In the Home Stretch!

This is one of my very last Mondays of law school! We only have four weeks of class left before graduation, so we are officially in the home stretch. Oh, and only one more Moot Court practice EVER. Can you tell I'm excited? I'm just burned out on it--we've been doing it since November and I am so ready to be done. But my school will send our team of 3 to compete next week in Chicago, so we are all still meeting regularly to help them get ready.

I am also about to be done with my writing portfolio (due tomorrow at 3pm), which means I'm about to be done entirely with my advanced legal writing program! (Also very exciting). I will then have one paper, one exam, a divorce mediation "notebook," and a few advanced litigation drafting assignments left to do. I still have about 30 law review assignments to do, and our work on that is expected to extend far past graduation, but I'm doing those assignments literally at a rate of one per day right now just to get them to publication faster and minimize the work we have to do after graduation, because I will need to be studying a bare minimum of 55-60 hours a week for the bar exam all summer as it is. Anyway, I am so ready to be done with school. Don't get me wrong, I have absolutely loved my time here and would say without hesitation that law school has been a great experience for me, but I am just ready to wrap it up and see the reward for my efforts already! Also, between weddings, admissions recruiting events, client counseling practices, travel, Moot Court elections, and so forth, I haven't been able to take a Saturday or Sunday off in weeks, so I've been going for at least three weeks without a single real day off. This past Saturday night was my first evening to even be at home in almost two weeks, so I'm seriously craving a couple days where I have nothing to do and nowhere to be. But I am going to visit my parents for a long weekend in NC this weekend, and I am planning to leave all my books and manuscripts and other stuff here and just not even worry about it from Thursday night to Monday morning, because I just need to get away, and nothing is going to fall to pieces if I am not here working for three and a half days.

In other news, I've been making smoothies obsessively over the past few days with all kinds of fruit, yogurt, and vegetables and am considering going on a smoothie detox/ juice fast for a couple of days. My favorite combinations so far:
1) frozen raspberries, flax, fresh pineapple, banana, a squeeze of real maple syrup (which I happened to have on hand for another recipe I was trying), Greek yogurt, and milk--this was delicious and every bit as good as any smoothie you'd pay $5 for at a coffee shop.
2) bananas, natural peanut butter, and milk--at first, I put Greek yogurt in this one too, but I realized that Greek yogurt and peanut butter don't taste good to me when they are together. So I'd just go with the peanut butter next time.
3) frozen raspberries, a Clementine orange, fresh mint, lots of lettuce, a squeeze of lemon and lime juice, honey, and water--this one has a very intense flavor but is also very refreshing. If you put way too much lemon juice in at first like I did, you can fix it by adding a bit more honey. This is also SO nutritious and proved to be a good option to drink after my workout today.

I also had a huge, unexplainable craving for buffalo chicken dip today, so I whipped up a single-serving version of this recipe and it was so good. I also found salmon on sale and am planning to do maple-glazed salmon with brussel sprouts later this week based on a recipe in Women's Health (hence the maple syrup), so I'll have to let you know how that turns out.

Anyway, I'm off to go wash my dishes and clean my apartment a little and work on law review and then I am putting on my pajamas, watching a movie, and going to BED. Happy Monday!

Homemade Energy Bar Experiment

Today has been pretty much the perfect day, besides the fact that I have (yet another) cold and have been blowing my nose and sneezing all day. (Seriously, if you want to dramatically weaken your immune system, go to law school. I feel like I have a cold about once a month). But other than that, it's been great. I was able to sleep in for the first time in two weeks. I woke up around 10, checked my email, then basically went back to bed, dozed off, and woke up again around noon. After a week of getting up at 6, it sure was nice! Then I went down to the mall, bought some much-needed new foundation as well as some soaps from Bath and Body Works, and went to the library for awhile. Then I came back, read one of my library books, took a nap (clearly, I needed to catch up on sleep), and journaled. I've been around people almost constantly for the past few weeks, so it's been really nice to have a day to do my own thing and to not feel like I have to go out and to just have a girls' night in with myself. So tonight, I ran over to Walmart and picked up a random Nicolas Cage thriller from the $5 DVD bin and a few ingredients to make homemade energy bars, something I've wanted to try for a long time. I just whipped them up and they are delicious. Mine have natural (no added sugar, just peanuts) peanut butter as a base, mixed with oatmeal, finely chopped medjool dates, a bit of vanilla extract, flax, and some blueberry-flavored Craisins. I mixed them up and let them chill in the fridge for awhile, and they're going to be my go-to healthy snack this week. They taste a lot like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, except with a lot more nutritional value. I'm sure you could do tons of variations on this basic recipe--add other kinds of dried fruit, or chocolate chips, or a little coconut oil, or whatever. I also have chocolate milk, bananas, and peanut butter to make workout recovery smoothies, because I absolutely have to get the half-marathon training in gear this week. I've been slacking off big time, and if that doesn't change, I will never be able to complete the race. So this week, I'm just going to need to be going after it, starting my long runs and speed workouts and cross-training in earnest. I just have to make time/ energy for exercise, and I know eating right is the first step in that process, so hopefully having some healthy and protein-rich snacks around will help. I also really want to start swimming again as part of my cross-training. There was a time in college when I swam 3-4 times a week, and I loved it. I have no idea why I stopped doing it, but I need to get back into that too.

OK, well I'm off for a little quality time with my Nicolas Cage movie and my Lisa Scottoline book. :)

New Recipes to Try

Sometimes I just need a quiet night to relax at home, and tonight is one of those nights. So I'm firing up my oven and having a major cooking session, interspersed with worship music and some episodes of Friends. I'm making most of my meals for the week right now so that's one less thing I have to worry about. Here's what I'm whipping up in my kitchen for the next few days:

• Spaghetti Squash Pad Thai with Chicken
• Lemon-butter salmon with mashed sweet potatoes, brown rice, and broccoli (this one's really easy: wrap fresh salmon up in tinfoil with lemon juice, some butter, and salt and pepper to taste, and cook at 350 for 20-25 minutes. This is so healthy and so easy to make, it's on my rotation almost every week).
• the filling for some chicken wraps: shredded chicken, kale, onions, dried cranberries, and feta, wrapped in a whole-wheat tortilla and dipped in salsa
• some roasted corn and homemade guacamole to put into burritos
• Brie cheese was on special today, so I'm making some single-serving desserts of brie with honey and brown sugar wrapped up in phyllo dough. So good!

I'm on a kick with eating more "superfoods" like the ones on this list. Not every list is the same, but most of them include the same nutritional superstars like blueberries, salmon, oatmeal, green tea, spinach, Greek yogurt, etc. These foods can help lower cholesterol and blood pressure, protect your heart, supply much-needed vitamins, prevent cancer, etc., so I'm trying to eat at least one at every single meal.

Here's how my pad thai turned out: