Breakfast Burritos, Snakes & Ladders

I'm a big breakfast person and can eat breakfast foods at just about any meal. Over the winter break we were out running errands one morning and stopped at a local burrito place. We got warm, foil-wrapped burritos with beans, eggs, cheese, potato, salsa, some onions and jalapeños for good measure. The combination of ingredients was hearty and kept me full for hours.

Since then, I've been making breakfast burritos on the regular, and always for dinner, somehow. Trader Joe's sells something called soyrizo, a spiced vegan chorizo substitute. It is flavorful enough to be the main flavor in the burrito. No other spices are needed and it is just about assembly, making this a good busy-night meal. If you have a few boiled potatoes and some beans (cooked ahead, or canned) on hand, it comes together very quickly. 

Breakfast burritos

• Burrito filling (any combination or all of these)
• Soyrizo, sautéed with chopped boiled potatoes
• Scrambled eggs
• Pinto or black beans, cooked 
• Assembly
• Burrito-sized tortillas, microwaved for a few seconds to make them pliable
• Top with fillings (see above)
• Optional- avocado, cheese, green onions, cabbage slaw, salsa
• Roll tightly and warm up the assembled tortilla by microwaving or heating on a pan

It is such a substantial meal. When we pick up our daughter after a long day of school immediately followed by dance class, I love bringing her this burrito wrapped in some foil. She can eat it in the car and it is much more filling and nutritious than typical snacks we would pack for the car ride. 

On the subject of breakfast, here are some pics (taken over Nov-Dec) of what my daughter has been eating for breakfast before school. Avocado toast is a favorite. 

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This week, I read a novel called Floating Hotel by Grace Curtis. Set aboard a luxury spaceship that moves across the galaxy (a la cruise ships on this planet), it meets two prompts for the POPsugar reading challenge 2025 #3: A book about space tourism and #27: A book set at a luxury resort. It was a pretty enjoyable and quick read even if the plot lost me in a couple of places. 

The author weaves in stories of each of the characters that make up the crew of this once grand, now fraying hotel spaceship. There is a spy story and a mystery. At its core, this book is a tribute to the service industry and all the people who work on their feet. Do I recommend this book? Not as much as I recommend another space romp, Becky Chambers' Wayfarers books. But it is always fun to pick up something different from my usual tastes. 

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Today's moment of fitness is all about ups and downs, a reminder that as we embark on a fitness program or start exercising in some form, it is never a linear journey. I imagine it to be a game of snakes and ladders (or chutes and ladders as it is often called in the US.) where we walk on the game board as we go through our days and weeks and months. And every so often, we'll land on a square that is a snake and it sends our fitness on a downward trajectory- common ones that most people will encounter are injury, illness, a family emergency, travel, caregiving. Some are short snakes, a temporary disruption, while others are long and can set us back significantly. 

Also, happily, sometimes we encounter ladders that boost our fitness in some way- maybe we find an exercise buddy, or move to a place with better access to a fitness facility, or we rediscover a childhood passion for dance. Just gaining knowledge and competency can lead to a big progression. 

The thing to remember is that we keep playing the game, keep on keeping on. Expect the ups and downs and don't be rattled by them. Just get back to it when you can. There's no destination, only a journey that can turn out to be quite interesting if you roll the dice and keep playing. 

This is what I told myself recently. I had a cold in the first week of January, and while I felt sick only for two or three days, the congestion lasted for a couple of weeks.When I went on my first 4 mile run in a couple of weeks, I was dismayingly slow and had to take many more walking breaks than usual. But that's just life. I remind myself to focus on process (getting out and putting one foot in front of the other) and not product (how fast, how far) and take each day as it comes.