A Pain In The Neck

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Wait til you hear what I've been dealing with for the past 24 hours. 

I awoke yesterday with some stiffness/pain in my neck.  You know how sometimes you sleep on your neck funny and it takes a few minutes for it to normalize after you wake up?  It was like that, only it didn't normalize, it got worse.  I hopped in the shower and every time I turned my head (which you do a lot when you are shampooing), I howled in pain.  I was so loud I woke Clyde up and he came running to the shower door to check on me.  What a sweetie...

I got out of the shower, and could not wrap my head in a towel.  It was about then I knew something was wrong and it was going to require treatment.  I called in to work and waited for Greenapple to open so I could try and get an appointment.  Meanwhile I winced in pain and iced my neck.  I also attempted to blow dry my hair, which was interesting.

A little background on me.  I've had migraines since college.  I know that I pretty much always have tons of tension in my neck and shoulders.  I've been on medications, been to chiropractors, been to regular doctors, been to physical therapy, and have kind of resigned to the fact that I'm probably always going to have them and just found ways to cope.  Exercise probably helps the most in keeping me destressed and loose.  This might be why this issue popped up, because my exercise level has dropped off some since the marathon, so I could give my body a break.

Anyway, here is the affected area:

Basically anytime I turned or tilted my head I had an incredibly painful neck spasm.  I swore a lot yesterday! 

Luckily, I got an appointment for treatment later in the morning and headed over, driving carefully as it hurt to move my head.  I saw my doc and described the issue.  He carefully massaged my neck and used some chiro tools on me.  He said it was likely to last a few days and sent me on my way to be rechecked later in the week.  Since I was halfway to work, I decided to go in for a while and get some things done.  For a while I was ok, but towards the end of the day the problem worsened and I was in a lot of pain.  I headed home and was pretty immobile for the rest of the evening, moving as little as possible to avoid the painful spasms.  Playing with Clyde was interesting.  Thank god he plays fetch and I can just throw a ball and he can bring it back to me.

Today I'm home because I don't want to deal with the pain I felt yesterday and be at the office.  My neck does feel better than yesterday today, but is still really sore and it still hurts to turn my head.  The spasms seem to have gone though, which is a huge relief!  I'm just going to take it easy and hopefully I'll continue to improve. 

Have you guys ever experienced anything like this?  I think I'm getting old!

The Super Bowl Was On??

Sunday morning I awoke bright and early for my yoga date with Jen. 
Before yoga, I had this parfait of cherry vanilla yogurt, strawberries, blueberries, and Mueslix. 

And a piece of cinnamon raisin toast with Earth Balance and cinnamon sprinkled on top.

Jen and I did a hot class at OM.  It was a great way to start the day and we also went to Starbucks after for some coffee and conversation.  

Sunday afternoon was spent prepping my dish for a super bowl pot luck: Vegetarian Chili.

The goods:

Here's what I used:

• One large onion (or two medium), chopped into small pieces.
• Two large carrots, chopped finely
• One huge red bell pepper, chopped
• One small can of green chilies
• 2 Tablespoons of olive oil
• Probably about a cup and a half to two cups of veggie stock
• One can of fire roasted tomatoes
• One can of diced tomatoes
• Three teaspoons of cumin
• Two teaspoons of chili powder (can use more if you want more heat)
• Two cans of black beans
• Two Tablespoons chipotle salsa
• Two cans of red kidney beans (I used one dark, one light)

Optional toppings: avocado, cheddar, plain yogurt, cilantro.

Directions: 

 Coat bottom of large pot with oil and heat to medium high.  Add onion, carrot, green chilies, and peppers and stir til softened (a few minutes).  Add cumin and chili powder along with veggie stock and salsa. and continue to stir and cook.  Add tomatoes (with juice).  Simmer about 20-25 minutes on low.  Rinse all your canned beans and drain, then add them to the pot and continue to simmer it and stir for about 20 more minutes to let the flavors meld together.  That's it!

Off I went to Caitlin's for a Super Bowl Party!

Jen, Cindi, Caitlin, and Kelly (with Allison in the background).

Caitlin made the event dog friendly, which resulted in there being six dogs loose in Caitlin's house!  Looking to add to the excitement of your party??  Add dogs!

They all kept us very entertained!

Dinner rocked!  We did a pot luck style super bowl feast which spanned two tables and included chips, dips, nut pate, veggies, chili, twice baked potatoes, and desserts.

My plate:

Delish!  I also had one of the twins cookie dough balls and Kelly's PB coconut bars, which rocked!

Caitlin and Nicole planned an alternative to football watching: crafting homemade Valentines. 

It got intense for some who are crafty.  I have embraced the fact that I'm not artistic. 

And here is my tacky masterpiece:

Yikes right?

