Up, Down, And All Around Town

On my baking high yesterday afternoon, I had prepared a bowl of overnight oats for this morning. I followed Iowa Girl Eat's basic recipe, except that I only put the stirred oats, yogurt (FF Coconut Cream Pie), and some smashed up banana in the fridge overnight. In the morning, I added some almonds, mandarin oranges, and Nutella into the mix. The almonds were a perfect way to add a little *crunch* to this meal.

10g protein in this little thang. But, knowing that that would not be enough to get me to work in the morning fresh and perky, I decided to try another new thing: Bolthouse Farms Perfectly Protein in Vanilla Chai Tea. I had seen Bolthouse products around and had been meaning to try them for a while, and I finally did! The taste took some getting used to, as I've never really had Chai-flavored anything before, but it was actually pretty good near the end of it.

The entire bottle had 19g of soy protein and is GF with no GMOs and a perfectly respectable ingredients list, since most of them are to cram more vitamins and minerals into the drink. I would love to try some other Bolthouse products some time.

On my way in to work I passed some of the high school cross country team and so I said a quick "hi" to coach (who probably doesn't even remember me, since I only ran one year and he's the boys' coach). For lunch, I tried a Pure Protein Bar in Strawberry Shortcake. Pure Protein is the company that makes Jillian Michaels' (from Biggest Loser) Natural Whey Protein Powder. With 19g of protein and hardly any sugar, this bar was a definite win. Just the smell of this bar seriously had me craving fruit and the taste did not disappoint. I had previously tried the Peanut Marshmallow Eclipse flavor, which was good, but this was better.

Today was another short day at work, which was good for me because I had a lot of running around to do. Literally. I don't own a car and so depend a lot on my bike between the hours of 8am-5:30pm (when my mother works), so today I had to bike an extra 3 miles so that I could get to the post office and mail a package to a buyer of one of my old textbooks, though I managed to get a neat tie-dye shirt along the way with a gift card I had from signing my apartment lease (which starts at the end of August, just in time for classes to start). I also managed to scratch my back up pretty bad. I was trying to duck under a branch and got stuck and in the process it kind of left its mark on me.

When I finally got home to settle down I was pretty tired, so I cut off a big chuck of watermelon and had at it *yum*. That wasn't enough to keep me satisfied after my hectic bike trek around town, so I also chowed on some Stacy's Simply Naked Pita Chips and Basha Hommus in Original.

Once mom got home, I was off to bring my pie from yesterday to the guys and go to a nearby nature center for a walk to work up an appetite (to taste-test my finished product) and some picture-taking.

We didn't walk around too long, but we did see some areas that we hadn't explored before. Then it was back to the apartment for pie and to watch the end of Friends Season 2. The guys seemed to like it pretty well and I didn't mind it, though I'm picky and am not much of a pie person to being with. Anyway, I then came home and took advantage of the nice weather and went on a run. 1.81 miles in 16:36. So close to 2 miles! That's a 9:10 pace and 6.5mph, and I actually thought like I was going pretty slow. Pleasant surprises are always a good thing.

Long day tomorrow. 8 hours of work and trying a new recipe for dinner. Night everyone!