Nuts for Nutrition

1. Seattle Story book baby shower!

My sister’s baby shower was a few days after we arrived in Seattle.  She wanted a story book themed party and it turned out really cute!

My Pinterest fail at making a Seahawk

My little caterpillar creation!

We got homemade scones freshly baked that morning from a local bakery, and 6 different types of jam.

We played a few games after we ate:

Tinkle in the pot! This one was hilarious, the girls were in team and had to put a balloon under their shirts and walk with a ping pong ball and drop it in the mason jar.

I saw this on Etsy and had to get it for her.

2. 1 year wedding anniversary celebration

I planned for my family and I to go to dinner at the restaurant right next to our wedding venue, which was the same company who catered our wedding, to celebrate our first anniversary.  

Blue cheese bacon burgers all around!

I ordered the same flavored cake from the bakery we had at our wedding.

Vanilla bean and raspberry jam!

Of course I made us repeat the same posed picture we took on our wedding dayThen..and now.

3. Maui!

We woke up at 2am to drive to the top of Haleakala mountain to watch the sunrise.  It was a little cloudy so we didn’t see the sunrise clearly, but it was still beautiful!
  

Pancakes with vanilla macadamia nut sauce!
View from our hotel at the Royal Lahaina Resort.

Dinner at Merriman’s.
  Our road to Hana adventures! 
  Hurricane Ignacio was close to the islands a few days before we got there so the ocean was going crazy!  Hiking the Pipiwai trail.
  
   Black sand beach.

Our view as we are driving around the island.
Boogie boarding at Black Rock.   
  Turtles coming in from the ocean for the evening, was so cool!   We woke up early on our last morning to get to the beach one last time.
Tired eyes!

4. Vegas Eats! 

In-N-Out animal style, so.effin.good.  I don’t know why didn’t take much more advantage of this place when I was living in California.
Caesar’sP Palace buffet.   All the desserts!
Carmine’s. Veal Parm, amazing!   Their house salad is delish.
Hash House A Go Go.  Grilled banana pancake with pecans.  I think I ate about a qtr of this, plus a biscuit on the side of course. I take advantage of biscuits when in ‘Merica.   
Staple Cheesecake Factory stop.  White choc macadamia nut, I also had their new salted caramel which was wayyy better.   Bad picture, but steak with blue cheese butter at Vic and Anthony’s.  I had the potatoes au gratin and he had the baker.
One last Rueben at Planet Dallie’s before we go!   Had to have one last In-N-Out too 🙂
5. Vegas fun!

My besties came from California to hang out with for the weekend!
We went to XS to see David Guetta  Cruising down the strip.

4am white russians at New York New York playing $5 black jack for hours!   

Football drink at Fat Tuesdays while walking down the strip, always a good idea.   Broken by Vegas, until next time!

We had to connect in San Francisco on our way to Vegas from Maui so we didn’t land in Vegas until midnight. We are staying at Elara which is part of Planet Hollywood. They have free laundry service and had a lot of laundry to do when we got there, so we put a load in then went to Planet Dallies to share our staple first meal in Vegas, the Rueben, so good!  

 By the time our laundry was washed and dried we didn’t get to sleep till close to 5am, so we slept in till noon.

For breakfast, well it was almost 3pm by the time we got there so brunch more like it, we went to Mr Mama’s. We wanted to try it last time we were here and it’s ranked high on trip advisor. The owner greeted us when we got there and was so friendly! It was his birthday and he insisted on us having a piece of his birthday cake which was really nice. 

I ordered poached eggs with sausage patties, home fries and a biscuit. The biscuit was so good!   

We went to the outlets after to do some shopping. I got some workout clothes from the Nike store, much needed workout shirts, shorts, and really comfortable bras. 

 
I also found the cutest converse I had to get. 

 
We went to one of our favorite Mexican restaurants for dinner, Lindo Mihouahcan.  It’s very authentic Mexican food and so good! I ordered bacon wrapped shrimp and a margarita of course!  

