But also, it might be a little sad.

I will warn those of you who, like me, pretend to be bad-ass but are marshmallows on the inside when it comes to helpless baby h’aminals that these pictures might make you start blubbering. I warned you.

I slept in this morning, as I often do on Mondays (and other days ending in “day”), and when I took Heath out around 8AM he started acting weird. He really wanted to go over to a certain part of the lawn. Really, really bad. Like the way he does when there’s a rabbit or a squirrel. So I walked over there with him, and he immediately ran over to…

…a baby chupacabra!

No? Well, it did take me a minute to figure out that this was a baby squirrel, largely because there was a dog standing over it. I thought it was dead, but as Heath and I looked on out of morbid curiosity, I realized it was breathing every few seconds with big, gasping breaths.

So I ran back inside, got dressed for work, ran back out, and picked up the baby squirrel with my bare hands. Rabies-schmabies. He was cold (it was in the 70s this morning), so I took him inside and wrapped him in a dish towels and cuddled him and tried to warm him up. After a little while he started breathing better and moving his paws a little, so I took him back outside and put him on the ground, still in the dishtowel so that he’d be a little warm and my neighbors wouldn’t step on him. I made sure his mom could get him out if she came back for him, then left for work.

I’m still not sure whether he fell out of the tree or something took him out of it–he had some cuts on him, but that could easily be from falling through the branches or from his littermates’ wicked squirrel claws.

While at work, I used my mad resources (aka Jamie) to track down a list of local wildlife rehabilitators, and  a couple of hours later, I used my lunch break to come back from work to check on the little guy. He was still there, so I scooped him up, took him inside, and put him in a box with an old t-shirt and a bottle of hot water. Then I took Heath out and he immediately ran back over to the area where we’d found the squirrel. I figured he just wanted to investigate since he never realized that I’d picked the squirrel up and brought him inside, but no–he found a second baby squirrel that unfortunately was already dead.

That sealed it–baby squirrel number 1 was coming with me.

I took him to work and left him in my nice warm car (with the windows down a little so it didn’t get too hot), then grabbed my list of rehabbers and started calling. The first call went to an answering machine that said they weren’t accepting wildlife, but I managed to get a hold of someone on the second call and within a half hour I’d taken an extra-long lunch and driven to her house in Cary to drop him off.

He was a lot warmer than he had been on the ride over to Cary, but by the time we got there I couldn’t tell if he was breathing still. I told the rehabber I wasn’t sure if he was still alive and she said, “Well, we’ll see about that, let’s warm him up” and grabbed him and stuck him under her shirt. She told me to call her if I found any others. God bless wildlife rehabbers–that’s a ton of work for a unequal share of sorrow, but I bet when the little guys pull through it makes it all worthwhile.

I suppose I could call to see if he made it, but I’d rather leave it like this. If I don’t know, I can speculate that he’s still alive and warm and fed at the rehabber’s house, and I can console myself with the knowledge that if he died at least he died somewhere warm and soft instead of cold and alone in the leaves.

After I got home from work, I took Heath out and he led me back to the second baby squirrel. I buried it under the tree it fell out of and put a big rock on top so nothing digs it up. We’ll keep checking the area for a couple of days to see if any more baby squirrels turn up.

My Heathcliff is such a good boy! I wish he’d always find cute things instead of snakes…

-Look! FoodBuzz’s Daily Special is frying pans! Special green frying pans that are ceramic! That’s pretty cool. My frying pans are stainless steel. That’s not nearly as cool.

-Look! My new MP3 player arrived!

On the left is my new 16 GB Creative Zen Mozaic; on the right is my old 4GB Creative Zen MicroPhoto. So far I like the Mozaic very much, although I find it to be a) rather slippery and b) not quite weighty enough (I would never own one of those postage-stamp-sized MP3 players!). I’m sure I’ll get used to it, though.

-Listen! My dog is quietly wuffing at something at it is driving me crazy! Grr.

I was actually hoping to spend this Lazy Friday doing some hardcore cleaning–my kitchen tends toward entropy and I’m still working on decluttering certain areas of my apartment. Unfortunately, my afternoon is booked after about 2:30PM; I have a PA appointment because my foot hurts still/again (and now my calf hurts thanks to the massive cramp I got in it yesterday morning ) and then a cooking/eating party later this evening. I have to go pick up a couple things from the store at some point and I also might go to the library and get a library card, because I’ve lived in Wake County for over two and a half years and don’t have a library card yet.

