A whole lot of random

Hey there strangers

Where oh where have I been?  Hiding I suppose.  There is too much to recap on some I’m going to give you a lot of random:

• Stopping breastfeeding is no joke.  It’s difficult physically and emotionally.  I made it through immediate postpartum without getting depressed, but this surely got me there
• I’ve been in a funk as a result
• Having a less-than-special Mother’s Day didn’t help matters
• Things are looking up however
• We leave for NYC/Boston in a couple days –> meaning I see my bestie and her little tater tot in less than week
• Zone Perfect sent me their Perfectly Simple  bars to try.  Pretty nice of them, I’d say.  I tried the Peanut Crunch and it reminds me a lot of the YouBar I created.  Very tasty and something I would definitely buy again (I’m pretty sure I’ve seen them at Target).
• My hair is falling out in the fistfuls.  This depresses me too.  I’ve always had serious hair envy so now I’m even greener with jealousy for those that have luscious locks.
• I bought a pair of colored jeans – pale yellow.  I’m still on the hunt for mint ones, but everywhere I’ve looked is sold out of my size. 
• My personal training is going well.  It’s amazing how much more she pushes me than I would do on my own.  I’m grateful for that.
• I made a really tasty cranberry banana bread last week. I should have taken pics.  It’s pretty damn blog worthy.
• My dad now owns 3 buffalo.  Tell me that isn’t a random piece of info
• Today I attended a lovely baby shower and wore a new hi-lo dress.  Perhaps I’ll show you tomorrow?
• Our new furniture arrived.  Cons: pretty sure I need to buy a new area rug to match now; the cats have already scratched it leaping off with their back paws (grr).  Pros: looks great in the living room, good size, super firm, and Bean looks adorable in the chair

And there you have it. 

Oh and I’ve missed you blog friends.

Tell me something random that I’ve missed about you.

Any (foodie) place I need to stop by near midtown NYC?

Tips for traveling with a 4.5 month old?

Adventures in new foods

Helloooooo!  I’m in a chipper mood and I think it’s because I got a few good doses of vitamin D this weekend 8)  Lounging by the pool reading The Girl Who Played with Fire on Saturday and going for a hike with my friend Rachel and her dog on Sunday.

What else did this pseudo vegetarian do?  Go to Hogs and Rocks of course.

(photo from H&R website)

If that looks like a plate of oyesters, ham, and beer/whiskey, you’re seeing correctly.   Ask me which one of these items I ever eat?  If you guessed none of the above, ding-ding, you are correct!  But this place popped up in the Mission District of San Francisco and has gotten rave reviews.  And what’s more is that it has my hubby’s dream menu.  Same goes for our friends R, K, K and D.  So I’m giving myself the “ultimate trooper award” for partaking in Saturday night’s activities   Though I didn’t eat any of the jarred trout, oyster sampler, ham/speck, etc, I did eat some super tasty hush puppies, fried pickled okra, and a root veggie salad.  Not bad eh?  At least the night ended with malted vanilla ice cream with bits of milk chocolate and peanut brittle.  Nom!  That was the highlight for this non-oyster-non-ham-eating girl!

Thursday I arrived home to a special little package on my doorstep from Zone Perfect.

Hmm, what could be in here?

Zone is testing the waters of sweet and salty — two of my favorite vices combined into one!  Bestowed upon me were 2 bars: cashew pretzel and trail mix.  Yesterday I broke into the cashew pretzel and I have to say the taste is spot on!  It almost has a marshmallowy flavor.  The only downside is that it’s quite small for the 200 calorie packed punch.  Sigh.  I’d love this bar for half the cals, please!  But thank you Zone Perfect for letting me try these!  I’m stoked to test the trail mix.

My last foray into new foods included a new find from Trader Joe’s.

TJ's Mango Butter!

Btw, doesn’t that look like a runny egg?  I put about 1 tbsp (35 cals) of the mango butter atop 3/4 cup of fat-free cottage cheese and 1/2 cup of strawberries.  So good!  I can’t wait to put try this in a banana mango butter smoothie

Are you a sweet or salty person?  I’m pretty equally divided, but when I have one, I inevitably want the other.

Do you ever go to restaurants for the company but not for the food?

My take on a few more protein bars

Yay for all the shoe loving bloggers out there!  

I have a really fab review and also a delish fall recipe coming your way, but I want to share some thoughts on some more “protein” bars.

Around the blogvine, you’ve seen the ZonePerfect cookie bars, which I showed you last week.  At that time, I had only tasted the chocolate chip cookie dough flavor.  Since then, I split the other two bars with my hubby.  I was quivering with anticipation (okay, slight exaggeration) over the peanut butter flavor, because frankly PB-anything tends to rock.

My thoughts: Hmm, well this tasted more like a typical protein bar that was more gritty tasting.  I thought it tasted more like faux-PB.  It was good, but not great and the chocolate chip flavor really rocked.

Now onto the oatmeal raisin cookie.  Another anticipatory venture  

My thoughts: GREAT flavor and sweetness and crunch. Really quite good.

Overall ranking: 1. Chocolate chip at 9 pts; 2. Oatmeal Raisin at 7.5 pts; 3. PB at 5 pts. 

And way back here, I talked about my top protein bars which included Nugo Darks.  The only downside of it was a relatively high cost ($2+)  and I’ve never seen them in a store and had to order them.  Well guess where I found these two guys:

Nugo flavors

Dulles airport in DC!  How weird right?  AND they were only $2.50 each which is barely marked up from their case-price.  WIN!  I ended up buying both for, err, blogger research

Again, dying to try the PB flavor.  I tried it, and, well, it was good, but tasted like a Quaker PB granola bar and didn’t have the pizzazz that I loved about Nugo.

The Dark Chocolate Mint was T-A-S-T-Y.  Great alternative to the regular Nugo Dark and all the jazziness I love   I am totally going to buy a case of these next.

What flavors of protein or granola bars are your favorite?

And random question, but any topics you suggest I post about?  I usually ramble about whatever, but would love to have some inputs