Quasi-Colds are Jerks

Last night was a night of blissful repose to be broken only by a bathroom break at 2:50am (it’s me drinking all this water lately, which I’ll get to later) and then my alarm at 5:00am. Now for those of you who know of my sleeping patterns, the latter fact should strike you. I never wake up to my alarm. Yes, despite my awareness of health and what it takes to be healthy, my body only allows me around 6 hours of sleep every night when I really should be getting at least 7. Bad Aly 😦  Believe me, I’ve tried to sleep more, but my body tells me to get up and now I’ve just thrown my hands up, set my alarm, and wake up most a half hour to 15 minutes before the alarm actually goes off.
So, to make a long and boring story short, I woke up to my alarm today and I probably could have slept longer, due to *duh duh duh* my quasi-cold thing going on in my throat. I suppose all that bragging about having a killer immune system had to catch up with me at some point. (Curse you, karma) And now I’m stuck with this annoying, constantly dry, froggy throat feeling all the time and, on top of all that, it’s affecting my energy levels. I now feel like a bottomless pit as far as hunger goes and during my workout this morning (supposed to be entirely cardio) I had to break it up because my body just felt so tired and weak 😦
But naturally I’ve been doing everything it takes to get rid of this thing. Water bottle or hot beverage always on hand, cough drops for emergencies, thoroughly washing my hands, you know the drill. I’d say I’m eating better, but honestly I cannot think of how I could eat better than I already have been, which begs the question: How did I get this little bug in the first place? Maybe it’s just a fluke, but still.
Whatevs.
This weekend should be fun though! Instead of sticking around for booze-fest (i.e. Halloween in Madison) my boyfriend and I are shipping out to Minneapolis, MN for the weekend just to see what we can see. I’m pretty sure the last time I was in Minneapolis was for the sole purpose of going to the Mall of America. Sheesh. We’re taking the bus, so it’s about a 6 hour ride. Hence, I’ve baked up some 4-ingredient oat-nanner bars for the road, can you say nummy?
Anywho, that’s my update for now. Sorry, no new recipes today, but I will share the oat bars concoction just in case you wanted something besides candy to snack on this Halloween 😉

4-Ingredient Oat-Nanner Bars

• 2 large ripe bananas
• 2 cups rolled oats
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 cup pitted dates, chopped
• Sprinkled cinnamon (if you’re a cinna-nut like me 🙂

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a baking pan. Mash bananas in a large bowl until all the big chunks are gone (should be liquidy). Stir in the vanilla and then the oats and chopped dates and stir together. Once well combined, plop in dollops into baking pan and spread around to desired thickness. Sprinkle with cinnamon and pop in the oven for 30 minutes (or until sides crisp). 

Question of Day: What’s your go-to cold remedy?

Blogging for Productivity

It’s Sunday morning which, for any college student, means one thing: homework. And lots of it. I have so much to do and it feels as though this day (day of rest? bahhh!) has to end with me completing most of the things on my to-do list which, in case you were wondering (you probably weren’t, but I’m going to tell you anyway) includes:

• Writing some of a paper on the Civil Rights Movement and how it initially challenged and later rejected New Deal Liberalism
• Reading a biography of Ella Baker (fabulous woman by the way, I really recommend the book!) in order to write said paper in bullet point #1 (I’m only 38% through, so says my Kindle–eek!)
• Doing my various readings for the week, most of which are due on Wednesday
• Writing an annotated bibliography & developing an outline for my sociology paper on childhood obesity solutions (due on Wed)
• Doing the laundry. It needs to happen.
• Making/baking something or other. Because it’s a stress-reliever for me and I like food.
• Compiling a list of items I’ll be making this week. Curious as to what that may entail? 
• Baked Oatmeal Snack Bars –I’ll be adapting a recipe from Kath Eats Real Food
• Sugar-Free Banana Bread –adapted from Chocolate-Covered Katie
• Pumpkin Butter –another one from KERF

Those are just the non-original recipes I’m thinking of at the moment, although those are all subject to change, so don’t hold me to them! Wondering why no main courses? Well this weekend I bought FOUR squash (3 acorn/carnival + 1 spaghetti) and I will continue this week to come up with multiple ways to stuff squash and eat it. These ideas, however, need some time to germinate, and considering the scant amount of mental space I can truly devote to creativity right now, original recipes are getting put on the backburner.

But the biggest news is that I’m back to blogging 😀 and I’m going to make an sincere effort to get pics up with my posts to make things a bit more fun/visual/salivation-stimulating. Check back for a revamped Recipes page soon. I plan on putting in a lot more, adding/deleting portions, etc… 

But as any dutiful college senior should say: “Homework first!”