Red Pencils and Running Shoes

Yesterday was a good day.  Actually, this whole week has been a good week.  You see, it’s restaurant week in Philadelphia, and it puts everyone in a good mood.  Our team had made lunch reservations for Mission Grill in Philadelphia yesterday, and everyone was so excited to go. 

[source]

The restaurant week special is always three courses (or more, depending on the restauarant) for $20 for lunch and $35 for dinner.  Since I rarely eat dinner out in the city, we always make it a point to go out at least once for restaurant week – but this was my first time going out for lunch during restaurant week .  It was a blast!

My meal was very yummy.  We had a choice for appetizer – either butternut squash soup or roasted pear salad.  Since I was having butternut squash soup for dinner (recipe coming soon!), I chose the salad.  I’ve never really been a fan of fruit in my salad, but this changed my mind.  Beautiful glazed pears topped off a bed of arugula and romaine, drizzled with a light vinegarette dressing.  And [the best part] two goat cheese crostini.  I have been OBSESSED with goat cheese lately, and these were perfect.  I hope I can remake this salad again at home! 

My main course was salmon over a mix of spinach, radiccio, and butternut squash (of course!).  The salmon portion was HUGE so I jumped at the opportunity to save half for dinner.  The other half of the salmon and all of the vegetables were a perfect lunch portion, and it was delicious.  The salmon was moist and well seasoned, and the squash… well I could eat squash every day!

Dessert left something to be desired though.  In my opinion – dessert makes or breaks the restaurant week choice… and this is a choice I take very seriously.  (I may or may not have been known to make a color coded spreadsheet one year!)  Since I don’t eat dessert in restaurants frequently, I like to make it count!  There were two options for dessert: chocolate volcano cake, and a chocolate/banana bread pudding.  I feel like chocolate lava cake is a little played out, so i went with the latter.  I was a little disappointed though… the pudding wasn’t nearly warm or chocolatey enough, and it reminded me of breakfast.  It was for the best though - this way I didn’t gorge myself on indulgent sweets at 2pm!  A few bites of this treat was certainly enough for me.

Overall, restaurant week lunch was a success.  I got to spend time with some coworkers outside of our cubicles, and I got to know some of the new staff a little better (very important when you spend 55+ hours a week together!)  I was a little disappointed that my meal in a mexican restaurant didn’t have more of a mexican flair, but it was so delish that I couldn’t be upset!    It was a nice 2 hour (!) break from busy season, and since I didn’t overindulge, I never slipped into that dreaded food coma.  What a fantastic lunch!

p.s. I’m sorry for not sharing pictures of my beautiful meal with you all.  I’m still new to the whole blogging thing, and not yet ready to bust out the camera in front of my co-workers!  I promise to start including pictures soon!

Top o’ the mornin to ya!

Sorry I’ve been slacking the past two days – I just have not felt motivated at all!  This morning though, Robert dragged us out of bed to get to the gym.  I have to say that I am SO glad he did!  I feel better than I have all week – and I owe it all to my run.

During busy season (and work in general), everyone always puts their health last.  “I don’t have time to work out,” they say.  “I don’t have time to make a good dinner.”  I say MAKE TIME!  Your body is the only thing you really have.  You spend time and money putting oil and gas in your car.  You buy food for your dog and you put effort into your work.  Why don’t you do the same for yourself?

Since I’ve started working, I’ve tried a bunch of things.  I’ve worked out in the evenings, I’ve worked out at 9pm after a long day in the office.  This past summer I decided that I was going to try to workout before work, and I’ve never looked back.  I’ve found that if you wait all day to work out, you will find a million excuses to skip your workout, and you’ll be so tired that you wont be able to work to the best of your abilities.  It also leaves you with no time to spend relaxing and eating a healthy meal with the ones you love.

Working out in the morning has solved all of these problems for me.  I wake up, sweat my butt off, and stretch out all before most of my co-workers even wake up.  I feel so accomplished by 7am, and I have a ton more energy than I used to.  I get to come home from work and not worry about anything but spending time with my fiancee… who has recently converted to being an early bird at the gym too.  It’s a QT double whammy  

I know working out in the morning might not be for everyone.  But it’s definitely a good option for those who feel too crunched for time after a grueling 14 hour day at the office… trust me on this one!

Anyway, my workout this morning consisted of a nice 2 mile run on the treadmill.  I was trying out a new knee brace, and it seemed to work pretty well.  No pain during my run, but it still hurt afterwards.  I think with a few adjustments though, the brace will work out pretty well!

I hope this helps you find time to focus on your health for a few minutes every morning.  I was never a morning person (right mom?!) but lately it’s becoming easier and easier.  Waking up early has truly changed my outlook on working out – I almost look forward to it.  Now wake up!  Go for a run!

Happy MLK Day lovies!