We walked around the strip for a couple more hours after dinner. We stopped at O’Sheas for a quick drink, blueberry vodka and lemonade that was way too strong, and gamble. I played a dollar in the black jack machine and tripled my money!

 It’s after midnight now, early for Vegas but we’ve logged 21.5 thousand steps for the day and we’re pooped! 

Our vacation day finally arrived!

Our cab picked us up at 6am, so I got up at 440am to get a quick HIIT workout in. I am loving this quick 7 minute workout! Seriously try it, so hard and so effective.  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSVFjrlg-s0)

Knowing I’ll be sitting and eating for most of the day, I wanted to get some movement in!

It was a tough one! It’s my 6th day in a row of working out, and since they have been the days leading up to our vacation they have all been pretty hard!

Sat-1.5 mile run to the gym and hour of boxfit

Sun- Bodypump (still sore!)

Mon- Insanity Upper body weight training- it’s not all upper body weights either, it’s a full body workout!

Tues- Total Body Workout – Body by Jake (40 minutes of weight training mixed with high intensity cardio)

Wed- Insanity Max Interval Circuit

So my body will probably appreciate the rest today!

I had some coffee after I showered.  I like a little addition of hazelnut flavoured coffee!    I normally don’t eat breakfast till 9am so 5am was still a little too early for me. I had a couple bites of some smoked trout and fage when I was clearing out the fridge.   Through security and checked in! This is when we can really relax and walk around care free!

Breakfast at airport pub: Poached eggs, avocado and toast.

Plane meal time- chicken and mashed potatoes

Snacks! Sweet onion wheat thins we brought, BBQ corn nuts and a chicken and pesto sandwich with a scone and clotted cream before we landed.

First purchase in the U.S. Of A!

Yay for sunny Seattle!

It’s become a tradition when my Dad picks us from the airport we have to stop at Dick’s for cheeseburgers! (It was even one of our wedding photograph stops)

My Dad always calls them covert doubles because when we usually get there it’s right before dinner and when my step-mom has a feast waiting for us when we get home.  I think my Dad enjoys them as much as we do since it’s usually the only time he stops and gets them too.

My sister’s baby shower that I’m hosting is on Saturday so I have to go to the grocery store and pick up the dishes I will be making for it.  I seriously feel like a kid in a candy store when I’m back in the States and go grocery shopping.  I miss all the options and all the yummy new stuff I’ve been missing out on, I want to get everything!

I start getting some of the games ready for the shower, want to make sure everything is not rushed the next couple of days so I can take my time with it all and enjoy my family time.

Having fun with my brother’s girlfriend getting ready for the shower:

My dad helped out getting those candies secure.   Mexican and a margarita for dinner! Carne asda for me
I spotted this in the freezer and had to have a couple bites, dangerously good!   I always have to get these when I come back, I love the honey walnut cream cheese!

We made it till around 10pm which was about 6am for us, time to pass out!

Now that we are a day away from our first year wedding anniversary, how has it been a year already?!

and a few weeks from our vacation, I’ve been back on the weight loss train for a few months in the attempts to get back down to my pre-wedding weight.

My recent daily Time Hops have been a fun reminder of the days leading up to the wedding.

A year later, I’ve tried adding and cutting back on certain things in my diet that I hadn’t previously tried and I’ve also found myself in a similar pattern that I was stuck in last year, don’t eat enough all week, binge, repeat cycle!

What led to binges:

Not.enough.carbs. 

I completely restricted my carbohydrate intake to around 65 grams a day, when I should’ve been having AT LEAST  130 grams a day not even factoring in the extra I needed for 4-5 workouts I did a week. So the pattern was eat ‘well’ for 7-12 days, have a 3000+ calorie carb binge.  It would start out with a few handfuls of cereal, then a small bowl – then 5 small bowls which led to, any form of bread with lots of peanut butter, half a bag of vanilla goldfish, oreos, I’d check out the freezer, see what kind of ice cream we had in there, you name it- if it was a sugary carb I was all over it until I was sick to my stomach and would end up consuming 350+ grams of carbs in about 20 minutes! Since I did this in the evenings, going to bed at night was painful because my stomach was so full I couldn’t get comfortable, and my stomach made me pay for it the next day, it was agony! So I’d completely restrict intake the following day then ‘back to normal’ the next day, and repeat cycle 7-12 days later. You’d think I’d learn my lesson, but when you restrict your body of what it needs, it takes over!

