The Final Day!

After two surprisingly short weeks, I have finished the BuzzFeed Clean Eating Challenge. I overwhelmingly failed at the challenge but I did it. Mostly.

Day 14, in two parts:

This day was done in two parts because yesterday my friend from high school, Lia, was in town for a conference so I went into the city and hung out with her in the evening. Therefore, part one, Saturday, was breakfast and lunch while part two happened today, Sunday, and is the dinner dish. 

I was so happy when I saw what breakfast was for day 14. Instead of making me slurp down a kale-chia-flax-whatever smoothie I got to have the green onion and feta omelette! Yum yum yum

I will definitely keep eating this post-challenge

Lunch was roasted mushroom caps with roasted tomato and feta. It was just eh, and it looked even more eh. 

This may have been my saddest looking meal.

That also left me hungry and I wolfed down the apple snack before heading downtown. 

INTERMISSION: Girl date with Lia!

Lia was in town for a conference over this weekend so I met her at her hotel and we got pizza and frolicked around the classic touristy places. After getting pizza near the hotel we took the Powell-Hyde cable car all the way to Ghiradelli Square. I've lived here for 9-ish months and still hadn't ridden a cable car! Finally got to knock that one off my SF bucket list, we even rode standing up on the outside!

And even had a lovely woman photobomb us

Once at Ghiradelli Square we walked around the shop, got our free sample, and got some snacks. Lia had an ice cream cone as big as her face and I got salted caramel hot chocolate. From there we walked along the warf and went into a museum of old coin operated machines. You may remember it from Princess Diaries.

It took the two of us to beat it on the easiest level

We walked a little farther down to Pier 39 to check out the sea lions and all the touristy shops over there. Then we walked back to the cable car turn around to ride back towards Lia's hotel. On the cable car ride back we were sitting (lots of walking made us tired) but we had the most fun operator guy ever. Every time we passed another cable car we shouted and cheered! And we made sure to sit on the side that looked down Lombard Street as we passed and had a great view of the Bay Bridge.

It was so fun to get to hang out with Lia and I learned I know a lot of random facts about San Francisco now that I was able to share. I should have charged for the little tour haha! It was so nice to just hang out with an old friend and be my weird self, not need to pretend to be normal around new people. Thanks for visiting, Lia!

END INTERMISSION!

Part two: dinner of day 14

Dinner tonight was a weird sorta stir-fry, that seemed to be the theme of this past week. Weird sorta stir-frys almost every night. It had toddler bok choy, carrots, red pepper, garlic, mushrooms, zucchini, and a comically small amount of chicken. I did make a small substitution with the zucchini, it was supposed to be snap peas but I must have used all the of them not thinking I had more things to make...whoops

The chicken marinated all morning in a sauce of olive oil, honey, and tamari. The chicken was quite good and I think i'll marinate chicken in that again but it was just such a small amount of chicken for the massive amount of vegetables that there was.

Nice and colorful!

I did eat around the red peppers and most of the bok choy. It was alright but not my favorite dish of the whole thing. Snack tonight is supposed to be chunks o chocolate but I believe I'll be having some popcorn instead.

And just like that my mission of the past two weeks is done! Its so strange. I need to go grocery shopping again but this time without direction. I'm a little terrified of falling back into eating just crap food again but I already am planning to remake a few things I liked from this dealio. I guess I'll just start there and see where it goes.

Thanks for sticking with me if you've been a regular reader. While I've been told this experience was quite comical from the reader's perspective I just tried to give my honest opinion. I can't help if I'm hilarious (chuckle chuckle chuckle) 

The Homestretch! Days 12 & 13

I think I've eaten too much fiber today, my tummy is making moves as I type this.

Sarah's flowers were delivered! Thank you Priority Unit of 1800Flowers for making this problem right! Still never going to use them again but at least she got the flowers...finally

I even got them to upgrade to a larger size than I had ordered. BOOM BABY!

Now onto.....Day 12!

Breakfast today was supposed to be the berry/yogurt "parfait" again but I ended up with potato chips and apple juice at my desk. Not my proudest moment but at least they were the popchips that are like baked and stuff. I wasn't in a yogurt mood. 

Lunch was supposed to be the chili I didn't make when I didn't feel like cooking so that one was out too...whoops? You can really see I'm being disciplined here and sticking with it.... Instead I had some Chinese food because it was free lunch Thursday at the office and that's what was catered. At least I still stuck with my goal of not thinking about what I was going to eat?

I did have the pear for my snack! And it happened to be a perfect pear. It was everything that every pear hopes to be.

Dinner was talapia cooked on a bed of green onions and baby bok choy with some sauce stuff I whipped up and all folded into a parchment packet. I was a little leery going in but it was actually very good. The recipe called for 6 heads of baby bok choy and I think they meant the very smallest of small baby bok choys. Even when I was grocery shopping I did not buy the recommended amount because my options for baby bok choy were more like large toddler bok choy. I started out intending to use 3 but only used one once I realized how small a parchment area I had to work with, and that was even making a bigger parchment packet than they suggested. 

