Uggghhhh…. a banana that’s gone a little past ripe, a sneaky apple with broken skin, a compost bucket that needs to be emptied (who me??) and the fruit flies magically appear out of no where.

When I did this for the first time this season I had the thought to post about it because this is safe, green, cheap, easy (insert obvious joke here) and works like a charm!

To catch fruit flies, all you need is a little dish, some apple cider vinegar and dish soap.

Pour apple cider into dish and stir in a squirt or two of dish soap. Set dish in an out of the way place somewhat near the fruit flies.

Walk away whistling and pretend that you aren’t watching. In a few hours, or maybe even the next day, you’ll hit the motherload!

This is crazy because I swear I only saw a few fruit flies, I had no idea there were so many lurking!

I ended up swapping out my run for lawn mowing. Zak was going to do it but I figured I could mow and get in some exercise, so I “let” him stay in and play with the girls to make up for being gone yesterday. I had a pre-mow snack of some 2% cottage cheese, a chopped organic apple topped with granola.

Dinner looked an awful lot like last night’s dinner due to lack of hunger from my afternoon snack. But this time it was a chocolate green monster, to use up the last of my chocolate tofu pudding. I swapped my almond butter chocolate chip waffles for an almond butter chocolate chip graham cracker!

Now go catch some fruit flies!

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I’d planned to get up and run first thing this morning, but apparently Maxine had planned to wake up early. Her plans trumped mine.

She and I enjoyed a breakfast of Heart to Heart, mine with a couple spoonfuls of 2% Fage to lay the foundation, topped with granola, flax, bananas and strawberries.

Maxine took hers straight up, not even milk. That’s hardcore.

Work out plans aborted, we headed outside to work in the garden and flower beds. I ripped up the entire length of black trim that surrounded the flower beds. We spent the late morning moving huge rocks around and I’d say it’s safe to check Resistance Training off the list for today.

Can you tell I just recently put those rocks in the flower bed? She is constantly walking across them.

Mid jump!

Planting seeds today…. lettuce, beans, radishes. Getting tomato plants and a few others later this week.

The girls and I came in for lunch while Zak stayed outside and continued to work.

Salad in a wrap today and left over bean soup! My wrap contained avocado, spinach, carrots, tomatoes, strips of extra firm tofu and a couple splashes of Good Seasons Italian.

Off to clean up, still hoping to get a run in today.

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Poor Zaky ended up having to go in to work this afternoon, so the girls and I were on our own. I’ve been wanting to take them to see Earth, and we’ve been trying to find a time to go together as a family. It hasn’t happened so I decided today was the day and found it playing in just one small movie theater in the city at 4:45.

Breakfast got pushed back due to my long bike ride, so lunch was pushed back too.

With cumin hummus in the fridge, the wheels in my head started turning as I realized it’s been a while since I’ve been LovIn My Crack Wrap.

Pan lightly sprayed with EVOO from my misto, a flat out wrap smeared with homemade hummus, topped with mild cheddar cheese and spinach.

All wrapped up! Isn’t it cute??

Steamin’ some veggies.

My crack wrap with a side of steamed broccoli, cauliflower, carrots and mushrooms topped with a bit a Parmesan cheese.

Totally satisfied, we left a bit early for the movie because I had a feeling The Nap Evader wouldn’t be able to resist the lull of the expressway and sun-warmed car.

Clearly, I’m in the wrong business and should be pursuing my career as a psychic.

With 20 minutes to spare, we let Maxine have sweet dreams in the back, while I had nightmares up front.

Still 11 years to go! Phew.

Earth was FABULOUS! Kids or no kids, I highly recommend it. We’re about a month late seeing it, but it was great. Not only that, but the sweet old rinky dink theater only charged $3 a piece for the matinee. AND we got to sit in their Private Screening Room; a small room upstairs for parents with young children. Translation? We got to watch the movie while sitting on a comfy couch, they were able to be as loud as they wanted, take their socks and shoes off, go through my purse, ask a million questions, draw pictures on my grocery list, all for only $9. I call that a perfect afternoon.

After the movie we made a quick pass through the grocery store. Just as we were getting out of the car I heard that familiar ding ding dingdingding ding ding ding and tried to stick my fingers in their ears and sing “La La La La!” but it was too late.