In this episode of BYOD, you will see how things might not always go as planned.  Last night I planned on making a  HUGE pot of broccoli and cheese soup from this recipe in Cooking Light.  I shopped for all the ingredients, and got going with the soup.  As the soup was cooking, I was getting so excited.  My mom used to make pasta and broccoli soup when I lived at home, and the smell of the broccoli simmering in the chicken broth brought back so many memories.  It really is true – the sense of smell is the most directly tied to memory!  I kept eating all the broccoli out of the pot, and looking back, I really wished I had just added a box of pasta to the soup and called it a day.  But NOOOOO… why would I follow my instincts?!  I just really had my heart set on cheesy soup. 

The soup looked amazing.  It turned out perfectly creamy and beautiful.  But there was one thing that just wasn’t right: VELVEETA. 

Guys, I knew this was a bad idea.  When the recipe said use Velveeta, I hesitated.  But I thought “cass, what do you know?  the recipe says it will melt better.  just suck it up and use it.”  And then I almost bailed.  I couldn’t find it in the dairy section.  The staff told me to look in the packaged food section, and all I found were boxes of mac and cheese.  I should have just walked out then.  But I’m stubborn, yo.  I went back to the refrig section… and I found it alright, but it wasn’t in the refrigerator.  I was so skeeved out.  I should have walked out again just then.  But the recipe had four stars!  And it is my favorite!  And it was the “light” version!

FAIL.

My food loving fiance took a bite and said “well, this isn’t the best thing I ever had.”  He ate approximately 4 spoonfuls before he felt sick.  And you know what guys - his nose swelled up!  The velveeta is so nasty it caused an allergic reaction.  I tried to perservere.  I ate 2/3 of my bowl and said I was full.  But I wasn’t full… I had a pit in my stomach of rubbery cheese.  I couldn’t bring myself to eat this again for 3 days this week!  I had to get it out of my kitchen.  The final kicker?!  The damn soup started to clog up my sink.  It got flushed, which is probably where it belonged anyway.

Lesson learned:  follow your instinct, and don’t compromise a diet you base around whole foods just because a recipe has four stars.  And when your recipe doesn’t work out so well, take a deep breath (or as much as you can get when you have a rubber cheese ball impeding your lung capacity   )  and find something else to take for dinner that day.

Happy Saturday!

It’s beautiful today here in Philadelphia – almost 50* and sunny!  I’m a little bummed out because I’m stuck at work right now, but at least I’ll see the sunshine later this afternoon.

Yesterday was gorgeous too.  I started off the day with a run – but it was inside.  I ran on the treadmill, doing Fitness Mag’s Bikini Body “Slim with Intervals” podcast from Motiontraxx. 

[ 1.67 mi : 10:05/mi ]

I was planning on running for 2.5 miles, but my knee started bothering me again.  I really don’t want to push myself too hard and really injure my knee so I walked for a while after that.  It really sucks not being able to finish a workout, but one of my goals for the year is to be better at rolling with the punches.  Sometimes life just doesn’t go as planned!  I made myself feel a little better by taking a little walk at lunchtime.  I hadn’t seen the sunshine in a few days (I’ve been eating my lunches at my desk lately), so it was good to move around… and it was GORGEOUS weather.  I’m hoping to take a quick walk every day I eat at my desk now.  (remind me I said this when it’s 20* outside!)

Lunch was good too.  I’ve come to rely on Annie Chung’s noodle and soup bowls for quick lunches.  I was getting a hunger headache so I supplemented the light soup it with some snap peas, one slice of roasted chicken, and asparagus from the salad bar next door… oh and two dark chocolate covered pretzels!

After work… well thats when things started to go downhill.  Remember date night?  That didn’t work out so well.  I went out with my friends to get a mani/pedi right after work so I’d miss the traffic out of the city, and Robert went to the bar with his work friends too… where I met him after my mani/pedi.  And had 2 beers on an empty stomach.  (Ithaca Apricot Wheat beers at least… my favorite!)  Well I’m usually not the biggest lightweight, but when there is no food in my belly, it hits me like a wall.  Needless to say, I didn’t drive home. 

We were still going to go out and get something healthy-ish… but by the time I got home to get changed, all I wanted to do was curl up on the couch… so we got delivery!  Unfortunately it wasn’t my brightest moment, as we got the cheesiest meal ever – mozz sticks and chicken parm stromboli.  Whoops!  It was SO GOOD though… and I guess you could say I did alright… I mean I used to wolf down half of the HUGE stromboli… last night it was only a quarter.  Plus three mozz sticks.  Umm… baby steps towards healthy changes, right?  …Right?!  Oy.

Anyway, we ended up watching some tv (Robert wouldn’t let me watch jersey shore )  and passing out so I could wake up on time for work today.   It was still a great night… tonight will be more fun though!  The asset management teams at my firm are having a beer pong tournament, and then we’ll be celebrating a friend’s birthday later.  I can’t wait!

Gratitude Journal – 1.16.10

1) I’m grateful to have a fiancee who is so willing to come into the city to hang out with my friends from work this afternoon!

2) I’m grateful for the millions of people who have donated their money, time, manpower, and prayers to the people in Haiti. 

