I started off with some strength training and a new (to me) breakfast…

Sweet omelet!

I filled it with frozen fruit (that I had thawed in the microwave), then slathered sunbutter on top. It kept me full all the way until lunch time (5 hours!). I was very wary of this combo, but was pleasantly surprised. It tasted like a crepe.

Lunch

veggies (edamame, carrots, corn) + rice, power bar, a mini green machine smoothie

It was also very yummy, and perfectly filling.

I know powerbars get kind of a bad rap – but I actually really enjoy the taste!

It’s kind of like a thin, sticky brownie.

Snack

I have this theory that peanut M&Ms are perfect food. They’ve got antioxidants (chocolate), protein and healthy fat (peanuts), and just enough sugar to get you through the afternoon. See? Health food.

Dinner

Sorry, I’ve eaten a version of this for 3 nights in a row. It’s just so cheap and delicious!

½ cup brown rice, 2 cups sautéed cabbage, sunflower seeds, an egg, and asian bbq sauce…

Mmm, I don’t know if I’ll ever get sick of brown rice and vegetables. The varieties are endless! Plus, having cooked brown rice on hand is pretty much the best thing ever. I have another four cups on the stove as I type this.

In the 3^rd grade world…

I thought I would show my newer readers a picture of where all the action happens.

Now you can picture all of the shenanigans, and me eating lunch at the little desk in the corner. Get ready for another full year of fun!

My first day of school went well! We didn’t have kids today (they come Monday), but we spent the day getting familiarized with our new igoogle system which I am in complete nerd-love with. We pretty much went paperless this year, and I’m giddy about all the organizational possibilities.

Thanks for all your sweet happy anniversary wishes! I can’t believe it’s been 3 years…crazy stuff. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen Meeker today (except for early morning before I went for a nice long run in the cool, beautiful morning air.) But I did see a lot of friends today, and Meeker and I will get to hang out this weekend – something to look forward to.

Breakfast

This yummy bowl was 1 cup cooked brown rice, 2 chopped medjool dates, a handful of chopped almonds, cinnamon, and agave. It was one of the best cheap breakfasts I’ve ever had. I will undoubtedly eat it for breakfast again tomorrow.

Lunch

Embarrassing, really. I found a can of tuna buried way in the back of the pantry, mixed it with some beans and spicy mustard and called it lunch. I can’t wait for payday….

I also had some (more) dates with sunbutter from Tona!! (Remember Tona, the awesome foodie mom from my class last year who showered me with yummy things?!)

She left about 100 of these packets at the school office for me, and this was delicious squeezed over the dates. Definitely the highlight of my lunch.

For dinner, I had guests! My two childhood best friends (sisters) came over and brought a sweet little baby for me to meet.

Caitlyn, Christine, and her 2 month old adorable nugget (Elise) hung out for about 3 hours, and I made dinner along the way. Seriously, being around people who I love gives me so much oomph! I’m just a smiling ball of energy right now.

Pasta with turkey meatballs, and zucchini/spinach sauce.

(The return of) In the 3^rd grade world…

I am up to my eyeballs in things to label – nametags, job assignment sticks, attendance sticks, file folder tabs, it never ends! Yeah for sharpies! I’m kind of obsessed with my mulit-colored 30 pack.

Here are the highlights, in terms of food at least.

¼ cup cottage cheese, 1 sliced apple, a handful of toasted cashews and cinnamon

I also had a piece of toast to fill me up.

Lunch was a hodge podge

A salad dressed with hummus, leftover jambalaya and half a banana nut muffin that I swiped from the staff lounge.

Then around 4pm, I had a pretty substantial snack.

A tangelo, two fudge babies and a mini packet of sunbutter

After coming home, I really didn’t want to cook, so I threw together a salad…quick and tasty.

A Portobello garden burger, corn, black beans, salsa and a few chips. Perfect flavor combination.

