I’ve been feeling antsy all day today. I haven’t gone to the gym for over a week now and only went twice the week before. Gah!

This is really weird for me, but I at least had some good reason for it. Two weeks ago, I was on vacation in Hawaii and simply couldn’t find time in my relaxing vacation schedule for the gym. I didn’t totally slack on exercise though. We did a lot of walking and hiking, so it was nice to know I wasn’t doing absolutely nothing.

The past week has been a little tougher though. Honestly, I have no good reason for slacking since I got back from Hawaii last Friday. Simply put, I was jetlagged and tired from the trip earlier in the weeks and decided to catch up with my friends instead of going to the gym.

What’s worse is that now that I finally feel better and actually want to exercise, I can’t. That’s because I got both of my wisdom teeth on the left side of my mouth extracted after work yesterday. I know this is a big deal for most people, but I’m totally fine aside from some minor soreness. I’ve always had a high pain tolerance and also don’t have any swelling.

My dentist didn’t say anything about exercising in the post-care instructions and sadly, I forgot to ask. I did some googling though and it seems like exercising might be a bad idea. Even though the bleeding stopped earlier today, I’ll have a lost a good amount of blood already and any exercise can increase my blood pressure and cause the holes to start bleeding again or even cause dry socket. Yeah, not something I’m really willing to risk.

It’s so weird to not be thinking about my free time in the morning or right after work as gym time. In fact, I really miss the gym. This is something I would have never said a year or two ago, by the way!

Still, I’m dealing with it though. The Olympics have me more than occupied. And I’m also planning on organizing photos from the trip and picking out a few for the blog and my phone tonight.

But to add some color to tonight’s post, I thought I’d share the two soups I had for lunch and dinner today (since I’m restricted to mushy foods because of my extraction)!

For lunch, my boss, two interns, and I went across the street to a Thai restaurant. I had the Cellophane Noodle Soup with tofu. I think it may have actually been an appetizer since it wasn’t so filling and only cost $5 as opposed to all the $10 fried rice and pad thai dishes.

I snacked on applesauce and yogurt in the afternoon, but the time I got home I was starving! So I heated up some Amy’s organic black bean soup with veggie protein crumbles, soy cheese, and some Greek yogurt and ate it with two whole wheat wraps. Not bad and much more filling.

Hawaii photos coming soon!

1. My new camera and photography

My dad just got a brand new D7000 a few months ago so I bought his D80 off him. Then around Father’s Day, I saw a Groupon for two photography classes in Central Park and bought one for each of us so we could take it together. We just took the second one together on Saturday and I loved it! I learned a ton. Here are some photos taken on my D80:

Look forward to some better quality (AKA not taken on my iPhone) pictures around here soon!

2. Qi

Qi’s the name of a Thai restaurant in New York with two locations. I went to the one in Times Square last last Saturday and my dad and I went to the one in Union Square this past Saturday after our photography class. It’s official – this is one of my new favorite restaurants. I love the atmosphere and decor of the place and the food is awesome and reasonably priced.

On Saturday, my dad and I started with the Herbal Coconut Calamari. I feel like calamari is usually a hit or miss for me – I either find it really oily and heavy or light in a you-can-barely-tell-it-was-fried way. This was the latter and I really liked it! Super flavorful and the sweet chili sauce it came with complemented it perfectly.

My dad ordered the Gai-Yang & Som-Tum. It came with two huge pieces of perfectly tender chicken with a dipping sauce, a pickled vegetable and papaya salad, and black forbidden rice. It was delicious!

I had the Triple Mushrooms Gravy. I absolutely love mushrooms so I knew this was what I wanted when I saw it on the menu. It was really flavorful and full of mushrooms, so of course I loved it. I will say that it kind of struck me as just a generic Asian dish though, and not particularly Thai. But it was still good and we finished every bite.

3. Eating clean

The last two dinners I ate at home were both clean and tasty. First up, a roasted zucchini cucumber hummus wrap:

And a black bean burger with zucchini fries. Yum!

I also bought this Muscle Milk last night so I could get my protein fix this morning and it’s not bad! I still prefer my own protein shakes, but this isn’t bad for when I’m trying to clean out the fridge.

4. The fact that I will be in Hawaii in less than 48 hours!

This is why I’m working on cleaning out the fridge. I cannot tell you how excited I was to put on my out of office and get out of the building yesterday at 6 pm! Hawaii, here I come!

I’ve been MIA all week! Has it really been a week since I posted? Whoopsh.

