Daily Eats + How I Enjoyed a Sunday Alone
March 5, 2018
Good-morning!
I’m here with a daily eats post from yesterday, Sunday. It was such a good day. Both Saturday and Sunday this week were solo-hangout days and I’d love to share with you guys what a solo day looks like for me.
I know there are many of you who would like to enjoy solo time more, without feeling antsy, so I’ll do my best to share that through this post – I’ll be super specific about my day so you can get a good idea of what I do.
Remember to take away whatever stands out to you and leave the rest behind (not everything I do has to work for you). If you have questions, ask in the comments! I am happy to answer them for you.
Before we dive in, I want to remind us that my daily eats posts are not for comparison. Rather, they’re here to provide you with inspiration for food ideas and to give YOU the freedom and permission to listen to YOUR BODY as I listen to mine, apart from food rules or dieting.
Thank you so much for being here and I hope you enjoy!
Sunday
Wake-up
The morning started off with a 7:00 AM wakeup, which is sleeping in for me. I woke up slowly, made the bed, put on workout clothes and walked to get myself a coffee.
This week, I’ve been loving walking to a coffee shop (only half a mile away) for my morning coffee. It gets me outside first thing. I keep my phone away, notice my surroundings, the blue sky, birds, etc. It’s so filling for my heart.
I got a large black coffee from Scout and sat outside for 15 minutes or so before walking home. Just me and my coffee – no distractions. It was lovely and peaceful (I did the same thing today, to start my workday).
When I got home I watered my plants and swept my front porch, with coffee in hand. There’s something calming to me about being outside, watering my plants.
After that, I walked in the house and opened up all of the windows. I love a bright house! With the windows open, I turned on some worship music and started making breakfast.
Breakfast
I was pretty bored with my meals from last week when I wasn’t feeling good, so this week I really tried to change things up to make eating at home fun.
I got these half baked rolls (in the photo above) from Trader Joe’s. They’re so good! For most of the week I used them to make loaded turkey sandwiches (which were so good!) but yesterday I changed things up and made myself a breakfast sandwich: two eggs, two pieces of chicken sausage, a little bit of shredded pepper jack, tomato, and lettuce (I love crispy lettuce on breakfast sandwiches).
After breakfast I puttered around the house a bit. When I spend time alone, my main objective is to not feel rushed or distracted. Time that feels distracted, to me, usually looks like spending too long scrolling Instagram and feeling “bored.” This is not fulfilling for me.
There’s nothing huge that I do on days alone, rather I just make choices that feel good as the day goes on. Yesterday, I felt like decluttering and collecting things that could be donated. I spent a little bit of time with music on, coffee in hand, going through some things in my house. I made a little donate pile and that felt great. LESS in my home always feels like more.
Once I’d done that I hopped in the car and drove to Target. A solo day with nowhere to be means Target = the best thing ever. Don’t you love walking through Target when you don’t have to rush? It’s glorious! Target, thank you for being a sanctuary on non-rush days!
Lunch
When I got home I made myself lunch which was a gigantic salad with the last of some chicken that I’d made in the CrockPot last week. I used a whole bag of the Southwestern Salad kit (I think this is what it’s called?) from Trader Joe’s and added chicken, avocado and tomato. SO good! I love big salads!
After lunch, I cleaned up the kitchen and did a workout at home. I debated going to the gym but it didn’t sound good. I grabbed a chair and did squats, chair dips and pushups. I did some ab work on the floor and stretched out. It was quick and felt great!
Once I finished my workout I logged onto my Audible account to download some new books! I have the membership that gives you two credits per month (aka, two books). I haven’t listened to an audio book for a couple of months so my credits were really piling up. I had 8 credits (aka, 8 books!) to use.
I downloaded 8 books and put my membership on pause (which you can do just once per year, for up to 3 months). Now I feel motivated and excited to listen to my books within 3 months, by the time my account starts running again!
The first book I’m listening to is “Settle for More” by Megyn Kelly. I have no idea what it’s about but the title really intrigued me! So far, she’s sharing about her life story. Do you use audible? Have you read this book?