I’m planning on another early morning spin class tomorrow, so I’m thinking a snack and an early bedtime are in order. Additionally, tomorrow is my last day of the week with kiddos! We have a teacher work day on Friday, so tomorrow is pretty much my last day of the week – and there are some fun activities planned in the third grade world.

What do you eat when you don’t feel like cooking?

However, a less than challenging workout never stopped me from eating a big breakfast.

On the menu today was Oats in a Jar (OIAJ)

In this jar:

• ½ cup rolled oats (cooked in 1 cup water)
• ¼ cup plain yogurt
• Drizzle of agave nectar
• Sprinkle of blueberry flax granola
• I’m guessing about a tbs. sun butter left in the jar

And I was still hungry afterwards, so I partially re-filled the jar with a little puffed rice and vanilla soy milk – just to take up room in my stomach

Probably about 4 bites total. And yes, I wear gloves when I eat breakfast – my hands are always popsicles.

However, I discovered that my second breakfast was in vain when I got to school, because two wonderfully thoughtful  parents brought me lattes.

Yup, I drank both the lattes and left the coffee from home sitting at my desk all day. I’m such a lucky duck. This fueled me through the morning without my usual snack at 10am. I guess a latte is a snack, really.

Lunch was phenomenal.

Spinach, chickpeas, ½ a sweet potato, a Gardenburger and spicy mustard.

Amazingly enough, I was hungry again at 2pm (I eat my lunch at 11:20)…so I snacked.

Pita Crisps + A Pink Lady

Then at 5pm, I had a big handful of cashews…

I ate these while I browsed the class schedule at Lifetime Fitness. Meeker and I are not really in a financial position to join a gym, but a sweet mom in my class (Tona) brought me a 7 Day Pass with my latte this morning.

(Tona, brings me so much food, she probably thought I needed to go work it off at the gym…haha. Only kidding, Tona…I’m so excited about this, I miss spinning!!)

I thanked myself when I came home for dinner and remembered that I had already made it in the crock pot!

Tangy Crock Pot Chicken

Ooh, it was so yummy. The chicken was so tender it was falling apart. Plus, it had a fantastic tangy, sweet combo going on.

Tomorrow is a Vegan Thursday and I’m excited.

I’ll leave you with…

Highlights from the 3^rd grade world

• I had a student get a paper cut on his eyeball today. Well, if that doesn’t make you cringe….
  
• Another student (you know, the ex-Chinese one…) smashed her middle finger today, and while she was telling me the two-minute story of how it happened, she was flipping me off. I was trying desperately to suppress my laughter (so mature) but I finally told her that I couldn’t listen to her story until she put her middle finger down.
  

Breakfast: tortilla with a hardboiled egg, hummus and salsa

Then a bite of a chocolate truffle…mmm dark chocolate with coffee.

Lunch: Amy’s Tomato Bisque with a faux grilled cheese

To make this “grilled” cheese – I took one slice of bread, toasted it, put cheese on one side, folded it in half and stuck it in the microwave for about 30 seconds.

I was still hungry afterwards, so I dug into my emergency sunbutter that is always stashed in my desk.

This filled me up temporarily, but then a couple of hours later – I was hungry again (but out of food), so I resorted to a mid-afternoon a cup of coffee to squelch the hunger pangs.

Dinner: Tuna Melt Nachos

Instead of Stacy’s pita chips, I went with the cheaper Pita Bites

A lot lighter than and not quite as crispy as Stacy’s…I liked ‘um.

“Dessert”: Celery + Carrots + Hummus

***

If you’ve followed my blog for a while, you’ve probably heard me rave about my favorite grocery store – Sprouts. Well, I did my grocery shopping there on Sunday, but managed to get home without a bag of produce. I was crushed when I realized it this morning as I was searching for the tangelos I thought I had bought two days ago. I then realized that a few more things were missing (bananas and onions). I must have just left the bag sitting at check-out.

