Friday Bits

1) I wrote a post about a weird admirer I have at work (Suz, you might remember him as the “stalker”) but I’m hesitant to post it. Needless to say, I have this admirer/stalker at work who I like talking to because he’s a nice guy but then I get weird emails about him wishing that I wasn’t married, or telling me how nice I looked … it’s creepy, and I wish he could just be normal and we could have a nice work friendship but I’m pretty sure I’m just going to have to put the kibosh on that relationship.

2) I also wrote a post about last weekend’s race, but I never got around to posting it and I think it’s probably irrelevant now. The only picture I have of us all is when we were seriously sweaty after the race, because dude, it was hot. What business do they have starting a run at 9:30am in Florida? Yeah, yeah, the 15k started at 7am. Dude, it was hot.

3) I need to stop saying Dude.

4) I’ve gotten addicted to my phone again, with checking FB and my GoogleReader and my email. Today I actually put it away in my purse and put it on my work calendar to look at it at 10am and 2pm. Let’s see if that curbs the cravings. (update: I was good before the 10am check, but I couldn't hold out for the 2pm)

5) This is how cute my boys looked at last weekend’s wedding. When I dressed Spencer he said he was wearing a “daddy” shirt and that now he was the daddy. Because all daddy wears are button-downs. It was adorable.





6) I made awesome chicken enchiladas tonight for dinner. And I was good and only had one instead of stuffing in a second one ... which I easily could have done.

7) I broke into the Top 10 of BBL! I'm so excited, even though the people ahead of me are likely way ahead of me. Still, out of 109 people at the start, I'm now officially #9 (mostly because I stuck with it, I'm sure, and not because I've lost a serious amount of weight). I'm sure as hell going to go running tomorrow! I've come this far, I hope I can stay on the leader board for the next 4 weeks!

Friday bits

1) this sign has been up in the bathrooms at work for EEVER, and every time I see it, it makes me giggle.

2) I hate my sister. I wish I could go into more depth, but she is draining my entire family of any empathy. It's no longer about love or forgiveness or understanding. It's about self-preservation and I'm sick of ignoring what she puts people through.

3) I wish my mother could hate her too - it would be so much healthier for her.

4) the gasparilla 5k is tomorrow morning. My friend's wedding is tomorrow night. I'm doing both. So is the friend who is getting married, as well as a few of the bridesmaids.

5) I stayed out too late last night at my monthly girls' night/play date, but I had so much fun. I did feel guilty leaving early before Spencer got up this morning because I know it was rough for him and daddy. He didn't go to sleep until after 10pm. He was having too much fun too!

6) as of an hour from now, my husband will be officially laid off. I'm nervous.

7) I had a horrible headache today, and I broke down and had a soda. And it was a cherry coke zero, and it was heaven.

8) I'm reading a fascinating book right now: Listen, by Rene Gutteridge. It was a free or cheap book from Nook a couple weeks ago. Not sure where it's going yet, but I can't wait to find out. In the meantime I have so many books waiting in the wings I almost wish I was the one jobless so I had time to read them all.

9) pretend I didn't say that. Then find me some wood to knock on.

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Me? Quick update?

It is probably inadvisable to take your newly-out-of-surgery mother up on her offer to watch the kids while they’re “sleeping” (ha) to go out to lunch, but we did and it was heaven. Bahama Breeze, booth overlooking the water, sunshine and low humidity … I think I love you. That was Sunday.

I took a 4-day weekend this past Friday through Monday, as I was off for President’s Day on Monday and my mom’s surgery was Friday. It was much needed and actually quite relaxing. Mom’s surgery went well, and I spent most of Friday in the hospital with her: reading when she was sleeping, bringing her coffee and just hanging out.

Saturday I ran my first 5k since the end of January due to all the sickness and stress and it was not a pretty sight but I was glad to have done it. My body can run it but my lungs can’t keep up. Mile times: 12.31, 13.41, 14.23. I ran again on Monday morning and did much better: 11.19, 13.03, 13.11. I know you don’t care about these things, but it’s important to me for posterity, or something. This Saturday is the Gasparilla 5k and I’m excited because when I made my resolution to run the Gasparilla 5k, I thought it would be the first time I would have run that far. And it’s not. And it won’t be the last time either, because not I have not only signed up for additional races in April, May, October and November but just today I signed up for on in March also! I’m still hoping that I’ll be ready to attempt 10k by November, but either way I’m running. I just don’t know how far yet.

I did a pill cleanse last week to try to jump start my weight loss again, since I’ve been teetering between 10 and 12lbs lost for nearly a month. It did help and I got down 17lbs, but now I need to re-evaluate my portion size. No seconds doesn’t really help if you pile up the first plate, right?

