fail pumpkin oats.

hey guys!!
it's been crazyy busy around here as usual... everything is getting a little insane to be honest! 
calculus is killing me. college essays are killing me. reading millions of chapters of gov is killing me. 

it's good i have blog reading and twitter to keep me sane ;) 

@JuliBanannaJulianna

twitter is where we post stuff thats too annoying for fb.... hahaha@Dogisfrank

21 minutes ago via webFavorite Reply Delete

I used to think twitter was stupid...before i even bothered to check it out! now i'm pretty sure it's one of my favorite things ever! :)

in other news, i made pumpkin oats this week. the verdict? yucckk!! i don't know if i'm doing it wrong but this was pretty darn gross and i ended up throwing it out. 

i tried topping it with some pb, brown sugar, and cream cheese to make them better, and it didn't work. all the blogs i read make pumpkin oats sound delicious and somehow i really didn't like these! shocker, i know. 

if you have any fantastic pumpkin oatmeal recipe/ preparation please lemme know!! 

i ended up eating some greek yogurt, berries, and panda puffs instead. can't go wrong there :)

although i'm hating this semester in school i'm loving the fall season! hello, candy corn sugar high. 

and before i go - i got 16th place out of all women in the race i ran last weekend!!! woop woop! my time wasn't that great for me but getting a shirt that says top 50 on it was pretty sawweet 

i think that's all for now bloggyboos! this week is homecoming week for my school and i'm pretty pumped. the football game is always the best, and my school does a parade too which is fun to watch. and i'm stoked for the dance, of course! i'm going with my friend and it's gonna be awesome. stay tuned for pics! :)

tell me your best pumpkin oats recipe!!!!!! 

have you ever gotten a shirt for winning a race?

Homecoming Dress!!

After searching for quite a few days I found a homecoming dress today! When I saw it on the rack originally I wasn't a huge fan but once I put it on I fell in love. I also got a pair of shoes that match perfectly... and both the shoes and dress were on sale :) I love a good bargain!

these pics were taken when I got home to show my fam! :)

I also ran a local 5K today to support education - I got 120th out of 1320 racers and I got 8th out of 89 in my age group! I wasn't racing too hard because we have a cross country meet on wednesday but I was still excited to see the results. 

after the race!

The other bonus was that the whole race weekend there has been a 20% off sale at Forward Motion! 

My mom and I went by there this afternoon and I got TWO new pairs of shoes! My old Nikes probably had way too many miles on them - I've had them since last May. I think they were also too much on the stability side because I repeatedly was getting blisters.  The salesman suggested a pair that were closer to neutral and I loved them - they're Nike LunarGlide+ 3s. 

I also snagged a pair of Nike Frees for less than $50!! i was stoked and i'm so excited to wear them around.   They are pretty much the comfiest shoes everr!

This weekend has pretty much been filled with dress-searching, studying, homework, college apps, and work. But I did get a chance to enjoy the nice fall weather outside for a little bit this afternoon. 

with mah girlie ginnie :)

such a gorgeous day.

 we also got to bust out the Halloween decorations this weekend!

What is your favorite season? Mine is fall, of course. There are so many reasons!! (hello, candy corn!!!!!!)


Favorite dress you've ever worn?

GF Eats!

If you didn't catch my post yesterday - please go check it out! I'd love to hear what you guys have to say.

Anyway, I wanted to do a post on my most recent gluten-free eats. At first I thought it would be really challenging to find things to eat while not feeling like I was missing out on the good stuff. But it's really been fairly easy for me to make the transition.

The key is to focus on what you can eat, not what you can't! I just have adjusted and substituted GF foods for something that I would normally eat. I made a trip to Whole Foods over the weekend to get some gluten free foods and I was in heaven.

I do want to say that you don't need to go out and buy a bunch of gluten free 'substitute foods' because they can get pretty expensive if the foods aren't on sale. I went for almost a week without buying anything that I wouldn't usually buy and was fine! Here's a list of a some staples that I was eating last week:

• veggies + fruits (I know, a no brainer. But I have been eating a lot more lately!), more specifically raspberries (high in fiber), strawbs, bananas, and broccoli

• rice cakes + nut butter or cheese

• rice stir frys with chicken and veggies
• popchips <-freakin amazing!
• veggie omelets

beans, mushrooms, cheese, turkey, rice, and salsa omelet

• rice krispies with almond milk
• corn chips + salsa and guac
• hugh jass salads with veggies, chicken, beans

recycled but similar photo!

• fruit + nut butter
• greek yogurt + berries
• almonds, cashews, pistachios
• ice cream and froyo <- these are definitely staples in my diet. no question about it!

ice cream with GF cereal and chocolate chips

As you can see the list goes on and on! 

But, I was missing a few bread-like things so going to Whole Foods this weekend pretty much put me in foodie heaven.

Take one: tortillas. Those of you who come by often know that peanut butter smeared on tortillas is pretty much my favorite food ever. So finding gluten free tortillas was very high on my list! These were fairly chewy but I actually liked that about them and the taste was great.

Pasta. This pasta has two ingredients: corn flour and quinoa flour. I didn't even notice a taste difference between this and normal pasta!

with broccoli, a chicken burger, and cheddar

with marinara and chicken burger

Pizza. This pizza crust is amazeballs, to put it simply. I loved it fresh out of the oven and the next day the cold leftovers were just as delicious.

Bars. I wanted to have a few on hand because there are a lot of times I need a snack in a hurry. I like the regular NuGo bars so hopefully these will be just as delicious!

Crackers. These are amazing dipped in peanut butter or served with sharp cheddar. Perfectly crunchy and crispy.

And last but certainly not least, cereal! I absolutely love Panda Puffs and ate them even before I started avoiding gluten. Peanut butter lovers' heaven!

I also want to add that all of these 'special' gluten free things were not as expensive as it might seem. You just have to look for the good deals! Plus, my regular old whole wheat tortillas cost just as much as the rice ones, the cereal was only $2.50, rice cakes are cheap in general, and the bars were only a little higher priced than usual. I came out of Whole Foods only having spent $20 and that is a usual priced trip for there (we don't do our main grocery shopping there, just the specialties!)

One last bit of cuteness before I go... Lexy was sleeping on my lap while I was eating breakfast this morning :)

What products or foods have you been loving on lately?