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Posted on September 27, 2009 - by Ashley Jackson

Getting Back on Track

After one last donut at the beach and a stop to fuel up (and grab a Diet Sunkist and a giant Nutty Bar), I arrived home at about 12:30 on Friday. I was going to wait to go to the vet and pick up Heath, but it looked like it was going to rain, and I missed my puppy. So I picked him up and we had a happy reunion in the Dogs Only waiting room at the vet.

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.

Posted on September 26, 2009 - by Ashley Jackson

On the Beach, Part III

Whoops! I left dinner out of my last post. This was dinner for Wednesday night:

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…

Posted on September 26, 2009 - by Ashley Jackson

On the Beach, Part II

Okay, Part II of the Myrtle Beach Posts…

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!