Also, North Carolina is very hot. The end.

There were a lot of raw fruit and nut bars eaten over the past few days, but in the interest of not having 15 billion pictures in this post, I’ll just tell you about them.

On Wednesday I started the day with a cashew cookie Larabar. I was running not-quite-late to work (it was cold! D= ) and didn’t bring my lunch, so instead a coworker and I walked over to one of the convenience stores on campus and I grabbed a turkey pesto wrap. It contained turkey breast, spinach pesto, swiss cheese, lettuce, and tomato…

…in a green wrap. I had half of the wrap with a well-ripened banana.

Later in the afternoon I snacked on half of a peanut butter cookie Larabar. I stayed at work until almost 6PM and I was famished by the time I got home. Fortunately, I’d put one of my favorite meals ever into the slowcooker before I left.

Beef roast (you can barely see it alllll the way on the back of the plate), potatoes, onions, and carrots. Deliciousness.

On Thursday morning, I was running a little late again (it was cooold again!), and had a Pure brownie bar for breakfast.

October 1st is the start of the fiscal year for the Federal government, so we had a small ceremony to mark the new year. At this ceremony, there were cheesecake-topped brownies that were actually cooked correctly.

That is what my brownies should have looked like! Very good.

We had a countdown and dropped a pineapple covered in gold stars from the ceiling.

It was a very slow drop–I was looking forward to seeing pineapple splattered all over the floor, but alas…

For lunch, I had the other half of my turkey pesto wrap…

…and a donut that was leftover from the morning’s ceremonies.

I stayed at work until 6PM again, grabbing half a LaraBar midway through the afternoon, and came home hungry but not so much that I couldn’t wait for some potatoes to cook. I decided to use the last of my blue cheese and some bacon to make the recipe that was on my blue cheese container.

Basically, it was potatoes tossed in olive oil, then sprinkled with blue cheese and bacon and cooked for half an hour. I threw in a piece of chicken as well. This was so good–it was like it much heartier loaded baked potato skins.

But blue cheese was involved, so they had class.

Definitely making those again…

On Friday I slept in, had a Pure cherry cashew bar for brunch, and then headed out for some food shopping early in the afternoon. I went to the farmers’ market, where apple season is in full swing and winter veggies are starting to make an appearance. I’m not so excited about this–not really a fan of winter veggies–but I’m willing to give them a try.

My Feeding America shopping bag was nigh overflowing when I left the market.

I purchased a loaf of sourdough bread from the Swiss Chalet bakery. I like their bread, but the lady behind the counter is always griping about something! Last time it was the cost of the bread, this time it was someone who was supposed to cover her at the storefront but bailed. So much drama…anyway, the loaf of sourdough was $4.20, which I thought was very reasonable.

At one vegetable stand, I purchased four turnips (minus the greens), three onions, four tomatoes, and three sweet potatoes for $10 even. I tried turnips last year and was disgusted, but it’s a great big culinary world out there and there must be some turnip recipe that’s good. I’m also not a fan of sweet potatoes, but I had sweet potatoes roasted with regular potatoes at a work potluck last year and was impressed, and I also buy and eat sweet potato fries from the store, so I think it’ll be easier to get accustomed to them.

I noticed that another booth had kale for $1.25/lb, and I’ve wanted to try it since so many food bloggers talk about how great it is. I stuffed a bunch in a bag and also grabbed a small cabbage at 49 cents/lb. My grand total: $1.25! Eating in season is so inexpensive. I wish I could do it year-round…

My last stop was inside the Market Shops, where I stopped for some mushrooms that I’m fairly certain were not grown locally since they were on a table with lemons and limes, but I like being able to get as many mushrooms as I want from a little bulk bin. Price? 40 cents.

My grand total for the farmers’ market was $15.85. I was trying to stay under $20 and celebrated by spending a dollar on a bottle of Diet Coke from the machine inside the market. Because next I went to Trader Joe’s and spent about $65. They were out of peanut butter cookie LaraBars!

Once I got home, I cleaned out my fridge…

…and was happy to find it was now full of fresh, healthy items. Well, mostly full of them, anyway.