Not eating enough carbs also comes with-

Not.enough.calories. 

You always read about when trying to lose weight, never go below 1200 calories and I’ve heard so many times from different fitness professionals, their clients are working out like crazy eating a low amount of calories and not losing weight, when they start eating a bit more, the weight falls off!

All or nothing approach.
I also struggle with being able to be ‘normal’ with my diet.  When I’m trying to lose weight I’m really strict and completely avoid anything processed, fried, or full of sugar, and when I’m off I’m completely all for it!

I lost about 16lbs to get to the weight I got to before our wedding which was probably the smallest I have ever been in my life and definitely not a realistic or sustainable weight for me.  After the wedding and up until about May this year, I was eating anything and everything I wanted to make for the 8 months of not eating enough, so I gained back the 16lbs that I lost and gained another 6 on top of that to get to the heaviest I have ever been.

So here we are today, I’ve lost 14lbs and am still unfortunately succumbing to frequent binges.  They aren’t as bad as they were last year, but they are still a clear sign I’m not getting enough to eat.

I have started eating a lot more oily fish which have helped keep me fuller for longer, and also get the omega-3 benefits.  I have learned that cereal is a trigger food, and if I even have a small handful it can and usually leads to the uncontrollable spiraling to eat everything, so I have to avoid it.

I recently got some work with a pharmaceutical company that Greg used to work for, they are selling sports nutrition products, and wanted a nutritionist for support and to help educate people on healthy eating.

After digging back into my sports nutrition books and reading about how exercise increases your requirements for basically all macro and micronutrients, it’s not surprising why my body wants all the carbs. Doing mainly high intensity interval training, the only source of fuel that your body can use for that is muscle glycogen, which is carbs in its simplest form or energy from the breakdown of muscle. You would have to be continously supplying your body with carbohydrates with fuel so those sources aren’t all used up and muscle isn’t broken down.

Going crazy on vacation

Once the restrictions are off and there isn’t anything off limits, the re-feeding is taken to an extreme. The biggest thing probably is that if I know I’m only going to be eating at my dads house and all our favorite restaurants on our vacation once a year, I feel like I need to make sure that I eat everything, especially things that I feel like I’ve been missing out on throughout the year, like these!   Biscuit and gravy chips!!!

What I really need to keep in mind is that I don’t have to be in the clean plate club with every meal. I don’t need an appetizer AND a dessert. I don’t have to go crazy with all the new snacks I want to try. Once we are back from vacation I don’t need to continue eating like I’m on vacation for the rest of the year.  Working out on a regular basis my body needs the right fuel and restricting anything is only going to be counterproductive in the long run as time as shown.

Let me know if you guys have any other tips that help you out. I’ll report back on how it all goes 🙂 

I love reading these posts from other bloggers so I thought now that I’m a couple weeks into my new job that I love I thought it would be fun to share! Here’s a look at my Wednesday:

06:12- alarm goes off, wahh too early. I get up, get in the shower to wake me up

06:33- Get to the kitchen, turn the burner on and start cooking my breakfast.

I’ve pretty much had the same thing every day for at least a year! It seems to be the only thing I really enjoy that keeps hunger at bay for most of the morning.  2 eggs, 1 egg white, 2 pieces of bacon in a mini tortilla.

06:45- Make a salad and leftover chicken to take for lunch.  Lettuce, avocado, green onion and some cucs.

06:55- Out the door and make my 20 minute walk to the train station.  I’ve set a my fitness pal goal to try and get 12,500 steps a day and this is where I get a nice chunk of it.

It’s always nice on clear sunny mornings like this one.

Listening to Joel Osteen Podcast on the way.