Other books I downloaded:
- The Hate U Give
- Cherish
- Girl Wash Your Face
- The Year of Less
- Year of YES
- Women Food and God
- Emotional Agility
- The Power of Habit
- and another one whose title I am embarrassed to write… it’s called “Un-f*ck Yourself” (notice my shy side coming out?). Anyway, the actual book says it’s about “recognizing the miracle that you are” so… that’s more my style! Haha!
Now that I write these, I see that I actually downloaded 10! Audible (this is not an ad by the way I just really like Audible – haha!) let’s you return any book you don’t enjoy, no questions asked. So I had returned two that were boring the heck out of me. So I guess I downloaded 10, not 8!
Snack
Okay, let’s get to the snack above! I finally tried smoked/raw salmon. I’d always wanted to, but was always freaked out that I wouldn’t like it. Turns out, it’s good!
I was looking for a snack that would give me good focus on days where I need to keep my energy high but don’t want to ruin my dinner appetite. So I tried this one: GG crackers, salmon, cream cheese, tomato, olive tapenade and avocado.
Quick sidenote: Lauryn, from The Skinny Confidential always talks about GG crackers and posts about them going well with salmon. This intruigued me since I don’t always want a bagel and lox, which is the traditional way to eat this, right? I know Lauryn personally and absolutely adore her. If you haven’t read this post from her, read it. In it, she opens up about losing her mom at a young age. Lauryn has been extremely supportive of me since I lost my own mama. I have so much respect for her – the way she uses her story to fuel her and support other women – like me – is inspiring.
Let me tell you about the crackers… Lauryn talks about them being a “vehicle” for the food you put on top and that’s exactly what they are. They are SUPER bland, like cardboard. The reason I chose them is because they’re HIGH in fiber and I knew they’d help to carry me over when I need that most – mid-day.
To eat them alone would not taste good. But if you add really tasty toppings, they’re doable. I’m going to finish off this pack that I bought and then continue to experiment to see if I can find a cracker that I really love, that tastes a little better (ha!).
These are just OKAY, but do the trick if I can’t find anything else. Have you tried them? Do you have a cracker that you really love? (I want to find a cracker that’s big like these – one that can fit lots of toppings. The size of the GG cracker is perfect!)
After my snack I turned on my first audiobook. I went for a walk, journaled a bit and took a nice, long, hot shower. You see? Most of my day really is just puttering around, not rushing. It’s my favorite… it fills me up.
I love listening to a good audiobook. I love hearing about someone else’s life and not thinking about my own for a couple of hours. There’s something rejuvenating and relaxing about that. Anyone know what I mean here?
To end my solo-day (Marco got home from work at 6:00 PM) I changed into PJ’s, put dinner in the oven, poured a glass of wine and sat down on the couch with a fuzzy blanket and my audio book, with the window open. I listened to my book, watched people walk by and just relaxed. This is my IDEAL day alone.
I’ll try and wrap up what I did with my alone time here so you can see how truly simple the things I chose to do were:
- took a walk without distractions
- got coffee out of the house
- watered my plants
- journaled
- organized with music on
- shopped without rushing
- worked out
- took a long, hot shower
- listened to an audiobook
- cooked
- sat and relaxed with a glass of wine
Pretty simple right? There’s a lot you can do with a day alone!
Dinner
Dinner was pesto/butter salmon with caesar salad and roasted broccoli. So good! I could eat this salmon for literally every meal. I love it so much. It’s from Costco. Have you tried it?
To wrap up!
Okay now I want to hear from you! Do you enjoy alone time, or do you get antsy? If you DO enjoy alone time, what do you enjoy doing with your alone time? Share with me in the comments!
In other news, I just posted a brand new testimonial on the client stories page, so if you’ve been thinking about working together one on one, make sure you check it out! If you resonate with these stories and how I work with my clients (see here), I’d love to schedule you for a Discovery Session – fill out the form on this page and I’ll email you a link!
Thank you for being here! Make sure to leave a comment before you go!