Maxine picked a 3.50 Partially Hydrogenated Nutty Buddy and Ava picked a 1.00 Red Dye #5 Cherry Banana Split Popsicle.

I really struggle with this because of course I only want them to only eat THE BEST! But I want to let them to be kids too. We have plenty of conversations about eating sweets in moderation. It’s a fine line to walk trying to keep them healthy and teach them to make the right choices, but not depriving them either, fearing that they’ll one day rebel, sneak “bad” foods or go crazy and binge when they finally DO get to eat them…

Oh yeah, someone please remind me to add M&M’s to the grocery list for Maxine because we’re out.

Ice cream in the freezer, they had Annie’s Mac and Cheese and sliced apples for dinner.

I was still going strong from lunch and not very the hungry after my Pile’O Veggies, so I had a Green Monster and dessert for dinner.

My green monster was comprised of hemp milk, extra firm tofu, mango, a mound of spinach and LF vanilla yogurt.  Served on the side, two Kashi Honey Oat Waffles smeared with almond butter and topped with chocolate chips.

We go crazy here on Saturday nights I tell ya.

And finally, it was time to bust into the freezer and unwrap the sugary goodness.

They decided to venture off the porch…

And I SWEAR to you I saw this coming. Just call me Psychic Ali.

Oh dear. Whoever believes in telekinesis, raise my hand.

She was totally sad and I felt awful. We scooped it up and took it inside. I sawed off the hunk with dirt in it and we patched it back onto the cone. Fortunately she soon lost interest.  3.50 or not, I magically mystically made the whole thing disappear!

*~`-.~*POOF*~.-`~*

And now it’s after midnight and Mr. Man is still not home.   Off to bed.

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Up an’ at ‘em bright and early. I jumped on my bike and rode 17.6 miles in 1 hour and 12 minutes. I did NOT intend to be gone for so long but it was such a beautiful morning I couldn’t help myself.

Suzie No More Naps slept in pretty late this morning, so Zak took Ava to dance while I stayed home to wait for Sleeping Beauty to awake from her slumber.

Today was one of those days that I looked at this kid and wondered WHEN she started to look so grown up!

Dance recital in just two weeks!

After they were on their way I tried to figure out what I wanted for breakfast. I settled on a bowl of Heart to Heart with some homemade granola, sliced bananas and scoop of almond butter and a bit of hemp milk. The base? I would usually use greek yogurt, but instead used the Chocolate Banana PB Pudding from the other night! I never put it back into the freezer after I moved it to the fridge Thursday morning. It’s soupier than pudding but not right for “ice cream”, it made the perfect cereal base! Plus I want to finish it up and be done with it. No one is eating it but me!

It’s buried, so you can’t see it, but believe me, it’s in there! Loved it!

• Change in Plans
• A Day of Calorie Counting
• When the Garmin Strikes Midnight

1. Once the girls are on their way with Aunt Ellen, go for a 4.18 mile run in 32:13, so your pace average pace is 7:42

2. Come home and do some body weight exercises

3. Chain self to desk for remainder of afternoon

4. Go ahead and break for lunch around 1:00

5. Make a gigantic salad with red leaf, spinach, carrots, cukes, red pepper and tofu chunks.

6. When it starts getting close to dinner time, unchain self from desk and get started with dinner.

7. Make Black Bean and Salsa Soup

Ingredients:

4 cups cooked black beans (or 2 15 oz cans, rinsed and drained), divided
2 cups of vegetable broth
1 16 oz jar of salsa
8 oz of canned or frozen corn
1 Tbsp of ground cumin (more or less to taste)
1 Tbsp cilantro (more or less to taste)

8. In a food processor or blender, add 1/2 of the beans, 1/2 of the salsa and vegetable broth. Puree until smooth

9. Combined pureed beans, whole beans, the rest of the salsa and corn with spices into a pot and cook on medium high heat

10. Totally easy and totally awesome. Pat self on back.

11. And while you’ve got the food processor out, you might as well make some hummus too.

12. Oh yeah, the cumin is still out too, so go ahead and make Cumin Hummus. That’s a good idea

13. Into the food processor bowl, put:

1 can of Eden Organic garbonzo beans, partly drained
Heaping Tbsp tahini
2 cloves of garlic
2 – 3 Tbsp canola oil
2 – 3 Tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp ground cumin
dash of salt

14. Go back and stir the soup

15. Stop the food processor and sample with Kashi Honey Sesame crackers.

16. Pat self on back again

17. Stop eating hummus and stir soup again

18. Put hummus away before you eat it all and leave none for The Man

19. Once soup is heated through, eat just a small cup of it because you ate a bunch of hummus already

And that’s Friday.

