What I ate Wednesday and shopping! :)

Ello ello!

How are you today? I've had a mighty fine day. This morning I went for a run/ walk with my dad up in the hills for 4.5 miles. It was amazing! I absolutely loved it. It was hot, but I felt so strong and exalted throughout. I've realize that I can go as long as I want, I just need to take walking breaks. By the end of the run I was pretty beat though.

When I got home, it was 10:20, and I had 40 minutes to get ready to catch the train for my therapist and nutrition meeting! Cue major rushing around.

I showered, dressed, prepped my lunch, and was outta there. I had a good sesh with my Therapist and nutritionist, but more on that tomorrow. I came back on the train, and my mom and I did a little shopping in a used bookstore (<- love those!) and I got two books:

"The Complete Book of Running for Women" but Claire Kowalchick 

and "Married to the Job" by Ilene Philipson.

I'm so excited to read the running book! I browsed through it in the book store and it looked awesome. Lot's of good tips :)

Married to the Job is a little deeper. It was written by a psychologist who believes that Americans are such workaholics not because they want to earn money for their families, buy nice cars, or send their kids to college. They work till midnight then wake up at 6am because work is their life. Their jobs are responsible for their sense of accomplishment, they live for their bosses' recognition, and life outside work is... vacuous.

This is something I have dealt with as a self-admitted workaholic. I actually talked to my therapist about this today. Many people (my mom, dad, therapists) have been encouraging me to take three classes next semester rather than four, so that I could take care of myself. I've been very hesitant to take that course of action as I want to take full advantage of my college education and take as many courses as possible. AKA, don't take it 'easy.' My therapist told me: Recovery, a happy life, is so worthwhile. So much more valuable than not taking a class or two. Well it's still a thought in process.

And check out these amazing prices!

Gotta love second hand stuff.

Speaking of shopping - these are the tops I got yesterday:

I love the detailing on these tops. 

I mean, just look at the thought that went into them:

Love this detailing in particular. The lace, the stitching, cross hatching? Gorgeous

 

Anywho.

In true food blogger fashion, I'm going to jump on the bandwagon and do What I ... Wednesday.




Worked:
Run/walking - 4.5 miles
Gentle Yoga for 1 hour with a former yoga instructor/nutritionist at my treatment place. She's super nice and upbeat. She offers a body-image yoga class, which I try to attend regularly.

Ate:



Pre-run snack:

Peanut Butter Puffins with almond milk. 

Plus another handful afterward.

After reading on Emma's blog that she ate a meal without fats before exercise because it made it easier to digest, I decided to do it. It worked beautifully. No GI problems whatsoever. I was so pleased! :)

Mid-morning breakfast/snack eaten on the train:

Lunch in the park (eaten down in less than 30 minutes to go to my 12:30 appointment):

Salad: spinach, 1/2 apple, broccoli, edamame, 

vidalia onion salad dressing (<- best dressing EVER!!)

With two pieces of TJ's Pound Plus dark chocolate after.

And my view:

Afternoon Snack:

Soy hot chocolate. 

Free with a coupon.

Second half of my afternoon snack after yoga:

Chocolate vitamuffin top. 

Preceded by some carrot sticks and a few slurps of my mom's mango smoothie.

Dinner: (unpictured) flax tempeh, sautéed carrots and ginger bits, mashed potatoes and parsnips, hummus. Dessert was one of Amanda's no-bake chocolate cheesecake bites. 

Evening snack:

Greek Yogurt, pumpkin butter, dried figs, peanut butter. Mmmmmm. So good.

Ok, now it's off to bed with me! Night night :)

Update and Food and Books!

Well. It's been a while. I kind of want to change the direction of this blog. Many things have happened to me since I last posted - taking the semester off, being in treatment to recover from my anorexia, getting healthier, being happier, reading, painting, doing activities again - and I think my blog should reflect that (not to mention I should update more often *cough cough*.)

Sooo, I'm thinking of making this a food blog, since I love food, cooking and baking it, and those are the kinds of blogs I love reading. I'm kind of worried about the whole taking photos of my food thing, because firstly, I'm not the world's greatest photographer, and secondly, I might forget to take photos, not to mention it would be rather awkward to whip out my iPhone every time I have a meal and take photos of it.

But alack, I shall do it. If only for my own gratification.

Hence, let's start with breakfast this morning!

1/2 cup oats, 1/2 cup pumpkin purée, loadsa cinnamon, a big dollop o' peanut butter. Cup of soymilk on the side. Matching dishes from Crate & Barrel.

Bliss in a bowl.

Pumpkin oats is my all time favorite breakfast. So so good. It's also a balanced breakfast - one serving of carbs, for energy, one serving of veggies, for vitamins etc, one serving of healthy fat, essential for mental flexibility and soft skin, and one serving of dairy, an amazing source of calcium, protein, and essential for my bones. It's love.


Otherwise, it's a beautiful day, here in Northern California. It's been raining non-stop since last week (not that I'm complaining - I love the rain!) but the sun has come out and the trees waving gently in the wind are dappled with crystals of sunlight. Hopefully this will do my mini vegetable garden good, at least what's left of it now that the slugs have devoured my chard and soy beans.