At the checkout line at Trader Joe’s, they had a display of English toffee covered in milk chocolate and almonds. I had to buy some.

I ate half the container that day and there’s only one piece left as of Sunday morning…whoops…

But it’s so good!

I bought some not-whole-wheat pizza crust at Trader Joe’s and decided to have pizza for dinner. I topped it with marina sauce, diced sweet Italian chicken sausage, mushrooms, tomatoes, onions, yellow peppers, and goat cheese.

It was great–and the crust puffed up like pizza crust should! Like the whole wheat crust doesn’t!

After that, it was full-swing into final yard sale prep. I paused late in the evening to have half of a Harvest Cranberry Scone from Trader Joe’s.

It was good, but I want the orange-cranberry scones back.

Saturday morning saw me eat a cashew cookie Larabar and half of an apple pie one as I stood outside from 6:30AM until 12:30PM selling junk at the community yard sale. I had everything priced to go and was pleasantly surprised to count the days earnings at $72.75. The majority of that will pay for an order of spices from Penzey’s soon!

I had a piece of leftover pizza for lunch, and then crashed and napped for longer than I meant to. I’d invited myself over to dinner at my parents’ house earlier in the morning and ended up getting a later start than I would’ve liked. But I made it and a little while after I arrived there were steaks and baked potatoes, fresh off the grill.

Yummy. There was also this cake that my dad made–I think it was butter pecan cake? Something like that.

It was good except for the coconut. I’m not a coconut fan.

And that is the story of the last four days, foodwise….

I woke up at 3:30AM and tried to go back to sleep until 4:45. And then I gave up and decided to eat half of a Pure cherry cashew bar…

…and go for a Couch to 5K Week 4 run. I was chilly walking to the fitness center–it suddenly got cold in NC at night! I made it all the way through the first 3-minute run, but the first 5-minute run was a bust–my legs started cramping up again. I called it quits and will go again tomorrow. I think there are two things I’m doing wrong–one, I’m not doing the full 5-minute warm-up walk at the appropriate pace, because I start the five minutes while I’m still in my apartment and then walk to the fitness center, and two, I’m trying to do all of the runs at 5.5MPH and it’s sapping all my energy in the first half of the run. I poked around on the Couch to 5K Facebook page and apparently this is a common problem coming out of Week 3 because of the big jump between Weeks 3 and 4. So tomorrow: full 5-minute warm-up walk and slowing down to 4.5 MPH for the first two jogs. We’ll see if that works…

After I showered, I started setting up my “alternative workstation” at my dining room table, since I had to work at home today as part of my agency’s pandemic preparedness exercise. I pulled what may be my last cherry muffin out of the freezer to eat while I started working.

These were superb when they were fresh from the oven and while two or three months in the freezer have toyed with the texture, they’re still great.

If only cherries could be in season  year-round!

I started working at 6AM and took a break sometime during the morning to eat the other half of my Pure bar. Lunch was a quick and mostly leftover affair–a grilled chicken thigh with Ozark seasoning, leftover lima beans and broccoli from Sunday night, and leftover potatoes, onions, and carrots from Monday night.

I’m really bad about using leftovers, and here’s one reason why–leftover potatoes taste weird.  They even look kinda funny…

I worked until 3:15PM, at which point I gave up for the day (and yet, I’m already ahead for the week…). It was the longest day ever! While I hope we don’t have any pandemics for obvious reasons, I also hope we don’t have one because working from home as a result would drive me utterly mad. There were barking dogs and people walking up the steps and planes and leafblowers and men climbing on roofs, and nowhere to go to get away from it. There’s no one to get up and talk to when you’ve been staring at your computer screen for too long–a minor point, as I’m a huge introvert, but a point nonetheless–and even worse, there’s not really anyplace to go. I can’t think sitting down and there’s only so much room in an apartment to pace. I will be happy to be back at the office tomorrow…

After I was done working for the day, I took an awesome nap with my dog. I think I fell asleep around 4PM and didn’t get up until 7:30PM. Naps are good…there were lots of naps at the beach last week.

In the half-hour in which I had to cook before The Biggest Loser started, I threw together some taco salad.