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0 days without an accident.

I don’t know what it is about car rides but as soon as we get home she lets it fly. WHEEEE we’re home weeeeeee….

Yesterday I came downstairs to find her stripped down and squatting completely naked over a dish from their little kitchen directly in front of the bathroom door and peeing into it.

Trying to accentuate the positive as I wiped up the mess and my blood pressure returned to normal, I commented “well, thank you for not peeing in your pants” and she replies “Now can I have M&M’s?”

So it’s Friday and that means the girls are going with Aunt Ellen on a pint sized adventure while I work on the millions of different things I’ve signed myself up for to keep myself feeling challenged as a stay at home mom. Web mastering, emailing and meeting planning followed by some running, cleaning and car seat cover washing.

Had to start the day off right with my version of a breakfast cookie… a heaping 1/2 c oats, 1/2 smashed banana, heaping tbsp of almond butter and a generous scoop of flax and a few glugs of hemp milk, soaked over night and topped this morning with strawberries and sliced banana.

This is exactly what I had yesterday in the exact same spot. I know a good thing when I eat it. At least I got to enjoy my breakfast in peace while Thing 1 and Thing 2 slept late. Here’s hoping the counter makes its way back up to 1 today.

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As an oat lover, I usually end up making eggs for meals other than breakfast. Today I made Veggie Frittatas for dinner.

Ingredients:
1 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
5 or 6 eggs
1/4 c of milk (optional)
1/4 c of cheese (optional)
Vegetables of your choosing
Salt and pepper to taste

In a large pan, saute vegetables on medium heat in EVOO until soft. I used what I had on hand; onions, garlic, mushrooms, red pepper and spinach.

Because the spinach cooks fast, I got the other veggies started and held off on the spinach until everything else had softened up.

While the vegetables are cooking, get those eggs crackin’.

I only had 5 eggs so I added a splash of milk (about a 1/4 c?) to the eggs for a little more body. Add S&P if you like and scramble together. Once my peppers, mushrooms and onions were beginning to soften up, I added the spinach.

I put the cover on the pan to let the spinach get wilty. The spinach reduces quite a bit so a handful of fresh spinach is not as much as it seems.

When the spinach is ready, make sure vegetables are spread evenly across the pan. Lower the heat just a tad and slowly pour in your scrambled egg mixture.

If necessary, pick up the pan and gently swirl the egg mixture around so that it’s evenly spread through the vegetables. Top with a bit of shredded cheese if you like.

Cover and cook on low heat for about 10 – 12 minutes, checking periodically. You’ll know it’s done when the top of the frittata is firm and set.

There are of course many different variations to this. You could add meat, a wide variety of vegetables, cheese or no cheese, egg whites in place of whole eggs, the combinations are virtually endless. Mine turned out a little thin, so that probably made for a shorter cooking time. I would have used at least a half dozen eggs if I’d have had that many.

I use a rubber spatula to cut the frittata into pie shaped pieces and serve.

I ate my slice with a giant salad on the side! Ava and Max ate cheese quesadillas with 2% Fage for dipping. Plain greek yogurt is an amazing, much healthier alternative to sour cream. I swapped it out months ago and they had no idea, not even Ms. Max Picky herself.

After dinner the little gals wanted to go out and play in the rain… your wish is my command. Out we went.

Well aren’t we dainty?

Totally defeating the purpose of an umbrella but whatever.

Eventually the umbrellas were totally abandoned and we called it a night.

Actually we called it: Bath Night

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I was tagged by Tay and Mary, two Runners World bloggie friends. OK I guess I’ll play.

Rules

1.) Once you are tagged, post a picture of where you blog.

Don’t you love all the remotes when all I have to do is stand up to press play on the DVD player, turn the TV on or change the channel?

2.) Feel free to tell us a little about your space, or explain certain items in more detail. Or not.

