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Posted on February 22, 2012 - by Ashley Jackson

Look at My War Horse

Today my fiance and I accomplished a mighty feat! We’ve now seen all nine movies nominated for best picture at this year’s Oscars! This is very exciting, even if most people don’t think so. For reals. More on the movies in a minute.

Today was a work at home day. It’s also Ash Wednesday, which is why there’s not much on here today.

I had part of a Diet Sunkist shortly after I got up so that I wouldn’t get a caffeine headache, then had a black cherry Chobani Greek yogurt around 9am.

Black cherry is the best flavor of Chobani, hands down.

I took a long lunch and went to the noon Ash Wednesday mass, then came back and had a slice of this weird prune walnut log thing I found at Trader Joe’s.

And also some pistachios, because I’m running low on snackage.

My fiance came over after work and we headed to Raleighwood to finish off our quest to see all the Oscar best picture nominees.

Raleighwood is pretty unique, at least around these parts–you sit in swivelly chairs pushed up to tables or bars and they serve you food while you watch a second-run movie.

My options were pretty limited, but I love fish and chips and probably would’ve gotten it anyway.

We got some onion rings to start with and I had a handful (ew) of them. They came with ketchup, which I’ve never seen before, but I tried dipping them in it and thought the results were yummy.

In fact, the onion rings were the best part of the meal for me. The rest of our food came out after they’d dimmed the lights, so I didn’t take a picture, but it was pretty standard breaded fish fillets and french fries. I skipped half of my fish and ate all of the fries and part of the coleslaw. But the food, I think, isn’t the reason most people go to Raleighwood, and I was pretty happy with the experience, especially since we were home by 8:30pm! The movie was way better than I thought it would be, too–it even made me cry once or twice, because I can’t sit through movies about animals without crying.

It did make me think of this, though: the Amazing Horse!

So, now we’ve seen all nine of this year’s Oscar nominees for best picture, an adventure we started on our first date back in June with Tree of Life and then started on in earnest in late January. We even saw four of them at four different theaters in one afternoon for my fiance’s birthday! And we managed to see all but two of them in theaters (Midnight in Paris and The Help). We independently rated them on the whiteboard in my den for purposes of comparison because we’re both big geeks.

What’s pretty cool is that if you take out Tree of Life, which my fiance liked best but which I thought was pretty bad (I’ve nicknamed it Brad Pitt and the Dinosaurs), and Hugo, which he liked better than I did, we rated the remaining seven in the same order. And we both put Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close at the bottom. Because it was awful.

I’ll post individual thoughts on the movies and which one I think is going to win closer to the Oscars–don’t want to give it all away before our big Oscar party…!

Posted on February 21, 2012 - by Ashley Jackson

Pizza and Candy

Gotta post quick so I can get my Lego Batman on!

Breakfast was the same as yesterday, but with a different flavor of Chobani.

I like the apple cinnamon flavor well enough, but it reminds me of  how awesome Liberte apple cinnamon yogurt is…maybe I should swing by Whole Foods and pick some up sometime soon. I haven’t had it in a looooong time.

For mid-morning snackage, I had some pistachios.

I ate my lunch later than usual. It looks pretty gross, but I swear it was good.

Half an avocado, two Roma tomatoes, and four slices of bacon, all chopped up into a salad. Normally this would also have a couple of hardboiled eggs in it, but to be frank I was too lazy to make any last night.

After blogging today and yesterday I’ve realize the reason I’ve been throwing back candy all afternoon, every afternoon is that I’m really not eating that much before mid-afternoon. So there was some candy after lunch…

…then I took a walk around campus in my heavy winter jacket, because after yesterday’s snow I didn’t realize it was back into the sixties already. Hmph.

I snacked on a chocolate brownie Pure bar after I got back. They’ve changed the packages several times over the past couple of years, and when I ordered a variety pack from Amazon in January I was surprised to find that they’d changed the actual bars, too.

Nothing too crazy–they’re thicker and not as wide, more like LaraBars now–but I liked them the way they were before just fine.

Then I had more pistachios, and more candy.

Then I had more candy.

I really need to work on the candy thing, obviously.

Originally the fiance and I had planned to both leave work early so we could go see War Horse tonight–it’s the only Oscar nominee for best picture that we haven’t seen yet–but my work schedule changed so that we’ll be able to see it tomorrow instead. So we met up for dinner. I’d never been to California Pizza Kitchen and I don’t really eat wheat that much any more (except for donuts and brownies), but it sounded good, so we went. I got a Pesto Chicken Pizza and ate all but one slice.

The pizza was great, but the experience was slightly bizarre. The waitress asked my fiance what she could start him with, and he said “I’ll just have water”…and then she said “I’ll get that for you!” and bounced off without asking what I wanted. We’re not sure if she thought he said “we’ll  just have water” or what, but she came back with two waters and never asked me if I wanted something else. I was going to get water anyway, so it wasn’t a big deal, but it threw me a little.

We also stopped and got a a donut each from Dunkin Donuts, because it’s Mardi Gras!

Okay, gotta get do some Lego Batmanning now!

Posted on February 20, 2012 - by Ashley Jackson

The Prodigal Blogger Returns

I didn’t mean to abandon my blog for months, but the past little while has been pretty busy. I kept telling people I wanted to update my blog regularly again, but once I got out of the habit it was kinda hard to get back into it. But I miss blogging, and a few people have told me they miss me blogging, so here we are again. Maybe it’ll stick this time?

A couple of big things have happened to me in the past couple of months, so here’s a brief recap.

