Shopping, Concert & Poop Cleaning

Hello and happy Saturday! I’m already a couple of days into my long weekend and loving it. To kick off our long weekend, we went to a Megadeth concert Wednesday night, here’s a crappy phone pic as proof:

I know – me a Megadeth fan? Not exactly, but a supportive wife of hubby’s music and thankful I packed ear plugs. :-) Actually it was a fun experience, I think I enjoyed the people watching most – let’s just say hardcore fans have a very unique fashion sense and I wasn’t exactly blending in my cheery purple dress.

So far my early morning, before breakfast workouts are going good, I got in my first run yesterday after a 2-week break from half-marathon training to rest my swollen ankle. Only 4 miles, but I didn’t want to push it and it was bloody hot outside even at 8 AM. I did 7 minute run/30 second walk intervals per the Jeff Galloway Half-Marathon book to reduce risk of over-tiring my muscles. It went well, no ankle pain. But I’m feeling it in my leg muscles today – apparently 2 weeks is a lot of time to take off from running.

I’m also enjoying having more free time in the evenings since moving my workouts to the AM and had a leisurely after-work shopping trip to Trader Joe’s this week.

That’s the first time I’ve seen micro greens at TJ’s and had to grab them along with plenty of other items. Shopping at Trader Joe’s seems to be hit-or-miss for me in terms of having everything I need, their produce tends to be more seasonal than Whole Foods and they were out of a few items like turbinado sugar. But, having fun new items like these micro greens and figs, plus much cheaper prices, makes up for that. I also grabbed a new drink for the drive home in our sweltering heat.

For $2.50, it was just okay with not a lot of flavor. It was packed with spinach, kale, celery and lots more green juice goodness, but I would have juiced an apple and maybe some ginger into it for more flavor. It did have a nice, fresh taste that was great for the dry heat.

I’ve also been utilizing more leftovers for lunch this week.

Like this southwestern vegan bean salad with guacamole salad for lunch.

And getting creative with tempeh for dinner.

I stir-fried tempeh cubes with cauliflower and yellow squash with fresh minced ginger, nama shoyu, a splash of agave nectar and red pepper flakes giving it a wonderful sweet and spicy kick.

I also threw together a monster salad with cilantro pesto dressing and topped with the micro greens and sunflower seeds for a veggie loaded lunch and the greens were great in the salad.

I had this for lunch the day after the concert because I was craving lots of greens to recover I guess. :-)

For dinner I broke out a block of Trader Joe’s tofu to freehand an Indian-themed curry dish.

I stir-fried pressed and minced tofu with onions, tomatoes, micro greens and cauliflower using curry, cayenne pepper, minced garlic and Braggs for seasoning.

Very good if a little on the spicy side which is alright with me. Funny thing is hubby was craving pizza and opted to pick up a pizza for his dinner. I started preparing this right as he left the house to pick up it and it was ready and simmering on the stove when he got home, aside from pressing the tofu a couple of hours ahead, it took about 20 minutes to prepare and was easier, cheaper and more fun to me than driving to get a pizza. Not to mention way healthier. Sorry babe. :-)

Anyway, I’m not sure how it happened, but my chihuahua has outgrown her harness, it was getting a little too tight across the her mid section.

She’s on a pretty strict diet with me, but I think it’s a different story on the days she spends at my mom’s with her chunky chihuahua. I need to revisit more raw vegan recipes for her! In the meantime, we made a trip to PetSmart to find a better fitting collar where I found there were too many to choose from!

What’s worse is she’s somewhere between a small and x-small size, many of the smalls were still way too big, but the x-smalls were a little snug with straps that were too flimsy and thin. I guess the entire process was more stressful for her than me because as I was looking, she was busy making several piles of poo all around me. Thankfully chihuahua poops are smaller than cats and the cleanup was fairly painless once I found one of the many pet accident cleanup stations all over the store. And I don’t think anyone saw since it was a quiet weekday. PetSmart had the same effect on my last dog, I’d wait with him outside to make sure all business was taken care of and as soon as we entered the store he always found more!

Once the poo was gone, I found a decent harness with a cute Hawaiian themed floral print.

When I first adopted her, I was warned that small dogs should have harnesses over collars because their small necks tend to be more delicate than larger dogs that collars can put too much tension on.

Anyway, I know my posting has been sparse lately, but we’re in vacation mode sucking up wifi at a Napa hotel and more on that to come. But now I have a date with more wine-tasting and shopping. :-)