Early Morning Exercise = missing blog post.
But let’s back up to Tuesday…
The morning began with a pre-gym larabar. I’ve been struggling to figure out what and how much to eat before working out, so I decided to try a pre-portioned bar.
I joined Jess at the gym for an indoor workout (hooray for no heat and humidity!) We did a kickboxing class with lots of drills and punching and kicking sequences. The class went by so quickly – I guess the variety was good for me. Next we stopped in for a 30-minute body attack class. Fun! I decided to listen to my hip after that and call it a day. All around great workout.
Next I had a quick stop at my parents’ house for lunch on my way to work.
I put together a snack plate.
Wasabi almonds
Rainier cherries
Cottage cheese with peach jam
and a slice of my Dad’s homemade toast with a smidge of light butter.
Filling.
I headed off coach chamber music for a few hours before going back to summer vacation mode.
I stopped by Whole Foods on my way home to buy dinner ingredients. I sipped on this green tea/juice while I shopped.
Next up I came home and began cooking.
On the menu: Peanut Soba Noodle Bowl
I pulled out the ingredients for my sauce
and used my new favorite toy (the Magic Bullet) to blend away. (Clean-up is SO much easier!)
I grated the ginger with my microplane – AND managed not to cut my finger. Hooray.
To be honest, at this point I was a bit worried – the sauce tasted very salty. I guess it was the combination of soy sauce and salted peanut butter. I added some lemon juice to try to cut the saltiness. Ultimately while the sauce alone is still really strong, once diluted with the main ingredients, it was fabulous.
Very thinly sliced red peppers
Blanched bok choy (a new ingredient for me – I’m a convert!)
Mixed in with some sauteed extra firm tofu cubes and udon noodles.
Plus some sauce and tons of chopped cilantro.
Jon joined me for dinner and I think we both enjoyed this dish.
My bowl:
We had a lot to discuss and catch up on and then after dinner I walked Jon home, visited a bit with the husband and the dog, and then walked back. About 2.5 miles in total.
I would like to say that then I went to bed, but my friend Rachel called from San Francisco (yay for late night friends) and then another friend started a lengthy g-chat after that. Somewhere in that late night time I got super hungry and ended up eating the leftover noodles… Ooops.
I guess my heavy eating day ended up balanced out on Wednesday.
I was not hungry at all when I woke up and instead managed to get out the door early so Dawn and I could head out to Walden Pond. The plan was to take a short walk (my hip was feeling sore so I opted out of running) and then swim. You may remember that my sense of direction is AWFUL, but usually Dawn is completely on top of these things so I generally just blindly follow. We were enjoying our walk so much that we decided to just keep strolling down various woodsy paths until… we were completely turned around. For a moment we were excited to see water… until it became clear it was NOT Walden Pond. At this point our schedule was getting a bit tight so after panicking a bit we decided to stick to the main road (despite being slightly longer than the woods trail.) Eventually a lovely young woman drove by and Dawn persuaded her to give us a lift back. Crisis averted. 
I quickly showered and headed to my therapy appointment. (Very helpful.) Then once again returned to my parents’ house to grab lunch before my final day of coaching.
I was running out of time so I packed up a big salad to go.
Lettuce, baby spinach, cucumber, green pepper, avocado, almonds, and the highlight: a fresh corn salad which had my Mom’s homemade balsamic dressing on top.
I wish there was fresh corn all year round. Yum.
I also grabbed an unpictured dried pineapple ring for dessert.
I completed my chamber music teaching, rushed back to my parents’ house again to teach a couple of my regular students and then headed home for dinner guest number two.
I had plans (and ingredients) to make some fabulous sounding Shrimp and goat cheese quesadillas but somehow we started with margaritas and neither of us ever got hungry for dinner. I guess I can look forward to lunch later!