This is what large toddler bok choy looks like

The recipe also called for shallots instead of green onions but I again forgot to buy more shallots on my way back from work. I think the green onions were a fine stand in and they worked with the color scheme. I completely forgot to take a picture of the pretty finished product so you unfortunately get a picture of the not so pretty almost fully eaten product. 

This was quite delicious and the quickest/easiest meal I've made so far and it didn't even involve the use of leftovers. I was actually surprised by how quickly I was able to make and eat a good for you meal. 

Night time snack was supposed to be the home made hot chocolate again. I still stuck with the chocolate theme but with a little more sugar/calories.

Then came my last weekday of clean eating, Day 13: 

The day started out with overnight oats again except this time with strawberries instead of black berries. Since my strawberries went bad prematurely in the week I used some raspberries I had on hand instead. AND I made sure to smash them up before adding the other ingredients so the flavors could mingle overnight. Well they weren't nearly as bad as my first overnight oat attempt where I had one bite. By the time I called it quits with this version I was surprised to see I had made it half way through. Although I did dig around to find the biggest chunks of raspberry so I don't know how much credit I really deserve. 

There is just something about the texture that continually irks me about this breakfast. It's thick enough with enough chunks that I want to chew it but if I do that then I'll really be grossed out by how much I don't need to chew. Then if I just kinda slurp it down it feels all slithery thanks to the weird jelly like quality of the chia seeds from sitting overnight. It's just too weird and I can't find a good way to eat it. Food should be eaten on instinct, not by figuring out the best way. 

For lunch was supposed to be some of the leftover salad I didn't make because I wanted real food for dinner. So I made a quick sorta version of it without adding some steamed snap peas. No loss there, I don't care much for cooked snap peas. I'll eat them forever if they're raw and I have ample ranch dressing but they're not my thing once cooked. 

The salad I had consisted of aragula, sliced raddish, a little mint, some feta, and leftover quinoa all topped with a balsamic vinaigrette. It was quite tasty and I ate the whole thing. And I completely for got to take a picture. I'm just now realizing it. I could take a picture of the empty container but that's just sad. Just know that it was good, I ate all of it, and it looked like most other salads I've had so far. 

Snack today was supposed to be carrot sticks and hummus but I wasn't feeling like putting in the effort to peel and cut the carrots this morning. Instead I had another one of those perfect pears that was at the peak of flavor awesomeness. 

Dinner today was again surprisingly easy and quick to make without leftovers. It was a quick stir fry type dealio of mushrooms, shrimp, green onions, and some garlic. Tossed with some of the sauce used on the fish yesterday and then served in romaine lettuce leaf boats. Well it was supposed to be served in the boats. Unfortunately my lettuce got funky on the outermost leaves and the inner ones weren't boat material. Instead, I chopped up the smaller leaves and just topped my salad with the stir fry mixture. It was way easier to eat like this anyways!

Again it was very good and I ate all of it! Thankfully after being bad for the past two days I feel like I redeemed myself a little bit today. Snack tonight is apples with a bit of honey. If you look at the summation picture for the day you'll see their version of putting honey on apples is complete chaos. Seriously, are you then going to eat it with a fork or get insanely sticky hands? I just don't understand.

Sheep update: they're still in that field but there is only a fence on one side. This morning I saw animal control wrangling some sheep that had gotten onto the road. What the heck! Why are there free range sheep? California, I will never understand you....

Happy Memorial Day weekend everyone!

Into the Double Digits! Days 10 & 11

I cannot believe I have been doing this for 11 days now. It feels like way way longer. And I'm practically done, that's crazy. I'm going to need to actually think about what to eat!

Yesterday: Day 10

Breakfast was supposed to be roasted cauliflower hash and fried eggs. I didn't feel like chopping onions first thing in the morning so I just made myself another roasted cauliflower omelette. 

Lunch was supposed to be an arugula salad with leftover roasted eggplant, leftover roasted chickpeas, avocado, and feta all with a balsamic vinaigrette. I had tossed all the roasted eggplant because it was super nasty nasty so that was out of the salad but overall it wasn't bad. I ate all the greens for once and just had some chickpeas leftover. Not bad, not gonna make it again. 

Snack was supposed to be red pepper and hummus. Ha ha ha, good one BuzzFeed. No way was I going to eat that. Instead I had some ritz bitz cheese cracker sandwiches from the snack closet! We don't have those often so it was a treat. They recently told us the snack closet options were going to become weirdly California style healthy (seaweed chips were mentioned) but instead they gave us the Ritz, I'm not going to complain. 