3)  I’m grateful for the thought of spring weather… winter always seems too long!

Good morning!

Today I woke up and was so happy it was friday.  Yes, yes, I have to come into work tomorrow.  But we will get out of work at a normal time, and it’s date night with my love! 

It will be good to catch up with him because I was feeling a little jittery last night when I got home, and to help me relax we snuggled on the couch (I know, gross!).  We ended up passing out at 9:30pm!!!  I couldn’t believe it.  We eventually dragged ourselves to our real bed, but we didn’t have much time to catch up on our day. 

To catch up with you all though, the day was good.  I had the most wonderful salad last night with roasted vegetables and goat cheese over spring mix and a red wine vinegarrette dressing – and a few mini cornbread muffins!  The engagement team had a lot of fun joking and laughing, so the night was pretty bearable.  No dessert – we passed out too early!

Anyway, I came up with this tip for surviving busy season on the ride home last night.  It is inspired by one of my favorite vegan bloggers – Val from Chicago Marathon Val!  I’ve seen her frequently include three things that she is grateful for each day on her blog posts.  I’d like to start to do this on my blog as well.  I’ve come home too many times angry over something that happened at work, or frustrated at not having enough time in my day to do certain things.  I think that it is important during busy season (and every day!) to remember and be thankful for what we have been given.  Hopefully this will help us stay level-headed and counter-balance those awful moods that take over when one has been at work for too long!  Let’s give this a try:

Gratitude Journal 1/15/10

1)  I am grateful that I have a fiancee who is so willing to snuggle and pass out with me when I’m feeling jittery from being at work too long…  who said quality time had to be spent awake?!

2)  I am grateful for the sun shining off the Philadelphia skyline this morning – it gave me such peace on my drive into work.

3)  I am grateful that it’s Friday!  (that counts, right?!)

Have a great day friends!

Good morning friends!

Today I wanted to kick off a series of posts that I’ve been kicking around in my head for a while now.  I could say they were even the reason I wanted to start a blog!  But first some background:  I am an auditor.  I work in Big 4 accounting, which gets a little intense.  As an auditor, we move from client to client scrutinizing their annual reporting and accounting practices to ensure that the company is not misleading their investors (or any stakeholders for that matter!)  Although companies are allowed to choose the date they use as their fiscal year-end, most companies end up choosing a December 31 year-end.  This means that although annual reports are only required to be issued once a year, most companies are issuing them at the same time every year.   This is what we refer to as busy season – when our firm decrees mandatory 55+ hour work weeks (including saturdays!  ugh!) because we need to attend to as many clients as we can fit into our schedules.

Busy season tends to get the best of a lot of people.  Many of my managers tell stories of how they used to be 20 pounds lighter, happier, and have a more organized life.  I am determined not to get to that point.  Although we are eating all of our meals at work, there is no reason that these meals need to be cheesy pizza or greasy chinese food. 

So far we are 3 full days into busy season, and I have a feeling it’s going to be a tough one.  But having survived two busy seasons already (intern and staff I year), I knew what to expect.  I could already feel that bloated feeling I had after too many slices of pizza.  And that sense of dread, knowing that my day wasn’t over at 830pm – that I still had to get a workout over with.  This year is going to be different.

My first tip for a healthier busy season is to bring your own dinner (BYOD!)  On Sunday before the madness started, I made soup.  An easy one – but it was something I knew would taste good and still be good for me too.  The recipe is below – I hope you enjoy it.  It is easy to transport, and is certainly more appetizing and healthier than the general tso’s chicken my co-worker got last night! 

Black Bean Soup

-modified from this recipe at Real Simple

Ingredients

• 1 can Rotel diced tomatoes and green chiles 
• 1 small yellow onion, diced
• 2 15-ounce cans black beans, drained and rinsed
• 2 cups chicken broth
• greek yogurt (1 dollop per serving)
• shredded cheddar cheese (a few pinches per serving)

Directions

1. Dice the onion into bite size pieces
2. Heat the can of Rotel (including all the juices!) and the raw onion in a large saucepan over medium heat, stirring frequently, for about 5 minutes. Stir in the beans and broth, then heat to boiling. Reduce heat to low. Cover and simmer 15 minutes. 
3. Cool slightly, then use immersion blender to slightly puree the soup.  Be sure to leave some beans in tact! If you are serving immediately, be sure to heat the soup to your desired temperature.  If you are bringing some to work – be sure to let it cool completely before you store it in the fridge! 
4. Serve with sour cream, and a little bit of cheese. 

Serves 4 for an appetizer, or 2 for a complete dinner.

[source]

Rejoice friends! 

Here I am, having found myself a blog for the umpteenth time.  This time I am going to devote more time and effort to sharing my thoughts with all of you.  Please come along on my journey as I try to survive in public accounting, train for my first running race, and plan a wedding.  It should be quite an exciting year, and I’m glad you’re coming along for the ride.

<3

-cassie