Photo Shoot

Sadie isn’t a very good doggie model.

Though I think she’s just about the cutest lil’ thang on the planet, she’s quite modest and didn’t seem to want to pose for pictures. 

Case in point:

Sadie... Not Posing

I wonder if Benji or Otis’ trainers had the same difficulties???

Benji

Milo and Otis

Fortunately I did manage to get one decent shot of the little lady during the dog park photo shoot with my new camera.

The Only Good One of the Bunch

I think I will have better luck taking a picture of Sadie if Ryan is with me to play with her and distract her.

Aside from all the picture-taking, Sadie and I also enjoyed walking the trails and playing fetch at the park.

Since the sun seems to set so darn early, we headed home before Sadie was truly pooped (is she ever actually pooped?) and got a jump start on dinner.

Girl’s Night

It was a girl’s night at the apartment tonight… Party of two. Me and Sadie.

Wow, that made me sound like the lamest person on the planet. I actually adore my girl’s nights with the pup! Ryan had a soccer game at 7 p.m., so Sadie and I were on our own for dinn-ah.

I didn’t really know what I wanted for dinner tonight. I wasn’t craving anything in particular, which makes deciding on one thing much harder than it should be. Whenever I’m in this kind of a mood it almost seems like nothing will really satisfy me that much.

What do you eat when you’re not craving anything?

My fallback meals are generally eggs with toast, pasta or a jam-packed quesadilla of some sort.

Tonight I opted for gnocchi.

Gnocchi

All Cooked Up

I sauteed yellow squash and portobello mushrooms to include in my gnocchi bowl.

Veggie Gnocchi Bowl

To be totally honest, these gnocchi guys are pretty disgusting on their own. I’m not sure if I just wasn’t feeling them or what, but they really needed some sauce… and lots of it.

I topped the veggies and gnocchi with tomato basil marinara sauce and tons of Parmesan cheese.

My Bowl

All Stirred Up

My date for the evening wanted in…

"Gnocchi please!"

To conclude our girl’s night, Sadie and I are watching Julie and Julia, quite the girly movie. Can you believe I’ve never seen this? It’s about a girl (named Julie for goodness sake!), food and a blog… C’mon! Why have I not seen this!?

See ya tomorrow (on Friiiiday)!

‘Dilla & Soup

How good is cheese? I mean, seriously, how good is this ooey, gooey, salty stuff? Pretty darn fantastic.

What’s your favorite kind of cheese?

My favorite kind of cheese varies with my craving of the day, but typically I’d have to go with brie or cheddar (sharp!).

Brie Cheeeeeese

Today I enjoyed a cheesy ‘dilla (aka quesadilla) break-room style (aka microwaved) featuring sharp cheddar cheese melted in a folded-over whole wheat pita.

'Dilla, 'Dilla

This is one of my go-to snacks, but I enjoyed it for lunch today with a hot mug of Progresso French onion soup in the free mug I received from the company on Tuesday.

French Onion Soup

I figured today was a good day to break into one of the bazillion cans of soup I received from Progresso, and thought French onion would be a great place to start since it’s one of my favorites.

I was really impressed by the amount of onions in the soup! It was really tasty and full o’ the yummy veggie. I only wish the sodium content was lower (690 mg per serving… eek).

Thursday's Lunch

Sorry about the dark pictures… the sun was shining and I couldn’t get the lighting to work with me!

Also, as a side note, my lunch pictures (and likely many of my breakfast pictures) will be taken with my old point-and-shoot camera, not the new fancy, schmancy DSL camera since I don’t want to look like some kind of a tourist at work. 🙂

It Came!!!

Last night my big purchase arrived!

It's Here!!!

I’ve been tracking the progress of my new Nikon D3000 digital SLR camera through Amazon.com every day, and it wasn’t supposed to arrive until tomorrow, but *HOORAY* it arrived early. I couldn’t use it last night ( 😦 ! ) because I needed to charge the battery, but you better believe it was put to use first thing this morning!

I bet you can guess who I chose as my first victim…

My Little Love Machine

I’m so happy to finally have a camera that can take indoor pictures that aren’t fuzzy and don’t require a flash that make Sadie’s eyes reflect so she looks like some possessed devil dog.

I already have plans to take Sadie to the dog park tonight to take pictures of her in action and really see what this camera is made of!

Cocoa Oats

Of course I used my new little toy to snap pictures of my breakfast. While I showered, I let a small batch of steel cut oats simmer on the stove.

Oats

I wanted something chocolatey for breakfast (don’t I always?), so I added a tablespoon of cocoa powder and half of a scoop of All the Whey chocolate peanut butter cup protein powder to the oats and stirred ’em up.

Cocoa Oats

Brownie Batter?

This mix was oh-so-chocolatey. If I wasn’t a brownie batter connoisseur you might be able to convince me that this mixture was some odd form of brownie batter. Okay, maybe not, but it really was delicious!

This was a great post-workout breakfast. I did the same 50 minute treadmill workout that I did on Tuesday and it got my heart thumpin’ and my body dripping sweat. One reader asked the distance logged and calories burned for this workout and so I made sure to take note today. I did about 4.45 miles in 50 minutes (including the 5 minute cool-down which I did at a 3.8 pace on a 6.0 incline) and I burned just shy of 570 calories.

When I got home from the gym Ryan commented on my red face. I definitely sweat more and burned more calories doing this workout with varying speeds/intensities than I do when I run five miles. It’s nice to incorporate some incline walking and some faster running to fight boredom and work your heart in a different way… the extra calories burned it just icing on the cake. (Oooh… cake…)

Oh, hey, did you know there’s only one more day until Friday? Something to make you smile, I hope. 😀