Since I messed up breakfast and lunch I stuck with dinner. A bowl of shrimps with kale and collared greens and some mushrooms. Kinda like another stir fry bowl but cooked in less of a stir fry manner. Not bad, I ate almost everything and was so full I could only lay down. Sitting up was too uncomfortable, I think the food expanded in my stomach or something. 

The avocado wasn't radioactive, the lighting was just bad

For night snack I had raspberries instead of blackberries because they were on sale this week. Overall, for day 10 I think I did pretty good! Not too much dirty eating mixed in with the clean stuff but I guess the ritz sandwiches are like the epitome of dirty sooooo........

Then came not as good of a day: Day 11

For breakfast they wanted me to make another banana kale smoothie like on the first day where I could taste the green. That didn't happen. Instead I got an egg mcmuffin complete with irresistible hash brown patty. I savored every moment of today's breakfast. There is no beating the egg mcmuff.

Lunch was supposed to be little leaf boats filled with a tuna/egg salad type thing. I didn't have this for two reasons. First: because canned tuna is nasty and I refused to buy it while grocery shopping. Second: I forgot to check what prep I needed to do yesterday night and I did not boil the eggs. Instead I got a chicken cesar salad from Wendy's. Much tastier than nasty canned tuna. 

Then came the afternoon snack, the only thing I ended up actually preparing and eating today. Whoops? It was a "pudding" of blended frozen banana and frozen avocado with some almond milk. It definitely jiggled like a pudding would but the consistency was just like runny, warm pudding. So odd. But it didn't taste horrible. I had about two thirds before it got too warm and runny.

This picture doesn't show the every so slight green tint that makes you think it's gone bad but is really just the avocado. 

While that carried me throughout the day, I was oblivious to what awaited me when I got home for dinner. I was quite displeased to find a stinkin salad was on the menu tonight. There are just some nights when you need meat and tonight was one of those nights. I'll make the salad again in a couple days and have it for lunch so I'm not worried about missing out on the experience of missing a new dish.

Instead I had a healthy choice cafe steamer for dinner. Rosemary chicken and sweet potato, one of my favorites when sprinkled with a little bit of garlic salt. Thankfully that hit the spot and I didn't feel as bad about it as I would have if I had substituted ice cream for a meal again.

I didn't have the snack tonight, didn't get hungry although writing about food is making me hungry again. I do have a nectarine that is in it's prime so that may be my next target.

Thanks for reading, only a few more days of the challenge to go! As your reward for making it all the way through, here is a picture of the random herd of sheep I passed by on my way home today. I do not live in an area you would think sheep would graze in but alas there they were.

This is just open land for sale...with sheep apparently. I wonder if they're a package deal?

Semi-Clean Eating Days 8 & 9

Before we get to the food review, a small movie review.
About Time: everything a rom-com should be. It make me laugh, cry, and got a little cheesy at the end
Secret Life of Water Mitty: I now want to go to all the places and see all the things and hang out with all the small children of random contries. So if you feel like feeling like that afterwards then see it. If you're suffering from severe wanderlust like myself it will only make things worse.

Now, Onto Day 8:

 

Sunday started out with a smoothie so of course I was a little scared. Thankfully it was normal and basically just blueberries and yogurt. I had a bit of it and then it started to separate shockingly fast. I didn't finish because of the "what on earth is happening" factor. 

Lunch was surprisingly good. It consisted of the leftover tomato sauce from Saturday's dinner cooked with some spinach thrown in (it called for asparagus but I swapped) and then you make two little wells to crack the eggs into and cook it covered for a few minutes and end up with something similar to this:

I did cook the eggs a little long so the very top layer was a bit rubbery but overall it was good! I'm not sure I'll ever have all the ingredients together again to make this but I may order it in a restaurant. I could have used some toast though to eat the extra sauce with. But alas, this pesky thing is "gluten free"....fun haters.....

I can't say I did very well with snacking. I did have the strawberries but I may have also had some m&ms. I'm a Colliander, you can't deny me chocolate.

Then came the brownest dinner of my life. And I've had some pretty darned brown meals before. Dinner was a bowl of roasted chickpeas, roasted cauliflower, and roasted eggplant all mixed up with hummus and then topped and mixed up with a combo of lemon juice and greek yogurt.

I forgot to take a picture of it before I mixed it all together because I was Skyping with Bobby at the time. Blame him for distracting me and the ugly picture. 

It was weird, and gritty, and tangy, and just wrong. I had had a couple bites but tried to avoid anything that had hummus or yogurt on it. Either I made this horribly wrong or the person who taste tested this had no taste buddies. So gross. I had ice cream for dinner to treat myself after going through the pain that was that dish.

Yeah, I didn't have the dates and two almonds either.

Now we're caught up to today, Day 9:

Today wasn't too bad overall. I was a little shaky on the execution but it went better than most days, which isn't saying a lot but it is saying something.