Anywho, the second thing I wanted to talk about was... Books! Yes, I have rediscovered my love of literature (pleasure literature, that is.) I kind of lost my ability to read a while ago. I had no energy, no ability to concentrate, no interest in reading. It was really quite lamentable. However, one day in treatment, I found myself itching to read some Jane Austen. Her prose is just so relaxing, so calming, so smooth without appearing to try. I decided to go to the library that afternoon with my friend K - but ended up not picking up Austen, I forget why. Maybe they only had ones I'd already read? Emma, Sense and Sensibility and the like. No Mansfield Park or Persuasion, which I was rather hoping for.

So I carted myself over to the "P" section, seeking the much acclaimed Jodi Picoult. I picked up Salem Falls and House Rules. I also picked up Blue Angel by Francine Prose, a teen novel that ended up being extremely shallow and awkward, Runner's World and Writer's Digest - along with a hefty pile of DVDs I never ended up watching. But hey, they were free, why hold back?

So, the point of this rather long post is that I wanted to review Blue Angel by Francine Prose. It's basically the story of a professor/novelist, Ted Swenson, at a University in New England, teaching a Creative Writing seminar. However, he develops a relationship with Angela Argo, his punk, black clothed, metal studded, tattooed students. Swenson falls in love with her novel about another teacher-student relationship, and subsequently, with her. However, it all goes downhill from there as they attempt to sleep together, Angela asks him to show her novel to his editor, and she ultimately presses charges of sexual assault to get revenge on him for failing to convince his editor to read Angela's lewd novel.

So what did I think? Swenson is an awkward, aging professor, not entirely likable, though rather witty and humorous at times during his inner monologues of paranoia, disdain, and boredom. The romantic interest between Swenson and his student is definitely believable, Prose makes it authentic and progressive, which I liked. The Creative Writing seminar is fun to read about, partly because I can relate, being a student at a New England University planning on majoring in English or Literary Arts, partly due to the unimaginative, perverted students and their stories.

I read it quickly - it was definitely a book you can get into. However, there was something about it that was rather disturbing. Maybe it was the atmosphere of guilt and paranoia. Maybe it was the consciousness of eternal failure. Maybe it was the constant self-destruction. Maybe it was the manipulation. I don't know. It put me in a bad mood, over the weekend, perhaps because I could relate to Swenson so much - guilt, failure, self-destructive behaviors, falling in love with inappropriate people... I don't know. It was all too personal, all too dark, for me to feel good about. All this capped off with a terrible ending in which the protagonist, bent on self-destruction, does not even attempt to save himself, but throws himself, head-first, into the abyss, jubilant in his misery.


But, I won't end on that negative note - let's enjoy my wonderful doggie, Bella, shall we?

Bella! The love of my life.

Questions:
Do you go crazy at the Library?
I do. I always checkout a million books, dvds, and magazines. What can I say?

Have you ever fallen in love, or had a crush on a teacher?
For sure. My English teacher in High School was amazing - I looked up to him so much, and wished we could just run away to some alternate world, go on adventures, and read Shakespeare together!


Any Books you liked or disliked lately?
Salem Falls - liked.
Blue Angel - disliked, but respected.

Summer reading list

Okay, this post is going to be slightly different from the rest in the fact that it won't be eating-disorder related. Buuut, this summer I'm basically spending jogging, reading, and preparing for college, so I thought I'd let you know my literature of choice.

1. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
Read. An amazing, amazing book. People are generally dissuaded by its length, but in fact it is written in 8 parts, and each part is made up of about 30 very short chapters (I'm talking 2 or 3 pages.) So it is completely feasible. I thought I would begin it for pleasure and never finish it, but I did, and in less than two months!

2. A room of one's own - Virginia Woolf
I'm actually nearly done with this, and quite liking it. She makes some interesting points about the nature of sexual discrimination, and made me consider female rights and feminism in a new light. Kudos for Woolf!

3. Macbeth - Shakespeare
A classic, what can I say? I loved studying Hamlet this year, so hopefully I'll rediscover that with Macbeth.

4. The Waves - Virginia Woolf
I actually started reading this during the school year. It's in the stream of consciousness style, and I quite liked it. However, her prose doesn't seem to be very well glued together - it rather lacks structure, and even seems rather nebulous at times. It's certainly innovative in terms of style and structure. But I liked what I read, so I'd like t finish it this summer.

5. Carpe Diem Put a little Latin in your life - Harry Mount
My uncle gave this to me, long ago. It seems like a humorous, light read, but interesting in terms of etymologies of our current vocabulary. I absolutely adore words, so this should be interesting.

6. Le Père Goriot - Balzac
Okay, I admit it, I probably won't get to this, but it's on my bookshelf, and I know I should read it, as it is a classic.

7. The Brothers Karamazov - Dostoevsky
I'm actually taking a course on this next fall at Brown. I thought it would be good to have already read it, but when I saw on amazon that it was over 1000 pages, I must admit, I winced.

8. The Dew Breaker - Edwidge Danticat
I actually had to read this for Brown, and write a letter to my advisor about it. It was good, I suppose. Not a favorite, though.

So, that's my "schedule" for the summer!
Oh, and I know this post is not eating-disorder related, but I thought I'd share a quote with you I forgot to put in my last post.

"One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well." Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own.