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By kilax, November 28, 2009 7:20 am

We celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday with my sister, Christina, and her friend, Will. What does a vegan Thanksgiving look like? Let me show you…

The Sous Chef and Chef

The main dish: Stuffed Acorn Squash

Your choices are lentils and rice or…

Dressing!

We also had lentils and rice

and dressing on the side!

A delicious new Green Bean Casserole recipe! We used the leftover sauce as gravy for…

… the potatoes! Nom nom nom.

Of course, we had to have Cranberries. We just bought the canned Ocean Spray kind, but I may make a fresh cranberry dish for Christmas.

And you can’t forget the rolls (from ALDI)!!!

The fully set Thanksgiving Day Table…

and the fully set table with peeps!

My plate (this is all I ate – I knew we would have LOTS of leftovers)

Christina makes the classic mashed potato sandwich!

There were just a FEW servings of leftover mashed potatoes

We waited a few hours (Christina and Will played Wii the whole time) until we got out the DELICIOUS vegan pumpkin pie (new recipe here)

My plate

Everyone else’s plates!

The only thing that wasn’t vegan at this meal was the butter for the rolls, the whipped cream, and ice cream.

We had a lot of fun yesterday. Steven and I did the food prep while Christina and Will chilled, then we just played Wii all day and hung out. Sometimes, it’s good to spend a day indoors!

I didn’t do a thankful post this year. After reading many of yours, I can say I am thankful for the same things. But one unique thing I have to mention is how thankful I am too have a supportive husband who loves to experiment with food. I became vegan on June 15, but Steven is still a vegetarian. However, he fully supports my decision to be vegan and is always “veganizing” dishes we used to make with animals products, and trying out new recipes that I can eat. What a sweetie! Being vegan is not impossible, but Steven makes it much easier.

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By kilax, March 24, 2009 5:13 am

For your entertainment, here is a blog post I wrote about being sick while I was sick. Yeah… it kind of doesn’t make any sense.

My exhaustion finally caught up with me.

On Thursday I developed a small cough in the afternoon. On Friday, it was deeper, but I felt well enough to go to work. But by lunch time I started to feel weak. I had aches in my legs and couldn’t walk very fast. I left early and the aches spread to my hips and lower back. We had tickets to a comedy club with friends that night and were supposed to meet them for dinner first. Instead, I laid in bed all night, as the aches moved to my chest. Wonderful wife I am. $50 down the drain.

On Saturday, surprisingly, I felt somewhat better. Still weak, but not coughing as much, and not achy. We took Sir Data Lor to the vet, and cleaned the house a bit for friends to come over. I was terrified I would have to cancel our get together* with Kevin, Katie, Diane, E and Tori, but I felt great all day. Until about 9:00 pm, when they probably noticed me continually getting up from playing Wii Trivial Pursuit** to blow my nose, cough, and wash my hands in the bathroom.

On Sunday I felt miserable. I kept getting hot and cold, hot and cold. I would be shivering under the sheets, then they would be wet from me sweating too much. I had to go to Target to pick up a prescription. You know what the pharmacist*** said to me? “You look tired.” You know what it means when people say that to  you? “You look like crap.” I DID look like crap. I laid in bed all day.

I thought I may go to work on Monday, but decided not to. It’s a good thing I didn’t. I could barely stand up when I was trying to make myself oatmeal in the morning – I felt too weak and dizzy. I had aches during the day again. Felt too weak to get out of bed most of the time. But the coughing had gone down. Hurrah.

On Tuesday, I think I’ll go into the office. What the hell. Should be fun.

You know what? I have been PISSED OFF this whole time I’ve been sick. I’m angry. This stupid sickness is putting a serious hamper in my exercise plans. Taking four days off is making me crazy. And I don’t feel like I should be sick. I eat well and I exercise. I’m healthy!

I know what you’re thinking, “Um, Kim, maybe it’s because you don’t get enough sleep?” Yeah, that has got to be it. From now on, I am going to recommit to getting 7 hours of sleep a night. I will set a timer for 10:00 or whatever, and when it goes off, I’ll stop what I’m doing, and go to bed, as often as possible. If that doesn’t happen, I am going to start sleeping on the train again.

I’ll do whatever it takes to get healthy.

And yeah, that includes finally going to the doctor. I’m working on that one.

