3 months later...

As promised, I'm back! In my defense, I never said when exactly I'd be back, so that makes three months later completely legit.

It's a bummer that I let the blog go by the wayside these past couple months, but it was pretty much necessary. I did NOT anticipate my work load being so difficult to manage. In one class, I had to write a "life story" that was basically a series of meaningful snapshots from my life, answers to questions about the deep stuff (my identity, beliefs, etc.), and a commentary on all of it! The whole thing was 50 pages in the end!! Good prep for the senior thesis, I suppose. Anyway, once that was combined with exams, an independent research project, quizzes, papers, and the like, it was (sadly) time to give the blog the boot for a while.

But now it's back!! And not a moment too soon!!! Cool things are happening! I will share:

1) I am leaving for France in less than two weeks. My school's town has had this ongoing "sister city" relationship with one of the cities in France, Noisy-le-roi. Many of our French TAs have come from Noisy (say Neuh-wa-zee) and students have gone back and forth between Noisy and here for the past ten years. Noisy is about 15 miles west of Paris and 4 miles northwest of Versailles. While I'm there, I'll be staying with a host family and doing an internship in a junior high school with its culinary/nutrition course track. Other activities will be kind of spontaneous-- lots of tours, walking, and eating good food! Mostly, I'm really interested to see the different attitudes toward eating between French and American people. It seems that the French look at food with more pleasure and ritual than Americans, and I'm excited to be immersed in a culture that fosters a love-love relationship with food rather than a love-hate. You can be SURE I will be making an effort to maintain the blog while I'm there. 

2) I was recently appointed to my school's Food Commission, which is basically a forum between our cafeteria's staff and students interested in making improvements in the dining hall. I'm also heading up a communications project for the cafeteria. I will be making a weekly e-newsletter with nutrition articles, spotlight food items, recipes that can be made in the cafeteria, interviews with staff, etc. This is 100% up my alley and I cannot wait to get started!

3) Finals are over and summer is here at last!!

4) I'm 20 now! My birthday was on Monday... which means no more blaming the dumb things I do on being a being a teenager. Sigh. Feels good though-- all mature-like. 

As for today's eats, I'll be brief (and without pictures-- I apologize. I didn't know I was doing this today). For breakfast, I just had an apple because I slept until 10:30 after making a Coldstone run at 3 AM to celebrate the end of finals last night!! Lunch was a turkey, swiss, lettuce, tomato, and cucumber sandwich on yummy whole wheat bread, some watermelon, and some steamed broccoli. For a snack I had half an avocado (sooooo gooooood) and a few almonds. Dinner was comfort food at its best: an Amy's Mexican casserole bowl, with a little more avocado and some Pom pomegranate-mango juice. Those healthy fats kept me full for a long time today- score!

Domestic goddesses

Whew! I apologize for going MIA for a little bit there. The second half of last week was a killer! I only just finished the second week of classes, and already I've had a few exams and projects. Guess that's what happens once you're past the Gen Eds. I have actually been keeping track of my food intake for a Sports Nutrition project, but I'm not going to share. Too long. 

I will share about the sports nutrition project though because it's sweet! For a grade, I get to keep track of everything I consume (including drinks) and every calorie I expend through movement and normal body functioning and compare my numbers with the numbers I should have as an active 19-year-old female of my stature. I have to keep track of literally EVERYTHING... quantities of vitamins, minerals, carbs, fat, protein, etc. This is a dietician wannabe's dream!! (Not that I know for sure I want to be an RD, but it's one of the possibilities!!)

Enough about that and on to the eats plus (surprise!!) a few pics! I remembered :)

Breakfast was 1 packet Quaker cinnamon flavored weight control instant oatmeal. There is nothing like filling your stomach with warm, filling oats first thing in the morning during the winter. Nothing. I also had about a cup of Bolthouse Farms' Green Goodness smoothie. Sounds gross, looks gross- appearance is somewhat akin to that of pond scum. Tastes divine. 

This baby is a nutritional powerhouse. Somehow Bolthouse managed to cover up the taste of pureed spinach and algae with dragonfruit, kiwi, and other tropical delights. 

For a snack I had a small Gala apple with about a TBSP of dark chocolate blended PB. 

Lunch was Amy's Brown Rice and Veggie bowl and a Yoplait Light Thick N Creamy peach yogurt.

Before dinner, I snacked on 2 dried peach slices and for dinner my roomie and I made a spinach, asparagus, and parmesan frittata using a recipe from Fitness magazine. 

We felt like such domestic goddesses. Even though we lit a paper towel on fire in the cooking process. It all worked out in the end; the frittata tasted good! We had it with some vanilla soymilk and butternut squash on the side. It beat eating in the dining hall, that's for sure ;)

I'll be back again. No telling when... the blog is at the mercy of my schedule. I hope to at least shoot for one or two posts a week to start. Thanks for reading!