I have to admit, I saw very little of the actual Super Bowl.  I was at this party for social reasons and definitely had a fabulous time being social, eating, and crafting! 

Running Group Reunion

Wow, the weekend flew by as usual!

I had a lazy Saturday morning, but after lunch, I laced up the sneaks and went for a 3.5 mile run.

I had been waiting for it to warm up since it was a cold wet morning, but once I got out there I realized I was actually kind of overdressed in my long sleeved shirt, fleece, and hat.  Since I was going for a short run, I just sucked it up and stayed warm in my gear.

Later I got ready for a night out with friends.  My old running group crew got together and met at Bonterra for drinks, which actually became dinner #1 since we all started ordering appetizers.

This was my first time at Bonterra.  It's a restaurant that was converted from a church.  I actually would not have noticed it was a restaurant if it didn't have a sign out front!

(pic from Bonterra website)

Josie and I went drove together and were the first to arrive.  I had a glass of wine, which was a Malbec.  I love Argentinian Malbecs and seem to order them whereever I go lately!

While we waited on our friends to arrive, I took in the scenery.

Soon they arrived and a smorgasborg of apps were ordered.  We had hummus, meat and cheese, some kind of chicken dip, and bread.

Kelly and I.

Brad and Gibson

It came up that Kelly and I had never tried capers other than the little ones that you seen in a lot of pasta dishes.  Chloe ordered us some and here's Kelly trying hers.  It's like an olive with little crunchy bits inside.  I liked it since I'm a fan of olives. 

After much food and wine was consumed it was time to head out to our "dinner" destination up the street.  First I got a shot of Kelly with the biggest wine bottles ever!

For dinner we headed to The Liberty, which has kind of become this group's go to spot when we get together.  The food is always good and they change up their menu seasonally, so there's always new things to try.

We had a couple orders of fries to start with, and then ordered food. 

 I just had a fried green tomato BLT salad, since I was not that hungry after all the food we'd eaten at Bonterra.  It was yummy!  Mostly it was just great to get our old gang together.  None of us regularly go to the running group anymore, so it's a much more concerted effort to get us together these days! 

Short Visits

Howdy!  Ahhhh, I love Saturday mornings!  The beginning of the weekend with endless possibilities.  Most of my day today is wide open, so I am just hoping I do some productive things!

My day started with scrambled eggs with lots of dill, a crossaint (which I kind of burned a little) with butta, and some chai.

Clyde licked the plate!

So, the end of my week was nice.  Thursday night Greg came home.  There was lots of doggie snuggling, and also a little human snuggling thrown in.  I feel like Clyde is exponentially more happy when both of us are home.  He seems so content when he can wriggle in between us and alternate kissing each of us. 

Friday I just worked in the morning so that I could run home for lunch with Greg and then drive him to the airport for his afternoon flight back to Houston.  It worked out good, because work was really too busy for me to take the entire day off and I was able to get a bunch of stuff done.  I also didn't miss much face time with Greg, because he slept in til about 11am.  He's on Houston time, so we'll give him a pass ;)

For lunch yesterday, I married two of Greg's favorites:  pizza and veggie burgers! 

I grilled the patties in the grill pan, and topped them with some tomato sauce, sauteed white mushrooms, baby spinach, and fresh mozarrella.  Served on sandwich thins with sides of salad.

YUM!

Less than 24 hours at home, Greg was headed back to Houston.  Kinda sad, but he doesn't have too much longer in training, so hopefully life will be returning to normal soon!

I did a little shopping after dropping Greg at the airport since I had dinner plans later and time to kill til then.

I scored some new Yoga duds at TJ Maxx.

Cute, huh?

I also got this cute plate at West Elm. 

I like bunny and dachshund stuff to represent my pets!

After my errands, I picked up Lauren for dinner!  She's in Charlotte for a conference and I was excited to meet her!  Lauren is training for her 5th marathon and has run Boston.  She's incredibly fast!

We met two of my friends for dinner at Pisces, a new sushi place near uptown.

I ordered a salad with ginger dressing, and two kinds of sushi- the bagel roll  (salmon and cream cheese), and the crystal veg roll (asparagus, cucumber, avocado, mango, and lettuce in rice paper).

It was all very yummy :)

It was so great to meet Lauren, even if it was a short visit.  I hope to see her again!



Two For One

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey everyone!  I'm so glad it's Thursday.  I really am looking forward to the weekend, and also, my husband is coming home tonight!  It's only for one night, but hey, I'll take it.  Today you get two nights of updates for the price of one.  ;)

To back up a little, Tuesday night involved watching the Vegan episode of Oprah, and having a meat-free dinner myself. 

