Pumpkin Craze

Today it's chilly out. Like, mid to high 50's. I'm actually kind of geeky-happy about that - you know, change of seasons and all that.

Today it's ALSO rainy out. Not REAL rain, for the most part, but lots of chilly mist. The kind where a hood is great, but an umbrella is sort of useless.

With the mist/rain/chill comes a sort of darkness. Or, well, not really DARK so much as "not in any way shape or form sunny." Even when it's not raining.

(Emily Dickinson wrote a poem about this - "A Certain Slant of Light." When we studied her in tenth grade English, my teacher described it as "You know what it's like when the sky is so gray, it hurts to look at it?" And that's how I always think of it now.)

So, when I'm presented with a bit of a chill, some wannabe-rain mist, and a certain slant of light, one thing sounds totally perfect.

(Okay, I lied. Lots of things sound perfect, like Sleepytime tea and my favorite sweatpants and a fleece blanket and blah blah blah.) But c'mon.

Pumpkin oats, baby.



This was amazing. Half cup of oats, a little less than a cup of vanilla almond milk (PhillyGuy may be developing a case of the lactose intolerants, so we're experimenting with non-dairy), about half a cup of pumpkin, bit of vanilla, bit of sugar-free maple syrup (chemicals FTW!) and a few shakes of pumpkin pie spice.

I mixed it all up in a tupperware and brought it to work cold, where I cooked it in the microwave. No, it's NOT as good as stovetop oats, but it beats the bejeezus out of my go-to at-work breakfasts (yogurt/berries or a bagel). I topped it with about half a pack of craisins that I picked up at the convenience store downstairs.

She may not be the prettiest bowl of oats you've ever seen, but I'm not sorry.

Rainy days and Mondays!

So, I know I've mentioned before how much I love my commute. And I really, really do. But today, when it was raining (not that hard, thankfully!) and WINDY (um, really really hard, unfortunately), I was not quite as enthusiastic.

I have my rainy-day tricks, though. If it rains, I try not to wear pants -- skirts and tights all the way. It works quite nicely with my rainboots. Pants never fit nicely into the boots, and the creases end up getting messed up, so it's skirts every time.

I also have an arsenal of waterproof outerwear -- a full-length raincoat WITH hood, AND a bucket-style rain hat. The hat helps my hood stay up, keeps the water out of my eyes, and gives an extra layer to help keep my hair dry. I swap whatever purse I'd otherwise have been carrying (I should post about that sometime -- I am obsessed with handbags) for this great lululemon faux-leather gym bag that manages to keep everything (papers, lunch, BB, phone, and clutch with the essentials) dry, while still looking professional. On top of all of that, I carry a trusty umbrella.

But, yes. About that "trusty" umbrella. And the gale force winds. You see, today, the wind was SO crazy that it ever-so-slightly bent the stem of my umbrella. And when it bent the stem, that somehow weakened whatever mechanism kept the collapsable stem from, well, collapsing. And that, my friends, is how I found myself chasing the top portion of my umbrella (you know, the useful part that keeps the rain away) down 21st Street with the handle in my hand.

Le sigh. On top of all of this, I am just STARVIN' today. Today is day one of my attempts to cut roughly 500 calories from my previous diet. One of my cuts was to trade my normal large skim latte for a small (85 calories vs. 160). I also switched the fruit-flavored Chobani in my usual breakfast of Chobani, 1/4c granola, and fruit (typically berries or a banana) for plain (120 vs 160 calories for the yogurt).

Um, and now it's 11:40 am, and I've already eaten nearly all of my apple and a giant bite of my Z-bar in an effort to stave off my panging stomach. I'm SURE a cup of milk and some sugar wasn't keeping me that satiated, so I'm hoping this is not an everyday occurrence...but we'll see. It's taking every fiber of my being to wait until noon to tear into my sandwich. If I don't wait, it's going to be an ETERNITY of an afternoon.

Happy Monday!