Oh Orange

You are kind of a pain to get into.

Making me  tear piece after piece of your peel

Just to get to your tasty wedges.

You squirt a little juice and make my fingers a little sticky

But is it worthwhile?

Yes, you are better than candy:

Healthy and sweet

And I am going to run to the blogspace, folks.

Meghan Walsh is the Workout Warrior and she will start blogging soon about exercising.

Generally, it is my nature to make some sort of smarty pants joke here — at my expense. But I won’t. I’m really excited that Meghan is bringing a new element to the blog. She has been inspiration to me. Exercise was always something I struggled with until I met Meghan and she showed me a thing or two I can do to get in shape. Simple exercises for a simple person.  Now to find the time.

I think her blogging will help encourage me and others to get out from behind our books and do something. I’m excited, can’t you tell!

Oh, I should probably tell you where to find Workout Warrior…are you ready? You will find her at the Misadventure of a Food Junkie!

So I was bad and I had a sweet this weekend…a lemon tart. It was very good but the walk around Litha Park in Ashland was better. Mr. X and I really enjoyed the walk.

I even made sure I used the stairs at the hotel!

Dinner hurt. I had this wonderful crab lasagna and we split some artichoke dip. It was all so tasty and oh so rich. I paid for it later…my poor ol’stomach was in knots. It was miserable but the food  was very good.

I have really felt tired the last few days. Exhausted…and I have been going to bed around 10:30, 11 p.m. Not super early but a lot better than my bedtimes two to three weeks when I was lucky to make it to  bed before midnight.

Graduate school is hard. HARD and Time consuming.But worth it.

Much of free time has been on doing schoolwork right now so I have really neglected working out. Like not, minus a walk or two.

Tonight, feeling frustrated because at 6:30 p.m. I can’t really keep my eyes open to read an article about Operation Overlord. Sad because it is a good article.

Well, after dozing off several times and finally finishing it and notes at 8:30, I decided I needed to do something. I thought, well, shucks, I should try that exercise thing again. That should get blood flowing and maybe pep me up. Nothing too serious, but a quick 20 minute workout.

Yeah…well…my calves hurt and it took me five minutes before I could breathe right again.

The exercise: Well, a few of them were some Meghan showed me several months ago and five minutes on the treadmill.

Sigh. I am soooooo out of shape it is very sad. But I will try to give it another go tomorrow.

So I just talked with my publisher…he wants to take a new approach to the Food Junkie columns that run on the health page. That includes seeing a lot less of face in the paper. He wants to run the column a little less.

OK, that is fair…I am busy and having a little down time with a column is something I can live with.

But he had another idea: Make the column more focused on tips. And since I have really struggled, I thought I would turn to you g

So today I remembered why I shouldn’t skip meals, and that even a not-so healthy meal is better than nothing at all.

My little adventure started at 5:49 a.m. when Ginger looked up and realized it was 5:49, not 5 a.m. not 4:49…but 5:49. That meant I wasn’t going to make it to work by 6:30. I do have a 30 minute commute and I refuse to leave the house without makeup…

So I got to work right at 7…no time to eat cereal, no time to stop and grab something from a fast food breakfast joint. Nothing. Luckily, I had stashed a cup of peaches in my desk (you know the pre-packaged kind in light syrup). So that was something.

STRIKE ONE: A swing and a miss!

Mondays are the days I run to various stores to run errands, whatever. Well I thought I would grab some McDonalds while I was at the store. Not the best choice, but it would be better than nothing. No, no, Ginger got to thinking…dangerous I know. And I decided I would just eat an early dinner since I was going to have Thai food.

STRIKE TWO: The pitch was right over the plate, folks and she didn’t even take a swing.

I have a few nuts and a couple of sugar peas when I get home…you know, to hold me over.

Well I get my dinner. So excited because it has been two weeks since I have had Thai food. I proceed to eat the entire order…by the time I am done, I am…what is the word to describe how full I am…man, it felt like my stomach was pushing other organs out of the way…Oh, yeah, MISERABLE, that is the word I am thinking of.

Oy, so full. So full.

STRIKE THREE : And she is out of the ball game boys and girls.

So my lesson I have learned, I need to stick to three meals and couple of snacks so I don’t binge eat.

Now, I am going to curl up and die….still that full and it has been two hours since I ate.

g

I sometimes have to work the Friday night shift. Generally, it means I get to sleep in on Friday morning.

But this week was a little different. One of our other page designers was on vacation and it meant covering both the morning deadline shift and working Friday night. It means I go home, eat some grub and try to take a nap.

I made tuna noodle casserole Thursday because I knew it would feed me for a couple of days and be Lent-friendly on Friday. Thursday night I was really good and didn’t really have seconds minus a few extra noodles (like four).  I felt really proud of myself.

Friday, on the other hand, was  a different challenge. I came home from my first shift. It was about 11, 11:30 so I decided to have some casserole for lunch and watch a little TV. I ate my serving but I was still hungry. This generally doesn’t happen when I eat pasta dishes. One serving and I am full and contented.

Not Friday. I wanted more. And against my better judgement, I had a second helping. Then I was full.

Not super pleased with the decision but I think it worked out in my favor. I brought some snacks with me for my second shift. And I never really wanted dinner.

g

I am really excited about lunch today…I’m not going top eat soup or a sandwich.

I’m going to have chicken and tabouli, which is a favorite food (It is a salad made with bulgar wheat — oh so good!)

The chicken are some of those heat-up barbecue chicken wings (a three-piece serving only has 180 calories and 6 carbs). It was my dinner last night and around 8:30 p.m. thought it would make a nice lunch so I cooked more and took them off the bone.

So I really can’t wait for lunch.

G

So I like to snack on popcorn and generally the mini bags of Smart Pop are just perfect. Well Sunday night was the big debut of HBO’s new World War II miniseries, “The Pacific”, and I wasn’t going to miss it.

More importantly this type of movie screams for popcorn that is salted and topped with a little bit of popcorn topping — butter.

I thought a third of cup would make just the right amount. Uh, not so much. It ended up being a lot more than I bargained for. Under previous conditions, I could have easily finished it off. But last night was a turning point for me and popcorn. I ate what I wanted and pushed the big bowl away when I was done. I had my fill and I was done.

I put the lid on the bowl and pan-popped corn usually holds for a couple of days. So right now, it makes for a quick pick-me-up snack.

OH, and I was bad today. I forgot to put the Food Junkie column on the blog today. I was sidetracked by basketball brackets and editing Day Planner for Super Weekly.  I will try to get it up tomorrow afternoon.

G