Hey there! Happy Thinking Out Loud Thursday! Much like last week, I want to start by thanking you for your support and excitement on Monday. You guys are lovely and I appreciate you so much. I’d give you a cookie if you were here.
Now, let’s talk about what’s happening in my life and mind this week. Thanks for the link-up, Amanda!
1.) I had the best salad for dinner on Friday. This is not the best picture of it.
It was shredded kale with shaved red onion, strawberries, blueberries, and toasted almonds, all topped with white balsamic and an amazing quarter rotisserie chicken. So. Good.
2.) I like strength training, and I know it’s good for me, but I’m not a huge fan of developing my own strength workouts. I get distracted, bored, and don’t try that hard. Juuust being honest. However, if someone else does it, I’m good. I’m a huge fan of the workouts Julie posts (and of her blog in general). I did this workout for the first time this week and I loved it!
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Each block of six minutes passes quickly, you work your whole body in each one, and the whole workout lasts about 30 minutes. It’s a good one!
3.) I met a friend for brunch at First Watch on Monday. When I got there, my navigation app offered me a slightly disturbing reminder:
When I have them, I… really hope I don’t need a reminder to get my kids out of the car.
4.) In “I have the body of an old person” news, I had an appointment with a hand therapist on Tuesday. If you know me in real life, you know I hold my pencil weirdly enough that it’s the first thing some people notice about me. Aside from that, my hands just hurt a lot, mostly between my knuckles. Since my joints are so flexible, they hyperextend without me noticing it, which puts stress on them. Then they ache, which I do notice. The therapist gave me some putty to use to practice proper grips. So, while I feel like an old person because I have achy hands, I also get to feel like a kid playing with Play-Doh.
Additionally, I gained a lot of awareness about my hands. I have spent the last couple days thinking about everything I do, from typing to chopping vegetables, very carefully.
5.) Even though my school doesn’t start for six and a half weeks, it feels a little sooner. Work for both Fit University and Spoon University starts with the start of semester schools, so I’ve spent a lot of time over the last week training and editing.
6.) Though I love the Olympics a lot, I hate how late the coverage airs on NBC. You know how it says “LIVE” in the upper right hand corner? LIES (sometimes). It’s often live much earlier in the day. Since this discovery, I’ve been watching the real live coverage on the NBC app and it’s great. First, the announcers aren’t as over-the-top. Second, I get to go to bed before midnight.
And then, because I’m obsessed, I usually record the coverage and watch it with all the interviews and stuff the next day.
7.) I made more zucchini chips on Tuesday night (while, duh, watching the Olympics). Look for a super-simple how-to next week!
8.) I walked outside at 5:30am yesterday to go for a run and it felt a lot more like swimming. Holy humidity. It felt so good when it started to drizzle.
9.) My stock of frozen bananas ran out early this week, so I’ve been searching for more that are at the right level of ripeness for freezing. And this is the week that every grocery store has a solid wall of green bananas. But yesterday, I noticed two of those “overripe” bags on clearance for $0.99, and most of the bananas weren’t really overripe at all – just the perfect stage for freezing.
I was so excited.
So… I froze 22 bananas, and I have a few left to bake with.
10.) And now I want to leave you with some of my favorite recipes + reads from the week.
- This is a perfect easy meal salad. –> Warm Spinach Bacon Salad with Chicken
- How cute are these?!? –> Lightened Up Rainbow Baked Cheesecakes
- I love all these things! –> BBQ Chicken Sweet Potato Pizza
- Same. –> The Unglamorous Life of a Spoon & Why My Blog Will Never Be ‘Sexy’
- You don’t need to be scared. Just be smart. –> Realistic Safety Tips for Female Runners
Your turn:
Tell me about your favorite salad!
What are you excited about?
Anything else I should know?
I like watching the Olympics when I already know what it going to happen. #noshame
You were made for the era of social media 😀
Yes the humidity is CRAZY!!! It’s like you step out the door and …into a shower 😛
I gripe about the Olympics in the FF tomorrow….this always happens though so I shouldn’t be so disappointed every year!
Can’t wait to read your thoughts!