07:21 – Take the train for 10 minutes, where I wait for the bus to the hospital. I check the bus arrival time and have 6 minutes to spare so I quickly run to Starbucks for a sugar free vanilla latte. I guess my American accent throws people off when I tell them my name is Pam.  When I got to work and met the chaplain across from our office, I told her my name and she was like Peam? I need to practice saying my name with an English accent so people understand me!

08:05- Get to work and start going over the weekly presentation I have to give to pre-op patients.

12:35- Presentation done! Lunch time and now I can relax! So far no one has asked me any questions at the end, I think I’m more nervous from not knowing what I may be asked.  The only question I had was where was I from, because ‘toe-MAY-tos’ gave it away instead of ‘toe-MAH-toes’!

I have my own caseload of patients, usually between 4-6 that usually just need some encouragement to eat and sometimes fortified drinks to help bulk up their nutrition if they aren’t eating enough. I love my job and am so thankful for it, it’s so rewarding and I never thought it was possible to feel this way about work. Working in a hospital environment is definitely something Im getting used to though, it really makes you appreciate health and life.

415- Get the bus back to the station.  It only comes once every 20 minutes so can’t miss it!

440- Catch the train back home.  I’m usually too tired to walk all the way back so I try to catch another bus closer to the house depending on how long the wait is.  I just missed it, so a walking a go! It would be another 12-15 minute wait for the next one and I’ll pretty much be nearly home by then if I walk.

510- Home time. Off with the work clothes on with the workout clothes.

520- Time to get a quick workout in-I signed up for the Beachbody 30 day trial and have access to all the Beachbody programs, and have been loving trying workouts from P90X3, Asylum, Cize Shuan T’s dance workout program, its a fun workout if you want to take it easy, but still works up a sweat!

630- Get back in the kitchen and start the chop chop chopping! Tis the season for tennis, Greg has a team match tonight so I’m cooking for one.  Baked chicken pesto with mozzarella please! I always make a ton of roasted vegetables and a big salad with our dinners.  all.the.veggies to keep my hunger at bay!

830- Dinner and dishes done, I try and get my lunch and anything else I need ready work so I’m not rushing around all morning.

900- I have to give training tomorrow on fluids & nutrition to health care assistants and it’s the first time giving it so go over my presentation a few times for practice. 

We are having a 4th of July kickball party next weekend, I’m making all the English celebrate with me and they have to bring their favorite American dish with them! We just registered with Costco so I made a list of everything we may need and then we can get lots of American branded goodies in bulk.

930-Time to catch up on my shows! Have you guys watched The Affair? Pacey is back! I’m just finishing the mid-season finale, such a good show. Snack of my pumpkin banana oatmeal pancakes topped with cinnamon, chocolate PB2, banana, and a drizzle of toffee nut peanut butter.

1045-time to hit the hay!

1.  So I had my post grad dietetics course interview about 6 weeks ago, and have been anxiously waiting to find out what my future holds! I was told we would find out sometime mid-April and when I didn’t hear anything last week, I knew it had to be sometime early this week.  Sure enough, Tuesday evening I got the email saying I didn’t get a spot and have been put on a waiting list if someone else declines their spot, but they aren’t allowed to tell us where we actually are on that waiting list.

At first I was like….

Then I was all….

So now I have to wait till next year to apply again, but luckily in the mean time I’ll be getting a years worth of experience as a dietetic assistant that I didn’t have before so it should only make me a stronger candidate next year.

2.  House hunting- We’ve also put our apartment on the market and have found a buyer and also planning for the future and looking for a bigger place for us, so considering all the delightful costs that go along with that it’s definitely best that I can continue working full time instead of having to go part time if I was going back to school this year.  We have spent every Saturday for the last few months looking at places, so I’m hoping we’ll find the one soon!

3. Undisclosed The State vs Adnan Syed-Have you started listening? I’ve listened to the first episode and it’s crazy how much more information has already come out that is completely changing the story!

4. Full-ER House – I got an email showing Kimmie’s tweet to DJ, I was OBSESSED with Full House and Mary-Kate and Ashley growing up.