The apple omelette sounds weird but it was actually pretty decent. Thinly sliced apples cooked in the skillet then cooked with the egg and omeletted. Unfortunately I super suck at omelette flipping and it ended up more like very large chunked scrambled eggs. Whatever, the shape didn't change the taste!

It was sweet because of the apples but like strangely savory at the same time. If you're looking to shake things up at breakfast I suggest giving it a try, not bad!

Lunch today was interesting. Three wraps made with the leftover turkey meatballs from Saturday, sliced tomato and avocado, and mustard. The interesting part comes in when they got wrapped in collared greens. Raw collared greens.

Before I wrapped them up, obviously. 

At lunch I attempted to eat them with the wrap but the greens were just too leathery. They took some time to chew cooked so I don't know why they thought these giant leaves would make a good wrap. I guess they don't rip easily? I ended up unwrapping each one and just ate the innards and threw out the greens. Oh well!

Snack was supposed to be yogurt and blackberries but since I've had so many issues with the yogurt I went for carrots and hummus again. Executive decision = made

Dinner tonight was a stir-fry of sorts. Quinoa mixed up with sugar snap peas, mushrooms, scallions, and scrambled egg.

I quite enjoyed this meal! Ate the whole thing! Only thing it was missing was a shallot that I had forgotten to get on my grocery shopping adventure. I bet it would have been even better had I included it. It did also call for some of the tamari (fancy soy sauce) which I did add but I felt the bowl needed a little something extra. So I added a bit of House of Tsang sauce!

Thank you Heidi and Garrett for introducing me to the magical quality of this sauce

With a little bit of the tsang, my dinner was top of the charts yummy. This is something I could see myself making again, quick, easy and only one pan!

And as a reward for making it to the end, a picture of the always adorable Calvin!

He was hungry too

Days 6 and 7: Getting Derailed and Back on Track, Hopefully

If you were the fifth person to read this after I posted you were my 3,000th view on my blog. CONGRATULATIONS!!

Also a huge CONGRATULATIONS to all my friends who graduated from Valpo today! I wore my alumni shirt for the first time today as I can no longer be in denial that I've graduated since there is the next class graduated now. Time to admit to being a big kid!

So as you maybe noticed I did not blog about yesterday's food yet. That's because of a couple of factors. First, it was Friday and I didn't feel like doing anything all day until I got all fired up and pissed off at 1-800-Flowers to write that blog post. But once my steam ran out I was just dead weight for the rest of the day. Second, I reached a new low in terms of actually preparing/eating the food.

Day Six:

The day started off with the chia seed mango pudding which I had previously said I probably would not like and that I would be making the scallion/feta omelette that I had skipped to partake in bagel day. Good think I know me so well because the "pudding" was mega weird.

Somehow the mango got de-mangoed in whatever happened overnight in this cup and there was absolutely no flavor. There were supposed to be pistachios in this mixture as well but I am not made of money nor did I want to shell all those little buggers so I skipped them. However, I do not think they would have helped. This is yet another breakfast that only got one taste and went right into the "heck no" column and my trash can.

So instead I made my omelette and it was wonderful! This is something I will definitely be making again.

The little bits of cooked feta? Yeah they were amazing.

To make this lovely concoction you thinly slice the white parts of the scallion and put those in your skillet with some olive oil to cook for a bit. I happen to have olive oil Pam so I just used that instead of straight up olive oil so I could coat the pan evenly too. Then after the whites have cooked for a bit you add the green and let them soften up for a bit before dumping in the egg and omelette-ing it up. So yummy, everyone should try it and be happy forever.

Then for lunch I had a salad of arugula, leftover green beans from Thursday night's dinner and the salmon also leftover from Thursday. That had yet another homemade vinaigrette of lemon juice, dijon mustard, and olive oil. The salad was surprisingly good considering the salmon had been a little funky to be the previous day but I am guessing the dressing helped with that.

I tried to make it pretty but the salmon liked to hide

But while I was eating it, and enjoying it, all I could think about was how it wasn't chocolate and peanut butter ice cream. So after I had about half I went and got myself some ice cream from a nearby Baskin Robbins. Hey, it was Friday!

Since I was mega full from all the salad and ice cream I skipped the afternoon snack of carrot, "seedless" cucumber, and hummus. Whatevs, no big loss there.

When I got home from work in my Friday "I don't even want to move or do anything or open my eyes" attitude I knew dinner was not going to be cooked by me. I hemmed and hawed over this one for a good minute or two, I did already have all the ingredients I would need and I had said I wanted to try each meal. That was before I went through a week of cooking everything for each meal from scratch. It's a lot of work and I just wanted to be a couch potato. What sealed the deal for me not cooking was that I was to make myself chili. I'm not the biggest chili person. If the meal had been something that interested me I may have stuck with it but chili is not the way to my heart. It's actually probably the opposite of the way to my heart.