Dip made from refried beans, cream cheese, and taco seasoning, covered in cheese, tomatoes, and onions, then run under the broiler, topped with lettuce, and eaten with tortilla chips. Yummy…horrible for you, probably, but yummy. Although this is not a good shot of it, I would also like to point out the lovely blue au gratin dish that my mom found at the thrift store and bought for me. Innit pretty?

The Biggest Loser was crazy tonight…I loved Jillian getting all serious business with the purple team and while an Amber Alert interrupted the love fest at the end right when it was getting good, I thought the team that ended up getting sent home went out in a very admirable and sportsmanlike way. Can’t wait for more crazy purple lady next week…

…yeah, the one with too much Penzey’s Sandwich Sprinkle. I just dusted it off a little and it was good as new. That reminds me, though, I need to order from Penzey’s soon..

Speaking of being reminded of things, I was in such a haste to get out the door this morning with my breakfast, snack, lunch, ID badge, etc., that I forgot my camera! Epic fail. As I recall, I had a homemade cranberry-orange muffin from my freezer for breakfast, and banana for snack (which I ate while taking a walk to the mailbox to drop off my NetFlixes), and then, after my lunchtime walk, I ate a salad of Romaine, blue cheese, bacon, and Greek Feta dressing for lunch, along with a strawberry Chobani 0% Greek Yogurt.

And then, around 2:30PM, I started getting hungry and realized I hadn’t packed an afternoon snack and my cabinet was devoid of snack bars since I took them all home before my trip. Gaaah. In retrospect, I could’ve broken out that Trader Joe’s mac  and cheese, but I wasn’t thinking straight.

After I got home, I noshed on the last of my maple fudge while dinner was cooking.

And I tormented the dog some. If he sees me with the camera, he either runs and hides or he drops to the floor and rolls on his back.

Rawr, so scary…also, I need to vacuum my floor again. Sigh.

Oh, did I say I did this while dinner was cooking? I meant to say I did this while dinner was inadvertently broiling. See, I threw the oven on broil instead of bake, and you’d think at 450 degrees that wouldn’t make so much of a difference……and yet, I’ve never had my steak turn out cup-shaped before. Huh. Well, it was good anyway–little crunchy on the top and underdone on the bottom–and the roasted potatoes, carrots, and onions were magnificent, ’cause really, how could they not be.

The night ended with the simplicity of a Tofutti Cutie, since you can’t mess that up.

The good news is that tomorrow I can’t accidentally leave my camera at home when I go to work, because I’ll be working from home as part of a pandemic preparedness drill. I’m already plotting to make chicken on the George Foreman for lunch…

Last night my parents had hamburgers, fried potatoes, and pinto beans. I would’ve settled for just the fried potatoes and pinto beans, but alas, all I have is dry pinto beans, and fried potatoes just aren’t the same without beans. Instead, I had a bunch of grapes…

…that are kind of weird-tasting. Grapes are so hit and miss. I also decided I wanted another salad, so I made the same salad I’d had for lunch–Romaine, Greek Feta dressing, bacon, tomatoes, and the addition of some blue cheese–and topped it with the leftover grilled red peppers, onions, and mushrooms from lunch.

And I had a piece of sourdough bread on the side. I’m determined to eat an entire loaf of fresh-baked bread before it goes bad!

After I ate, I settled down to watch the first disc of Season 2 of The Big Bang Theory. I live under a rock and have no TiVo, so I haven’t been watching this completely awesome show since House got moved to the same time. I’d seen all the episodes on the first disc, but they were all still funny.

I had the rest of my Heath toffee fudge while I was watching.

Later in the evening, I needed a quick snack, so I had some croutons.

After I took the picture, I went back and got some Greek Feta dressing to dip them in.

Today, I’ve been a lazy slug. I could be unpacking or cleaning or something, but instead I spent most of the day lazing in bed with my dog. My pulled muscle still hurts and my face is covered in these mysterious red dots, and really, I just wanted a day to do nothing.

I haven’t really been that hungry today, but I knew if I didn’t eat something I was going to end up sick. So I had a peanut butter cookie LaraBar.

[The doggy on my mousepad there is not puppy Heath--'tis a trick of the eye! It's actually my family's husky, Mysti, when she was a baby (with very sharp teeth).]