I usually sit at my desk. But if I’m feeling rowdy I undock my laptop and take it downstairs. And if it weren’t for the TV and a Backyardigans DVD plus a little fold out couch and chair, I would have had to get up a half hour ago.

3.) Link back to original post.

4.) Tag five other bloggers to show their blogspots.

Anyone else I might have tagged was already tagged and I could tag them again but then we’d go around and around and now I’m feeling dizzy. I’m such a party pooper.

What are you wearing right now? Pajamas from last night. T-shirt and shorts. Sexy thy name is Alison.

What’s the last thing you read/are currently reading? My palm. I’m a little concerned that my success line is non-existent.

Do you nap a lot? I would but someone would surely call CPS on me.

Who was the last person you hugged? Myself, just now.

What’s your current obsession/addiction? I’m obsessed with trying not to obsess over things.

What the last thing you bought? I didn’t buy anything yesterday, but I did pay bills. Does that count? I bought electricity!

What are you listening to right now? Backyardigans (see picture under #1)

What time do you usually wake up? 6:00 or whenever the sun comes up, whichever is first.

Name one thing you can’t live without? Blood.

What time is bedtime? 10:00

If there was one place you could be right now, where would it be? Downstairs pouring myself another cup of coffee and getting Maxine something to drink so she’ll stop telling me she’s “thwursty”.

Zak had to be to work early this morning so today is a Rest Day by default. It’s raining too which worked out nicely. I think I spent all my energy trying to come up with clever answers to this game anyway.

Breakfast was a blurry picture of my breakfast cookie. I’d take another but I ate it! (The cookie, not the picture.)

And yes I purposely got my t-shirt and shorts in this pic. Always thinking.

So what you’ve all been waiting for: last nights results on the Banana Chocolate Peanut Butter Pudding Ice Cream.

I decided to be the Best Mom Ever and let them have “Ice Cream” for breakfast. Frozen tofu, bananas and PB? Yeah, you can have that for breakfast.

The bad news is it was as hard as a rock when I got it out of the freezer.

The good news is I was up earlier than them and let it sit out before a riot ensued.

Softened up a bit, it was scoopable (err, scrapable) and I served it to Ava first.

Digging in.
	Here we go! I’m so nervous!
Rolling it…
	Doesn’t look very promising.

All jokes aside (all jokes aside? I never agreed to that!) she liked it. I did too! It was totally creamy, chocolaty, bananany and peanut buttery! Definitely desserty.

Maxine took one bite and then went and got the yogurt.

Well fine! More for me then.

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This is the face of a girl who has had too many M&M’s today.

But this is also the face of a girl who has had NO accidents in two days!

And I’m sure I just jinxed it.

I’m not above bribery, not at this point anyway. M&M’s have been doing the trick! Off to buy stock in Hershey as soon as I click Publish.

Tonight before dinner we decided to make a little banana chocolate peanut butter pudding ice cream. Scouring the web for a healthy dessert recipe idea I thought they would actually eat, I swiped this one from Mothering.com

Into the food processor went:

	8 oz of silken tofu
	Two bananas (Thank god it called for two bananas!)
	A heaping Tbsp of peanut butter
	A heaping tsp of unsweetened cocoa powder
	A tbsp of Grade A Maple Syrup

Plus a splash of lemon juice.

Ready to go into the fridge and firm up.

After dinner there seemed to be no signs of firming as promised, so into the freezer it went to make ice cream instead of pudding. Too long to wait for dessert, so I shelled out more M&M’s and we’ll wait and see tomorrow. All signs are pointing to “YES!” though, as Ava and I happily licked the spatulas clean once it was transferred to the new bowl. Stay tuned.

Like she needs more chocolate?

Waiting to have her teeth brushed. Twice.

• Whensday?
• Weekend Randomness
• We’re Off to Weigh the Wizard

The Skinny: On Losing Weight without Being Hungry-the Ultimate Guide to Weight Loss Success by Dr. Louis J. Aronne and Alisa Bowman.

The Skinny. Another book with skinny in the title. It practically leapt off the shelf and into my hands at the library while perusing the New Books section. I actually picked this one up a few weeks ago but was thinking about it on my run this morning and wanted to write about it.