 I’m really excited for  Full-ER House but I hope it’s not a let down!!

5. Amsterdam- We all get the 4th of May off from work, so why not take advantage and spend the weekend in Amsterdam.  Bring on all the Dutch goodness of fries, pancakes and biking ride alllll day!

Our shower door didn’t close properly in our hotel room which was a pain because you basically had to shower and keep one hand holding the door shut the whole time.  We mentioned it to the front desk and they upgraded us to a suite and got free breakfast buffet for the next two days! You don’t ask you don’t get!  Our room had a Nespresso machine, I took full advantage. The only plans we had on the agenda on Sunday was going to the famous Allianz Arena so Greg could get to see a football match there since it is where Bayern Munich play. After the game we headed to the Hofbrahaus for an afternoon snack and so Greg could have some beer. This was only the half size!  There were ladies dressed up that were pretzel wenches selling freshly baked pretzels, I had to get one!    I was using an app to translate the German menus, women asparagus served whole!

We found this beautiful church to visit on Easter.

     We went to Burger Haus for dinner! Truffle burger for me! Our last day we had plans to go and see the Dachau concentration camp memorial site.         

Right when we entered the gates, it started snowing pretty hard and was windy wet snow.  We were freezing and getting wet fast.  I was trying to look at our audio guide map to see where we needed to go first while we were standing in the courtyard.

This was the same place where the thousands of prisoners had to come out each day for roll call.  I couldn’t begin to imagine would it would be like to stand out in the freezing cold for hours with no protection from the cold, while starving and sick.

  This plaque was in the memorial room at the exhibition center.  The exhibition center was originally used as a maintenance building where prisoners were forced to enter the camp.

We saw the desks where they had lined up to check in and were forced to undress and completely undress and handover everything they owned that they were able to carry with them.         

The next stop was the bunks where the prisoners slept.  The rooms showed the progression of the bunks throughout the war.   

We walked through the rest of the camp where you can the sites of where all the other bunk houses used to be.  The camp was initially created for a capacity for 6000 prisoners in 1937, by the end of the war in 1945 the camp had over 30,000 prisoners.

   I noticed a little nun walking through the camp, and at the end of the camp is a covent that is in use and nuns live in today.  Visitors can speak to the nuns if they wish which is very nice. 

This was a gas chamber next to the crematorium.  There is no evidence that this gas chamber was used to kill any prisoners, but where prisoners underwent a selection of who were judged too sick or weak to continue and were then sent to a euthanasia center in Austria.

This is one of the guard towers.  creepy.      

Our last schnitzel in Munich! This one was the best one and stuffed with ham and cheese! 

Since we didn’t actually make it to Munich after Christmas, we planned a trip to go over Easter break since we had Friday and Monday off work. Our flight was 655am, so we got up around 4am.  We didn’t have a lot on the agenda for the day since we knew we’d be pretty tired and had an early wake up the next day,  so wanted to keep the day open.

We had plans to go to the Viktualienmarkt to wander around and grab some lunch, but unfortunately when we got there, everything was closed for Good Friday and was going to be closed on Easter Sunday, and Easter Monday too.  Our only opportunity to go was Saturday which we had an all day tour planned for. We decided to go find Hard Rock Cafe, I always have to collect a shot glass for my dad when we go to different places.  Right across the street from Hard Rock was the famous Hofbräuhaus! We decided to get something to eat at the Augustiner right next to the Hofbräuhaus.  I got the roast knuckle of pork, and Greg got a sausage plate.  We shared a little appetizer of sausages, some dip and a pretzel.

We walked around for the rest of the afternoon, checked out the beautiful Marienplatz and went up to the top for some nice views of the city. It was a perfect, clear and sunny day.

We checked out Trip Advisor for restaurant recommendations, and our first night for dinner we went to Kuchlverzeichnis.  It was a cute little restaurant and the waitresses were dressed up, and we had our first veal schnitzel.  The portions were huge, and it was delicious! We couldn’t pass on the fresh apple fritters with ice cream for dessert!