I proceeded to do nothing all day, not even eat, until after 6PM. I just wasn’t hungry. But when I finally did get the urge to eat, I knew what I wanted to do–make my entire meal in my food steamer!

I pulled out a piece of frozen salmon, some frozen baby lima beans, and some fresh broccoli, threw it in the steamer, set the timer for 22 minutes, and bing…

…out came deliciousness. I did add some pepper to the salmon, some blue cheese to the broccoli, and some kosher salt all around. Otherwise, all this awesomeness came straight from the steamer. I love steamed salmon–it always stays moist inside, something that’s sometimes difficult to achieve with broiling or grilling (my other two favorite salmon-preparation methods).

After dinner, I settled down to watch Breakfast at Tiffany’s, because I’d had it out from NetFlix for five weeks. No late fees, ha ha…just didn’t feel like watching it until now. Midway through I made myself a little desert.

A Tofutti Cutie broken up into quarters and topped with chocolate-covered sunflower seeds, some mini peanut butter cups, and a broken up chocolate-drizzled lemon cookie.

And I just had my pre-bedtime snack while I was writing this–a piece of sourdough bread topped with Asiago cheese, tomato, lettuce, and a bit more Penzey’s Sandwich Sprinkle than I intended. Oh well, still good…

Off to bed–gotta get up in the morning and go to work!

I made a big fuss over how cute he looks in the bandanna he got after his bath, gave him a few treats from Bone Appetit, and then gave him his new toy.

I’m happy he likes it so much! Both of the rope arms are untied now, but apparently that just makes it more fun to fling around.

By now it was almost 3PM and I was starving, but the pickings at my apartment were slim. I nibbled on some fudge I’d brought back from Riverstreet Sweets while I contemplated lunch.

Maple fudge….

Mint chocolate fudge…

And Heath toffee fudge. The mint is my favorite of the three–the flavors in the others are a little too subtle.

I contemplated getting one of the new Mediterranean Veggie sandwiches from Domino’s, but instead I made some vegetable fried rice from Trader Joe’s…

And ate it while I was cooking some chuck steak with Chicago Steak seasoning from Penzey’s.

And then I slept for a while. When I got up I was hungry and again contemplated ordering from Domino’s, but I talked myself out of it and instead heated up some sausage, egg, and cheese Hot Pockets.

I (used to) love these things, but the last few times I’ve made them, they have not heated properly. I’ve had this problem in more than one microwave. And there is nothing more revolting than biting into a Hot Pocket that is cold in the middle. I don’t know if it was the Hot Pockets or just a combination of everything weird I’d eaten during the day, but I was up sick half the night. A wonderful way to spend my first night back at home…

I woke up late the next morning and had a strawberry Chobani 0% Greek Yogurt.

And after contemplating ordering Domino’s some more, and getting pretty hungry, I finally just went to Harris Teeter to get some food. I was very proud of myself–the vast majority of my order was fresh food. Fruits and veggies, bread from the bakery…and aside from that, I bought a big bag of brown rice, a bag of croutons, two jugs of drinking water, a bottle of HT Trader’s Greek Feta dressing, a package of bacon crumbles (can’t be without bacon for long!), a package of chicken thighs, and a package of small steaks. Honestly, I get a little thrill out of going to the grocery store and seeing that my cart is filled with healthier stuff than the person checking out in front of me (even though this time the person in front of me had a ton of organic food!). And yes, this even after I ate all those donuts this week…I’ll confess to being a hypocrite in this regard.

For my late lunch, I decided that I was going to make a grilled veggie sandwich, like the one I’d been wanting from Domino’s (only better). So I threw this big portabella mushroom cap on the George Foreman grill.

That thing is as big as my entire hand, but according to the package it was only 20 calories! Crazy! I ended up only eating half of it on my sandwich–ran out of room with the grilled onions, red peppers, tomatoes, and Asiago cheese that I piled on there…

I was craving a salad, too, so I made one with Romaine, garlic croutons, tomatoes, bacon crumbles, and Greek Feta dressing.

I ate it with my veggie sammich, which was on fresh-baked sourdough bread.

Later I was getting peckish and had some lemon cookies. These things are so battered after their trip to the beach…

And then I had a Kind bar–the “Fruit & Nuts in Yogurt”  variety.