So I hemmed and hawed again and went with Panda Express and Krispy Kreme. I stopped at Krispy Kreme on the way to the panda, it was the right side of the street, and got two donuts. I ate one donut on the way to the panda and another after I had finished my food. I am not proud of it but it was so so so so so so tasty. I love donuts.

Can't stop, won't stop

So Day six was a huge bust for me but at least I had a good omelette. And a donut.

Day Seven: HALF WAY DONE!!

Yay! Today marks half way through this challenge dealio! I had a major decision to make today. Do I continue or do I give up and admit defeat and that I'll probably end up on My 600lb Life someday? This was a serious thought for about two minuets then I decided I liked not having to think about what to make for food more than I like being lazy. I chose to be mentally lazy over physically lazy. Since I'm going ahead with week two, today was also grocery shopping day.

But first breakfast. I don't know why but this inventor of this challenge HATES breakfast. They make it the worst meal of the day, by far. Today was to be steamed asparagus and two poached eggs. First problem, I don't like asparagus. The shaved stuff in the salad the first day was fine but I just don't like it when its in the stalk form. Not my thing. So I decided I wasn't going to have it. I'd have toast instead.

Next problem with this breakfast that I did not anticipate was how freakin hard it is to poach an egg. The challenge gives you very specific instructions on how to poach your eggs so I wasn't really worried when I should have been very worried.

Crack each egg into a separate small bowl or mug, then stir the water in a circle gently with a wooden spoon to create a whirlpool. Drop 1 egg into the center of the whirlpool. The white will wrap around the yolk and start to set. Let the egg poach in the water for 3 minutes, keeping the temperature steady. Remove the egg with a slotted spoon and drain on a paper towel-lined plate. Repeat with the other egg, again creating a whirlpool before dropping in the egg.

So I made this little whirlpool and watched in horror as the first egg just dissolved into the water. Almost immediately the pot of water gets cloudy and I've lost the yolk. I try to poke around with my slotted spoon and gather up what white I can but it's almost useless. I do eventually find the yolk and decide to keep it captive with my spoon while the poaching happens.

it was madness

I thought maybe the water wasn't hot enough so I turn it up just a bit and let the water reheat before attempting the next egg. This time I don't mess around with that whirlpool and just drop the egg right onto the spoon in the water. I was able to retain more of my egg this time but it was still sad looking when I finished.

pathetic

I broke the yolk and sopped that up with my toast. It wasn't too bad. But then I tried the egg white. Oh my gosh why do people like poached eggs? There was no flavor in the white and I can only take so much runny yolk. I had maybe two bites of the white and threw them away. This was the ultimate failed experiment in breakfasting.

So I made myself another scallion and feta omelette :) yum yum yum happy happy yum

When I read what I had to do to make my lunch my first thought was "are you kidding me". One of the steps involves massaging lime juice into kale leaves and that's where I said hell no. If I was not going to get a massage in return, that kale was not going to be massaged by me. Since lunch today was supposed to be a kale salad I ended up skipping the lunch for today. I scrounged in my cupboards and had a nutrigrain bar or something.

After lunch I went grocery shopping. Just a warning now, I will be skipping a few of the meals next week. Just by looking at the grocery list and not buying some of the ingredients I know this will be happening. For example, I did not buy the canned tuna. I refuse to eat canned tuna. Nasty stuff. So I'll either be making substitutions as I go or I'll be eating the occasional meal out or scrounged up.

Grocery shopping this week wasn't as expensive as last week as I bought some things last week that are still going to be used for this coming week. I did also get a few extra things to retain my sanity like cookie dough and strawberry shortcake ice cream bars. Can you resist the strawberry shortcake bars? I sure can't and am probably going to go get one from my freezer after I finish this post.

Since I had failed so spectacularly yesterday and again today with making all my meals I had to stick it out and make the dinner. I had to get back on track because this was a slippery slope I was on.

Dinner tonight was homemade (of course) turkey meatballs on a bed of collared greens topped off with a homemade tomato sauce. I had never had collared greens before so my curiosity was back in the game with me and motivation was restored!

The recipes are in the BuzzFeed article so I won't get into details of what all was in the meatballs or tomato sauce but they were both decent. The meatballs were actually quite good and I can definitely see myself making them another time. The tomato sauce was a bit acidic for me but this challenge is a no-sugar thing so I stuck with their recipe. The collared greens were okay. I had to chew them for longer than expected which was kinda weird. But the flavor from the sauce was pretty powerful so I can't really tell you what collared greens themselves taste like.

I forgot to take a picture before I added the sauce. I realized this immediately after adding the sauce.
Also, this may be my worst food picture so far

Dinner was good overall, I ate most of it before I got full. Something I have noticed about this challenge is that I fill up from these meals very quickly. I suppose it makes sense since I'm eating so many greens and other filling things but when I can't finish something I like it makes me sad.

