Celebrate the Femes

Happy International Women's Day!

Gettin' ready to go to work at 11:30

I had the usual cereal breakfast with the lovely pomegranate seeds...mm... Packed my SNACK and LUNCH

Snack for my 15 minute break

• Wee Apple
• Homemade trail-mix- includes walnuts, almonds, raisins, dried mango and pineapple shreds, peanuts, hazelnuts, sunflower seeds, organic raw cacao bits, dried cranberries, sliced prunes/apricots, pumpkin seeds.. basically everything nutty and dried that's ridiculously tasty.
• My Sigg water bottle. Think of how much $$ it saves me in water bottles + and it's good for the environment. Oh snap.

Lunch for my 1/2 hour break

• Veggie salad with cucumber, red + yellow bell pepper, half a roma tomato, a gorgeously ripe avocado and salt and freshly ground pepper.
  
• Pita bread that I'll toast later
• Supplements + 2 brazil nuts
  

I don't really use salad dressings for my salads. And I avoid lettuce for the most part- just feels like filler to me and doesn't taste as good as all the other stuff I could put in my salad. Plus the avocado feels like a dressing. Also- pepper is SO much better when it's freshly ground. Holy geez.

SIDENOTE: Everyone at works think I'm a vegetarian. But I am perfectly content munching on my goodness while they consume Micky D's. The fries are tempting though..


Look at the tiny blob of tomato left- who leaves such a small portion behind? Oh.. wait... that would be the boyfriend. He does that.

On to earn that dough!

So at work we have these walkie talkies. They are huge bricks attacked to your hip. Complete with ear piece! Damn thing competes with my earrings ALL the time. But lookit how cute those earrings are!

And I wear clunky, cozy man-boots. Not really the high-class retail staple, but ballet flats= highly uncomfortable and my collection of super sexy high-heeled boots don't really work for 8 hour shifts. Those are for baby shifts.

And I'm going to have something called the SPECIAL CUSTOMER OF THE DAY. Because if you've ever worked in customer service/retail, we have TONS of stories. Most involving stupidity/irritability (on our part or, for the most part, theirs).

Today's installment: Quite guy comes up with a bunch of clothing equaling a tad less than $600 smackers. I can barely hear what the dude is saying to me. He leaves and tells me to put them on hold.
A COUPLE HOURS LATER he comes back with some well-dressed woman with legs for days. Turns out, he works in a store nearby and that's his manager. The manager is going to buy him 600 bucks of clothing for work.

.....

I WANT $600 WORTH OF WORK CLOTHES FOR FREE! ..holy crap me = jealous up the wa-zoo

ALSO: Check out the shindig we have going on for opening store cards


I'm a cashier. And before you go on thinking that we have the unfair advantage of ringing up/talking to every person who buys something, there are 4 or 5 more sellers than cashiers. Done and done. LOSER has to cook a pot-luck for the winners.

I do NOT want to cook for other people. Especially when I can't eat it haha.

Dinah Time

• 2 bundles of Whole Wheat Soba noodles (curtesy of Japanese Market- 99 cents!!!)
• Terryaki Chicken from Costco
• Bag of mixed stir-fry vegetables, also from Costco
• Red, green, + yellow bell pepper
• 1/2 onion
• 3 cloves garlic
• Smidgen of Canola Oil

Sauce for Veggies

• Soy sauce from Trader Joe's!
• Hot chili sauce courtesy said Japanese market
• Fish sauce
• Salt + Pepper
• Chili powder

Uhh... Sideways chicken anyone? haha
Put the chicken in oven on baking sheet + aluminum foil (zero clean up!) for about 15 minutes and put a little of the packet of sauce on top.


Soba cooked for about 5 minutes then drained.

Chopped up garlic/onion- tossed in oil. Threw the frozen veggies in and then about 7 minutes later put in the bell pepper. Let steam and season. Only put a DAB of that fish sauce in for that oriental-ly taste. Probably a tsp of the chile sauce gave it a good kick. I just wing a lot of food that I make- measurements don't really suit me unless it's a new + picky recipe or baking... until I make it and I usually put in a few changes for taste + added healthiness.


VERDICT: Soba + veggies were damn tasty. The chicken... not so much. We wanted to try having a substitute for Mandarin Orange Chicken from TJ's that's pricey for a little bag. But eh.. it's easier just to thaw out a chicken breast and marinate it. Also will taste a bitch load better ... Seriously.


Next up: No Pudge Fudge Brownies! (Yes, that's my fabulous red microwave in the back). I have always wanted to try this stuff- and it sure as heck passed my taste test. And the boys'. I call that a win-win.


Added in 2/3 c Trader Joe's Fat-Free Vanilla Greek Yogurt. AMAZING stuff.


Mixed in with pink spatula for Nation Women's Day- courtesy of Vince's mum. This sucker required a lot of elbow grease! So frackin' THICK I needed some help spreading it into the 8 by 8 pan.


Nibbled on some dried Pinneapple while the brownies were cooking.

Unsweetened VS Sugared-To-All-Hell

Clearly unsweetened wins. Taste, look, and nutrition-wise. But I am pretty biased. I don't really get sweetened dry fruit... it's FRUIT. That denotes it has sugar in it as-is. Why ruin it with refined sugar? What's your guys' take on dried fruit? Which do you prefer?

SO to explain why I got the sweetened- In a moment of weakness and dire craving, I purchased the sugared crap version of the dried pineapple when I couldn't find the other stuff.

But 1 month later I found GOLD!!!! Thank you TJ's! So now I'm stuck with the hunks of raped so-called pineapple. Slowly eating it.. I'm man-ing up lol.

Oh and it hailed like a mo-fo at around 4 while I was working at the store. I work at an outdoor mall so we deal with lovely weather all the time. (I wouldn't even know where to START if it snowed here). But it sounded like APPLES were being thrown from the sky onto the roof.

End of story: it was awesome. Renee loves her rain!


Lerve!

TSS