It was okay, but honestly, I prefer the other the food bars that don’t have things like “yogurt compound” in them.

Steak and baked potato, and a shot glass full of Brummel and Brown. Given that I’ve eaten just a baked potato for dinner on some recent nights, and that that potato was smaller than this one…this was way too much food. And I ate it anyway. And it was good, but I got into the pool later that night and was worn out after 20 minutes of swimming. And I was goofing off and launching off the wall into a backstroke, ended up going sideways, and rammed into the edge of the pool. I felt fine Thursday but since last night one of the muscles in my chest (the one that hurts a lot right now if I pretend I’m backstroking!) has been really sore–if I lay on my stomach or cough or move wrong it hurts. Baaaaah!

Could it be that the beach posts are almost over…?

Thursday, September 24: Day 6

No breakfast picture, so I’m assuming I had a donut. We were going to go to Broadway at the Beach in the afternoon so we could go to Margaritaville for dinner, but we decided to go ahead and go to Barefoot Landing and Broadway and then have Margaritaville for lunch.

On our way out of the resort, we fed the ducks. We were throwing bread to them in the water, but a bunch of them came up onto the walkway.

At one of the fudge places at Barefoot Landing, I saw this cool sign!

I only wanted to buy two things at either Barefoot Landing or Broadway at the beach: fudge and something for my dog. We stopped into Bone Appetit, an all-natural dog treat bakery. They had a little display case full of specially made treats–”donuts” (bagels with yogurt and sprinkles), gingerbread men, etc. They also had ten different varieties of treats that you could buy in half-pound or pound bags. Not knowing whether Heath would enjoy an entire bag of one kind of treat, I opted for the “doggie bag” option–filling a bag with loose treats from the buckets around the store.

They had peanut butter, beef & cheese…

…cheese pizza, chicken parmesan…

…cheese & apple, apple cinnamon (the only kind I didn’t get–seemed a little weird for a dog!)…

…peanut butter & honey, cheese & bacon…

….lamb & rice, and pumpkin!

I scooped some of all of them (except the apple cinnamon) into a bag and came out almost exactly at a pound–I think I hit 1.02 lb. Perfection!

They also had cute stuffed animals, and I couldn’t resist getting Heath this little guy.

He has a treat pouch and a squeaker, and supposedly he is made of triple-layers of fabric so he’ll be long-lasting. Heath loves him and while he has already managed to untie the knots in his arms, there are no holes so far. He might even make it through the week…!

We went on to Broadway at the Beach and Margaritaville.

Margaritaville, like Thorny’s, is a beach tradition. I decided to get something different this time and had a hard time choosing what i wanted. Finally, I went with the Monterey Chicken Sandwich.

I would have been happy just ordering my sandwich and eating–I was hungry!–but my dad and my aunt wanted to order the nachos (the inferior nachos!), so I had a plateful (or two) while waiting for my food to arrive. They do have good guacamole…but they’ve taken the bacon off their nachos! Shameful.

When my food arrived, it looked delicious!

Unfortunately, I’m so used to hunting for wheat bread made without oats that I didn’t think about whether the wheat bun might be, say, covered in oats. I avoid eating things made with oats because oats make me sick (and also because they’re naaasty). I ate about 1/3 of the bun and left the rest of it on my plate.

It was pretty good–needed more chicken, and I didn’t taste any cajun seasoning in the mayo. The french fries were nommy, as french fries usually are, and the pickle was very sour but good.

We didn’t eat dinner until late that night because we were so full from Margaritaville…but dinner was the taco salad I’d been looking forward to all week, so I laid into it.

…I had another, smaller plateful after this one, while moaning about how I’d eaten too much.

And that’s it! No more beach pictures! I got up Friday morning, had a donut that I did not take a picture of, and drove back home. Oh, and I stopped at the last gas station before I got onto I-95 and got a Diet Caffeine Free Coke and a huge Nutty Bar that had like 420 calories in it…I checked out the healthy food section and there was nothing I could eat (oats!). I tried. A little…

Tomorrow I’ll hit the rest of Friday and today, and then I’ll be all caught up. Yaaaay…

Monday, September 21: Day 3

Monday, I had breakfast in bed…

Ha ha! Okay, I just stuck my peanut butter cookie LaraBar under the covers because it had the whole tan vibe going…

So did this maple donut, come to that.

