Work on Thursday left me mentally drained. I could hardly muster the energy to share the lentil loaf recipe (but it’s effing amazing so I found a way).
Sigh. I’m still in a funk but I’ll spare you all and simply show off my packed food.
When pears are on their last legs, I get worried that transport will be the kiss of death, and so instead of risking mush upon arrival, I go a different (safer) route.
Chopping it up and adding it on top of oatmeal seems to be the best option.
The layers below were simply oats with cinnamon.
Que mas? The usual suspects…dried fruit, an apple, candied ginger, and a random hodgepodge that I threw together totally haphazardly.
This will seem weird. I’m the queen of random combos, and this even seemed weird to me. Quinoa, raw cauliflower “rice,” leftover BBQ-ed corn, carrots (and dried cranz as an afterthought).
Kyle BBQ-ed last week and threw some corn on for me…and I only just got around to eating it.
I packed up some bean dip to in at lunch time.
I made this with the extra beans from the lentil loaf and the garbanzo goop that I’ve been keeping around to salvage somehow.
It tasted like a combo of hummus and bean dip. Garbanzo flour – while not ideal for hummus – is definitely good for making things thick.
Thick hummus is the only way to do it. Not J Lo thick, Kirstie Alley thick.
The salad was far tastier than I thought it would be as I was making it. In fact, the bean dip kinda brought it all together. It took almost 20 minutes to eat, too, which is practically unheard of. I love big a$$ salads that take my whole lunch break to dominate. In the end, I prevailed and my hunger did not. Win.
For dessert I brought another Kookie Karma treat.
Because I forgot to take a photo of the last kookie I ate, I felt obligated to at least attempt to document this one. However, since it was consumed on my lunch break, I was forced to use my camera phone. Sooo…enjoy the 4 pixel picture? Ha.
But seriously, these are deeeelish. I’m pretty sure the almond butter is what makes them so extraordinary. Plus you can tell they are hand-made. They just seem like so much care was put into them. I love. Big fan.
[Yes, those are snowman socks – don’t hate]
Anyway. I really was exhausted when I got home, and Kyle was out with MBA peeps so I had nobody to pull me out of my work mindset. I’m pretty good at leaving work at work, but sometimes things happen that I can’t shake.
I showered and things felt better. Then I made dinner and things started slipping back to normal.
Peanut butter does make everything better.
Especially when used to make something typically savory (like brown rice) into a sweet dish.
Banana + almond milk + peanut butter + brown rice
Like oats, but with a crunchy chewy rice texture, and a milk & banana cereal ratio.
That’s how you start to de-funkify yourself. It helps to have a husband and sister who you can endlessly vent to as well…
How do you best switch gears and mentally shift away from work crap?
Blasting music and working out are generally my go-to options.
“Peanut butter does make everything better.”–YES it does!
Karma Kookies do rock!
Shifting gears? realizing that work will always be there, it will be waiting when i get back to it, so when i am gone from it, just STOP thinking about it and letting it go.
Yoga, breath in, breath out, let it go 🙂
Whenever I’m feeling really stressed about school, I go home to PA. For some reason I can never totally unwind in NYC, but here I just kind of forget about everything that’s bothering me temporarily. It’s good for me!
Oh gosh, I totally had one of those yesterday (Friday). A girl in our small group had her first seizure after giving a presentation. The horrible thing was that we noticed she couldn’t read off the slides during the presentation and so we knew something was wrong…and also I was talking to her during break when she went down..
The first thing i did after that class was run to the gym and run it out because there was no one immediate i could talk to- all my friends were still in class and my own classmates were to shaken up to talk about it as well.
I’m sure when I do become a nurse even more mentally draining events will occur, it’s just going through it was traumatic for me nonethless.
The first thing our tutor told was in the beginning of the year was to “leave our own selves outside the hospital and pick it up when we come back outside”.
I love your random combos!!! Your food always inspires me to experiment and try unexpected ingredients together. That quinoa concoction looks delish. And so does your brown rice meets pb dinner. Yum!
Whenever I need to de-stress, running helps a lot. Or sleep. Sometimes I just need a solid night’s sleep so that I wake up refreshed the next day.
AHH PB MAKES EVERYTHING BETTER– and i LOVE making random combos!! those karma kookies sound awesome! im gna check those out!
I usually add bananas to my oatmeal but tonight I think I am going to try your ideas of adding pears – it looks to good to pass up!
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That brown rice dish looks amazing and I love random combos girl! Working out for sure helps for me too also just something like watching my favorite movie for the zillionth time or calling my mom will really help. Hope you start feeling un-funky soon (unless it’s the good kind of funky)!
It must be going around, as I’ve been funkified this past week as well. At least you posted, so props for that 😉
How do I try and get out of it? Considering it’s too cold to go outside, I resort to massive amounts of my favorite tea, mindless movies that make me laugh, good reading, writing without editing (even if deleted right after,) blasting music and dancing around my living room, cleaning or hanging out with a) the old people at my grandma’s or b) my mom’s dog and cat. Sounds lame, works well 😉
Bummer about your shift. I usually do the same as you- vent to the husband and having a nice, long shower always helps. Sometimes I’ll have a glass of red wine too (if i’m not working the next day). I start my night shifts tonight, ugh.
Mmm that pb rice dish looks so delicious, I absolutely adore rice pudding and other sweet rice combos! I’m definitely on this one too! 🙂 Working out always seems to cheer me up, so does showering…and sometimes just a nice nap helps wonders!
I certainly relate to having bad work days that won’t stop haunting you… especially when you can’t help feeling that you could have handled a situation better.
an example? I remember I was working in a really busy clinic and this patient rang her bell from the toilet. As she was fairly young I thought it was probably a mistake and was feeling slightly resentful about having to stop what I was doing to answer it, and so my “Yes?” was probably somewhat cool.
She held out her hand with a bit of loo paper around a tiny foetus, and said tearfully “I think I have just had my baby…”
I was haunted by that for ages.
I really enjoy reading your blog, and you inspire me to try new things. Sometimes it’s a pity I can’t find all the same ingredients, (rural France = not a lot of health food outlets!) but I generally manage to improvise.
Mmm, I love sweet rice dishes! I am def adding bananas and PB to my next bowl!
“Not J Lo thick, Kirstie Alley thick.” <- You CRACK ME UP! Lol
Best way to work off the funk for me is a good workout and a long hot shower!
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my thursday at work was hella bad, too…and i could not get some situations out of my head. i went to spin, which helped; sweating in some sort is usually my go-to, then came home and vegged out w/ some good nbc comedy night done right. still a little funked when i went to bed, and still had nightmares about work, but each day is a new one, right?
hope youre feeling better, and glad i’m not the only one who has the hormonal cravings out the ying-yang. mine get outrageous sometimes!
I’m just getting around to reading this — nothing really helpful in terms of the “de-funkify,” although just getting home and being with my family always helps. But I was laughing at the snowman socks! My daughter, the nurse, has the same ones and wears them to work all the time!! Just made me laugh so early on a Sunday morning.