Movin’ On Up….

I now have a domain!! I won’t be blogging at this URL anymore, so please be sure to start visiting the new site instead:

http://www.ThatDeepBreath.com

One Wish

I only have one wish. I wish I could stop time. I have so many obligations and responsibilities and promises made. I can’t keep up! There are some moments of my day where I just feel too overwhelmed with everything that I can’t even answer a single text message. Phone calls are out of the question.

Last night was horrible. I brought my cat to the vet and was immediately met with the terrible sounds of dogs crying. I then overheard a woman finding out the dog she was babysitting may not have made it through surgery. Great.

Once we got to see the doctor, she decided Puff, my cat, needed to get his wound cleaned, cut and drained. Uh…drained?? She took my poor little cat to the “back room” and brought him back with a cone on his head and a sad look on his face

He has no idea what to think of this cone on his head, but he loves all this attention. He was pretty angry for a while after I brought him home, though. He kept staring at the wall and meowing, he couldn’t even look at me. Sorry Puff!!

I made him a comfy bed in the spare bathroom and he is now learning how to be an indoor cat for the next 3 days. He is not litterbox trained. I’m scared of what I may find tomorrow morning.

This morning I had a smoothie in a bowl that I put together last night to blend up this morning:

I am now off to work and will not have time to post again tonight after a meeting tonight. I will see you tomorrow morning with a (hopefully) non-cat related post!

Shop All Day, Party All Night

Yesterday was a bit wild.

I woke up at 7 am. Like was wide awake. I tried to talk some sense into myself to go back to sleep, but it just wasn’t happening. I had a 10:30 am doctors appointment that turned into a noon doctors appointment because the office was so busy. Even though I woke up at 7, I did not have time to eat breakfast. Why? Because I was searching for cute puppy pictures on the internet all morning. Priorities, people.

The truth is, none of them are as cute as my puppy, Pepe.

I love him.

After camping out in my doctor’s office, I decided it was time to eat something. I went to Quizno’s and got a small veggie sub on rosemary parmesan bread. My fave. According to their website, the sandwich includes olives, guacamole, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, sautéed mushrooms, mozzarella, cheddar and red wine vinaigrette. I opted out of the onions and mushrooms and added pickles. Because they should be added to everything.

Once I was stuffed to the brim, I headed on over to Best Buy. Apparently, I left my camera charger back in Huntington Beach. Instead of driving 9 hours for a little charger, I decided to buy a new one. Of course, I didn’t think to bring my camera to see which charger to get. Luckily, they only had one option, so it wasn’t a hard decision. Once I got up to the checkstand I opened my wallet to pay and found an old Best Buy gift card. I practically got the charger for free and now have $6 on my card. Score!

I then decided to head on over to Marshalls to check out the new clothes. I saved money on my camera charger purchase, so I might as well waste it on more clothes, right? Well, I forgot how overwhelming Marshalls is and I immediately walked right back out of the store. All those racks of clothes and people looking for good deals freaks me out. It’s too crowded and scary and I just don’t know where to start once I get there. Maybe someday I will actually get as far as the clothing racks.

After my shopping extravaganza I decided to head home. It felt like 5 pm and I was exhausted! I looked at the clock: 2:30 pm. How did this happen? Time had gone by really slow and all I wanted to do was go home and cuddle in bed with a S’more Cupcake. So I did. While watching the psycho ladies of Real Housewives of New Jersey ruin a Christmas party, I realized I was supposed to pick up my new prescription. I realize this sounds like my prescription has something to do with being psycho, or New Jersey, but I promise it doesn’t. I rolled out of bed and drove on over to the store to pick up my medicine and my soda of the week, Diet Cherry 7Up. At least it has fruit in the name.

At 6 I went to a yoga class at my gym

Let me rephrase that. At 5:15 I went to a yoga class. That started at 6. There was a lot of sitting in the car playing with my iPhone time. While sitting around in my car, I realized that my phone can take pictures from the front. Funny thing is I knew iPhones did that, but for some reason it didn’t connect in my head that my iPhone could do that. I’m really bad at taking pictures of myself, so this is fantastic news. Plus, I won’t look crazy taking pictures of myself in parking lots anymore. Oh I’m just playing Checkers on my cell phone…no need to stare. 

Then I came home to a disaster.

Meet Puff

Puff is my cat that likes to sunbathe, get his belly rubbed and make you sneeze.

I came home to poor little Puff laying in the driveway with a giant chunk of fur missing on his neck. Upon further inspection, I noticed a giant gash on his neck. I immediately called my mom and told her about it. She then interrupts me and says
“Oh that? Yea, he’s had that for a while. Must have gotten into a fight or something.”

Uh…madre is now in big trouble for not saying anything about this to me before.
I felt terrible for my poor little kitty so I made a vet appointment to get him checked out. On the phone, the vet tech asks if his gums are pink.

