Good morning!

How is everyone?

School is insane.  Working and going to school at the same time?  Even more insane.  I’m a full time student, like I mentioned before, but I never knew it would be this crazy.  Every professor treats us like his class is the only class, and doesn’t hesitate to assign us 50+ pages of reading each night, plus homework atop of all of it.

Then there’s work, which is great, but exhausting.  I’m up way earlier than I ever thought I would be (around sevenish) and not making it to bed until almost midnight, or later, these days.  I don’t get home until 8 or later on worknights, and 7 pm on school nights, and that’s only with the mercy of Em taking me home after her last class.  If I waited for Amor to pick me up, I’d be getting home around 8-ish, as well.

In other words, I’m “working” twelve-plus hours a day (Fridays have me running around from 5 am until around 8 pm, so that’s a 15 hour  work day), every day, except Thursdays (the only time I can schedule doctors’ appointments, so they’re already spoken for) and Sundays, and my boss has already told me he plans for me to start working Sundays so I can start organizing the office.

Can you tell I’m a bit overwhelmed right now?

And I don’t even know when I’ll find time to study.  That’s not even accounted into my epic work days.  Yikes.

It’s not all bad, though.  My classes are promising, though don’t get me started on the arrogance and hypocrisy of my Environmental Ethics class.  However, the content seems interesting.  If only that racist woman in the back would shut up, and the smelly tattooed guy in the front would stop calling us parasites, I’d be fine.

Work is great, actually.  Like I’ve said before, I get along fairly well with my boss, and the workload, while constant and steady, is essentially routine and easy.  No complaints.  Plus, a bit extra pocket change never hurt anyone, ne?

Porridge makes those early wake-ups easier.

The only major issue I’m having right now, then, is my eats.

First, I tried a lighter breakfast, then planned on having a snack after my first class.  Hah!  My body let me know right away that was not acceptable.  (I’m a chronic bottomless pit, by the way — 2 whole grain rice cakes, 2-3 heaping tbs of peanut butter, and a large banana barely kept my tummy quiet for three hours.)  To keep it from overtalking my professor, I was stealthily stuffing my lunch into my mouth every time he turned away.

Then, I tried a heavier breakfast, and forced myself to eat every last bite to make sure I’d stay full.  Nope.  Was starving again mid-class.  Fortunately, I had planned ahead and packed almonds and raisins, and that definitely helped, but clearly my body is rebelling against this new eating schedule.

Breakfast, as messy as it is, always remains so photogenic, don't you agree?

Since my tummy clearly can’t distinguish between a lighter meal and a heavier meal, I’m going to go back to the lighter breakfast, and pack more snacks to eat in class.

Last night, at the grocery store, I picked up a few dried pineapple rings (doused in chili powder — omg, good!) and some dried mango, and I have tons of almonds (Amor picked up a huge tub at Costco, thinking his fantasy football buddies would eat them all, and no surprise, they didn’t) and tons of ziploc baggies to cram my dried fruit and nuts into.

Lunch has been boring and, sadly, not filling.  I think part of the problem is that I’m having to wait until around 4:30 to eat it, when I’ve been up since seven or eight that morning already and I’m running on breakfast and a handful of nuts and grapes until that point.  Eight hours without a real meal?  Oi, that’s a no-go if there every was one.

So, I’m half-starved, and at that point, my satiety signals are completely broken, and I’m ready to eat my entire arm.  Le sigh.

Melty, drippy almond butter with almond slices. Creamy crunchy good!

My other option is to make my breakfast extra fatty and protein-y.  I’ve been googling the dangers of eating more than one egg a day (me, the eternal paranoid) and can’t find any hard evidence that it’s not safe, so I may try it.  Plus, it’s only three days a week, so that still comes out to six eggs a week.

Anyone have any egg breakfast recipes they want to share?

My wonderful Em bought me some almond meal at TJ’s when she was out of town last week, too.  Do you have an almond meal recipe you’d be willing to share with me?

Ate all of it, then went back for another tablespoon of almond butter. Yummage!

Breakfast was a simple ordeal.  I got smart earlier this week and made a huge pot of quinoa.  All I have to do for breakfast now, then, is reconstitute it.

Basically, I dump a heaping cup of my cooked quinoa into a pot, add enough water to make it creamy, add cinnamon and vanilla, cook, add an egg, add almond milk, cook some more, and top it with whatever I so fancy.  Today, it was a banana and a cup of frozen blueberries, thawed, and two tbs of almond butter as well as a huge fistful of sliced almonds.

Next week, I’m going to cook a huge pot of kasha.  It seriously simplifies things.  Don’t know why I didn’t try it sooner, really.

What do you eat when you know you have to stay full for several hours?

Thanks for reading!

<3 Kaz