Snack tonight I think is like a clementine or something? I haven't given it much thought since I'm definitely going for the strawberry shortcake bar. I may have popcorn too since I got some movies from Redbox while at the grocery store. I rented About Time and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, I haven't heard anything about About Time but I love Rachel McAdams and I've hard that the Mitty movie is enjoyable, but slow to start. We shall see!

My fight with 1-800-Flowers

(I'm writing this post with a scowl on my face. I tell you this to set the mood)

My fight with 1-800-Flowers began April 22nd. Hopefully it will be resolved May 22nd. 

Because I am such a nice and loving sister, I thought it would be a happy thought to send my sister surprise flowers to work on her first day back since having the baby. Something to make the day away from him a little easier and happier. 

I spent tens of minutes picking out the perfect flowers to send to her that would be both small enough as to be easily transportable when she took them home and had them on her desk, and so they would be delivered in a vase from a florist and not in a box where she would have to do work to enjoy them. I settled on a lovely arrangement called "French Countryside" 

They're adorable right?

The day after I order these flowers I got a call from their customer service telling me the florist who would be fulfilling the order did not carry the blue vase and asked if I would be okay with a replacement. I really like the blue vase but the flowers are the real gift so I agreed to a replacement vase. ONLY replacing the VASE. Even checking my order online the arrangement was titled "French Countryside" and on track to be delivered May 1st. 

Now comes May 1st and flowers are delivered. Thankfully they did make Heidi's day and my goal of making her smile and tear up a little at my lovely card was accomplished. Unfortunately the flowers are entirely wrong. 

Very pretty, but it's like the opposite of what I ordered

Now I know some of you more level headed people out there might be thinking I'm nuts for putting up such a stink and blogging about this. It didn't intend for things to spiral like they did. 

I sent an email via the customer service section on the 1-800-Flowers website letting them know of either the miscommunication or error somewhere down the line. I was expecting to get an apology and maybe a coupon for future purchase or something. They answered very promptly, within an hour or two, apologizing for the mix up, giving me a $20 coupon for 1-800-Flower or their sister companies, and promising a redelivery of the correct arrangement the next day. Awesome! When I heard this I was over the moon. Goes to show that if you speak up when an obvious error has been made that things will be made right. Or so I thought. 

The next day the flowers are not redelivered. Then the following Monday the flowers were not redelivered again. I gave them a day of grace knowing it was Mother's Day season and there are lots of flower orders. On Tuesday I emailed 1-800-Flowers again, saying that I appreciated their customer service efforts on behalf of the corporation but I didn't think the florist had the same commitment to customer service and the flowers had not been redelivered yet. They again emailed me back, promised a $20 coupon, and said the flowers would be delivered the following day. Well again the flowers didn't come. 

But I thought to myself, she got flowers, the sentiment was there, I made her first day back at work a little easier, I'll drop this because I'm getting sick of no results from 1-800-Flowers. Meanwhile, flowers I had ordered at the same time as I had ordered Heidi's were delivered successfully to my Mom without any issue. So ya know, one time thing. Right??????

Well I used one of the $20 coupons to send flowers to my old roommate, Sarah, who always says how she wants someone to send her flowers. I even had another of our friends figure out for me when Sarah was going to be in her office next (she travels a lot) so I could make sure she got them. I felt like a little flower fairy/secret agent! 

I had wanted these flowers to be a surprise so I waited and waited all day on Monday (5/12) for Sarah to text me all excitedly that I'm the best friend in the whole wide world and how surprised she was. That text never came but I received an email with a delivery confirmation from 1-800-Flowers. Hmmmm......suspicious

So I spilled the beans to Sarah to see if they had arrived or if she hated me but no flowers had come to her office. Suspiciouser. So we waited to see if maybe they were delivered after business hours and maybe they would be waiting for her at the office in the morning. Morning comes and there are no flowers happily waiting.

This time I call customer service because I work in customer service via email and I know that if you want something done the way you want it done and as quickly as possible, you call. Also please know that since I work in customer service I am very nice to all the service people I talk to; I live by the golden rule. I may be ranting here but I did not try to make their days any more miserable. (Except the last chick, I got mighty firm with her.) 

So I talk to some guy who apologizes, promises a $20 coupon, and a redelivery for the next day. I counter his offer by saying I'll waive the $20 coupon in exchange for redelivery that same day (5/12). I had called first thing in the morning so this shouldn't be a logistical problem for a service that offers same day delivery. He talk to people that can make decisions and lets me know they will redeliver that day and I will still received that damned $20 coupon. I have a theory that anytime you contact customer service they automatically send you the coupon. 