My response:

“Uh, well, his gums are pretty white. Like really really really really light pink”

Her:

“Well are they  light pink or white? There’s a huge difference”

I don’t know!! I don’t inspect my cat’s gums everyday to see what color is normal.

I then brought him inside the kitchen (he’s an outdoor cat) because I felt bad for him. We had a cleaning party and did the dishes together while listening to Backstreet Boys.

Loungin’ while I’m doing the dirty work

rollin’

more rollin’

modeling

After our cleaning adventure, I let him back outside, and now I have to catch him again later today for our vet appointment.

I may need an extra cup of coffee today.

Do you get totally intimidated by giant clothing stores? 

What’s your adventure for the day? 

My Food Philosophy…Part 1

My parents cooked home meals every single night, even though they both worked full time. They never fed me “little kid food” like blue boxed macaroni & cheese or frozen chicken nuggets, and when they did it turned into a disaster.

I remember one weekend when I was seven years old my mom was on a work trip and my dad was in charge of feeding me. He’s a great cook, so my mom wasn’t too worried about it.

One night I begged my dad to make me macaroni & cheese “from the blue box”.

source

It’s not that difficult to make, boil water, pour in neon orange powdered “cheese”, stir in milk & butter. I figured if he could make delicious chili and amazing roasted chicken, he could handle a little Mac & cheese.

Wrong.

When I came into the kitchen, I noticed the room smelled funny. I hesitantly looked into my bowl and found my neon orange pasta covered in black stuff.

Pepper.
“uh dad, did you see pepper on the ingredients list I gave you?”
“well, no but I wanted to give it flavor”
I looked back into the bowl and noticed a bunch of other random colors.

“why would you season macaroni and cheese?? I’m calling mom!”

I then called her and told her my dad was trying to ruin my life because he made the mac & cheese wrong. I may have been a little dramatic back then. Ok, I still am dramatic.

I then called my mom and begged her to come back home to make me real mac & cheese.
Looking back on this day, I realize that my dad was trying to turn fake food into something that tasted a little less boxed. This disaster was the turning point in my food choices.

source

I used to be obsessed with the show “Arthur.” He was an aardvark (or was he an anteater?) that taught me to try everything once. Unfortunately for me, my mom watched this show with me and picked up on his food lesson. She always made me “try everything once” including zucchini (yuck), onions (yuck) and squash (double yuck). I quickly became the little girl who would try anything. I ate everything my parents made, which was always a healthy, balanced meal.

To this day, she still tells me I should “try everything once”. In fact, just a couple days ago she encouraged me to try a piece of zucchini.
“Remember what Arthur always says?”

I quickly reminded her she wore that phrase out on zucchini 11 years ago. Yes I remember exactly how old I was, It was that bad.

Just because I loved my healthy “grown up foods” doesn’t mean I didnt love my sweets. I was a cookie, cupcake and brownie fiend. My childhood food memories include cooking with my dad, and baking with my mom.

I ate pretty healthy, but I definitely never deprived myself. I never really thought about calories, nutrients, fat or anything like that. I was a cheerleader from ages 7-15, so of course I was a little aware of what I was eating, but it was never obsessive.

sorry about the akward blurry spot…had to cover up the front of the uniform!

Everything changed during my Junior year of high school, but I’ll save that for part 2 🙂

What were your childhood meals like? 

Were you picky? The kid who ate anything? 

Baking Flops & Yoga

Yesterday started off with a delicious yogurt bowl & a little treat crumbled on top!

The Mix:

greek yogurt

strawberries (from the local strawberry stand)

crumbled chocolate chip blueberry muffin

sunflower butter (duh)

super clustery granola

I’m obsessed with yogurt bowls, if you can’t tell.

After breakfast I was a busy bee running errands! I might be totally weird, but I actually love running errands. My favorite is definitely grocery shopping though. I could spend hours wandering around grocery stores, especially Trader Joe’s & Whole Foods! I had to pick up a few items for my auction contribution. I wrote the recipe yesterday, but today I actually put it together & baked!

I absolutely love making my own recipes from scratch…even if some of them don’t turn out very well. Cooking/baking is built upon trial & error…and today brought error!

Poor flat little cookies 😦 at least they taste good! I changed around the recipe to fix the problem and now I have plump, happy cookies sitting on a nice plate waiting to be devoured. Ok, ok. I actually only have two plump, happy cookies sitting on a plate because we devoured the rest of them the second they came out of the oven. Good news: I can use these skinny cookies for ice cream sandwiches!

For my exercise today (remember the weekly challenge?) I went to a viniyoga class at my gym. It felt amazing to stretch and relax, but I’m hoping tomorrow’s yoga class is a little more challenging. I might be a weirdo, but I actually like feeling sore and not able to move after a good workout! It makes me feel like I really did something. This class was actually really relaxing and during the five minutes of meditation during the end of class I actually completely cleared my mind and sunk into my own little world for a bit. Once the teacher rang the bell to finish meditation I actually felt a little paralyzed..it was such a weird feeling! Has that ever happened to anyone else?

