Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

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!

Posted on September 26, 2009 - by Ashley Jackson

On the Beach, Part I

Okay, I’m back with Part I of my series of posts about our trip to Myrtle Beach, SC, where the Internet is slow as molasses…let’s see how many days I can get through in this post!

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…