Day two of waiting for the flowers to arrive comes and goes. Once it is after business hours in the central time zone where the flowers should have already delivered I called customer service again. This time I got a wonderful person on the other end of the line who offered to have the flowers redelivered the following day, give me another freakin $20 coupon, and refund half my money. Finally something different! I told him a partial refund is fine with me as long as the flowers get there the next day, I am not going to pay for a product that never showed up but half off is a nice gesture. Since he was so helpful with this debacle I brought up the failed redeliveries of Heidi's flowers and got half off those as well. Fantastic, I am happy again and (fingers-crossed) the flowers will be delivered on Wednesday, 5/13. 

On Wednesday I do not even wait for the end of business day to call customer service again. They have an hour left in Sarah's work day to deliver the stupid flowers and I am going to find out where they are and when they'll be getting to her. 

So I call. And I talk to a woman who informs me there is still time for the flowers to be delivered and I should not be worried. Are. You. Kidding. Me. I have every right to be concerned that these flowers will not be delivered. In my previous calls with customer service they have put me on hold to try and contact the florist (without success, which is suspicious so either they're not really doing it or the florist is shady) so instead of losing my cool at "don't be worried" lady I sternly tell her I have had numerous failed redeliveries and can she please put me on hold and call the florist to give me an update on my order. She puts me on hold, probably turns to the person next to her and they talk about how demanding I am, then comes back to me and says she is just getting a busy signal but will try and call them again and then update me via email on the status of my order. I ask that she calls me instead and that I appreciate her trying them again.

I don't get a call or email from her and the flowers do not show. Three days, no flowers, no signs of progress towards making me happier than half my money back. Now I am livid and am pulling in the big guns. I contacted the Better Business Bureau.

I filed a complaint with the BBB of New York, where 1-800-Flowers is headquartered, on the evening of 5/14 stating that I had not received the product I had paid for and would like to have the product delivered. Next day I got an email from BBB saying they had filed my complaint with the company and they would keep me posted on any progress, and asking if I do resolve this issue with the company on my own to let them know. Coolio. I like to think I've made my high school consumer education teacher proud

Then this morning I get an email from the "Priority Unit" of 1-800-Flowers. They have received my complaint from the BBB, will refund the rest of my money, and want to deliver the flowers using a different florist at no cost to me. I will give the Priority Unit props, I can tell my complaint is being handled by an actual person and not just the usual $20 coupon and a redeliver speech. Since Sarah is out of the office on business for the beginning of next week the flowers are now scheduled to be delivered on 5/22, ten days after they should have originally been there. 

The interactions I have had with the Priority Unit have been great. Each time they ask me something they ask me kindly, literally. "Will you kindly confirm the delivery address", "Will you kindly confirm the delivery date",  "Would you be so kind as to reply with..." you can tell these are the people that deal with the crazies. 

Apparently if you want something other than the usual run around with 1-800-Flowers you need to go for the throat and get a consumer agency flexing muscle on your side. I just hope the flowers actually come, I do not have high hopes but I'll let you know. One thing is for certain, I will never be ordering flowers from 1-800-Flowers again. 

Day Five and Ready to Jive!

Sorry bout the title, I like to rhyme.

So here I am at Day Five and doin' alright. Due to my former diet similar to a mouse in a candy factory I am definitely feeling a difference. I've gotten used to my meal schedule instead of just randomly eating random amounts of random foods all day. 

Breakfast this morning was an omelette with leftover roasted cauliflower and a bit of basil. Definitely a lot more flavorful than I was expecting. If I were a vegetarian I feel that this could be a great regular thing to make if you also regularly roasted cauliflower. I however, know the joy that is meat in an omelette. This won't be making it into my normal rotation of breakfasts but it was good. I just like meat with my eggs too much. 

It was a heavy omelette and broke when I tried to flip it :(

Now for lunch I had a weird combo. Chickpeas, blueberries, leftover roasted fennel root, quinoa, and mint leaves all doused in lime juice. Weird, right? Well it tasted weird too. The fennel wasn't nearly as good the second day and I'm not too big of a fan of blueberries unless they're cooked in something. I tried throwing it in the microwave for a bit and that helped a little but I only ate about half. Thank goodness the snack today was carrots and hummus again! (also thank goodness for the half tube of thin mints I discovered in my desk when I went to get gum)

It even looks weird

Tonight's dinner I was pretty excited for. Sounds normal and completely reasonable, not at all like super "clean" diet food. It was oven roasted (everything in this challenge is roasted apparently) salmon on a bed of steamed green beans and lentil quinoa. Totally normal food, finally! 

Roasted with lemon on top, I added it for the picture because it was just so gosh darned pretty

Well I think I got not-so-good salmon because it wasn't very good. Which was a bummer. But I was able to fill up on green beans and quinoa so not all was lost. I only ate half of the salmon that I cooked today. I threw the other half back in the oven to cook a little longer as the oven cooled down to hopefully make it less weird. We will find out how that worked tomorrow. 