I had a Trader Joe's vegetable masala burger over a salad with romaine, mushrooms, tomato, spinach and vinaigrette.  This was my first time trying one of these burgers (heard about them from Emily) and I liked it, but I'm kind of baffled about how to eat it as a regular burger.  Should I put cheese on it?  Ketchup?  Not really sure what goes with the Indian type flavors.  I'm thinking maybe a mix of plain yogurt/lemon juice/dill would be good with lettuce and tomato...  Anyway, that's why the burger ended up on a salad that night.

So back to that Vegan episode of Oprah.  Here's the short version of what I think.  I think that a lot of healthy living/food bloggers were really disappointed in the episode from what I've seen around Twitter and some blogs.  People accurately pointed out that the episode did not really talk a lot about the great Vegan recipes and healthy whole foods many Vegans eat in their diet (hello, tons of fresh vegetables!), and focused more on meat alternatives available.  BUT, I would like to point out that Oprah's typical viewer is probably the average American that eats lots of meat and a total diet overhaul might seem scary and foreign to them.  It might make more sense for someone who eats tons meaty burgers to try the veggie burgers or veggie hot dogs before diving into full blown vegan recipes that might be really weird to them.  I think that introducing someone with heavy meat tenancies to meat alternatives is a great place to start and if they want to move into cooking more vegan/vegetarian cuisine from there, than great.  Baby steps.  Just my two cents.

I had a pretty icky migraine on Tuesday night.  Work has been nuts lately and I think the stress finally got to me.  I had a mug of this Stress Relief Yogi tea and headed to bed.  I didn't love the taste of it (I do love the flavor of the Yogi echinacea tea), but it was okay and did seem to calm me.

Last night I headed home and walked Clyde, then fixed a super quick meal since I was going to a 7pm yoga class.  I wanted something kind of light, so I had veggie soup and half a grilled cheese sandwich.  I actually took a can of Progresso soup and added additional peas and some chick peas to kind of beef it up.  The soup was kind of meh.  My homemade soups are far superior, but with the time crunch it did the job.  I did take pride in the fact that my grilled cheese came out perfectly golden.  Don't you just love that?

Right before I left for yoga, the doorbell rang, thus prompting Clyde to go nuts as per usual.  UPS delivered a big box from Proflowers!  It turns out it was flowers from my in-laws!  They wanted to congratulate me on the marathon and thank me for being such a good wife to their son with all the stress of his career and everything.  Awwwwww....heart melts :) 

I love tulips!  Aren't they gorgeous??

Yoga was great last night.  OM is not as hot in the studio as Y2, but I kind of like that.  I felt like I still had a great class, but didn't need to be dripping with sweat to feel it.  I actually did sweat, but just wasn't drenched the way I used to be at the Y2 classes.  Also, I'm happy to report that I did a much better job going into the Yoga "zone" during class last night.  I stayed pretty focused and tried to quiet the ever turning hamster wheel in my head.  It went well!

Well, that pretty much sums up the last couple nights for me. You guys ready for the weekend??

The Yoga Zone

Well, another week begins.  I had kind of a long Monday.  I guess they all kind of are though, right?  Anyway, at the end of the day I had a headache and wasn't sure if I just wanted to go home and crash or head to an hour and a half long power yoga class at OM.  I decided my headache was probably tension related (most of mine are), and that yoga might do me some good.  Off I went to yoga and I actually did feel a lot better after the class.  Thanks yoga!

So, I noticed something in class last night.  I don't really go into the yoga "zone" like the teacher encourages me to.  I'm not really good at meditation or anything that requires me to clear my head.  I'm a thinker and I've always kind of got my wheels turning, even when I'm laying still in savasana.  Last night one of the things I was thinking about, especially towards the end of class, was dinner!  I basically mapped out the whole plan in my head before I got home.

I took a flat-out wrap (can you tell I'm trying to eat through a package of these right now?) and spread tomato sauce on it, then topped it with goat cheese, artichoke hearts, tomato, and spinach.  Baked it in the toaster oven on about 415 degrees for about 10 minutes.  Wait, before I forget, I have to tell you guys something funny.  I had two wraps left in the package and got one out to use.  I was looking for something in the pantry and set it down and about 10 seconds later I had NO IDEA, where I had put it!  I ended up using the other wrap and looking for the one I had initially gotten out for no less than 10 minutes before finding it in...wait for it... my saran wrap/foil drawer.  Yes, inside the closed drawer.  Awesome.

While that was baking, I assembled a small salad of romaine, spinach, artichoke hearts, olives, feta, and chick peas, with balsamic (yes, I eat this salad a lot!).

Here was my "pizza" after I got it out of the oven.

Mmmmm.  I ended up cutting it in half and kind of rolled it up to eat it.  It was quite messy, but totally delicious.  I loved the goat cheese.

So, yoga people, are you like me and still do lots of thinking while you practice your yoga or do clear your head and go into the zone?  I'm curious if I'm alone or not here...