So, we have a constant rotation of 2-3 bunches of bananas in my house because Alex uses 2 every day for smoothies, about 1/3 of them get frozen. Having no ripe bananas is a true tragedy, so I get your excitement!
That’s smart. We usually have some good for eating and then a bunch in the freezer, but sometimes I guess we go through them quicker than we realize!
On my run this morning I was basically going through a cold. It was so humid! Thankfully it wasn’t as hot as it has been.
Your salad has confirmed for me that I must have a salad today! I like all the things on yours but would add goat cheese and swap the almonds for walnuts!
Ooooh goat cheese sounds awesome.
I know how it feels to run out of bananas, one of the most essential baking ingredients. 🙂 That’s so wonderful that you found that deal though for them! And… I haven’t figured out a way to watch the Olympics since we don’t have television… :'( I’m hoping to figure out a way by Friday to watch the running. Your salad looks BEAUTIFUL by the way!
Good luck! I wish I had good advice for that!
22 frozen bananas is exciting 😀 SO MANY OPTIONS SO MANY. My favorite salad is actually from panera! It’s the Chinese chicken chopped salad– it has slaw, cashews, chicken, fruit and a bangin sauce.
That salad sounds amazing! During the summer, I eat Panera’s Strawberry Poppyseed Chicken Salad more often than I care to admit 😀
NBC coverage of the Olympics is disappointing. I always know the results before it airs here in California, even if I do my best to stay off the internet. And they gave the men’s gymnastics trials about ten minutes of coverage. The worst!
My favorite salad is a classic caesar. Can never go wrong!
Knowing the results ahead of time is definitely an everywhere thing, not just California (but it’s lame, nonetheless).
Oooh it’s been ages since I’ve had a Caesar salad! We used to eat them with dinner at least weekly.
My favorite salad (at the moment) is the Santa Fe salad from Chopt. Sooo good!
Chopt is such a cool idea! I wish there were some in the Midwest 😛
I LOVE finding cheap bananas to freeze. What’s your favorite way to use them? And I can totally relate getting bored/distracted with my own strength training workouts. I need structure and variation and challenge, which my brain struggles to produce on its own 🙂 My favorite salad, at the moment, is a mix of sweet potatoes, hard boiled egg, avocado, spinach, red cabbage, and cherry tomatoes. So good <3
I usually just add them to smoothies! I’m open to new suggestions, though 😀
Your fave salad has sooo many of my favorite things!
AHHHH I am so jealous of those bags of cheap ripe bananas! We go through them in our house like crazy thanks to my smoothies and baking and everyone else’s snacking…we call ourselves a bunch of monkeys. As for my fave salad, lately it’s greens, sweet potato, roasted veggies, a little rice, a lot of avocado and some apple cider vinegar on top. Yum!
Hahaha your family sounds like mine. And your salad toppings are some of my favorites, too! Sweet potato and avocado belong everywhere 🙂
I’m kinda tempted to find some play dough now after reading this. It would make for great stress relief.
I got a package in the mail the other day and it was covered in bubble wrap. I spent a good 15 minutes just sitting there popping all the bubbles 😀 it was a good time.
Stress relief was the FIRST thing I thought of. As soon as I had that putty in my hand I felt weirdly calm. Bubble wrap works, too! ?
Long time reader, first time commenting! I’m a big gymnastics fan, and I’ve been loving the Olympics (but very frustrated with the coverage). Have you been told you look a lot like Madison Kocian? I couldn’t put my finger on who she reminded me of until I read this post!
Ahhh thanks for commenting, Claire! I love hearing from you 🙂 Totally agree about Olympics coverage – blah. And no one has told me that, but… whoa, I do kinda see the similarity!
Play Doh! I am so jealous!
Apparently I had a horrible childhood because I wasn’t allowed to play with Play Doh after my sister was born (I was three when she was born). Why? Because my sister either ATE the Play Doh or she squished all the colours together into brown goo and my Mum decided life was easier without Play Doh.
Now I play with Play Doh whenever I get a chance but I actually found out it contains gluten so I feel like Play Doh is totally against me!
Hahaha I remember the days of brown goo ? That’s what happened whenever we had Play-Doh at school.
With so much more awareness about food allergies/autoimmune disorders, I’m sure they make a GF version of Play-Doh now!