January 2009

We’re expecting my in-laws to arrive today. They’re coming from Ohio, so it’s a pretty long car trip. Jack Frost is already throwing a wrench in our plans; they’re forecasting a big snow storm the day after they get here, so that means we’re probably not going to be able to go to the city and other places like we had planned. Major bummer!! So, we’re probably going to be snowed in for their whole visit. *sigh* But, who knows? Maybe it won’t be so bad and we’ll get to execute some of our plans. *crosses fingers*

I’ve been a busy bee all week and haven’t been eating very much or consistently. My kitchen has been upside down and inside out while I clean and prepare for the them. So, we’ve been eating a lot of quick and simple meals like these:

2 Kashi waffles with Naturally More peanut butter and seedless raspberry Polaner All Fruit, Stonyfield Farm nonfat strawberry yogurt topped with fresh blueberries that weren’t so perky and a crumbled Kashi granola bar and a diet Snapple iced tea

I looooooooooove waffles with PB&J! Sooo yummy! Unfortunately, I discovered the hard way why aspartame is the devil; I’ve had HORRIBLE migraines all week and I believe it is due to my more-than-usual consumption of diet soft drinks. I usually avoid artificial sweeteners, but I started sipping on diet Snapples this past week and I enjoyed the extra flavor for a few calories, but my body greatly dislikes aspartame and I don’t blame it. It certainly doesn’t need it to exist lol. So, I cut back and I stopped getting headaches but I’ll probably still have one now and then. I treat artificial sweeteners like a recreational drug; sort of like a vodka martini or something. Definitely not something you want to drink everyday, but here and there isn’t a big deal.

Whilst cleaning out the freezer I came across some salmon filets that have been in there for awhile. I defrosted one and made a “salmon dog” with a side of sugar snap peas that were also hiding in the freezer:

I put about a teaspoon of butter on the sugar snap peas and about half a TBSP Hellmann’s olive oil mayo and organic sweet relish on the “salmon dog” which I ate on a Martin’s hot dog bun

I pan-fried the salmon in a bit of extra virgin olive oil in a frying pan. It came out really good and only took a few minutes to make. Yum!

My mother was being a naughty girl watching QVC after midnight one night and ended up buying this Sunbeam Rocket Grill. I never heard of it but she came downstairs all excited about it lol. A few days later UPS delivered it:

I haven’t looked at it much, but I looks like it works like a toaster. You put your food in these pouches and then slide it in like a toaster and supposedly it grills the food. *shrugs* We’ll see how it works I guess! hehe

My husband is involuntarily losing weight! So we went to GNC the other night to get him some whey protein powder, which I’ll probably also have in a shake once in awhile. While there I picked up some Lite Muscle Milk that’s only 100 each!

It said no sugar added so I didn’t even check the label until we got home and discovered that it has sucralose (Splenda) ! Way to avoid artificial sweeteners, Jenn! lol I thought it was just unsweetened and I would be able to add Truvia or stevia. Oh well, like I said, a little chemicals here and there are ok. I hope lol.

We’ve been eating at the diner a lot this week. Not exactly healthy but not quite as bad as other fast food places. I’ve been getting poached eggs with a bagel or a sandwich like this:

Turkey club on whole wheat with fries. Once we got it home I modified it, though. I took the bacon and 3rd slice of toast off. The turkey was great!! It was like home cooked turkey, not like you’d get at the deli counter unless it’s store cooked and minimally processed

I ate half of the fries and added some Hellmann’s olive oil mayo. Delish!

I haven’t been sticking to my planned workout routine, but I have been getting in about 40-60 minutes of recumbent bike everyday and hours and hours of walking while shopping. Lots of cardio, but I’m in the club that any activity is good, even if it’s not ideal. So, since I stopped officially counting calories and despite eating out almost every single day for the past week, I’ve managed to lose 13 lbs since the first week of January. YAY! I know once things settle down and get back to normal with my more ideal workouts and when I cook like I usually do, then I’ll do even better. My sodium intake has been really high and even though I lost weight, I still feel puffy. So I probably lost even more than the water weight is masking. Soon it will all balance out, I’m getting there!

It’s been an extremely challenging week but we have been pushing through like troopers. Our new furniture was delivered; it’s beautiful!! We couldn’t get carpets installed in time so we had them professionally cleaned and they actually look brand new. The guy that cleaned them said he does local celebs’ houses, too, like Tommy Hilfiger. That was pretty neat to hear. I’m sure he thought our house was a shack compared to their multi-million dollar homes LOL. Be it ever so humble!