This is a weight loss/diet book. After briefly thumbing through the pages while I kept my children from running through the adult portion of library like wildebeasts, I decided it was likely to still have some value. I checked it out, practically guaranteeing the library at least $.25 in late fines.

The author talks about 2 phases to his diet approach. Phase 1, which lasts about 3 – 4 months, consists of getting all your carbs from complex carbohydrate sources, namely, green vegetables. You get one serving of starch at dinner, and it still has to be a complex carb, like brown rice, whole wheat pasta, quinoa, etc.

Meh. Not for me.

On to Phase 2. The duration? The rest of your life. He says you can still have bread, fats, sweets, etc, but to eat them LAST. The first part of your meal should be a large serving of green veggies. Jillian Michaels talks about this too on her radio show, calling it volumetrics. Basically, you fill your stomach with foods that are less calorie dense, like green vegetables. THEN you can eat fats, starches or something sweet at the end of your meal. The idea is that you stretch your stomach sooner on less calories, which releases leptin, the satiety hormone, and ideally eat less of the foods that are more calorie dense.

With any advice I get, whether on nutrition, exercise or parenting, from a book, a blog, a magazine or a face to face conversation, I tend to treat it like a buffet: Take what you like and leave the rest.

So while I don’t follow this plan exactly, I have definitely increased the amount of green vegetables I eat, replacing grains and starchy vegetables for more green vegetables. I’m not one to put a lot of rules on the order in which I eat things, but I like the idea of stretching my stomach, releasing leptin and feeling fuller sooner with less calories. Basically, I just make sure plate is chocked full of vegetables.

I’ve been doing this for a few weeks now and I’ve noticed two dramatic changes.

1. I have A LOT more energy on my runs. It is AMAZING. It actually took me a while to put two and two together. I thought it was just a fluke until I looked back at what I had been doing differently. In the past I’ve always had good runs and not so good runs, feeling tired and just wanting it to be over. Lately, every run is a good run! I feel fabulous the whole time and feel like I could just go forever. (Thus why I started thinking about this today on my morning run.) I’m sure my days of not-so-great-runs and workouts are not gone forever, but I’m impressed with what this has done for me so far.

2. Cravings for sweets and starchy carbohydrates are practically non-existent. I’ve struggled with this on and off these last few months, especially over the winter. But since I’ve upped my non-starchy vegetable intake, I can’t believe how much I’m NOT fighting the urge to dive head first into the cereal box at night, and thinking less about food between meals and snacks.

Think: adding spinach to smoothies, replacing sweet potato fries with large piles of steamed veggies, salads as big as my head. Eating vegetables is most definitely not a new concept, but consciously choosing the right vegetables and the general order that I eat them is doable. And completely worth it! I’m still eating starches and grains (I’m not giving up my oatmeal, corn, carrots, wheat bread, chocolate!) but just eating less of it, mainly because I fill up on vegetables first.

So that brings me to my morning run. It wasn’t raining when I got up, just overcast. I scrapped my treadmill plans almost immediately and opted to run outside instead.

6.24 miles in 49:32, with an average pace of 7:56.

Skinny Bitch suggests eating only fruit for breakfast. Jillian says to always eat something before you work out, which I don’t always do. While the idea of eating ONLY fruit for breakfast makes me want to run screaming into the night, as I would rip right through that and be hungry again in 5 minutes, I decided to combine these two ideas this morning and ate some watermelon while catching up on emails and sitting at my desk for a half hour before heading out on my run.

Once home and cooled down, it was cereal all around for breakfast this morning.

Into my bowl:

Half a small container of 2% Fage
3/4 c (or so) of Kashi’s Heart to Heart
1/2 a sliced banana
A few spoonfuls of sliced strawberries
A sprinkle of homemade granola
A pour of unsweetened vanilla hemp milk

Into Maxine’s bowl:

Yes, YOU!

Heart to Heart and vanilla soy milk.

And to my right:

Ava’s bowl? Wegmans brand cheerios and vanilla rice milk, a dish of strawberries.

That’s right, I have at least 4 different kinds of milk in my fridge at any given moment. Hemp milk? Almond milk? Rice milk? Soy milk? Cow’s milk? I’ve got them all!

Sorry green veggies, I’m still eating grains for breakfast. At least for now.

• A Healthier Moose