One Bad Apple

When you are a blogger who shares the ins and outs of your life, you have to be prepared for both the positive, supportive responses and also the negative, demeaning ones. You learn to take one with the other and grow thick skin. For me, the fact that I have a blog being paired with the fact that Brian is a professional athlete only adds further judgement.

I’m a sports fan so I understand getting fed up with losing seasons (I went through over a decade of them being an Orioles fan!) and with wanting to blame the easiest target or the worst performing player but some people truly are ruthless.

Since we have been here in Korea, a multitude of Eagles fans have come across my blog and for all of the positive feedback there has been the fair share of awful, criticizing feedback as well.  I’ve done my best to respond in the most mature manner possible, ignore some of the rude, childish my-baseball-team-is-losing-because-of-Brian and ignorant comments but they definitely have affected my time here in Korea.

Like take this mornings charmer of a comment….

From…

At first I planned to delete the comment and move past it like the majority of the other unnecessarily rude ones but that wouldn’t make me 100% honest about my overall time and experience here and I’m not one to just sugar-coat the truth, smile and nod and pretend life is one big bowl of cherries.  That being said, I wanted to share the bread-winning comment so that this lovely human being got the credit they are so badly yearning for and so that others could see the intended hurtful words being slung at us.

I know not everyone has these feelings or the audacity to actually comment on a public blog citing them and we definitely have felt the support from many other Eagles fans, employees and team members however, I cannot lie and say that waking up to this comment today hasn’t made me wish that our last days here in Daejeon go by in a hurry.

You know what they say…

….one bad apple can ruin a bunch

Too Much Card Playing

I think a cut on your elbow from having it propped on the table while holding up your hand of cards for game after game of Rummy 500 is a sign that you should really get out of the apartment more often.

Our days here in Korea are definitely getting longer and longer with each one. With Brian being in the minor leagues right now, he has practice every morning with the other guys who are not playing in that day’s game. However, once practice is over, those guys don’t travel to the game.

It’s a positive because we get to spend our afternoons and evenings together but it’s also a negative because we’ve got a lot of spare time on our hands. And with being in a foreign country, there is no running errands to Target (which could consume an entire afternoon for me) or grabbing lunch or fro yo with a friend. It’s just me and him and pretty much our apartment.

We have been getting out and seeing a lot of different things in the area but we can’t travel too far with just our afternoon and evening and once you’ve done some things once, you’ve done them enough.

Our evening walks are nice to get us out of the apartment and our games of cards pass the time quite quickly but I’m beginning to think the movie The Shining wasn’t really all that far off base…Cabin Fever, my friends! 😉

Workout

I got out of the apartment this morning for an easy 3 mile run in the surrounding neighborhood. I did change my route up today for a change of scenery which was a bonus.

When I got back to the apartment, I did 16 minutes of Jackie Warner’s no crunch abs workout.

Breakfast

For my (late) breakfast, I just mixed together oats, strained yogurt and protein powder and let them sit in the fridge for about 10 minutes before eating.

Instant overnight oats! 🙂

I love how thick the mixture of oats and yogurt gets when you give them time to really set together.

Question:

What is your favorite way to pass the time when options are limited?

Crock Pot to Oven

The other day Brian and I were talking about pulled BBQ chicken and how we both could really go for a big sandwich filled with tender, flavorful shreds of chicken. Enter last night’s dinner.

The craving got the best of me yesterday and so I quickly devised a substitute for the usual crockpot BBQ chicken I would make at home. I marinated two chicken breasts in BBQ sauce for a few hours and then baked them for 45 minutes until just tender enough to shred.

After shredding the breasts, I tossed them in a bowl with another hearty pour of BBQ sauce and stirred to coat the chicken.

The outcome was deliciously tender pulled BBQ chicken that we quickly loaded up onto buns and enjoyed with corn and Old Bay french fries. I’m a huge crockpot lover because of the simplicity of the set and go method, however, substituting the oven last night worked just as well and really took the same small amount of effort. Win-Win, baby!

Workout

This morning I didn’t feel like heading outside for a run but wanted to get my body warmed up before getting into my strength training workout on the day. I considered the idea of making up a quick cardio circuit to get me going but then remembered my good pal, Jillian, and the cardio workouts from Body Revolution. How could I have forgotten about her so quickly?!

I completed Cardio 3 and then hopped right into this Hamstrings, Biceps and Back workout from earlier in the week.

Breakfast

After my workout, I used the lasts of our millet to make another yogurt bowl.

Millet, strained yogurt, frozen banana slices and peanut butter.

I won’t lie, for being unsure of the millet to start, I grew to really like the versatility of that little grain and I’m sad we finished the bag off!

Question:

Do you prefer the crockpot to the stove or oven for cooking?

Who Would Have Thought

Brian is the starter for the minor league game today which meant he had to be out the door by 7:30 a.m. to catch his taxi to the field to catch the bus to Cheongju for the game. An early departure time meant an early alarm so that he could eat breakfast, we could get his pregame meal prepped and he could get out the door on time.

I had absolutely no desire to get out of bed and put together the Avocado Chicken Salad for his burrito bowl, not to mention put on my workout clothes for my own exercise for the day but…duty called!

Workout

As soon as he was out the door, I was right behind him heading out for a run. My last few runs have been 3 miles or less so today I was aiming for 4.

I rounded out 4.13 miles in 33:33. I think that’s a good luck sign for the day…all 3’s right?!

After my run, I did the same shoulders, triceps, chest and quads workout that I completed on Monday. Feel. The. Burn.

Breakfast

Once it was time for me to finally settle in for breakfast, I tossed a couple of ingredients into a bowl and ended up with an awesome breakfast.

The last of the second batch of strained yogurt, a half scoop of chocolate protein powder, leftover millet and raisins.

I mixed everything but the raisins together and then sprinkled them on top for presentation purposes.  You know you are a food blogger when…

Who would have thought millet and yogurt would pair so nicely together?!

The grains gave the yogurt a chewy texture and the chocolate protein powder gave just the right hint of chocolate flavoring. This actually almost tasted like a chocolate pudding dessert!

Along with my eats, I had a Bombshell Spell. Doesn’t the color of this drink and the ice cubes that look like flower petals forming a little bloom just make you happy? 🙂

Question:

Millet and yogurt…yes or no? I like oats with yogurt so why not another grain?!