This chocolate cake glazed donut definitely did not fit in the color scheme.

Okay, I know I must have had lunch somewhere in here, but I didn’t take a picture of it. Did I just eat donuts all day? Who knows…

I do know that Monday night was the two hour season premiere of House, and we prepared ourselves by eating nachos.

Soooo good. We started making nachos regularly after visiting Margaritaville in Myrtle Beach a few years ago. At this point, I believe our nachos to be superior to the restaurant’s. We all make them a little differently; these consisted of tortilla chips, ground beef seasoned with taco seasoning, black beans, onions, tomatoes, bacon, queso, and sour cream. And yes, that is my serving. Usually I’d go back for seconds, but that night I did not…I really wanted to, though…

House was awesome, by the way!

Tuesday, September 22: Day 4

Tuesday morning, I got up and got ready to go for a run. I was starving (probably all the carbs from the day before), so I ate a whole cashew cookie LaraBar before my run. This was my first time eating this flavor and I’m surprised at how consistently good these bars are–I only wish I had access to more than four flavors!

I had to wait a while to go for my run, because an older woman was using the treadmill for her walk. When I finally got my chance to use the treadmill, I was only able to get about three-quarters of the way through my second try of the Couch to 5K Week 4. Around the second 3-minute run my legs started cramping up and I couldn’t run through it. I’ve accepted that I’m not going to be ready for a 5k by mid-October, though, and I know I just have to keep at Week 4 until I get it down.

When I returned from my run, I did a little post-workout carb-loading.

…heh heh.

For lunch, I made a turkey sandwich with tomatoes, mayo, and lettuce. I had some veggie chips and dip on the side, as well as a couple of ginger snaps.

Later that afternoon, I had some Ruffles and dip to quench my craving for salt.

Before dinner, I went on a loooong (1 1/2 hour) walk on the beach. I was hungry when I got back and scarfed down some chicken thighs and hashbrown casserole.

Hashbrown casserole is divine, but it’s like a heart attack in a pan. I wonder if this could be made healthier–without sacrificing the taste–through the use of Greek yogurt instead of sour cream?

During dinner, we were treated to the eastern view of a beautiful sunset.

And then I photographed some of the intact snail shells I found on the beach during my walk.

And then I watched The Biggest Loser. And ate an ice cream cone.

The Biggest Loser was pretty good. So was the ice cream.

Wednesday, September 23: Day 5

If you go out on the beach in front of the resort and look south, there’s a pier off in the distance. My aunt and I had been talking about trying to walk to the pier, so on Wednesday morning I was determined to get up and do it. I fueled up for the walk with a peanut butter cookie LaraBar.

It was a long walk to the pier. As it turns out, it was just under 2 miles away, but I walked in the shallows and climbed over bridges and otherwise lolligagged along the way. But eventually, I got to the pier.

As it turns out, it was Surfside Pier, in Surfside Beach. I walked into another town…!

The pier was strangely crowded for 10AM–there were a few restaurants with people standing outside waiting to be seated–and there was a $1 fee to get on the pier, where people were fishing and enjoying the view. I was perfectly content to snap a shot of myself standing under the pier in my dorky hat.

Then it was time to walk another almost-two-miles back to the resort…in the sand…my legs were tired when I got back! On the way back I passed my aunt, who was on her way to the pier, and we high-fived each other, being members of the exclusive “I Walked to the Pier and You Didn’t” club.

I needed some food when I got back…oh, look, a donut…

And then I had some veggie chips and tuna salad. I used the tuna as dip for the chips.

…and then I had another donut.

And then I took pictures of the three little snail shells I found. I found a total of five nearly intact during the trip. w00t!

I also found this totally cool crab claw–it still moves! I think it looks like a parrot from a Hieronymus Bosch painting of Hell, personally–it’s even got a little eye!

I saw a total of four jellyfish during my stay at the beach–two in the daytime, two at night, all four washed up on the beach. Here’s the one I found when my aunt and I went out during high tide.

We also saw a little crab….

And then I came back to the room and had  an ice cream cone. Mmm.Okay, that’s a lot of pictures in one post…one more beach post to go!

