You know what I’ve been noticing?  The better I eat (thanks to Cutting the Crap), the more excited I am to blog about it!   The crappier I eat & drink – I almost dread blogging. Certainly not rocket science as to why I would feel that way – but it’s just something I thought worth calling out!

Breakfast – Sweet Fruity PB Oats:

In my Greenlitebites bowl from Fitbloggin’:

The oatmeal tasted just as pretty as the bowl I ate it out of!  Warm, sweet, delicious, with some nice creaminess from the PB!

My morning went from just fine – to TERRIFYING in 2 minutes. 

I let Lando out to go to the bathroom, and went to put on my makeup (normal routine) – about 3 minutes later when I went back to let her in – SHE WAS NO WHERE TO BE FOUND!   I started to freak out – but tried to stay calm and just kept calling her – then grabbed the box of treats and started shaking it, while screaming TREAT!! TREAT!! TREAT!! (God – my neighbors have to think I’m so SANE… )

Sure enough, she came running (THANK GOD!!) – and very quickly – I saw what happened:

Their backyard leash broke AGAIN!   It broke in November and scared me to death – we’ve only had this one for 5 months!

I know I’m a crazy dog lady, and I’m cool with that – these dogs are my children so the thought of losing one of them, or one of them getting hurt makes me sick to my stomach! Thank goodness Lando is a little fatty magoo, and comes running for treats!

Dog trauma aside – the rest of my day was pretty darn good!

We had a department birthday lunch scheduled, and ended up at 56 West – were you can build your own burgers!

I went with the All Natural Chicken, Whole Wheat Bun, Housemade Ketchup on the side, Iceberg, & Avocado:

Not too bad – but not too great! 

The avocado was BLACK, and the chicken was overcooked!  The best part of the sandwich, in all honesty – was the whole wheat bun! (and the pickle of course!)

I ordered a side of the steamed brown rice to go with my meal – which was also “EH”.  It has a really weird after taste and was BEYOND bland. 

I ended up taking most of it home for dinner, because I thought I could fix it…but I couldn’t.   I plated up the meal, and then ended up throwing the rice away!

What’s the rest of the stuff on the plate, you may ask?   2 leftover eggrolls from the night before, as well as 2 tofu pizza eggrolls I had thrown together with the leftovers from last night:

I love things wrapped and rolled!

Since my the dogs morning was so traumatic – I figured they deserved a treat, so I grabbed them a little something while I was picking up a new, INCREDIBLY STRONG, backyard leash:

GREEN BONES!

I was just ask excited as they were!  Doesn’t it kind of look like a green Fruit Roll-Up wrapped around a bone?!

Harvey says: Mommy, I don’t understand, why no bone in front of me?  Why pictures before I get treat? Just give it to me please.

Lando says: Mommy, why you hurt my feelings by not giving me bone as fast as possible?! I need it.

I love my little babies! :mrgreen:

Since part of my day was traumatic – I figured this would be a good question for everyone – What’s your biggest (irrational, if you’d like) fear? Mine include:

• death (in general, my own, my loved ones, my dogs, etc)
• drowning
• fire (at my house when I’m not home and the dogs are in their cage)
• creepy crawly bugs

Ya’ll are just the SMARTEST!  I had no idea it was considered improper etiquette to try and eat a piece of sushi in two bites!  You made me feel so much better about myself (and about my manners too, I guess!)

As for the brown rice on the sushi – I totally thought about it as I was sitting down to eat.  I very rarely ORDER sushi (I typically just pick up prepackaged stuff) – so I got a little stressed out when placing the order, and it totally slipped my mind!  Thanks for the idea – next time – I’m requesting brown rice!

With the Cut the Crap Challenge, I’m obviously trying to experiment with what I eat, and change things up a bit!  When I found this cereal on sale – I decided I’d snatch it up and try it out! 

Monday seemed like a perfect day to start things off with a healthier version of Cocoa Krispies!

These totally tasted like the old school classic!   Parents out there – YOU CAN totally fool your kids into eating a healthier version of their current sugar cereal!

Not pictured – the Almond Milk that went with my cereal!

Lunch – a Crap Free, colorful, veggie filled salad!

See who snuck in there?   Have I mentioned I love pickles?

Snacks of the day included – fruit, fruit, and more fruit!