We had a day trip bus tour planned to go see Neuschwanstein  and Hohenschwangau  castles about an hour and a half outside of Munich in the country.   Luckily the market opened at 8 so we had about a half an hour to walk around and find something for breakfast.

Once we checked in for the tour, we were told due to bad weather up in the mountains, our plans have changed and we weren’t going to be able to do the bike ride around the mountains, but we will get to stop at Linderhof Palace on the way as well as stopping in a cute little German town Oberammergau. Here is what the drive up looked like! 
 

This little chapel was built by monks in 1684, Ludwig II got his inspiration from Versailles of what he wanted Linderhof palace to model.

We did a tour of Ludwig’s grotto, his man cave to escape to!

This is Oberammergau, this little town is where the Passion Play is held every 10 years. You can only be a part of the play if you live in the town and the year before the play, all the men aren’t allowed to cut their hair or shave so that they look the part!  The town is also famous for their wooden coocoo clocks they make.

Next stop, and finally, the castles! Sadly our tour guide said we would have time to tour Hohenschwangau and he said it wasn’t worth it anyway, how is a castle not worth it?!

I’m not doing what you think I’m doing! The tour guide asked for a show of hands of who wanted to go get coffee instead of trekking in the rain to the bridge to try and get a view of the castle which he said there was a 95% chance we wouldn’t get to see because it was way too foggy, coffee for me!

Pretty lake at the base of the castles.

We had a bit of a trek uphill to Neuschwanstein  castle, it would have been nice but we were getting soaked and it was freezing!

These pictures unfortunately don’t do it any justice! It was really hard to see very far because of how foggy it was.

Pictures weren’t allowed inside unfortunately.

We made our way back to the bus and back to Munich.  Dinner was at Steinheil 16, another Trip Advisor schnitzel recommendation.  This schitzel was pork, I saw someone order it the night before and wanted to try the spätzle, its an egg noodle pasta.

We were pooped after that! I’ll soon fill you in on the next few days!

Helllo!!  Happy Friday! I’ve had a bit of a good whirlwind of busyness these past few weeks so I’m glad it’s finally the weekend!

1. Post-Grad Dietetics interview.

So there are only 2 schools in London that offer Post grad/masters courses where you can qualify to become a dietitian.  I applied to both, one of them being where I got my bachelors.  The courses are all funded by the government, therefore you have to interview and be chosen to get a spot on the course, and it is ridiculously competitive.

I found out I got selected for an interview for my alma mater, but didn’t even get short listed for an interview for the other school, which was really disappointing and I found out a few days before my interview which just added so much more pressure to it since it would be my only opportunity this year to start studying to be a dietitian.

I had my interview last Friday, there were about 20 of us there and I knew there were 11 places on the course up for grabs so I thought I might actually have a decent chance, then I found out there are 2 other days that they are interviewing another 55 people!!!

We had a written exercise, which I felt good about, and we were asked 8 questions for the interview.  I was told that one of the questions they always ask is what does a dietitian do, so I included a well rehearsed answer that would nail it, and or course they didn’t ask it, and didn’t really get a chance to say what I wanted to say with my rehearsed information either.

One of the questions was really random and was what would you cook if you were having a dinner party, and if one of your guests was vegetarian what would you do then? I still don’t know which psychological aspect they actually were trying to find out. We won’t find out anything until mid-April so I have a month of torture of going through it all in my head while waiting to find out.

2. Dietitian’s assistant.

On a more positive note, I started my new job at a hospital as a dietitian’s assistant this Tuesday.  I’ll only be working 2 days a week so I’m so happy to FINALLY be doing something I want to do.  It’s definitely going to take some adjusting getting used to working in a hospital environment, but if I can’t start my post grad this year, this experience will really help my application for next year.

I got to shadow the dietitian when she did her rounds seeing patients, and it really makes you put life in to perspective.  The hospital is a lung and heart hospital so a lot of the patients have gotten or are waiting for heart and lung transplants.  I get to do a talk on healthy eating once a week to all the pre-op patients having heart procedures and public speaking is definitely something I need to work on so being forced to do it once a week should do the trick!

