Fruit Machine

Awesome, awesome weekend. How about a re-cap?
Our volleyball game on Thurs was canceled due to the processions for the fallen police officers, so I had the first evening of my long weekend free for a movie. I rented Bolt at the Redbox and was really pathetically excited to watch it. There were a lot of “awwww!”s and “oh my gosh he’s so CUTE!”s coming from my living room, but really I wasn’t too keen on the movie itself. Bolt was pretty stinkin cute, but the movie just didn’t do it for me.
Friday I woke up early with all intentions of going to the gym, but my bed was just too comfy. I got a shower, made a green monster smoothie, and was on the road by 11. My mom and I had planned on going to my favorite lunch restaurant, but they were closed for Good Friday. :( However, we went to another good place and I had something I’d been craving for weeks – hot bacon dressing. Yum, yum, yum! Dinner was a local fish fry (I got the baked), the first and last of the season for me!
Saturday was my absolute fave breakfast – a Belgian waffle from King’s. I am in love with these. These would spell trouble for me if I had a King’s really close by and I had money to burn. Lunch was leftovers from Friday’s dinner (my eyes were MUCH bigger than my stomach), and dinner was steak and baked potatoes. I’m not big on steak (or red meat in general), but every now and then I’m ok with it. However, this steak was HUGE and I started to feel a little sick about halfway through. I persisted, though, and finished everything.
Easter Sunday was an extended family breakfast at a new place near our house – I got a “French toast sandwich”: 2 slices of French toast, sausage patties, eggs (egg whites for me – yolks are gross!), and a slice of cheese, all arranged like a sandwich with awesome homefries on the side. I can’t remember the last time I couldn’t finish my breakfast – but yesterday’s breakfast was enormous and I ended up taking about 1/3 of it home for breakfast today. But ohhhhh was it good!! Easter dinner (our family’s “dinner” was at 2:30, haha) consisted of a little bit of ham (not a huge fan of ham), cheesy potato casserole, pierogi casserole, halushki, baked beans, baked pineapple, coleslaw, and massive amounts of fruit salad (for me). I made a little (ok, huge) plate to take home, but then my grandma decided I needed more, so I ended up with 2 HUGE STACKED plates of dinner foods and desserts, a cupful of fruit salad, and pretty much half of a ham – bone and all. Somewhere in the quarter of a second between someone saying “Does anyone want the bone, or are we throwing it out?” and me piping up “I’ll take it!,” I had big dreams of a big pot of ham & bean soup stewing on my stove… so the bone (and about half the ham) came with me! My fridge is currently stuffed – just like my belly last night!
 
Over the weekend, I bought something I’d been eyeing up for a month or so – a juice extractor! I got the cheapest one I could find at Target (the Hamilton Beach one), even though I’d been researching the Jack Lalanne juicers and the Juicemaster models. I’m hardcore, so I don’t do directions. That said, my first attempt was AWFUL. I thought that since it was a juice EXTRACTOR, I could put an entire orange in, peel and all… but apparently that’s not the case. Now, I DID get just the juice from it – there were no bits of peel in the “juice”… however, the “juice” tasted like bitter rind. Eww. My mom wasn’t fond of my second attempt, but it looked great to me. My third attempt (MY juice) was freakin AWESOME! I made orange strawberry juice and it was incredible. Yesterday morning I made orange strawberry apple juice and it tasted EXACTLY like an Orange Julius. Once I got home last night, I played around some more and made the most awesome juice of all for this week – plum, pear, apple, orange, carrot, celery juice. I made a smoothie with it this morning – the juice plus a ton of spinach, vanilla protein powder, TJ’s frozen wild blueberries, and some ice cubes… this was the greatest smoothie I’ve ever made, hands-down (so far). I’m so excited about it!It takes a little too much time when you factor in cleaning the machine to make fresh juice every day – but I’m hoping that making a big batch on Sunday nights will suffice for smoothies through the week – I have it in a container with a lid, so I’m hoping it stays pretty fresh. So far I’m really digging the juicer – it’s really awesome for using up produce that’s almost bad and it makes really yummy juice!
 
Two tiny personal victories made this weekend really great (besides family time, of course!):

* While we were at the restaurant for our Easter breakfast, a man who worked there called me a “little one,” as in, he thought I was under 12. His points of reference were my little cousin (6 years old), her parents (36ish?), my mom (44), and my grandma (late 60s). I am MUCH closer in age to my uncle and his wife than I am to my cousin. I’m continually amazed by the amount of people who think I’m under 12. It used to annoy me a little, but now I just think it’s hilarious. Plus it makes me feel better since my boss is always joking and saying that I’m getting old. :)
* I ordered an iced tea at lunch with my mom Friday and for the first time ever, I did not need to add any kind of sugar/Splenda. It sounds silly and trivial, but I always used to think that unsweetened iced tea was gross. Not gross, really, but just not good. But I’ve finally weaned myself off it so that I am quite happy drinking stuff without sugar, artificial or real.

My juice smoothies have been giving me a LOT of energy, so I’m bouncing up in down in my chair at the moment, anxiously awaiting our volleyball game tonight! I should probably get some work done first, though!
 
¡Hasta luego, amigos!