Well, I have a bazillion things to do, so I’m going to get going. I wanted to do an update real quick though because it’s been sooo long and I missed you guys!! *hugs*

Wish me luck…. again!!! I’ll have updates later tonight. Give me an excuse to sneak into the office and spend some quiet time with my computer! *giggles*

{ 6 comments }

I am really sorry that I haven’t done any updates. It would seem that everything that can go wrong, has and our lives are as stressful as they can be right now. On top of our cat, Cleo ruining our furniture and carpets, the plumbing decided to chip in and add to the demise of our house lol. We have a room right up above our office that is unfinished and obviously we don’t use it for anything, so we tend to forget about it. When it was in the negatives, a pipe froze up there and then exploded. Water EVERYWHERE! It dripped down to our office and into the bathroom next door destroying our ceilings, walls, desks, floors and everything that was in the path of the water. We had to call a plumber to make an emergency service call on Saturday night. It was a nightmare. THEN, the next day our landlord in PA calls to inform us that they had a broken pipe in the basement of their building too! Thankfully we weren’t there or planning to go there anytime soon because he said there wouldn’t be any water until the plumber fixed it.

All of this is going on and my in-laws are supposed to be visiting next Monday!! So, on Sunday we were going to go out shopping for new furniture and order carpets, etc., but then Mother Nature had her poke at us and dropped about a foot of snow LOL.

Me in our driveway:

Our neighbor usually plows for us but I guess he wasn’t home yet, so hubby and I shoveled so we could get out, which was a total waste of time anyway because once we got on the road, the roads were HORRIBLE and we happen to have one of the only Jeeps in creation that doesn’t have 4 wheel drive, it’s rear wheel drive. I kid you not!! Our Mercedes is also rear wheel drive; a double whammy. So, we vowed to go get another car the next day because we couldn’t take it anymore. The Mercedes is almost paid off but it sits in the garage because we don’t drive it and the Jeep is a lease, so we called one of our local car dealers about what we are looking for but they want us to come in to pick it out and our salesman got sick the next day so we’re waiting to hear from him again. So, that’s way up in the air at this time. It would be a miracle getting a car loan with the way things are in the industry right now. Bad timing all the way around.

We didn’t get to go anywhere all weekend, but I did make some good food when I had time. We mainly paced around the house and cleaned the mess. On Saturday I made us all Applegate Farm turkey dogs:

I topped mine with organic sweet relish, chopped red onion, yellow mustard and Heinz no salt added ketchup. The hot dogs are only 40 calories each, but between them and the buns, the sodium was way over 1000mg. Such a shame because with the unsalted pretzels, it only comes to around 450 calories. They’re SO YUMMY! I wish I could eat them more often.

You can’t even tell they are turkey. They taste just like beef!

The next day I made a huge pot of chili with 96/4 lean beef that was so simple and took less than 15 minutes to throw together.

Chili recipe:

• ~ 1 lb lean ground beef (I used 96% lean which is 140 cal per 4oz, you can also use ground turkey or chicken)
• 2 TBSP extra virgin olive oil
• 3 small/medium red onions, sliced
• 1 can Eden no salt added kidney beans
• 2 cans (14.5oz) no salt added diced tomatoes
• 4 cans (8oz) no salt added tomato sauce
• Black pepper, white pepper, chili powder, garlic powder, cumin, garlic salt to taste

1. In bottom of large pot add in EV olive oil and saute (sweat) the onions and brown the beef while crumbling it up
2. Add in tomatoes and sauce along with the spices; stir and let simmer for about 20 minutes
3. Add in beans and more spices if desired, let simmer on low, covered for an additional 30-40 minutes

DEEEEEEELICIOUS!

I topped mine with shredded cheddar cheese (full fat), diced red onion, tomatoes and a dollop of Fage Total 0% yogurt:

On the side we had cornbread VitaMuffin tops — SO GOOD and only 100 calories each. I found them in the freezer at Shop Rite a few weeks ago and was planning to have them with this chili. It was fantastic!

YUMMY! Perfect for a cold winter’s day but I’d eat it in summer too.

So for the past few days my eating habits have been not-so-good, we’ve been eating out a lot and usually just one meal a day plus Starbucks and other drinks to keep me going. We went to 6 furniture stores and none of them could deliver by next Monday, except for one, which happened to work out perfectly! So, we bought a new living room set last night — finally! YAY! It’s being delivered on Saturday, but now we have to get carpet installed by then. This is like mission impossible! lol

Our plates are so full. Oh, and on top of that we went to our bank’s ATM yesterday afternoon like we usually do but it wasn’t working. So, we went to another branch when we got to Middletown but when we got home we discovered that the first one that we went to actually took money out of our account but didn’t give us the cash! So now, we have to call them first thing this morning to try and straighten that out.

I need to find someone to come install carpet before Monday, wait for furniture delivery, take our cats to the vet for the 10th time this month, clean the whole entire house and try to fix the ceilings, walls and everything else all while trying to maintain our usual business and attempt to fit in exercise and cooking. Aaaaaaaaaah! lol Plus, my sinuses are acting up. I have terrible pains in my head and neck. Thankfully Aunt Flo left town but she was here during all the other chaos, so you can imagine how stressed I am physically and mentally. *sigh*

Time to go take on the day. Wish me luck!

{ 9 comments }