Life has been pretty uneventful for the past week. I’m just counting down the days until I leave for Hawaii – for the record, there are five left with only one workday! Yay!

You know how knowing you have a day off makes the days before go so much slower? Well, considering this is my first vacation all year, the slow day feeling has been times a million this past week. I leave on Wednesday!

On another note, I’ve been eating out more than I should considering I’m about to go on a week and a half long vacation to Hawaii that costs a little bit more than chump change. But it’s been delicious!

Last Saturday, I ate at Qi in Times Square. It’s a Thai restaurant with good food, fast service, and reasonable prices! Total win. I got the tofu pad thai and loved it. My dad and I may be going to the one in Union Square tonight.

On Wednesday, I went to Raaz in Newport for dinner. It’s one of my favorite Indian restaurants, but I usually go for the lunch buffet which is a good deal. For dinner, I ordered the Veg Jalfrezi, a mix of veggies cooked in a tomato-based curry. We also had a basket of naan for the table. I’m still working on those leftovers!

I had two spectacular lunches at work this week. The first: romaine lettuce with corn, bell peppers, quinoa, hummus, and grilled chicken. Loved this combination!

Second: tofu with a sweet chili sauce, hummus with toasted pitas, and roasted zucchini. The tofu was especially good!

At home, I’ve been eating some good stuff too. The other night, I made a veggie burger and roasted zucchini hummus wrap for dinner. Definitely a combination I will have again! And some Rainier cherries on the side, which I recently realized I’m no longer allergic to. I can’t get enough of them now!

Lots of corn. It’s so sweet this time of year! Though I read that the prices will be going up soon due to the drought.

And yogurt bowls whenever I eat breakfast at home. I had this one this morning! Greek yogurt, blueberries, homemade granola, raisins, chia seeds, and peanut butter. I need to figure out a way that I can have this breakfast at work too.

And finally, I have been staring at this picture of my baby Cissie that my mom sent me two days ago. So precious! I miss her.

Tonight my dad and I have our advanced photography course from 6 to 8:30 in Central Park. Can’t wait!

I’m playing TV catchup tonight! I’m especially excited for the Survivor finale and Celebrity Apprentice. What can I say, I’m a total sucker for crappy reality TV.

Anyway, I had some seriously yummy food today! And I just realized that I use the word “yummy” a lot on this blog. On top of “delicious” and “tasty.” Whoops. But what are you going to do when you write a food and fitness blog? I guess I need to brush up on my thesaurus use!

Now, here are two of my YUMMY eats from today!

Lunch

For lunch, I hopped over to Hi-So Thai with my boss and two work friends. It’s a great little Thai place with a pretty good lunch special and within walking distance from work. And therefore, the perfect lunch spot.

My boss and our friend Steve ordered their usual, the pineapple fried rice.

I ordered the drunken noodles with chicken, which were a little more oily than I would’ve liked, but super spicy and good! And the portion was a lot smaller than what you normally get at Thai restaurants, so I didn’t feel too guilty clearing my plate.

And our friend Brian ordered the chicken pad thai, which I didn’t manage to get a picture of.

Dinner

All I snacked on the afternoon was some fruit, which wasn’t quite substantial enough. I got home from work a little before 6:30 and was huuungry!

My mom is seriously incredible at Chinese cooking and she brought me some of her Chinese-style empanadas when my family came up for Mother’s Day dinner yesterday. I don’t actually know if they have a name in Chinese, but we just call them “bing,” which is sort of a blanket term for lots of pan-fried things. I think the technical translation would be “pancake” though.

On the side, I had some of my leftover roasted grape, walnut, and goat cheese quinoa. It was still good!

Inside these empanada-type things is egg, scallions, Chinese vermicelli, and some tiny dried shrimp. It was hard to get a good photo, but trust me, it was YUMMY! And yes, I’m now embracing my overuse of that word.

One of my goals for this year is to get my mom to teach me how to make some of the amazing things she does! Her Chinese breakfast bread and homemade scallion pancakes are famous among our family friends. And she doesn’t even use recipes for most of it – she just manages to experiment in the kitchen and get what she wants in one or two tries!

As for my own cooking journey, I actually didn’t really learn how to cook until last year when I lived off-campus my senior year of college. My mom has always been impatient and unfortunately, I inherited the trait from her. So her attempts to teach me how to cook were somewhat disastrous! But now that I know the basics and a little more, I’m hoping it’ll be easier for us to get along in the kitchen.

Sleep tight!