the one with the red lights

Note: Tonight I'm going to take a little break from the "prepster" and talk a little more about the "within".

The roads in Gainesville have the ego of big city traffic. For whatever reason, this town of 100k residents has traffic that can take you 45 minutes to go 2 miles during rush hour. The worst offender is Archer Road, and I'm sure it doesn't help that it is filled with every chain restaurant and big box store - all within about a mile stretch, in addition to being a major thoroughfare from the hospital / university to the interstate. I normally avoid this road at all costs any time of day, but especially anytime near the evening rush hour. However, Friday I had to put on my city driver no mercy face to navigate the three west bound lanes to get to my doctor's office for a last minute appointment. The traffic gods must have been smiling on me yesterday, as I made it all the way from the hospital to Haile Village without hitting a single red light! I got to the doctor 20 minutes early, which gave me some time to enjoy Haile Village Center - a neighborhood whose condo rates also have the ego of a big city - but it is quite peaceful for those of us not shelling out that kind of money for a townhouse. Relaxing under the low hanging branches of trees with Pinterest-perfect lights strung from one to another, I thought about how this past week has been full of red lights. 

Haile Village Center at night

Whether it was spilling Alfredo sauce all over myself and my kitchen, which could have only been more complete with a Full House style laugh track; or getting a backhand smack to the face during an unfortunately crowded Zumba class - this week has not been going my way. 

Let's throw in that my work and lack of sleep schedules had me off track in my exercise routine and on another planet when it came to healthy eating options. Thursday night, dinner time came around 11pm two and half hours away from home. I felt like Lindsay Lohan's character in Freaky Friday eating my french fries from the McDonald's drive-thru (or would it technically be Jamie Lee Curtis' character? Deep thoughts...). I couldn't help myself from saying out loud over and over again "these are SO good" and other various noises displaying my level of satisfaction for those salty golden potato sticks. 

I also made some really bad decisions this week. After being Mt. Dew free for 6 weeks (after at least 10 years of averaging one or two a day), I caved and had Mt. Dew not once, not twice, but FOUR times this week! At first I didn't feel bad about it, it's my caffeine source of choice and I adjusted my calorie intake to not go over for the day. But then I had another. And another. And another. So now that I know I can't be trusted having 'just one', I must cut myself off again. But I don't wanna. But I must. 

Yesterday at the doctor's office I got some bittersweet news - after a month of unexplained neck pain, I found out I have two vertebrae out of alignment. Great to know that I'm not crazy making up the pain and also that there are ways to fix the problem. But of course who wants misaligned vertebrae? 

I could keep chalking up all these things to being 'red lights' in my life, causing me to stop on my journey and let life pass me by. However, the pasta alfredo was still delicious and getting smacked in the face isn't going to keep me from pretending I know how to booty shake and burn major calories in Zumba class.  Misaligned vertebrae may cause me to slow down and my decision to end my addiction to soda is obviously going to take some recommitment. These are all just yellow lights in life. I can choose to slow down and be aware of what's going on in order to make it through the intersection or I can hit the gas and not look back. Either way, there will be no more full on stops, no more red lights! 

No limits!

the one with the salads

A fear of vegetables is something most people get over by the age of 10, but my fear lasted well into my early 20's. I travelled abroad during college and realized that other places on Earth outside of America really don't give you the option to dislike vegetables. Of course that's an extremely broad statement, but it was time abroad, both a summer in New Zealand and a summer in Africa, that I learned to get over my fear or go hungry.

The first thing I learned to like were beans - green beans, peas (are peas a bean?), black beans, etc. Next came squash and zucchini. Later on it was asparagus and sauteed cherry tomatoes and most anything that had been cooked thoroughly. I still have a pretty hard time with raw veggies - I think it's the texture - which has made it particularly challenging to get into eating salads. Then came spinach. For whatever reason, I don't find spinach as absolutely detestable as lettuce. I find lettuce to have a certain, how do you say, 'tastes like garbage'? But spinach has been my saving grace in the world of trying to eat healthier. Using spinach as the base, I have two tasty go-to salads that keep me eating a little healthier day-to-day.

First - the Strawberry Spinach Salad:

This one's pretty common these days - I believe Panera even has a version of it now.

Ingredients:
Spinach
Strawberries
Blueberries
Avocado
Parmesan Cheese
Almond slivers
Poppyseed Dressing

You can add or subtract whatever ingredients you like, but I've found through trial and error that typical salad toppings like tomatoes, for example, don't mix so well with the taste of the other fruits. At it's simplest, I make this salad with spinach, strawberries, Parmesan and dressing. I've also done this salad with chicken and honey mustard (instead of poppyseed) if I'm looking for more protein. If you like to make a large portion and keep eating from it for a few days, I'd suggest not adding the avocados in the big batch. They get slimey and throw off the whole salad. Instead, add fresh avocado to your single serving each day.

Second - the Tuscan Bean Salad:

Homemade Tuscan Bean Salad

This one is an imitation of a Tuscan bean salad I had a local restaurant recently (Blue Highway Pizza in Tioga Town Center). They charged me $10 for this and it was delicious, so I decided to try to start making it myself for a fraction of the cost per salad.

The Ingredients:
Spinach
Feta Cheese
Sun Dried Tomatoes
White Cannellini Beans
Kalamata Olives
Balsamic Vinaigrette

At the restaurant, they also put regular olives and red onions on it, but since I don't like raw onions, I left them out. The regular olives I just forgot to buy this time around - I was a little frustrated after six trips around the grocery store and phone call to my dad in order to find sun dried tomatoes, so the regular olives didn't make it into the cart. The restaurant version used a lemon vinaigrette - which was amazing with this salad. However, it's hard to find already made in stores and I didn't feel like making it at the time. Maybe later I'll post my luck with a homemade dressing!

