Wednesday Lunch with Dan Downtown and Some City Pics

Somehow, don’t ask me how it happened, we made it back to the gym very early Wednesday morning. *happy dance* While I hate getting up at 5am I do like going to the gym early in the morning. However what I didn’t like was how darn cold it was when we got to the car. You know it is cold when your car doors are frozen shut. Yes, that was that cold and that is not normal around here.

Since we had to go in the back door of the car (since they weren’t frozen shut) we quickly realized that we had messed up when carrying groceries into the house Tuesday night. We accidentally left 15 pounds of bananas and 10 avocados in the car overnight. Given that it was 27 degrees in the morning I almost threw them away but decided to see what happened when they got warm. More on that later when I find out if things actually survived but so far everything looks good.

This is the view as we were leaving the gym. It is nice to have the sun rising a little earlier in the morning.

Savory oatmeal was my breakfast of choice when we got home from the gym. This bowl included: oats, water, nutritional yeast, cumin, freshly ground black pepper, no-salt seasoning, freshly ground flaxseed, wheat germ, baby spinach, cooked cannellini beans (yay intentional leftovers), and salsa on top. Dan had his favorite fruit and nut oats (oats, water, wheat germ, freshly ground flaxseeds, cinnamon, powdered ginger, stevia, frozen wild blueberries and walnuts).

Next it was time to rush around like a lunatic to get ready to leave the house with Dan. Somehow I managed to pull it off but it was touch and go for a while. ;-) How did I ever make it to work on time? That is just one of the great mysteries of the universe.

I had to show you this adore picture of Masi burrowed under the top blanket so he could get closer to the electric blanket. I may be a little biased but I think he is adorable.

Here is the walk from the garage to the dentist. For the locals this is part of Hopkins plaza.

I had to stop at the dentist to pick up my night guard and let the dentist check the fit. When he said I would only be there 5 minutes he wasn’t kidding. Since I had promised Dan we would have lunch together I had hours to waste until lunch. Dan’s office (and the dentist’s) is only a couple blocks from the Inner Harbor so I headed there to find something to get into.

Walking to the Inner Harbor for some exercise sounded like a great idea and I was happy that I did it. The sun was bright and the weather was fairly nice, a little cold but not windy at least.

Here is a picture I took of the dragon boats in the foreground with the National Aquarium in the background.

This is Baltimore’s World Trade Center. I took this picture looking from the bookstore.

Here is the city to the north of the World Trade Center.

This is the Barnes and Noble where I spent a little while. You probably aren’t too surprised since you know how much I love to read.

I wanted to stop at the book store for a few reasons. First it was a nice walk from the dentist’s office and I love to look at the water. Second I thought maybe I would find a book that I wanted to read. Well …. 8 books later I was ready to leave. Seriously I have book issues. There is no wonder there are so many books in my house. ;-)

Before someone asks I tend to avoid buying vegan cookbooks because they rely too heavily on processed food that we don't eat.  Since I find it easy to veganize recipes I tend to buy books that have beautiful food presenations and interesting food combinations. I find those types of books much more useful.

On the walk back to the car I snapped these pictures of the National Aquarium and the addition.

This is another picture of the city looking north.

After I hiked back from Barnes and Noble with the books I stopped at the car and dropped off the books since they were getting heavy. I grabbed one of the books and headed to Caribou to read and drink a green tea.

Conveniently Caribou is located across the street from Dan’s office so it was easy for him to stop by and get me for lunch. By the way it is not smart to buy 8 books that you need to carry for many blocks. I could have planned that better. Oh well, it was extra exercise right? LOL

I sat at Caribou and drank tea for about 45 minutes and read my book while I waited for Dan to take a break for lunch. It is funny how easy it is for me to lose myself in a book. When Dan arrived for lunch I had only drank about 1/3 of my tea. I really love to read. ;-)

Dan and I decided to stop at Suzie’s Soba for lunch. This is the building where the restaurant is located which is also just a few blocks from Dan’s office.

We ordered Edamame, Curried Tofu, and Yaki Soba to share.

Dan wanted me to drive the car home but I opted to ride the bus instead. Seriously that was a huge mistake I darn near froze to death waiting for the bus to arrive, 20 minutes late I might add. It was darn cold standing outside at the bus stop. I wouldn’t like to do this very often.

I got home from downtown about 4pm and immediately made myself a big mug of hot green tea to warm myself up. It felt like I was frozen to the bone. Knowing that dinner would be a few hours away I made myself a quick snack that consisted of prunes topped with homemade reduced fat peanut butter. This is a good combination I hope you give it a try.

Dinner was another big salad since I got home late and was half frozen I didn’t spend any time in the kitchen. I wanted something simple and healthy.  This salad contained:  baby spinach, cucumbers, carrots, yellow pepper, grape tomatoes, cannellini beans, salsa, mushrooms and roasted red peppers. While our lunch out was reasonably healthy it could have been more healthy. I thought salad was a good alternative to add veggies and nutrition to our day.

Happy Thoughts:

It was a good Wednesday and Thursday for me and here are my happy thoughts:

• Wednesday was a great day but a long one. I was such a treat to have lunch with Dan since we don’t get to do that very often. I really love the curried tofu dish and will be working on my own version of that sometime soon.

• We made it to the gym two mornings in a row. Woo hoo! I am very proud of us for this. I wonder if we can make it three early mornings in a row. We will see. LOL

• I had a great morning chatting to a girlfriend on the phone for hours. Sometimes you just need to chat to someone that understands you. Believe me the understanding part isn’t easy. LOL

• We are having dinner with our friend Phil from Missouri tonight. Since I haven’t seen him since Dan’s birthday in September I am really looking forward to tonight.

• I am also happy that the scale was my friend this morning. Whenever we go out to eat I always expect an uptick on the scale but that didn’t happen. It must have been the salad we had for dinner (totally kidding). I have no idea why it happened but I was happy about it.

• The weather is a little milder today and expected to reach 60 tomorrow. Come on spring!

Signing Out:

I hope all of you are having a good week and that the snow didn’t mess things up for you. If you did get snow I hope the warmer temps that are headed this way also make it to your place.

It is time for me to start getting ready for dinner. Talk to you again tomorrow.