Not In The Plan!

Lets check in on the To-Do List for the day:

1 hour Elliptical
Buy fresh fruits and veggies (we have none!)
Make BBQ pizzas for lunch with leftover chicken.
Take Lincoln to the zoo or the park.
Clean and organize pantry.
Fold and put away about 4 loads of laundry.
RELAX!
Make Spaghetti Squash with meat sauce for dinner.

I definitely didn't accomplish everything, but I got a good amount done. I went to the Y and banged out an hour on the elliptical, it actually went by really fast. Ever since I wrote the blog about podcasts a while back I've been listening to them alot while I workout. My favorite one that I have found so far is called 2 Gomers Run a Marathon, but today I listened to one called Savage Love. It was ok, but not my favorite by any means. Basically people call in and ask advice on sex or relationship related things. I thought it might be funny, but it wasn't as funny as I expected.

After my workout I went to the grocery store and spent $50 on fresh produce (and a couple other things). It hurts my heart to spend that much money at the store now that I'm all into couponing, but I got ... apples, bananas, cabbage, green beans, grapefruit, asparagus, bell peppers, lettuce, spinach, onions, zucchini, squash and carrots. I should have taken a picture, it was a pretty impressive bounty!

The BBQ chicken pizza turned out pretty fantastic. I've never made (or eaten) BBQ pizza before so this was a first for me. It included: Raspberry Chipolte BBQ sauce, shredded BBQ chicken, mozzarella cheese, spinach, red onion and red pepper.

Toys R Us had a special sale going on today on all of their bikes so we thought instead of going to the park (it was getting dark anyway) that we would go see about getting Lincoln a tricycle for Christmas. It was pretty much a bust though because we discovered that an 19 month old (ours atleast) can't really pedal a trike. So we left empty handed.

I've been craving to go out to eat really bad for the past 2 days. Not any specific restaurant or any specific food really, just the experience of going out to eat. So we decided to go to dinner at Bonefish Grill. In hindsight it probably wasn't the best idea for our budget (financial or caloric). I had Grouper with Mango Salsa and asparagus with a side salad and .... key lime pie!

It was heavenly, but I'm definitely regretting it now. Its a good thing I'm running 8 miles tomorrow!

My Early Birthday Present

My birthday isn't for a little over 3 weeks, but I was in desperate need of a new iPod. I actually have two iPod Classics, but they have really been acting up lately. The first one randomly dies and says it has no battery power left when it has been charged in for hours. The second one started giving me a strange error message that I can't get rid of. I probably could have sent them back to Apple to have them fixed, but I figured this is a good excuse for me to get a new model.

I give you my new iPod Nano ...

My favorite colors are pink and purple, but I see those colors around all the time. I wanted something different so I chose green. I had read that the new 5th generation iPods had FM radio and video cameras built in, but I forgot about that until I bought mine. Super cool features I must say.

Caitlin over at Healthy Tipping Point wrote a blog earlier today about people who listen to podcasts while running instead of music. Several of her readers said they prefer podcasts for various reasons to music while running, so I thought I would give it a try today. I downloaded several different podcasts. One I was really interested in trying was called 4 Feet Running. I also downloaded The Biggest Loser Fan Podcast as well as a couple others. I started off my 5 mile run trying to listen to the 4 Feet Running, but I found the sound quality so bad that I couldn't deal with it. I don't know if it was just that specific episode, or if that is the way that all of them are but I had to turn it off. I ended up listening to the Biggest Loser podcast. It was pretty interesting commentary, the actual recap of the episode was boring because they are discussing the show from 2 episodes ago. I might start listening to podcasts more often if I can find some really good ones. I get bored with my music so quickly it would make for a nice change.

We planned to grill out BBQ chicken breasts tonight for dinner, but I'm still really confused with the time change and before we could get out to cook it was completely dark. Instead we made homemade pizzas. I've made these several times before, but they are always delicious. Tonight we didn't have any goat cheese since we ate it all last night, so we used regular ol' mozzarella instead. We had spinach salads with mushrooms, onions, tomatoes and apple slices on the side.

I've thoroughly enjoyed my 9 days off, but its almost time to go back to work. I have to work Thursday, Friday and Saturday this week. So I'll see you guys on Sunday! In the meantime ... what are some of your favorite podcasts to listen to? I need some ideas.