*We had such a wonderful time having everyone over on Saturday night. We rarely get to spend time with friends, so it was a real treat. And I love that blogging has given me so many “real life” friends. I never thought that would happen when I started this blog! And I must say – I have a very real blogger crush on Tori. She’s even more awesome in person.
**I sucked at Wii Trivial Pursuit just as much as the tangible board game. What a surprise! Not!
***My pharmacist is pretty funny. The last time I was there, she was so excited to enter my new government insurance info in the computer because of the “awesome low prices!”
BONUS FOR MAKING IT THIS FAR: Anyone sick of me using asterisks all the time? Muah ha ha! Blame it on diane! I copied her’s! I love it when she adds little tidbits!

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By kilax, March 18, 2009 4:10 am

I have to share two dirty little secrets:

1. I am a runner who NEVER does strength training. (BAD BAD BAD!!!)
2. I am a runner who NEVER gets sore from running. I push myself, but never feel the burn the next day. Lucky, I guess.

With that being said – for me to find a workout DVD that gets the strength training in, AND makes me feel sore as hell, that means a lot! And that’s not mentioning that is also gets my blood flowing and my heart rate up.

I’ve been doing Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Shred at Level 1 for four days now. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the DVD, it is split into three levels of workout intensity. You become comfortable with one before you more on to the next. I think the idea is that you do it once a day for 30 days straight, but it never actually explains that on the DVD… anywhere that I’ve found anyway!

Each level is a “20” minute (more like 30) workout with a warm up, then 3 intervals each of 3 minutes on strength, 2 minutes of cardio, and 1 minute of abs, and a cool down. It is fast paced and keeps your heart rate going the whole time.

Pros: Just doing this for four days has me walking around like I have stiff, sore legs. It hurts to bend over. My chest is sore. It feels great! I can really see this DVD changing my body in the next 30 days. And I like that it only takes 30 minutes of my time, can be done without leaving my house, and requires minimal equipment – just free weights.

Cons: I worry that the DVD is only going to strengthen my upper legs and chest/upper arms. I hope that we get to a calf exercise in the later levels. And I find Jillian annoying and fake. But I bet a lot of people say that. (In the last ab exercise of Level 1, she says “I know you feel that little knot in your stomach. That’s your body getting stronger.” Ugh. Every time she says that, I DO feel it. Those bicycle crunches ARE HARD.) And one more thing – the DVD doesn’t play nice with our DVD Changer. Oh well.

Overall, I really like it, especially being the first workout DVD I’ve ever tried. I hope that if I ever surpass Level 3, I will have a new found inspiration to continue strength training on my own! I really think anyone* could do this DVD – no matter what your exercise level is. It is tough at first, but even four days later, it’s feeling easier to me.

Side Note: I just remembered that Jillian Michaels has this game for the Wii. I don’t have the Wii Fit, but the game sounds kind of cool.

*Let me know how it goes if you try it! I know Tori is talking about it! And based on offline conversations with Denise, Mom, Courtney and Gina – I think you four would like it as well!

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By kilax, January 19, 2009 9:16 pm

My entire right arm, right shoulder and the right side of my neck are sore. It’s the result of carrying too heavy of a purse for too long, bowling* for the first time in months on Saturday, and playing Wii Tennis** a bit too intensely on Sunday.

The funny thing is, I’ve been ignoring the neck pain caused by my purse for a couple of months. It wasn’t until this Saturday, when the pain spread to my shoulder, that I thought I better do something about it, because I was worried it would affect my running. Since I’ve been training for the half marathon, I’ve really become more in touch with how my body feels when running, and what I need to do before and after running to make it feel its best. My neck wasn’t bothering me too much while running, but I could tell the shoulder pain was going to turn into something awful if I didn’t act on it. So I am acting on it. So I can run better.

It’s really interesting, to follow a half marathon training program, and learn so much about my body while I am doing it. I just never expected to become so in touch with what my body likes and doesn’t like. I won’t go into details, but I’ve learned how important my diet is when it comes to running. If I am running that night, I need to stick to my healthy diet throughout the day, or I am going to be sluggish and uncomfortable on the treadmill. And the thing is, when I am running that night, I DO want to stick to my healthy diet. I am enjoying the training so far and how it makes me feel. I just hope I don’t have any more interruptions in my training schedule. December through mid-January has been hell on my schedule.

*Remember when all I used to blog about was bowling? Then our summer league ended, I and quit playing, because my hip was killing me, and I wanted to focus on running. Well, even though it took me an embarrassingly long time to get back into the swing of things on Saturday, I had a lot of fun, and I miss it.