On to today…

I had a peach and a piece of toast with sunflower butter because I didnt have time to eat before a surprise day of work.
See you later!

Current Obsessions

My Current Obsessions:

smoothie in a bowl…how I miss you

sadly the box is almost gone 😦

the Grand Canyon. Gorgeous

the pool. because Arizona is HOT!!

fireworks. this year’s fireworks in Phoenix were gorgeous!!

Red, White and Blue….food!

Happy Fourth of July!!!

I hope you all are enjoying your 4th of July, I know I am! In honor of one of my favorite holidays, i thought I would round up some Red, White & Blue Cheer!

Today you should eat…

watermelon

(source)

strawberry cheesecake squares with gingerbread crust

greek yogurt bowl

blueberry banana oat cake

smoothie in a bowl

Have a happy & safe Fourth of July!

Today you should…

Make a Green Monster…

My Green Monster

4 ice cubes

1 tbsp peanut butter

1 cup frozen mixed fruit (pineapple, mango, strawberries,blackberries)

1/4 frozen banana

4 handfuls of spinach

1 cup almond milk

1 cup cranberry juice

ground flax seed

Eat a strawberry parfait…it’s national strawberry parfait day!!

Try this yoga pose…clear your mind of the week’s stress

(source)

Little Bird

Today was quite the adventure!

I told you about my morning overnight oats that I still don’t really know how I feel about. The texture of it was a little odd because I’m not used to oats actually tasting raw. I even got a little bit of a stomach ache on the way to work, which I’m guessing was from either the raw oats or the lack of sleep I got last night.

In all, today was pretty eventful. I was excited to get to work & the day actually went by pretty quickly! About 2 hours after breakfast I had a green apple for a snack. Green apples are definitely my favorite over red apples. Same goes for grapes! I like the tartness…red apples & grapes are too sweet for me! A couple hours later I had a Clif bar and 3 sliced carrots for lunch. I was actually really full after this even though it wasn’t much of a lunch. Sorry the picture is so horrible, I took it late last night.

itty bitty lunch

At my work there is a large tent overhang that has 4 bird nests in it. Today, one of the baby birds fell (or jumped) out of one of the nests & couldn’t move when it was on the ground! I felt so sad for the baby bird because it really was recently hatched and kept chirping for it’s mother. After about 20 minutes of calling around to bird resuce centers we finally decided to pick the baby bird up (with gloves) and place it back in the nest. This wasn’t very easy since the nest was about 12 feet tall. After another 15 or so minutes (and chairs & tables stacked upon more tables) we finally got the baby bird up into the nest.

For dinner I had a piece of cheese, olive & mushroom pizza. So yummy! I’m pretty full but it wasn’t much food so I will probably make a smoothie for dessert. Tonight I will be prepping my breakfast & lunch for tomorrow.

I was planning on going to a Pilates class at my gym tonight, and even packed my clothes in my car, but I had a surprise work meeting tonight so I wasn’t able to go. Bummer! I have a huge headache from not eating a substantial enough lunch (and being in the sun all day) so the Pilates class would have fixed that. Tomorrow I will try to get some exercise in.

First Post!!

Thanks for visiting That Deep Breath! After months of reading blogs everyday I have finally worked up the courage to start my own! For months I have been inspired by the wonderful bloggers that put their lives out there for us to enjoy and get some great recipes from! We all have issues in our own lives but reading blogs has definitely given me a few minutes of the day to forget about the outside world and get a few laughs in!

My name is Jackie and I am a true California girl! I have been interested in cooking and exercise  ever since I was a little girl. Both of my parents are fantastic cooks and I’ve spent all my life sitting in the kitchen watching them make dinner together. I used to be the busiest little girl-participating in at least three sports/activities at a time, and I haven’t slowed down at all! I coach cheerleading and am a lover of yoga & pilates.

The summer of my junior year of high school I found a website that helped people track calories and gave weightloss recipes & tips. I started buying the little 100 calorie pack snacks and figuring out how I could reduce calories/fat in every meal I ate. My first year of college I started focusing more on real food and less on the processed junk.  I took up yoga and realized how peaceful and happy I felt after the classes.

Since then I have moved back to California and have had some major life changing moments. I’ve had to make new friends, my longtime boyfriend and I have broken up, I am starting a new school and a new job. Through yoga I have learned that if we just keep breathing we can survive anything. duh. But really. I’ve found that when my mind travels to a place that hurts me all I have to take is that one deep breath and suddenly everything is so much more peaceful.

Through my blog I hope to share some recipes, peace and hopefully a few laughs.