On November 6, I ran my first half marathon. I’d had to defer my registration from 2010 due to issues with my foot being made of biomechanical fail, but I was determined to do the City of Oaks/Rex Healthcare Half Marathon in 2011. I got sick a few weeks before the race and wasn’t as trained as I wanted to be, and I’m also slow as all get out, but after 3 hours, 28 minutes, and 19 seconds, I managed to run across the finish line.

And promptly almost threw up on my mom, dad, and boyfriend.

After inhaling a piece of pizza, a banana, and half a bottle of water, I was recovered enough to take the obligatory medal photo.

I wish I’d written a race report after I ran the half, because apart from some issues with some runners not getting their times, it was a lot of fun. Raleigh is beautiful in the fall and we got to run through some gorgeous areas downtown. People were out cheering for us from their front yards and the balconies of their apartments, and during the last three miles, when I was really starting to struggle, the volunteers at the water stops, a nice U.S. Navy veteran, and some other bystanders encouraged me to keep going.

My goal was to finish within the time allotted for the half marathon–3 hours and 30 minutes–and I did that, but I’m definitely going to train harder for my next race. I ran as much of it as I could as fast as I could, but I run SLOW. So slow that people can pass me walking fast. My knee has been hurting off and on since then, though, so I haven’t done any running this winter.

—

Another “big” thing in my life: I started the new year in a bigger office at work. The woman who worked in the full-sized office next to my tiny office left, and I got up the courage to ask my boss if I could move after she left and to my surprise, he said yes. It’s a silly thing, but I love having a bigger office–my old one was awesome given how small it was, but I didn’t have any space on which to put down papers and write. My new office doesn’t get as much sunlight as my old one even though it’s right next door, but my orchids seem to be surviving and I’m loving the extra space. Now you’ll know why the setting for future breakfast and lunch pictures has changed…

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And the biggest thing that happened in my life since I last blogged, the one I’m the most excited about: my boyfriend and I got engaged!

We got engaged on New Year’s Eve, so I’ve been referring to him as my fiance for almost two months, and it’s really weird to type the word “boyfriend” again. We’ll be getting married sometime later this year, and he’s moving to a new place that’s much closer to where I live and will BE where I live after we get married. So I’ll be getting married and moving again in 2012…plus one or two other things that I’m not ready to share yet will be happening this year. Exciting times!

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Back to regular blogging business.

After a beautiful, sunny Saturday in the 60s, it rained all day Sunday. Then it started snowing.

In case you’re not familiar with the South and how we roll when it comes to snow, this resulted in a lot of two-hour delays this morning, and even some closings. I was already off work since it’s Presidents Day. Or, as the Federal government officially refers to the holiday, Washington’s Birthday. Which is actually February 22.

Anyway, it was a Federal holiday, so I got to sleep in. I woke up mid-morning for a Diet Sunkist and some mango Chobani Greek yogurt.

For a while I tried to stop drinking caffeine completely, but I couldn’t stand the withdrawal headaches, and you know what? I like caffeine. It’s tasty and while I do have high blood pressure and insomnia, one caffeinated drink a day is unlikely to kill me anytime soon. So I decided to compromise. Most days I drink one Diet Sunkist in the morning, and after that I switch to water. Some days we’ll eat out a lot and I’ll end up getting another soda or two, but I’m surprised at how well I’ve been doing with this most days. (Days that are not most days are days like Sunday, when I drank at least three Diet Sunkists. Maybe four.)

I was in the mood for a BLT wrap for lunch, but I’ve been trying to be better about using up leftovers in the fridge lately and I didn’t want to start on a new head of lettuce while  I still had part of a bag of salad left. Instead, I made a BLT salad with spring mix lettuce, delicious oven-baked bacon, Roma tomatoes, and a package of mayonnaise from Chick-Fil-A that my fiance found in one of my kitchen drawers yesterday.

It was excellent, and now I know that there’s no mayo in my fridge.

For a post-lunch snack, I had some chocolate non-pareils that have been hanging out in my pantry since we hit up A Southern Season a couple of months ago.

These guys were super rich; they remind me why I don’t buy boxes of Sno Caps very often.

For another afternoon snack, I munched on some pistachios.

I don’t ever really remember having a pistachio until late December, when my future in-laws put a bag of them in my stocking. They are delicious. Why did no one tell me about these things? I went through the bag in my stocking, then bought another bag at Aldi, then ordered three pounds of them from Amazon. They came in two separate containers and I left one at my apartment and took the other one to work. I’d subscribe to these pistachios if they’d let me. They are good.

I spent the afternoon cleaning, reading, doing a little recumbent biking, and playing with the dog before making stirfry for dinner.

I chopped up a chicken thigh and cooked it with half a bag of Trader Joe’s Harvest Hodgepodge frozen vegetables, then let it simmer with some TJ’s General Tso’s stirfry sauce. Something about stirfry sauce always tastes a little off to me–maybe it’s the soy sauce? But this was pretty good, since I made sure not to put too much in.

Along with dinner, I had a big glass of water and a little cup of freeze-dried blueberries and walnuts.

After dinner, I went on a short hunt for the most awesome flavor of Ben & Jerry’s ever put into production.

I’ve been looking for some Coffee Heath Bar Crunch for days. Target suddenly didn’t carry it anymore when I tried to get some Saturday. My fiance was going to pick up some for me at the grocery store Saturday night, but they were low on all flavors of B&J’s. I tried again at the same store tonight with no luck, but I was determined to find some before Lent starts and everyone in the blogosphere (including me) gives up eating candy. The next store I tried had a plentiful supply of Ben & Jerry’s. I ate at least half of the pint while sitting on the couch watching first season episodes of How I Met Your Mother. Breyer’s Heath Toffee Blast doesn’t hold a candle to this stuff.

Time to go pack food for the workday tomorrow. I promise to blog again before the week is out!