On Wednesday, this month’s Birchbox arrived. Here are the contents:

I forgot just how much I love Caldrea products! I especially love it when up-scale restaurants carry Caldrea hand soap in their restrooms. A little bit of luxury. Ahhh… But first I need a little normalcy round these parts. I feel coherent enough to go back to work {or maybe that’s just the drugs talking}, but get exhausted {doing nothing} throughout the day. I’m going to use the Caldrea lotions post-shower to uplift me a little with the aromas.

And how I wish I would have received the Nick Chavez conditioner in the larger bottle and the shampoo as the bonus sample! Why is it that I’m always out of conditioner and have so much leftover shampoo? I think it’s one of those mysterious laws – like missing socks in the dryer.

And you just *know* the MAKE products are going to end up in my travel bag.

While I’m cooped up in the house, not feeling completely myself quite yet, it’s nice to have a beauty box arrive to make me feel more so.

~

And now to my Food Journal from yesterday:

I think I figured out what is going on here with food right now. When I go to work, I have my meals for the day planned out {for the most part}. I bring just the amount I need. Being in the house all day, even though I have stocked up on healthy foods, I have more freedom to choose. I can pick anything available and I can go back for more. With this in mind, on Wednesday night, I planned my meals for Thursday. Let’s see how I did.

Breakfast

I got out of bed a little before 9am. I didn’t nap at all the day before (which I had been doing with these meds) and I went to bed late. I am going to need to get back on schedule to get up at 6:30am for work!

I had one container left of my fruit and yogurt combo that I’ve been eating. I decided to add some granola to it.

Then I made a cup of T-Box Revolution Açaí Green Tea. It smelled wonderful! However, I felt liked it needed a little something to sweeten it just a bit, so I gave my honey bear a bath:

It loosened him up a bit so that I could add a teaspoon of honey sweetness to my tea. I am going to attempt to drink tea more often. I loved Katie’s recent testimonial that tea reminds her that she’s already eaten and there is no need to think about more food at the moment. Plus, I forgot how comforting tea can be!

Snack

Since I got up and ate breakfast later, I really tried to wait for hunger cues to have my morning snack. I lasted a little over two hours.

An apple with 1.5 Tbsp Biscoff Spread. Although Biscoff Spread does not have any healthy properties as do nut butters {it’s basically a spreadable cookie!}, it’s a special treat to enjoy in moderation.

I followed it with some Charleston Breakfast Tea that my Foodie Penpal sent me last month. In went a teaspoon of honey as well.

Lunch

I enjoyed a larger version of the spinach salad I had the day before, which included spinach, clementine, cucumber, scallions, blue cheese crumbles and drizzled reduced balsamic vinegar. Only my cucumber had gone bad, so I subbed a bit of green bell pepper. I paired that with a hard boiled egg and some cottage cheese for protein. And put an extra clementine on the side.

I’ve learned that I must always add green onions/scallions to my cottage cheese! This is one of my best salads. I may post it on the blog as a recipe soon.

Instead of my normal Dove Dark Chocolate Square, I decided to try the Chocolate Covered Wasabi Peas that came in my Love with Food box this week. With 190 calories, this 1.4 oz package had to be worth it! I’ll share my thoughts tomorrow when I recap my LWF box for Subscription Box Saturday.

Then I finished with a cup of green tea with a teaspoon of honey.

Snack

I snacked on another Love with Food item – a 1.25 ounce bag of Mary’s Gone Crackers. {More on them tomorrow,too!} These crackers made me crave cheese, so I broke out two Mini-Babybel cheeses.

Dinner

Leftover Santa Fe Chicken over spinach That’s what I originally had planned. However, by the time dinner came around, I wanted something more substantial. Okay, so there is substance to that dish with the black beans and all, but I guess I wanted something different. Leftovers just weren’t cutting it for dinner. So I made this instead:

After dinner, I had one of my Dove Almond Dark Chocolates.

But then I had four more. So much for never eating more than three in a day.

So I immediately made some Market Spice Tea. It’s the most flavorful kind and the only one that I feel never needs any sweetener. My friend Jen’s mom sent some over to me!

Snack

Later in the evening I felt like I still wanted more food and kept thinking about making my favorite popcorn combo. But I thought I had eaten quite a lot during the day. To be sure, I popped everything into my Lose It! app on my iPhone. It’s been so long since I’d done that and I don’t know if I am at the point where I can trust myself not tracking. Sure enough, I was already over on calories with a total of approximately 1870.

So I opted to make another cup of tea instead. But for some reason, I opened the fridge and saw our bowl of clementines.

Cuties are approximately 30 calories each, so I knew eating one would be a nice sweet, healthy treat that wouldn’t set me back. But, look! Rob had just restocked the Cuties. And the new ones were much larger!

It was then that I decided that I’d have to try one of each just to compare! The verdict? The smaller ones were slightly sweeter. But they both peeled easily, were without seeds and were highly enjoyable. Why the difference? Per the Cuties website:

CUTIES® are actually two varieties of mandarins: Clementine mandarins, available November through January; and W. Murcott mandarins, available February through April. CUTIES® have several distinct characteristics that make them the perfect anytime, anywhere snack. Unlike other mandarins or oranges, they are seedless, super sweet, easy to peel and kid-sized — only a select few make it to CUTIES®’ high standards.

Market Spice Tea & Cuties

Now, planning for Friday food is going to be a little more challenging. It’s an “off” Friday for Rob, which means he will be home and meals will be a little more spontaneous.

Do you like fruit in/on your salad?

If so, what are your favorites?

Do you have a favorite salad?

Recipe sharing encouraged!

Cheers~

Carrie