So, this evening after school, I went to Sprouts to ask if I could maybe
have the groceries that I had already paid for at no extra cost for my forgetfulness. As I hesitantly made my way into the store…the check out lady expertly read the situation (me standing apprehensively with a receipt in hand) – and immediately handed me a bag, and told me to get the groceries…no questions asked! She didn’t even bother checking my receipt. (Although, she could have. I really did pay for them on Sunday)

Sprouts, you and your stellar customer service made my day.

Now, I am currently eating the best bowl of overnight oats I’ve ever had.

Thanks to a little inspiration from Sarah…

Last night I combined: ½ cup oats, ½ cup pumpkin, ½ cup vanilla soy milk, 1 sliced banana

This morning I added: ¼ cup plain yogurt, blueberry flax granola on top, and a drizzle of sunbutter

My problem with overnight oats is the cold, so I warmed these up for one minute in the microwave….perfection.

This big bowl of baby food (at its finest) should fuel me wonderfully through the morning. Well, an enormous cup of coffee should help too…it is Monday, after all.

Have a happy day!

I’m going to make this short and sweet because I’m exhausted. I’m actually still at work – doing my second job – which is answering phones in the office. A little more pay tacked on to a teacher’s salary is always a good thing, but on a Friday night, it doesn’t seem worth it…on Monday, though – it’s an easy extra two hours of plan time and $30 bucks. Amazing what a difference a few days makes, no?

Breakfast – inhaled on the way out the door.

One whole egg, one egg white, hummus, siracha and a small tortilla.

Lazy Lunch.

Canned soup from my win- this variety was delicious. Had a sweet quality to it, which I loved. I also had a tortilla with hummus on the side (can you tell I just got a big package of tortillas that I’m trying to eat up?)

Snacking.

Love these bars – it’s essentially a big cookie. I ate this while sipping green tea out of the green mug in the background.

I also ate some sunbutter from these cute little sample packages.

1.5 ounces of creamy fat, spooned straight into my mouth. A fantastic Friday snack.

And due to popular demand…

Highlight from the 3^rd grade world…

• I had a student clean out his insanely messy desk today, and he found a slice of rotten banana bread, months old, lots of mold, lots of nastiness mashed into all of his late/missing worksheets. It really bothers me that I didn’t make him do this sooner.
  

I can leave in 5 minutes…I must start packing my things!

Happy Friday Night!

Breakfast snack plate

Banana and sun butter/chocolate chips, hardboiled egg, Clementine.

Lunch – leftover black beans and quinoa.

Snack – carrots and a hardboiled eggy

Then, I left work early – around 4:30pm (glory, glory hallelujah!), ran to the grocery store, and came home to make Dempsey Chicken – a recipe I frequently made for 3 kiddos I used to nanny for a few years ago. Such a yummy and comforting meal.

Here I am in my new apron, cooking up some love!

Thanks for the Christmas gift, bestie!)

Wearing this lovin’ apron, and cooking some comfort kiddie food reminds me of the days when I was a full time mom…for another family’s kids. Nannying, ahh, those were good days. Getting paid (rather handsomely) to romp around in jeans, go to the library, and bake cookies with 4 year olds. I shall return to that profession someday…with my own hypothetical children. I digress.

So, why was today so eventful?

Well, the kids were wild because it was just one of those days…but first off, I had a child transfer out of my class today. I was crushed – I loved him. There was a fairly serious bullying issue going on, and I had exhausted my resources (parent conferences, school psychologist, principal intervention) – and the parents decided to move their student to another school. It kind of made me feel like a failure, but I quickly pep-talked myself into coming to terms with the fact that I can’t do it all. I tried, I really did.

And on a funnier note – I had recess duty today, and while I was pacing around the field, trying to stay warm, I saw a student sprinting towards me with a small black something in her hands. As she got closer, I realized that the something was a black, lace, thong. Sexy underwear on an elementary school playground. The student tried to hand it to me, but I definitely didn’t want to touch it, so I (shamefully) told her to go throw it over the fence.

Aaand now…it’s BIGGEST LOSER TIME!