A week ago my nephew graduated high school. HIGH SCHOOL. Screw quarter life crisis, more like quarter life meltdown at this point! I was not able to attend due to each graduate getting a limited number of tickets but was definitely there in spirit as my teacher and father were sending me pictures of the days events. The week before that, my niece graduated from preschool. The reasons we’ve learned that these two amazing kids are related to me is:

1. They’re awesome.
2. Zoe’s plans were the following: “Zoe is going to kindergarten. And she wants to do EVERYTHING!”

Yup, sounds like moi. I’ve actually been struggling a little bit because I have no idea what I’m going to do anymore. The reason? TOO many things interest me.

Talk about first-world problems.

Seriously though, I always do feel really stupid saying stuff like that, but unfortunately, it’s true. With work contracts coming to a close, I’ve been thinking about my next move in life. The one definite I have is that I’m going to go to grad school. (HOLY CRAP!) I am set to take the GRE’s mid-August and am baffled by why it is so expensive to sit in front of a computer for 4.5 hours to take said test. Regardless, now I have to narrow down the grad school choices. Determining what I wanted to study was another problem. I would love to get into infectious disease research, but I also really enjoy health psychology. But then there is neuro which, I’ve hung around in for the past two years and thus leading to wanting to become a PA in the future…

Maybe that’s why I always wanted to be an actress growing up. That extinguishes the issue because you can be so many different things in such a short amount of time. After all, I always liked getting to be someone else for a while, someone new and different… But the reasoning of why I never divulged into the performing arena is going to take more than just a few paragraphs and will require a lot of alcohol.

What I’ve actually decided on has been Kinesiology with a concentration in Sport Health and Physiology. My goal upon trying to lose weight and get healthy the first time was then to help others the same way my trainer helped me. I often feel really bad that I let myself get back to this place and like I’ve let her down. There were a lot of situations that led to this issue, but again… more paragraphs, more time and more alcohol. I’ve been talking with my current trainer and we were talking about this idea again: becoming a personal trainer/health coach extraordinaire. See, she has been there. She lost a ton of weight, was a figure competitor for a while and now is a fairy-god-sister disguised as a personal trainer. Having done this journey once already and now again, I want to help people who have been in the same predicament and just can’t seem to get ahead of the game. Because this time it’s going to happen.

Anyways, back to the story… since I had the house to myself last Tuesday, I decided to make up the spaghetti squash I had sitting on the table for a week. Spaghetti squash is fantastic, but sometimes takes some getting used to! You’re expecting a mushier texture, like pasta, since that’s what everyone compares it to but it is a little crunchier. I was super lazy so instead of dishing it out of the rinds, I decided to use them as bowls!

The perks of eating it right out of the rind is that you don’t have to worry about extra dishes! I decided it was a good idea when I discovered we obtained more paper plates and I was too lazy to dish out the “noodles” from the squash rinds.

Spaghetti squash is so easy to cook:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cut each squash in half and then clear out the seeds (note: you can keep the seeds and cook them like you would pumpkin seeds!).
3. I like to sprinkle some safflower or olive oil on top and then sprinkle some spices: salt, pepper, sometimes garlic, old bay, or even greek seasoning.
4. Cover in aluminum foil pretty tight and put in for a half hour.
5. After a half hour, check with a fork and see if you can easily peel the squash away in little strips, usually it takes an hour or an hour and a half.
6. If not, put back in for another half hour and check again.

Now here is where the fun part comes in…

Spinach and Crab with Cheese

Mix in a bowl 1/3 cooked crab meat, a sprinkle of old bay seasoning, a handful of shredded baby spinach, about 1/8 cup of cheddar cheese and a little alfredo sauce. After shredding the squash, pour the mixture into the “bowl” and then top with mozzarella cheese.

Chicken Parm

Add a mixture of cooked chicken pieces, tomato sauce (I used tomato and basil), and some sprinkled parmesan cheese to the “bowl” of shredded squash. Top with mozzarella cheese.

I didn’t have any meat left over, so I stuffed the remaining two with just sauces and cheese!

Stick under the broiler for about 5-10 minutes (don’t forget to leave the door open a crack!) but keep an eye on it. It’s done when the top of the cheese is cooked.

DIG IN!

I topped it off with a little extra old bay and DIVULGED. So good you guys!

How do you like your spaghetti squash?!

And don’t forget about the giveaway!