Blue-ed out

Hey!  Have you ever wondered what I look like while I'm taking the pictures you see here?  I'm pretty sure you haven't!  But apparently I looked interesting enough that a professional photographer snapped a shot of me doing just that, and you can see it here.

I was taking this picture of my breakfast at Green Eggs and Kegs...

...as HE was taking a picture of ME.  It's kind of like Inception for pictures, except that we weren't inside Cillian Murphy's head which is good because that guy half attracts me and half freaks me out so I think I'd prefer to observe him from a distance.

I'm pretty sure no one took a picture of me while I was taking this picture of the lovely breakfast Will made for me.

Eggs, oatmeal with bananas, raisins, cardamom, cinnamon and coconut

 When I saw the creamy raisn-y oats Will had made I decided to go for an Indian rice pudding flavor profile with my add-ins and it was GOOOOOOD :-)

Today's free coffee came from Café NOLA, which is MY personal favorite place to get coffee in Frederick.  I met my friend Carolyn there and while we both were longing to get lattes (they had a blackberry white mocha flavor!!!), we settled for just turning over our free coffee coupons.  The girls were very good for a full 20 minutes or so while we sipped our drinks!

After that we headed to Dancing Bear Toys, where the girls enjoyed trying to carry around as many bunnies and lambs at the same time as possible.

We also spent some time playing with the massive marble track.

We were able to find ONE duck along Carroll Creek, so we woke him up and fed him waffle bits until he lost interest so that we could keep our promise of feeding the duckies, then we continued on to the library.  Charlotte basically just asked to leave the whole time (when she wasn't telling me she had to pee RIGHT after we just left the bathroom and got in line to check out books).

When we got home, I made myself a salad, with greens and leftover couscous salad as a base.

This looks like a lot of blue cheese, but I promise it was only an ounce!

 I squeezed a lemon onto my salad, and when I set the halves down on the counter they were quickly appropriated by two little girls who enjoyed licking them much more than they enjoyed their actual lunch.

I also cut up some oranges for them, and they looked so juicy and delicious that I decided I needed an orange cream smoothie today.

While assembling my smoothie I happened to check out the nutrition info on my greek yogurt vs. regular yogurt.  Everyone knows that greek yogurt has more protein, but I couldn't believe how MUCH more protein it had for the same number of calories and LESS carbs.  Plus it tastes better.  I have pretty much decided that I don't need to buy regular yogurt anymore.

My smoothie held me well, but since I was headed to Zumba at 5:30 tonight I had a quick snack before I left.

6 almonds, a handful of pumpkin spice chickpeas, and an apple

 I was glad I was able to get to class, as it turned out to be my instructor Jessie's last Wednesday class before she left on maternity leave (she's 37 weeks!).  It was slightly shorter than usual because some of the students decided to throw her a baby shower/goodbye party.  With cake.  WTH?  Junk food at the gym is one of my biggest pet peeves!

I did all the prep I could on dinner before I left, so when I got home all I had to do was boil some noodles and dinner was ready.  Balsamic fig chicken pasta with blue cheese crumbles from Clean Eating Magazine.

This was really REALLY delicious, but there were a couple tweaks I thought would make it taste even better (whole wheat noodles instead of brown rice noodles, adding sautéed mushrooms, stirring in spinach at the end to wilt a bit).  Luckily we have more sauce and chicken leftover, so I plan to attempt it again tomorrow.  I'll probably leave the blue cheese off my lunch salad tomorrow though, because having it on two meals in one day was a bit much, even for me!

Since I have peanuts once again, I had to have my favorite little mix for dessert tonight.

After I enjoyed this, I brushed my teeth to make sure I wouldn't be tempted to eat anything else before bed. It must've worked, because I didn't eat anything extra, and I plan to head to bed right now.  Goodnight everyone!