So I know I said Monday was the fun day around my office, but things just keep getting better and better 😀 I’ll get to some of the meals I’ve been making myself eventually, but I need to give the job credit for Tuesday and Wednesday first!

Tuesday began with six (one was hiding … in my mouth) more pieces of Goofy taffy from Jessica’s trip to Disney:

And an orange left from Monday’s meeting:

Tuesday is one of my crazy long class days, so I always pack lunch and dinner since I usually don’t get home until at least 10pm. But, the horror, I forgot to pack myself a dinner on Tuesday! Sound the alarm!

I needn’t have worried though. After snacking on a few kettle chips (umm, I thought I didn’t like potato chips?) with the ladies during lunch …

… and a few cherries that I found abandoned in the fridge (I don’t know who they belonged to, but they had been there since last week and were starting to wrinkle and NEEDED immediate rescue):

… Rosalie offered me her remaining chorizo taco, and Belkis gave me half of the salad that Mildred had donated to her! I threw in the carrots, CSA broccoli, and yogurt-mango chutney I’d brought as a snack and, voila, insta-dinner!

Taco con queso blanco:

Ensalada:

Of course, dinner is not complete without dessert. Lillian had given me the other half of her banana that morning.

I mashed it:

And added 1/4 of a banana walnut muffin and 1/2 mini cinnamon bun, both from Monday’s meeting:

Deconstructed (or constructed, depending on how you look at things):

And topped with office peanut butter and almonds:

Yessssssss, it was that good.

It turned out to be a good thing that I had not packed a dinner! Along with a peach and half of Emily’s package of m&ms in class — it’s a three-hour-class, and I have to get through it somehow! — my tum was satisfied 😀

Wednesday started out similarly with the last orange from Monday’s meeting:

Just before lunch, I went downstairs to speak with one of the therapists about arranging an evaluation. Nitza saw me sitting there waiting and called over, Sarah, my dear, listen! There’s a Fairway bag with smoked salmon and cream cheese and yogurt in the fridge down here. Please take it upstairs because I’m going on vacation and it’s going to go bad. Yes, ma’am! I brought it all upstairs and announced that it was in the fridge and available for everyone … but that I’d be taking anything left home at the end of the day to ensure proper management (no spoiling allowed!).

After my packed lunch, I had a few Mike & Ike’s from Rosalie:

I thought that was the end of the food story for the day. I don’t know why I thought that. I’ve been working here for ten months (ten months???), and that has never been the end of the food story …

But anyway, I had four moms with disconnected phones and decided to hit the streets around 2pm in search of them. I located everyone (yay!), got some updated contact info, took care of business, and was back in the office by 3:30 … only to find a plethora of baked goods strewn around my desk and the conference room table. I wondered aloud, What happened here? Jessica replied, I think it’s all from Advocacy. I think there’s more down there. Uh oh.

First, I helped myself to a sliver (x2) of apple pie:

As I rounded the corner to fill up my water bottle, Maria called after me, Sarita, did you get some food?? Clearly, there was more work to be done.

I headed down to the food pantry in Advocacy and loaded up. And that is how I came to arrive home with all of this:

(You may notice that the zucchini muffin — top center — is missing its lid. The zucchini muffin lid was a casualty of my stressful commute home. I left work 45 minutes early so that I could make it to my first dentist appointment in two years, which I scheduled as soon as my insurance became active, because I was pretty sure that I had been missing a filling for several months and was very worried it was going to become a root canal situation. Unfortunately, somebody pulled the emergency brake on the train in front of mine, causing my train to stop between stations for a prolonged period before finally being taken out of service … at which point I had to walk across town to get a different train. And then I had to inhale half of a zucchini muffin as soon as I successfully boarded said train. All of this subway drama meant that I was 20 minutes late for my 5:30 appointment at a dental office that closed at 6. I was sure the dentist would refuse to see me, but he did not! So now my teeth are cleaned and polished, my cavity is refilled, and I am out $200. Ummm, why did I wait until I had insurance to go to the dentist? I thought insurance was supposed to make you pay less?!)

Anyway, topless zucchini muffin aside, my loot included 3 Fage 2%, a giant “cowboy cookie” (it seems peanut buttery), 6 slices of frosted angel food cake, a zucchini muffin, a berry muffin, a maple buttercream-frosted yellow cupcake and a vanilla buttercream-frosted chocolate cupcake, Jessica’s leftover salad from lunch, snap peas, two mangoes, 5 bananas, a turkey wrap/barley salad/bean salad lunch combo, a mini meatloaf, and $17 worth of smoked salmon! Oh, and did I mention frosting?

And you’ll just have to tune in later to see how all of this went to use 😛

Do you ever arrive home at the end of the day (or at the end of a trip) with more than you brought in the beginning?