2L Year, What? Bring It.

Today is my first day back at law school! Bring it on 2L year! 

First Day Outfit! Off to school! 

When I got up this morning I decided to do my workout right away, get it done before I got consumed by nerves! I have the Jillian Michael's 30-Day Shred DVD, which I love to use when I'm short on time. I can just pop it in my computer rather than having to walk all the way to the gym and back. The DVD has three 20-minute workouts: Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3. The workouts start with a warm up end with a cool down and have three 6 minute circuits. Each circuit is 3 min strength, 2 min cardio, and 1 min abs. It's meant to burn as many calories as possible in a 20 min workout. I did the Level 3 video and then the Level 1 video, because I feel like 20 min is just not enough! 

After I'd showered and done some blog work, I was STARVING! So I made some banana and PB2 oats and a side of scrambled egg whites.

Oats:
1/2 cup oats
1/2 cup almond milk
1/2 cup water
1/2 sliced banana
2 tbl. PB2 powder
sprinkle of flax

Perfect and filling breakfast! Exactly what I needed after my workout and to get me ready to head back to school! I also packed up my lunch and snacks. For lunch I packed a salad of chopped Romaine with cucumbers, mushrooms, carrots and 1/2 cup of white kidney beans. I used some lemon juice, apple cider viengar and pepper for a dressing. I love mixing this dressing because I think it's nice and light for the summer!

For my snacks, I brought a mini Luna bar for before lunch, a sliced apple, and then a normal Luna bar for later in the afternoon. Let's just say I was glad my last class was cancelled, because I would have been very hungry by 7:25 when it ended! Note: pack more filling lunch for next Monday! (that's my longest day).

Once school was over I headed to my bus. I love going to school downtown because there's always so much energy and I love the buildings and the river! It's so pretty! Ok well today it was pretty, let's see if I'm singing the same tune in January...

When I got home I decided to try a Chicken Pot Pie that I'd had in my freezer forever. I wasn't super hungry so I knew I wouldn't mind waiting 45 min to bake it in the oven.

 It's made with organic vegetables and crust. I got it at whole foods months ago and never pulled it out to try! Tonight feels like a chicken pot pie night! (aka I don't feel like a smoothie for dinner and I'm tired of veggies from lunch...).

When it came out it was alright. The crust was good, but not super flaky, and it was really soupy. I wish there were more veggies in there and less gravy stuff. Oh well, gotta give things a try!

Now it's time to go pick up Neville from my brother's apartment! He's been there because I needed someone to feed him while I was in Kansas City. Now I miss the little guy! Plus his bowl is probably quite dirty...

All in all, my first day back was pretty good! I feel good about my classes and it was nice to have the last one cancelled so my day wasn't quite as long. I feel like it just flew by! It was also great to see people I hadn't seen since May! I kind of flew under the radar this summer.

Today was the first day for a lot of schools, anyone else have a big day? 

Hangin' with my Mom

Today is my last day in Kansas City, and I ended up spending most of the day with just my Mom! Perfect way to end the trip.

My breakfast this morning consisted of egg whites on a piece of rye bread with a little cream cheese spread on the toast; a cup of coffee; and some sliced strawberries in almond milk with a bit of Truvia sprinkled on top.

After breakfast, my mom and I went back to Jazzercise! I had intended just to go to the gym since I have a 2 mile run on my schedule today, but I figured that I can go to a gym in Chicago, but I can't go to Jazzercise with my mom! Today's class was great because the instructor did a circuit class. Normally, the class is set up so that the first 40 min are cardio songs and then the last 20 or so are with weights or down on the mats doing strength work. For a circuit class, the instructor worked in the strength training songs between cardio songs! It was a great workout!

After I headed to the gym and did 10 min on the elliptical to get my blood moving again and then ran 2 easy miles on the treadmill in about 17:30. Afterwards I stretched, did a few ab moves and headed home!

After Jazzercise and running, I showered and got ready for lunch with my mom! We went to Julian, a great little restaurant in Brookside. The chef, Celina Tio, worked at the American Restaurant in Kansas City, where she won many awards, including the 2005 Chef of the Year by Chef magazine and the James Beard Foundation 2007 Best Chef: Midwest. She has also competed on Food Network's "Next Iron Chef" and Bravo's "Top Chef Masters". My mom has been here a few times for dinner, but never lunch, so we decided to check it out!

I ordered a side salad and the Chicken Pot Pie (I've been craving it for weeks!) and my mom ordered the Chicken Salad Sandwich with the soup, which was a black bean soup today.

My chicken pot pie was pretty good, although didn't quite hit my craving because I was hoping to break through the pie crust on top to get to the pie (clearly I've been thinking about this for too long). But the chicken, potatoes and carrots were very fresh and the puff pastry on top was delicious. Cooked to perfection!

My mom said her chicken salad sandwich was great, especially since the chicken salad didn't have too much mayonnaise; nice and light. She also enjoyed the soup but said she was thrown off at first: she expected there to be beans in it! But no chunks, haha clearly we are not "with it".

But we had a great time and I was pleasantly surprised that Celina Tio came out to our table and asked us how we enjoyed our meal! I loving going to smaller, intimate restaurants like Julian because it's a great cozy atmosphere and we could not only see the kitchen from where we were sitting, but we got to meet her! Much more personal than big restaurants.

After lunch, we headed to Costco so my mom could get a few things, like a Keurig!!! I have a Keurig coffee maker and I LOVE it! I've finally convinced her that it's a must. While at Costco, I came across some perfect first day of law-school outfits:

Which Disney princess should I be? Which would you choose? However, I then saw this, and knew it was the perfect one for me:

Who wants to be a princess when you can be the superhero! Love spider man. Costco was also ready for fall football season and Kansas City sports. Can we note (ahem, Benny) that there is an MU tent up, but not a KU one? Probably since MU is soooooooo much better. (for those of you not from KC, University of Missouri and University of Kansas have a pretty big rivalry... clearly I'm for MU: M I Z - Z O U!)

Can't wait for football season! What's your favorite sport to watch?