I eyeballed the measurements and figured up the calories - it totaled around 330 calories for the plate pictured above. I would say depending on how much of each item you add, it could probably vary from 250 to 400 calories. This salad left me feeling full - the fiber and protein in the beans helped with that! I'd say it's a great low-cal dinner or lunch option if you aren't totally starving when you sit down to eat. It could also be paired with a small amount of pasta or toast to boost your energy with some carbs and fill you up a little more.

The dressing you use also plays a huge part in the calorie count. My new favorite dressings are the Bolthouse Farms line -- which are typically 1/3 to 1/2 of the calories of other brands. Their dressings are yogurt based for the creamy ones and I'm not sure exactly what they do in the vinaigrettes to make them so low cal. I compared the Bolthouse Farms balsamic to the Panera brand balsamic next to it at the grocery store, and it was 30 calories compared to 90 calories of the same serving size. The taste is not compromised at all with the yogurt base or healthier ingredients - I actually prefer these dressings to their more caloric counterparts. FYI - the Bolthouse Farms dressings are located in the produce section -  they do need to be refrigerated and don't have quite as long of a shelf life because of the healthier / non-preservative ingredients.

A few nights of these tasty and filling salads for dinner a week are keeping me on track to a healthier lifestyle and closer to bringing that prepster style to the surface!

Do you have any other salad recipes that highlight spinach as the base or non-raw veggies as the star? I'd love to hear about them in the comment section! I may no longer be afraid of veggies, but I'm still a picky eater at heart :)

Thanks for stopping by!

-Sarah
The Prepster Within

More about the Bolthouse Farms brand: http://bolthouse.com/

the one with the royal baby

So my latest prepster purchase I lovingly refer to as my "royal baby".  Thanks to Modalu's summer sale, I'm the proud owner of a Modalu Pippa Grab - yes, THAT Pippa! This glorious handbag graces the arms of such celebs as Pippa Middleton and... well apparently the bag is so well known as the Pippa, that a google search only returns pages of her name, along with Carole and Kate. It was originally known as the Bristol, but once Pippa was photographed carrying it a couple years ago, its popularity has skyrocketed and Modalu officially renamed the bag to its royal fan's namesake.

I'm typically not one to mimic celeb styles - I'm terrible at keeping up with celeb gossip and can't afford 99% of what celebs wear. However, I became obsessed with this handbag as a working woman. I've carried my Longchamp bag since junior year of college (that was 5 years ago) and not only was it wearing thin (literally), but I was also getting overly frustrated with constantly digging through the bag to find anything and shoving my work folders and notebooks into an already cluttered space. The Modalu Pippa is just as large when it comes to space within, but it has three separate compartments to keep your items organized. I searched high and low for a similar bag at a lower pricepoint, but failed to ever lay my hands on one that looked as sophisticated as the Pippa. Whether that is the reality or just the fact that I really wanted the Modalu version, either way, the Modalu summer sale came to my rescue! 

A couple weeks ago, I was on the phone with my aunt, who shares my love of quality brands, when I finally shared with her that I wanted this bag. I had kept it a secret for a while, because I was embarrassed of how expensive it was and didn't want my aunt to offer her tough love on my spending habits. (Sidenote: Nonprofit job + exorbitant student loans = not a lot of spending money for designer handbags.) While I was on the phone with her, she looked it up on the Modalu website and low and behold, just that day, we discovered that the Pippa spring line was on sale! Usually around $350, depending on the color, I was able to order the 'sand' color for a mere $150! Those Brits really know the meaning of the word SALE! 

My Royal Baby on it's first day with me!

Back to how wonderful this bag is -- I keep all of my typical "purse" items in the back section. This section of the bag includes a zipper pocket and two slip pockets - I keep everything in this section - keys, phone, wallet, toiletry pouch, brush, sunglasses, reading glasses and more depending on the day. The middle section can hold my Erin Condren planner (more to come later on that!) comfortably or it can hold my iPad (housed in a Vera Bradley pouch) and Apple wireless keyboard comfortably. That's where the third section / front section comes in handy. I can throw my planner in the front section if I've got my iPad and also it stores file folders and legal notepads wonderfully. I tried getting my padfolio in the front section, but it's just a tad too wide to fit. I could fit it in vertically and leave it unzipped if I was really in a bind. 

I couldn't love this bag more - it really works for me as a professional, carrying work to and from the office, as well as a prepster, offering sophisticated "royal" style to any outfit I wear. Some ladies find a confidence boost from their shoes, or their hair style, this hand bag is all the confidence boost I need! 

I'll close with a quote from 10 Things I Hate About You:

Bianca: There's a difference between like and love. Because, I like my Skechers, but I love my Prada backpack. 
Chastity: But I love my Skechers. 
Bianca: That's because you don't have a Prada backpack. 

Love your current handbag? That's because you don't have a Pippa Grab. (said with as much lighthearted satire as possible, over and over again in my head waiting for a chance to use this line in real life)

Do you own or want to own a Pippa Grab? How does it work for you? Leave your comments below!

Thanks for stopping by! 

-Sarah

The Prepster Within

For more on the brands mentioned in this post:

Modalu: www.modalu.com

Erin Condren: www.erincondren.com

Vera Bradley: www.verabradley.com