Saturday, September 19: On the Road to Myrtle Beach/Day 1

Saturday morning was a rushed affair; between packing, dropping the dog off at the kennel, and trying to clean my apartment so I didn’t come home to a mess, I barely had time to grab breakfast. But I did manage to make a fruit salad using the last of my strawberries and bananas, some plain Greek yogurt, and pecans.

I finally headed out to my parents’ house late in the morning. I stopped at the convenience store near my apartment for an orange-themed snack.

Peanut butter M&Ms and Diet Sunkist…ahhh…

On my way out of Raleigh, I had to make a detour into Cary to check for packages at my  brother’s old place. On the way out of his subdivision, I was set upon by geese.

When this happens at my apartment complex, it’s maybe four geese. This was two dozen, at least. And they were slow. And when one batch finally finished and I was easing my car through, another group decided to go. Arrrrrrgh…

Finally I was on my way! I made it to my parents’ house, and then we (me, my parents, and my aunt) set off to Fayetteville for lunch.

Long John Silver’s! Yay! Long John Silver’s is based in Lexington, KY, the city I was born in, and it makes me sad that there are so few LJS’s in North Carolina! I had the combo that came with a drink, fries, a piece of chicken, and a piece of fish.

Since we were just outside of Fort Bragg, the restaurant had American flags on all of the tables.

After lunch, it was off to Myrtle Beach! The drive was fairly uneventful–though my car did  hit 10101 miles on the way there! We got to the resort and met my brother and my sister-in-law, got all the vehicles registered, hauled all our stuff upstairs….

…enjoyed the view from our condo’s window…fortunately, we were on one of the lower levels of the 22-story tower, but I bet the view from the top is pretty awesome. We’ve stayed at this condo every year for the past five (?) years, and were happy to see that the decor had been updated since last year. There were brand-new couches, new comforters on the beds, new pictures on the walls. And a poorly stocked kitchen! Just imagine my family trying to put together a meal with little saucepans and dull steak knives…horrors, horrors!

Of course, we are resourceful. We had cheeseburgers, chips and dip, and fruit salad.

The men in my family make gargantuan hamburgers…I made mine with provolone, tomato, lettuce, and some mayo.

Everyone else had Ruffles, but I’d brought my veggie chips with me and had those instead.

And I whipped up some fruit salad–an agonizing task with no real knives to speak of!–to share with the table. I think it was pecans, grapes, bananas, two kinds of apples, and some Greek yogurt.

My burger was good, but this was way too much food…and I ate it all anyway. And later that night…

This was a consolation ice cream cone, after I lost a game of shanghai rummy.

Sunday, September 20: Day 2

Sunday morning, I woke up ready to go for a run. I had half of an apple pie LaraBar and left the other half for my brother, who wanted to try it. It was really good!

After some confusion about when the fitness center at the resort opened, I got my run in. I meant to take a picture of the totally ghetto treadmill–the only treadmill–but I forgot. Let’s just say, I was surprised that it was new enough to have a website address listed on it. This was my first shot at Week 4 of the Couch to 5K and I wasn’t able to finish, but I got over halfway through. I was still having trouble breathing because of my allergies and just couldn’t make it all the way.

Back in the condo, I made myself a breakfast of toast, grape jelly, and leftover fruit salad.

After breakfast, we headed off to the Myrtle Beach Flea Market. I bought stuff from three or four different kitchen stores–new stainless steel servers, a mini spatula, silicone baking cups, a bowl scraper, an apple corer, and a vegetable brush.

I also picked up a new Rada knife for my collection–a vegetable peeler!

Very dangerous, as you can see below.

While we were driving from one flea market to another, we stopped at a McDonald’s. I had a grilled chicken honey mustard snack wrap and a small order of fries.

That night, we headed out for our traditional dinner at Thorny’s.

I had a house salad to start, with balsamic vinaigrette. The salad was great–tomatoes, bacon, egg, croutons, onion, and cheese–but do you see the size of that dressing container?  Good grief!

Thorny’s has delicious rolls…I restrained myself and had only one.

Usually I get fried seafood or a steak, but this year I opted for the grilled salmon with a loaded baked potato.

The potato tasted a little off, but the salmon was great.

On the way out, I snapped a picture of this creepy guy who was hanging out near the hostess…

Freaky…

Okay, I think that’s enough for one post…Days 3 and 4 later tonight…

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