Yesterday wasn’t too bad for a Tuesday. When my alarm went off at 6:02am, I negotiated with myself for a good fifteen minutes about going to my first class. I have never skipped a class, and got about 5 hours of sleep the night before. I was really tempted to play hookey, but of course I talked myself into getting up, turning on the coffee pot and jumping in the shower. There’s no turning back after that!

Rather than a lecture, a digital marketing professional who recently launched her own digital marketing consulting agency gave a guest speaker presentation. Right away, she encouraged us to “tweet” anything we found interesting from her presentation. (I had to join the Twitter-verse a couple months ago for my digital marketing class.) At the end of the presentation, she selected 2 “tweets” to win a Starbuck’s giftcard. Who won? Moi. Moral of the story: when you resist temptation to skip your 8am, you will be rewarded. ;)

That gift card was burning a hole in my pocket for all of 4 hours so I naturally stopped in for a pick-me-up before my last class of the day. I used the caffeine in my iced americano to fuel a 7 mile run on the treadmill. New music actually made it fly by, and I’m loving that it is still light outside at 7:00pm. :) Makes me stall going back to my apartment for the evening.

Anyways, I’m bringing up the Pineapple Boats again because they were worth sharing the recipe. With one little side note:

Kerri came up with the Pineapple Quinoa Stir Fry idea. As far as a recipe, we pretty much just “winged” it. I’m such a goof ball and the whole time we were making “Stir Fry” I was thinking “Fried Rice.” So I added a few eggs and cut up the vegetables very tiny. I didn’t realize until three days later, typing this post that “Stir Fry” and “Fried Rice” are not the same thing. (Insert monkey-with-hands-on-eyes emoji here). Regardless, the stir fry/fried rice hybrid was delicious and so I will just refer to it as “fried quinoa” from now on.

Pineapple Boats with Fried Quinoa Recipe:

Serves 2

• One very ripe pineapple, cut in half length-wise (with leaves still on if you’re up for it)
• 1 cup uncooked quinoa
• 1/2 red bell pepper, diced
• 1/2 orange bell pepper, diced
• 1 small head of broccoli, diced
• 1/3 purple onion, diced
• 1 clove of garlic, minced
• 1/2 ripe mango, diced
• 1 whole egg + 5 egg whites
• seasonings of choice

1. Bring 2 cups of water to a boil, add quinoa and cook like normal.

2. Cut out the “meat” of the pineapple halves; discard the hard center and keep the remaining juicy pineapple to add to your fried quinoa.

3. In a large skillet, saute the bell peppers, broccoli, onion, garlic, and mango.

4. Add in eggs and egg whites once vegetables are softened; after eggs are cooked through, add the quinoa to the egg and veggie mixture.

5. Fill the hollowed pineapple halves with the quinoa-veggie mixture and top with remaining pineapple pieces. We had avocado on the side.

Nothing compliments this tropical plate like a good ole’ ponderosa pine tree in the background…

Today I have my last major exam for my senior capstone course, and once that’s over I hope to repeat yesterday’s long-ish run. Guess who made it into the workout playlist rotation this week…?

REBA! Gosh, does this woman ever age!?! I love how happy she always looks :)

Happy Tax Day, friends. Catch ya here tomorrow :)