Snack tonight is raw blueberries and almonds. Yeah, I'm not having that. I don't know what my snack will be. Maybe Oreos, maybe that pear I was supposed to have the first day, maybe no snack if I don't feel like getting off the couch.

GOTTA GO TIME FOR GREYS!!!!!

Day 4 and Doing Better

Before I get started on Day 4, a review of my homemade hot chocolate from last night's snack.

Unfortunately this is the first item where I really didn't manage to make it look nearly as appealing as the BuzzFeed people did.

A little grittier looking than what they had made.

I thought about throwing it in the blender to try and smooth things out but I didn't want to clean another dish. I whisked the crap out of this mixture and this is as good as it was going to get. It's just a cup of unsweetened almond milk and a half ounce of dark chocolate, shaved and melted in the milk. As you could probably guess it was lacking the traditional sweetness of normal people's hot chocolate. But it wasn't too bad and i drank nearly the whole thing. It got to room temperature and weird by the bottom of the cup, so that's why I didn't finish.


Without further delay...here we are folks, Day 4. What I am calling Spinach Day

This morning I was in a bit of a pickle. That omelette looks really tasty, but today is actually bagel day. Every 2nd Tuesday of the month my office gets a bazillion bagels for the employees. I look forward to every 2nd Tuesday of the month like a kid waits for Christmas. This challenge is supposed to be gluten free. Bagels are like rings of gluten. See the pickle?

I decided to take a gander at what breakfasts lay ahead of me in the coming days and decided that I would most likely not enjoy the chia seed pudding they expect me to consume on Friday. I am still going to make it and try it but if it is gross, I'll just make my scallion and feta omelette instead. It's a win-win, I get to have my bagel today and still try all the meals out. 

So this ended up being breakfast: 

Chocolate chip bagel with plain (non-fat whipped) cream cheese. I'm salivating again. 

'Twas delicious and I am very happy I decided not to give up the delicacy that is bagel day. 

Moving onto lunch, it became spinach day. Lunch today was a salad of spinach, quinoa (substituted for the mental lentils), feta, red pepper, and seedless cucumber with the lime vinaigrette dressing leftover from Monday's dinner. So I don't know whether or not seedless cucumbers are a real thing but I couldn't find any in a normal grocery store. So instead of using a seedless cucumber I took seeds out of a normal cucumber. I don't believe I'm just being dumb here because on the grocery list it specified to buy a seedless cucumber, not just to scoop out the seeds like I did. Why would you even buy a seedless cucumber? Like, really, you can't handle eating the seeds of a cucumber? It's not like they're watermelon seeds. 

People who know my eating habits quite well may be thinking at this point, "Hanna, there was a red pepper in that list of ingredients. Are you trying to tell me you actually consumed your most hated of foods?". Yes, yes I am. And it wasn't too bad. I only included half the red pepper it called for and that was plenty for me. I ate each piece of pepper with a piece of cucumber and feta in hopes of watering down or covering up the flavor and it worked! I ate the whole salad, nothing was left and it was mighty tasty. 

I'm still anti-pepper as I can taste it when it has been cooked with something but my eating technique for this salad payed off and I was able to down all of it. I'm so proud of me :)

Snack this afternoon was a chia seed, banana, mango smoothie. It was just those three things with the unsweetened almond milk and a splash of vanilla extract and smoothied together. 

I couldn't detect the chia seed texture at all so it was just a mango banana smoothie and if you don't enjoy that then you don't enjoy life. Again, I finished the whole thing! And it kept well considering it had to be blended at my apartment this morning then just chilled in the fridge at work all day. Score one for the smoothie team!

Next comes dinner. That's how the day usually works anyways. Continuing with spinach day I had another spinach salad except this time with just reheated leftover chicken and roasted fennel root. Now I had no idea what roasted fennel root was going to be like and I have to say I was very pleasantly surprised. Unfortunately, my picture isn't quite as nice as what the summation picture shows. My spinach didn't really wilt or cook and the juices from the roasted fennel didn't cover everything like the picture shows. Overall it was kinda dry but I am a new member of the roasted fennel root fan club. 

I ended up having to ration out the fennel root so I could have some moisture with the spinach and chicken. Like I said, it was dry and could have used some sort of dressing. But I ate all of it because the fennel was really really good. 

Then immediately after I finished cleaning up I got a hankering for a donut. There is a Krispy Kreme dangerously close to my apartment and I have been known to go out just for a donut. But I am resisting! Instead I'm having some hershey kisses. 

The snack tonight is two dates and two almonds. How the heck is that a snack. And two almonds? Why even bother. So im probably just going to continue with the chocolate. 

Tomorrow's food looks to be interesting to say the least....blueberry, chickpea, and fennel salad for lunch soooooo there's that. Wish me luck!