9/11 + all I do is eat + Lulu’s surgery

I still remember sitting in my 7th grade classroom when my teacher came in, crying, and told us about the attacks. My heart is with those affected by 9/11. I cannot believe it was 17 years ago. <3

I woke up in the mood to work yesterday, so I knew I needed to take advantage of that, but I still needed to get a run in. I put my run off until the afternoon, but I was hungry. I decided to risk it and see if waiting 3 hours after eating would help with my acid reflux. I ate breakfast in bed and then knocked out my final read through on Chapter 1.

I started on my final read through for Chapter 2 and couldn’t remember if I had applied for graduation or not…I hadn’t! So, I got that finished, too! EEK. 

Around noon I had  finished my final read throughs for both Chapters 1 and 2 (happy dance), checked in with all four of my online classes, dropped my braid from my hair cut off to be donated, and finally got started on my run. Sometimes you need to wear your pickle hat on a run. 

I got 6 recovery miles in and they felt pretty good. I had mild acid reflux, but nothing terrible, so I’m going to consider it a success. I came home and had lunch – black bean patty, cauliflower sandwich round, roasted cauliflower, and sweet potato rounds. MMM. 

I wanted to get a final read through of Chapter 3, but I wasn’t quite ready, so I made a breakfast casserole for us for the rest of the week. All these goodies went into it. 

There’s not much of a difference between the before and after of this baking, but it looks yummy!

While the casserole was baking, I started on my final read through of Chapter 3. I am loving these Zevia drinks. This Lemon Lime is super good and tastes like Sprite. I also had some Beanito’s and coconut blended yogurt. 

Lu was at the vet all day yesterday to have the tooth she broke off taken out. Jake thought I was silly for doing that, but our vet said the broken tooth could get infected, so they like to pull them if they can. My Dad, who is a dentist, also said I have it taken out – so I did! She was pretty loopy for the rest of the day, but even after having surgery AND being loopy, she knew when it was 5 o’clock AKA dinner time. I have to let her food soak in water to be softened for the next few days, so she cried until it was soft enough to eat. This girl can tell time. I swear. 

​I finished my final read through of Chapter 3 (YAY!), while getting in some Lu cuddles. I for sure needed to get Chapters 1 and 2 finished, but getting 3 finished makes me feel even better! My advisor sent over a few more edits last night, so I’m going to make those today, but then Chapters 1, 2, and 3 will be completely finished!!! I’m going to work on Chapter 4 and maybe start on my reference list today. I have errands to run, so we will see. A reference list for a paper like this is absurd. I think mine is 37 pages long. Now I have to go through and make sure every author I reference is in my dissertation, then I have to make sure everyone I reference in my dissertation is in my reference list. Luckily, I’ve been creating my reference list since I started writing Chapter 1, but this still takes me awhile. When I did my comprehensive exam a few years ago, I had a long reference list, too, and it took me about 6 hours to read through and format. And that paper was only 20 pages. My dissertation is about 200. 

For dinner, we had pesto stuffed bacon wrapped chicken. I used the cashew arugula pesto from the Run Fast. Eat Slow. cookbook. I’ve been eating chicken occasionally and it doesn’t bother my stomach. Also, I consider bacon to be a vegetable…so, there’s that. ; )

These chicken breasts were massive. We each ate half of one and were stuffed. 

These turned out SO good. 

I also made my favorite brussels to go with our chicken. 

Ready to be devoured. 

Jake’s plate. He loves this salad I make and I feel like he has one almost every night. 

Mine. I could live off of these brussels. For real. 

Family cuddles in bed with the loopy one. 

I’m off to finish the edits from my advisor and start on my final read through of Chapter 4! I keep thinking it’s Wednesday…then I get really excited when I realize it isn’t and I have 3 full days until I submit this beast of a dissertation. 

Happy Tuesday, friends!