 3. Driving.

I’ve had about 6 driving lessons so far, I don’t have nearly as much anxiety as I had in the beginning but I still feel like it’s going to take .  I drove his car a few times and since his is older than the car I’ve been taking my lessons in, I stalled right as the light turned green with a line of cars behind me! So nerve wracking driving a manual car, too much going on to think about! I feel like I’m 17 again in drivers ed.

4. House hunting.

We are down to a few different places that we really like and have put offers on.  One of them is still in the process of being built so we didn’t really want to decide on it until we’ve seen it when it’s closer to being ready so we have another viewing tomorrow morning.  Luckily we have no pressure to find something right away or move anytime soon if we don’t want to.  I feel like buying a house is something where you have to put so much trust in everyone else who actually knows whats going on with the house buying process and it’s hard to know who is actually being genuine!

5. My phone.

So my phone got stolen on my lunch break today, it was in my pocket one second and literally 2 minutes later it was gone.  I had it when I was in a bakery getting my lunch so either someone took it out of my pocket or it fell and I didn’t hear it which probably isn’t likely since I realized about a minute later and retraced my steps a few times and no phone. I tried calling it 5 minutes later when I was back at work and it was already going straight to my voicemail like someone had turned it off since it was password protected and they couldn’t get into it.  #firstworldproblems

1. Masters! I’ve unfortunately really struggled finding a job in nutrition since I finished my under grad degree almost 4 years ago.  Jobs are few and far between and very competitive, it seems impossible to get a job unless you know the right people.  Over the years I’ve realized if I want to get anywhere I need to go back to school and get my masters to be a dietitian.  There are only 2 schools in London that even offer the dietetics masters program, and it is funded by the government so it’s just as competitive to get a spot on the program as every other job out there.  So even getting short listed for an interview is difficult, but I applied for both schools and recently found out I got an interview at the school I got my under grad at! It’s not until the beginning of March so lots of time to prepare!

2. Presentation.  One of my old teachers came across my masters application, and got in contact with me asking if I would like to speak to the nutrition students about what I have been doing since I graduated.  Of course I said yes, it’s only a 10 minute presentation and it should be the easiest presentation I should ever have to give since it’s just talking about myself but I’m still ridiculously nervous! She also said they would pay us £65 so I really have to make it worth the money! My cousins husband is a super smart lecturer and author and wrote this book.  It has lots of good information on how to prepare, and present presentations whether they are scientific of not, so it’s been helpful.

3. J-O-B.  I mentioned that I had an interview  when we got back from Seattle.  Well this was my 4th interview for dietetic assistant positions.  The feedback I got from the other three was that I just wasn’t elaborating enough with my answers that I know all had to do with nerves.  It was so frustrating since I knew exactly what I needed to say, but didn’t.  After the 3rd interview I had a good idea of the sort of questions that they asked so I was definitely more prepared for the 4th.  Well, I got a call the next day offering me the position! Unfortunately the position is only 2 days a week, but luckily my current job said I could stay there the other 3 days so I don’t have to look for another part time job.  My start date is March 9th, I can’t wait!

4. Driving lessons.  Since my new job is at hospital more in the outskirts of the city, it’s kind of a pain to get to on public transport.  So I’ve FINALLY pulled it together and started taking driving lessons, in a manual car, driving on the other side of the road, and doing it from the passenger seat.  Eek! I had my first one during my lunch break last Thursday.  It went a lot better than I expected and using the clutch and gears was a lot easier in a newer car.  I’ve signed up for 10 lessons so hopefully it won’t take me much more than that till I can pass my test, cause it ain’t cheap! 

5. My poor Seahawks.  I still can’t believe the last play of the game, why oh why! We stayed up till about 330am, and I was up for work at 6.  Monday was not a good day for me! But what was good was the delicious cheese bread boat I made for us.  I copied this recipe.  I didn’t add the egg yolks or 2 tablespoons of butter at the end, but the dough and olive tapenade addition was delicious!

What are y’all up to this weekend?