I heart spring break

Aaaahhhh....relaxation :)
It was so nice spending the day with Ryan yesterday.
We went for a walk, went shopping for the rest of his homebrew supplies, ran errands and watched Matrix Reloaded (I hadn't seen any but the 1st one...apparently I'm a little slow).

The only negative was, remember how his car needed $900 of work done in it last week? Well, I took mine in for 60,000 mile service (it's over 120,000 mi.) and it needs $1,000! I knew this one would hurt - I think last time I had the 60,000 mile service it was $600-$700....but it's older now and needed more done. Ug. That's pretty brutal.
I really need my car to be reliable though, so I told them to go ahead and do it. I've never had 1 thing go wrong with that car mechanically - it's been great. It's pretty beat up physically from a deer running into it years ago (I swear! I didn't hit it! It ran right into the side of my car...I cried and cried and cried...I'm too sensitive for the country...anyway...)...and 2 of the windows don't roll down...but in terms of getting me from place to place, I've never had a problem and that's the most important thing. I figure, even $1000 if it's just every few years is better than having a car payment again.

The walk was my exercise - 45 minutes (~4500 steps)
For diet, I planned my whole week ahead of time without checking nutritional info first. I just sort of guessed at what I thought would be about right. So - yesterday I ate what I'd planned to except a piece of fruit I wasn't hungry for at dessert-time. But, it didn't turn out the best nutritionally. I went a little over on calories over on fat, over on fiber (probably not a big deal), and came up to the maximum of my sodium intake. I learned how easy it is to eat too much fat when I wasn't paying attention - especially since I'm trying to get in 1 tbsp. each of flaxseed oil and olive oil each day for health reasons...when doing that I really can't have, for example, nuts or almond butter AND guacamole on the same day. Yesterday I had chips, guacamole and cheese...can't do that apparently. Like I said yesterday - I'm not sweating it too much if I get too much fat because of flaxseed oil, tofu, nuts and avocado (Omega-3, mono- and poly-unsaturated)...but I do need to watch the cheese and chips.

I can't tell you how much I'm loving planning all my meals, snacks, everything ahead of time for the week. I have a super-anxious personality and I feel like this takes some pressure off for some reason...and I never remember ahead of time what I'd planned, so I feel like I get a happy surprise each day. My real test will be when my stress level rises again for whatever reason...that's when the cravings start - but I think planning ahead and having something specific to look forward to every few hours really does help me combat that. It's a good thing to get into the habit during these 2 weeks of spring break. Maybe that will help it stick later.

Breakfast: smoothie with frozen berries, protein powder, 1 tbsp. flaxseed oil, diluted and unsweetened cranberry juice, and 1/2 c. low-fat, plain yogurt
Lunch: leftover split pea soup with tempeh; Ezekiel sesame toast w/1 tsp. olive oil and nutritional yeast; raw baby carrots and red cabbage
Snack: 2 tbsp. roasted red pepper hummus with raw celery and baby carrots
Dinner: 2 corn tacos with cheddar cheese, mixed beans, a mixture of romaine, red cabbage, vinegar, & olive oil, and hot sauce (Wizard's Hot Stuff - my favorite...actually not hot at all); guacamole (1/2 avocado, lime juice, salt, & garlic powder); 1 serving tortilla chips (10 chips)

Totals:
1,602 calories
71 g. fat
173 g. carbs
68 g. protein
42 g. fiber
2,230 mg. sodium

here's the full details: Printable Nutrition Report

randomness

Yesterday - March 12 - Journal
Breakfast: smoothie with frozen raspberries and strawberries, 1 scoop vanilla protein powder, 1 tsp. flaxseed oil and 8 oz. diluted unsweetened cranberry juice (~1 part juice, 7 parts water)
Lunch: bagel sandwich with cheddar cheese, cream cheese, roasted red pepper hummus and TONS of veggies
Snack: apple (I packed almonds but they tasted off)
Dinner: salad with garbanzo beans and tons more veggies (cabbage, carrots, red pepper, cucumber and romaine); salad dressing with 2 tbsp. red wine vinegar, 2 tsp. olive oil and 2 tsp. flaxseed oil

I felt hungry and probably could've eaten more, but I get home late Thursdays and don't like eating late. I usually put yogurt in the smoothie, but we're out - I'd usually have more snack too.

We finished our standardized ESL tests at work! Yay! We're boxing them up and turning them in to central office today. This is exciting because 1) it's been going on for weeks, 2) the kids are extremely impatient and frustrated that I haven't been able to pull them, 3) it won't be hanging over our heads during spring break...which starts after school TODAY!!! :) Yay!

Bad news with one of our cars (the one Ryan drives) - it was rattling a little, so Ryan took it in to get an oil change and have the tires rotated...long story-short it needed $900 worth of work! Ug. That hurts. It was out of alignment and some tire rod had worn down and was almost broken. Then there was something cracked and leaking on the engine. And because it had been out of alignment 2 of the tires were worn down and needed to be replaced. Plus little things like the oil change and replacing the windshield wipers. The labor is the big part of it though. So - he has my car today while his is at the shop and I'm getting a ride in and back from work.
I'm due for my regular service at 120,000 miles - that's a big one too.
Good thing we just last week made a budget and talked about saving for car maintenance and repairs. We decided we'd each save $100 a month toward that so now we can just think of the repairs as coming from that and that we have $300 left for the remainder of the year for that car....although that's just a comfort for our heads because we hadn't actually had that plan in place for more than 1 week.

I was really stressed about class yesterday - I just feel lost, as I keep going on about. I don't know what it is about me, but if I don't understand something fundamental about an article I'm reading I have a really hard time feeling comfortable 'getting the gist of it' and moving on. It tears me up. I either figure it out or agonize. To make another long story short, my prof asked for my comments about something (there were only 2 of us in class, so there was a lot of pressure) and I didn't answer and instead got up my courage to say that I needed to ask some questions first - she thought they were really good questions and kept saying so and that she wasn't sure she could even answer them well - and she spent a pretty long time addressing them and talking about the fact that they are huge, long-standing issues in the field. I felt better after that because I realized that she didn't just sigh and ask me to talk to her after class or scold me or look down on me with her manner.
Hopefully I'll have a lot of time to study and work on that class over break. I just need to get through the semester - just to the end of April, I think.

I'm off to get ready for my last day before break! Happy Friday!