**Christina and Kyle came to visit us this weekend! We spent ALL day Sunday at home, playing Wii and… playing Wii. Maybe we watched a DVD? I don’t recall. Anyway, I’ve had the Wii for over 5 months and NEVER played Wii Tennis. Kyle and I were fooling around with it, and convinced Christina and Steven to join us after our late lunch. We ALL became ADDICTED! Christina and I had to go change into gym clothes because we were working up such a sweat! Why didn’t anyone tell me Wii Tennis is so fun? I think we spent over 3 hours playing it yesterday. Christina and I were teamed up against Steven and Kyle most of the time, then we let the two of them duke it out, “competitive ass” style.

Competitive asses in action.

FYI: I haven’t really been feeling like myself lately, and I realize that this blog post is a big steaming pile of crap. And… it took me almost 2 hours to write. I mainly wrote it to make Christina happy… are you happy now Christina, are you?!?! Ha ha. Come back to Chicago!

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By kilax, August 24, 2008 5:30 pm

Data just attacked my foot/ankle while I was playing the guitar (solo) on Rock Band.

Jeez, Data. Tell me how you really feel about the game.

Of course, I was too into the song to stop playing, but I did to yell at him. Now I have a long diagonal scratch that goes from my ankle to my foot.

I think the most I have even played Rock Band consecutively is for about an hour. When we are home enough to play for longer periods of time, we’re doing other things.

Which is fine with me. I don’t need to devote a ton of time to it. But Data gets so jealous when we turn it on. He sulks, and sits on the living room floor, far away from us, but so that we can still see him, with his back to us.

I guess he wouldn’t be too happy if I bought the Purr Pals game!

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By kilax, August 17, 2008 8:11 pm

Although Steven and I didn’t do anything productive in the true sense of the word this weekend, we did:

• Purchase tickets for the two of us and my parents to see Robin Williams at the Chicago Theater on September 27. (I HATE TICKETMASTER. I had four seats together, then it wouldn’t recognize my password, so I lost the seats. Now we are not sitting together. Sad face.)
• Exercise! We went jogging on Saturday, and will go jogging again tonight. I’ve gone jogging everyday this week except for Friday!
• See Tropic Thunder. It’s true, Robert Downey Jr.’s performance is brilliant. It was a bit drug out, but still really funny. And although the “retard” bit was a bit offensive, I don’t think it was that bad. I honestly wouldn’t have thought too much of it if I hadn’t heard about all the controversy before hand.
• Locate and purchase a copy of Mario Kart for the wii. Now Steven can be happy. I hope.
• And… meet up with Felicia (and a friend) from Confessions of a geeky blogger! We met for lunch at Rock Bottom Brewery and had an awesome time. Felicia is one of those girls you like right away – 100% friendly, open and lots of fun! And I love her voice! Is it weird to say that? She just comes off as a warm and true-to-themselves person. If that makes sense. I’m so happy I got to meet up with her! I hope her friend wasn’t too bored with us – but I doubt it, she was just as cool as Felicia.

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By kilax, July 31, 2008 7:00 pm

1. I skipped my morning and afternoon nap on the train yesterday ( was reading a book).
2. Then I stayed up until 1:00 making Fruit Pizza and writing the previous post (I would have done it earlier but it was league night).
3. Then I woke up at 2:00 to use the bathroom and found these:

(Not Data, although he DID trip me on the way out. I just think all pictures look better with him in them, don’t you? But why does this picture look so YELLOW?!)

Yes, these are Rock Band drumsticks! Did my immature and childish continual-hinting throughout the entire month of July pay off?

It sure did!

I ran to the bed and said (shrieked?) to (sleeping) Steven “What are these?!?!” I wonder if he wanted me to find them in the morning… he probably didn’t plan on getting out of bed at 2:00 in the morning to play with the new Wii and Rock Band game for about an hour.

But if I would have found them in the morning, all of that fruit pizza would have gone to waste. Because I would have called in sick to play with the Wii all day.

So, I am tired because I woke up for an hour to play Wii then…

4. I had to get up at 4:30 to catch an earlier train to make it to a meeting on time.

Ugh. You do the math.

The good news is, I still have enough energy to play Rock Band tonight. Now, I know it is lame to write about a video game, especially one that other people have been raving about for sometime now, but I really REALLY wanted this game. I had dreams about it. I thought about it at work. I talked to everyone I know about it. And now, I have it! Thanks Steven (and I promise, I will still exercise with you – outside)!