ’s Sprouted Wheat Bread with healthy vegan chocolate sauce!

• -1T cocoa powder (Hershey’s Special Dark Cocoa is the best!)
• -1 packet Stevia (or other sweetener)
• -1-1.5 T water (the more water, the thinner the consistency)

I based this off of Carrie’s fudgie, and literally make it at LEAST once a day! It’s so good!

My dad & brother were off to an open house for his summer lacrosse team, so I was on my own for dinner. I had about 1/2c of TJ’s steamed lentils left in the fridge, so I decided on a Lentil Loaf for One, inspired by Caroline of the Broccoli Hut!

I used 1/2c lentils, 1/3c oat bran, & 3T pasta sauce. After baking for about 20 ish minutes, it was alllll ready! If I was a good blogger, I would have taken the bowl outside, waited to put on ketchup, and tried to get a really pretty picture. But…. the bowl was really hot… and I didn’t feel like it (: So this is as good as yall are gonna get, sorry!

Anyways, I’ve got a date with the Harry Potter marathon on ABC Family…. and potentially an inside-out peanut butter cup cake (a la Carrie again. Maybe I should stop stalking her recipe page. Probably not though.)

MORE EXCITING NEWS…. I ordered my first bag of Sun Warrior today!! I have no idea when it’ll be here… but I’m still supaaah pumped!

What’s your favorite way to cook oats?

-I know tons of people love Kath’s Whipped Banana, but I’m really loving this oat bran!

What’s your favorite flavor combo?

–The pumpkin-banana-peanut butter thang I had goin’ on last night was AH-MAZING.

Have you tried Sun Warrior?

-I. CAN’T. WAIT.

Have a happy Sunday!

Samantha