This Week’s Food/Fitness + The Return of Packed Lunches!

Hi friends! I hope you’re having great weeks. I’ve been enjoying getting a good night’s sleep every night this week after all my insane travel! I arrived home on Monday afternoon totally exhausted so it’s been good to dial things back a bit this week.

On the food front, I’ve been enjoying my usual favorites – especially Pumpkin Pie Oatmeal (<—click for recipe) since the weather has been lovely and fall-like! I usually do 1/3 cup of oats and milk instead of 1/2 cup and add some fun toppings, like nuts. This week I’ve been rocking the slivered almonds.

As for dinner, we’ve been enjoying some Blue Apron this week! We first received a box from them a couple weeks ago for a blog review that will be coming in a few weeks, but we liked it so much I signed up/paid to get it this week just for fun because I liked the look of the meals. So far we made the Parmesan Crusted Chicken with Kale Caesar Salad & Toasted Hazelnuts. Yum!

It was supposed to be two servings but it ended up being 4 servings for us – we had it for lunch again the next day, with the addition of some apple slices and avocado (and extra greens, since the greens were 2 servings).

Photography tip: always use natural lighting if possible. Here is the difference between natural lighting and indoor lighting for food photos – this first photo is indoor lighting at dinnertime:

And this is with natural lighting at lunchtime. So much better, right?

If you’d like more in depth photography tips, you can find a whole series of photography posts linked to on my FAQ page. :)

For fitness, I’ve kept things pretty low key since I was really tired when I got back from all my travels, so no 6 a.m. CrossFit this week! Tuesday’s workout was a morning coffee walking date with a friend and doing some errands around town via bike, and yesterday I got in a casual 4 mile run after work. Tonight’s plan is a yoga class at Edge Yoga after I wrap up work.

Speaking of work – I’m super excited because I’ve decided to rent desk space at the Uber Offices downtown! I’ve been thinking about renting some office space for awhile now, but price and needing to commute have been stopping me. Well, I finally decided it’s time to take the plunge because I’ve been feeling more and more unhappy working at home all the time by myself and it’s reached a point where happiness > the downsides. I went and toured the Dupont location this morning and I LOVED it – it’s right downtown where I used to work back in the day (literally in the same building where I interned in early 2005!) and seems like a really fun environment – lots of start ups and small businesses/entrepreneurial types. The desk rental option (vs. a full on office) is only $300/month, which isn’t bad considering it’s right downtown and includes internet/some printing, and it’s month to month so if it doesn’t work out it’s no big deal to bail. I’ll probably head in during normal work hours about 4 days a week and work from home one day. I think it will be really good for me to get out of the house and interact with others more – obviously I’m out and about meeting AnneTheRD clients some, but that’s not the same as having coworkers/people around when you’re working the rest of the day. At some point, I’d love to get an actual office with a door there so it’s easier to see clients, but we’ll see if that makes sense financially in the future because it’s a lot more expensive ($1k or more). For now, they do have meeting rooms I can book on occasion. Anyway! If any of you work in the Dupont area and want to meet for lunch, let me know. ;) Also, get pumped, because this means the return of packed lunches! (I have a whole section of packed lunch ideas on my recipe page, btw!)

And now, time to hop on a call. Have a great day, my friends!