Red Loster and Applebee's

Last week continued like the previous several weeks with work an school. Sunday was exciting because we had friends over from church for dinner. Here's what I made:

pepperoni pizza

Hawaiian pizza

cheesy breadsticks

chocolate white chocolate chip cookies

I made the dough for the pizza and breadsticks with half white and half wheat flour with no seasoning. It's a work in progress. Next time I'll be sure to look up some tastier healthy pizza dough recipes.

Overall Dan and I had a great time Sunday night with the Eriksons. Their kids are so adorable and fun! Although, it made me realize that I need more practice with interacting and handling toddlers. Dan and I are going to offer to babysit for families in our ward so that I get the whole "kid" thing down a little bit better. Maybe after Thanksgiving when I can afford to work less hours we'll start babysitting then.

The rest of our week went pretty well. I'm working about 28 hours/week with school and Dan's working 40+ hours on top of grading and planning lessons...let's just say we really cherish Sundays.

On a better note I'm greatly improving in my running times. Saturday I ran 3.44 miles in 32 minutes (9:18 min/mile) and today I ran 2.7 miles in 24:25 (9:41 min/mile). I'm hoping to keep an average pace of a 9:15 minute/mile for my 5 mile race next month. If things stay the way they are (no injuries, no skipping work outs) I'm pretty sure I can achieve that goal.

Monday after my run I had this for breakfast:

Oats in a jar

For those of you who have never heard of "oats in a jar" it's pretty self-explanatory. I put my oatmeal in my empty almond butter jar. It's delicious because you get to combine the last few bites of the almond butter with your oatmeal....YUMMY!

Since Red Lobster is having their "Endless Shrimp" promotion Dan and I HAD to go to Red Lobster. Dan got the endless shrimp while I opted for the half salmon and grilled shrimp with broccoli. My salmon was delicious. If we could afford it I would make salmon every week!

Enjoying endless shrimp!

Wednesday night was really nice for me because it was my only night off from work (outside of Sundays). I loved relaxing with Dan and watching reruns of the office :-)

Thursday rolled by pretty quickly. Friday I only worked 12-5pm. Unfortunately I didn't make much since it's so slow during the lunch hour. Friday night Dan and I went out to Applebees. We met up with 2 girls from my internship, Amy and Anna. It was great to hang out with them outside of dietetics and not constantly be talking about patients, charts, and hw.

Saturday I went on the longest run I've done since being in Ohio. 3.44 MILES. It's sad that to me it doesn't sound like much given the fact that I was running 3-5 miles 3-4 times/week last year but with starting over in a new environment I feel like I've done pretty well. I felt so proud of myself on Saturday that I treated myself with 2 doughnuts. There's a doughnut place here that makes the doughnuts while you wait. They have "create your own" and themed doughnuts. I went with a themed one that had maple glaze and cinnamon sugar on it. I also created one with maple glaze and mini chocolate chips. Dan went with the peppermint patty and bavarian creme. They were really more like desserts but I guess all doughnuts technically are desserts.

yummy doughnut

Saturday I worked a double (12pm-10:30pm). It was a lonnnggg day. In the evening I ran into a lot of trouble. I got double-seated (2 of my tables got seated at the same time with 4 people at each table). Double-seating isn't that bad if you're experienced and it isn't hectic already.... but when you're not experienced and you're already crazy-busy it's NOT FUN. Let's just say I had a few (3 tables to be exact) disgruntled customers. In one situation, a husband and wife arrived before 2 of their friends who were joining them. So I rang in the appetizer for the first couple (before the other couple arrived). When the second couple arrived they all ordered their entrees. The second couple also ordered an appetizer. Since I wanted to make sure their food arrived at the same time I rang in the second appetizer and waited until it went out to the couple before ringing in all of the entrees. BIG MISTAKE. See the rule in my restaurant is that you're supposed to WAIT until the appetizer goes out before ringing in the entrees. That way the appetizer doesn't go out with the entrees. But since it was busy and the kitchen was backed up their food took FOREVER to get out. I felt bad but it was a good learning experience for me.

Anyway, Sunday was a great day. Mainly because I went to church, felt the Spirit, and did NOT have to work. Sunday was definitely a comfort food day. For dinner I made grilled cheese and pepperoni sandwiches. They tasted great.

ingredients for grilled cheese

Today I worked a double and it was extremely slow. The good thing about it being slow was that I got home by 7:30 (30 minutes before I was scheduled to be off). I hope everyone's Monday went well!