A Stuffed Acorn Squash Makes My Day

Hello and Happy Tuesday! (complete lie, is it Friday yet?) Today I woke up with a huge amount of motivation and went back to old Kelly that used to work out before work. I started walking on the treadmill and since my knee has been feeling good decided to run for 2 minutes. Later in the walk I ran for 2 more minutes. Just to make it clear, that's four total minutes of running. At five miles an hour (read: very slow). Then, I stretched...a lot. THEN, I iced.

Result? Pain all day. My thoughts? Total frustration and anger. Since I have been "injured" I have watched people recover from surgery, broken bones and sprains and run again...while all the while I STILL cannot run. It doesn't make sense and it's really annoying. I've been to my primary care doctor, a physical therapist, an orthopedist and a running coach. Most were helpful, except for the orthopedist who just told me that we don't worry about these things until there has been pain for a year. Correction: He may not worry about things like this until there has been pain for a year. I continue to worry.

So today I made an appointment with a different orthopedist for a second opinion. I already think me and this guy are going to get along much better. 1. He actually had an appointment after 4 on a Thursday which means I don't have to miss tutoring and lose money yay. 2. He listed one of his hobbies online as "long distance running." I'm guessing he is not going to tell me that not running for a year is fine and dandy. My appointment is not until December 10th so I'll let you know after that. You guys have been really supportive about this knee dilemma and I do really appreciate it. Most of the time I go along just fine with everything but occasionally the frustration really comes out.

But, on a positive note (you did know I was going to turn this around right?)...my dinner was SO delicious I just had to post it. It seems like everywhere I look everyone in the blog world has been stuffing acorn squash lately and I have been dying to try it. I finally decided to stop by the farm near my house this afternoon and get myself a nice big acorn squash to try.

I was a little concerned about cutting the squash in half by myself (Eric wasn't home this time to do it for me) but after one unsuccessful attempt, I put the squash in the microwave for two minutes and it was soft enough to cut right through. Then I let it cook in the oven while I made the inside.

I decided to fill my squash with Harvest Grain Blend from Trader Joe's (Israeli Cous Cous, Red Quinoa, Baby Garbanzo beans, and Orzo), fresh tomatoes also from the farm and a few pieces of leftover pad thai chicken from my sunday night dinner. I have to admit that while I fully enjoyed my first experience with pad thai on Sunday, my stomach was less than pleased with all of the oil. I decided with all the other wonderful things I would be eating tonight, my stomach would be okay with a small amount of chicken. This is one of the great things I have learned from having IBS (yes, there are small perks). It's okay to have something with a little fat, but try to mix it with a lot of other healthy parts to your meal. The result was fun to look at...

And more than delicious to eat. So delicious I interrupted my phone conversation with Katie to announce how amazing my dinner was. I don't do that for the average meal. I finished off my meal with a small piece of this...

I know, a healthy blogger like me should be finishing my meal with a piece of dark chocolate. But frankly, I don't like dark chocolate and I don't eat chocolate to be healthy. I can get antioxidants elsewhere. This is my favorite kind of Lindt chocolate because it is milk chocolate with white chocolate on the inside. Yum.

How is everyone's week going? Mine is dragging. I was so bored during tutoring today that I told my 3rd grader the best way to remember how to spell crocodile is to remember that song "crocodilly oh my croc croc croc" because when we say crocodile, we say it as "crocadile" and in that song we say crocodilly, which if you ignore the silent e rule entirely could be spelling crocodile. Um, what? Haha. Poor girl is going to be singing "crocodilly oh my croc croc croc" during her spelling test on Friday. Oops :) Though she'll probably spell the word right. Just get me to Friday.