Dried Kiwi (10am), Grapefruit (1pm), and Orange & Almonds (4pm)

I’m pretty sure dried kiwi is one of the coolest looking things I’ve ever seen! (Up there with the inside of a pomegranate, or spaghetti squash!)

For dinner – I had special plans with Nasoya!

I cooked the tofu first, because I was planning on using it in the eggroll recipe, but I ended up just picking at it as I made dinner since it took so long!

As for the egg rolls – I googled several recipes, and watched this girl’s video for inspiration – and just kinda threw together my own combination!

Filling:

Red bell peppers, green onions, sweet onions, carrots, 1 full head of cabbage:

Throw that all in a sauce pan and sauté it for about 5 minutes.  I also threw in 3 chopped up cloves of garlic and my “secret ingredient” – some fresh ginger! (grated, of course!)

The actually process of rolling and stuffing was REALLY messy, and Mike wasn’t around to snap pictures, so you’ll just have to use your imagination! 

I placed all the rolls on a cooking sheet spray with PAM, and then spray a little more PAM on top of the egg rolls as well. 

Before cooking:

A few of them look a little more like “pockets” or “pouches” than “rolls” – but hey, whatever works!

After 15 minutes in the oven, at 400 degrees:

Not too bad looking for my first time huh?

I did a pretty darn good job considering I’ve never cooked egg rolls from scratch! If I do say so myself!   The ginger added a wonderful flavor, but next time I think I’ll add even more garlic, and some salt & pepper for just a little extra kick!

So ABC has sucked me in to more of their reality TV – did anyone watch DWTS last night?  If so – did you happen to watch Kate Gosselin’s performance?   (Don’t get me wrong – you don’t see me dancing unless I’ve had a good handful of drinks – BUT…) It was quite painful, I’m pretty sure her children have more rhythm and grace than she does.  You could see her containing out the steps, she really looked like a robot, and just made me feel uncomfortable!    Any other DWTS observations you’d like to share with me?

Good morning oatmeal, how are you today?

Combination of “Just Bananas, Flattened” from TJ’s, Naturally More PB, and Mariani Concord Grape Flavored Cranberries!  Magnificent!

One thing I’ve noticed with the Cut the Crap Challenge already – I’m getting back into the swing of eating oatmeal every morning – AND THAT – is a good thing!

My morning (and part of my afternoon, really) flew by because I had a meeting at Panera for the Boxer Rescue I volunteer for, and then I decide to stay there to get some blog work done!

Around 1:30 – my tummy said “HEY LADY – time for lunch”, so I ran next door to Wild Ginger for some sushi:

I got the Spicy Tuna Roll, the Spicy Shrimp Roll, and the California Roll:

It tasted just an fantastic as it looked!

One thing I noticed though – I eat sushi VERY quickly, because I think it’s too messy to take a bite of a piece. So instead – I just put the whole piece in my mouth (TWSS – sorry, I can’t help myself!), and doing that makes in vanish in the blink of an eye!    Any tips for not scarfing my sushi?

Mike and I haven’t had a lot of time together lately – so we used our Sunday afternoon together to relax, lay around, enjoy each other’s company, and watch some movies! 

After the arduous tasks of watching movies & 20 minutes of grocery shopping – I came home hungry, and craving fruit! I chopped up the fresh pineapple and strawberries I got at the store:

Broke out the last Chobani in the fridge:

and made this “beautiful” dish:

(I can’t help but think “plop, plop” when I look at the yogurt)

I forgot how wonderful fresh pineapple, blackberries and strawberries taste together!

While my fruit/yogurt concoction was delicious – it wasn’t enough food to consider “dinner”, so around 8 (while, perhaps, I may or may not have been watching Minute to Win It) I broke into this new hummus I found at TJ’s…

…and thought these delicious new chips were ripe for the dipping! ( I have no idea what I’m talking so strangely today, but suffice to say – I am CRACKING myself up!)

Yesterday was the most perfect Sunday I’ve had in a while!   It’s always good to end the week on such a bright note, filled with lots of puppy snuggling and husband/wife QT!

Question: What are your thoughts on sushi during my Cut the Crap Challenge?  I just automatically assumed “it’s healthy” – but now that I’m thinking about it – I don’t know ALL of the ingredients in sushi.  THOUGHTS?  Discuss!