I finally put the bumpers in Henry’s crib last night since he’s mobile enough for me not to be worried about him suffocating himself in them. He slept all the way through the night last night, nearly 11 hours. I’m hoping it’s not a fluke but I suspect it is. I’m still in a constant argument with the Hubby on letting him cry a bit. This is his baby. He does not want his baby to cry. While I understand this, we let Spencer cry it out and he was sleeping through the night at 4 months. And that was my baby. And S sleeps through Henry’s crying even though they’re in the same room, so it’s not like he’s being disturbed either. Ugh. I don’t know, it’s a constant struggle. And I want some sleep instead of arguing in the middle of the night.

It was a productive weekend and also a relaxing one: I finally got the Christmas stuff to the attic, some of Spencer's old toys down from the attic for Henry, the house cleaned, the laundry done, the garage cleaned, the toilets cleaned ... and also made time to turn the sprinklers on for the kids, hit President's Day sales, take my mom to a traditional birthday lunch at the beach (seriously, you haven't lived if you haven't had Frenchy's she crab soup) and had the aforementioned mini-date with my Hubby (which also may have involved more President's Day shopping, wine shopping and a stop at Whole Foods. When we live, we live dangerously).

So the moral is, all’s well on this front! Here's a picture of Henry enjoying the sprinklers, and I swear that's enjoyment on his face (click photo for full effect):

Happy Valentine’s day from the land of 67 degrees!

It’s beautiful here. A little chilly for my taste still; I would prefer a solid 70 degrees. Still, it would have been criminal to stay inside all weekend so we spent a good deal of time on Saturday and Sunday outside playing or laying around on a blanket in the front yard (I really wonder what my neighbors think of me, but at least I’m not sitting in folding chairs in my garage) … This of course means that still very little cleaning got done, but since I wasn’t inside to see it I didn’t really mind.

We had a collection of restaurant.com gift certificates, so we ate out for THREE meals this weekend. Saturday morning we headed out to The Brunchery where I had my favorite (fattening) breakfast: A Bayshore Benedict. Croissant, scrambled eggs, bacon, asparagus and hollandaise sauce. I at least skipped the home fries and had sliced tomatoes on the side. We went to the playground for a bit and laid out on the blanket and I read and took photos of the kids before heading to dinner with family to celebrate Spencer’s birthday. Isn’t that great? He couldn’t care less about where we ate (he really doesn’t eat dinner anyhow) so I got to pick and I chose one of my favorite restaurants – Stonechase. They have this salad that has gorgonzola cheese, apples, grapes, candied walnuts, fire-grilled chicken … oh, I dream of that salad. This was where I chose to eat dinner the day I came home from the hospital with Henry. I heart Stonechase.

Sunday was rather uneventful during the day. Henry has been teething and he’s a cranking SOB, especially at night so nobody has been getting a lot of sleep (especially not my husband, bless him). I let him sleep and took both the kids grocery shopping. Did you know it only costs $1.25 to get a kid’s hot chocolate at Starbucks? And they can make it not-so-hot? I always have arguments with Spencer over sitting in the cart, but since it was just me and two of them there was no way I could let him walk so I promised him a hot chocolate and a muffin while we shopped and he was in toddler heaven. He made a mess, but I needed to wash his jacket anyhow so I zipped it up tight and let him go to town. My dad and his girlfriend came over in the late morning and brought Spencer his birthday present – several train sets from Ikea. I now have tracks all over my living room. At least he’s having fun.

My mom came over in the evening to babysit and Hubby and I went on a rare date night. We really didn’t think of it as a Valentine’s Day thing, but just a date night. We had another restaurant.com certificate for a tapas restaurant called Vizcaya so we had a half pitcher of sangria and stuffed prawns and stuffed dates and deviled crab and chorizo with cheese sauce and wild rabbit in a mushroom sauce … sorry, I had to wipe the drool off my keyboard. We also went to see The Fighter, which at least begins my NY resolution of seeing 6 movies in the theater. Very good, I would recommend (although I feel obligated to inform you that Christian Bale is not attractive as a crackhead, and also THANK GOD acid-washed jeans went out of style).

Today I’m back on the exercise/eating right wagon after the indulgent weekend – I ran/walked 1.5 miles in 20 minutes this morning on the treadmill (5.3mph 1.0 incline for total of 10 minutes, 4.0mph/3.5mph at 3.5 incline for 10 minutes) and then did some arm exercises on the weight machine. I’ve been toggling between 10 and 12 lbs lost for the last 3 weeks and can’t seem to get out of that rut, so it’s time for some drastic hunger pains. Think I can drink a gallon of water a day? I have my doubts.

The little bits

It's 12:19am and I'm still awake. Why, you ask? I have no-freaking-idea. Henry keeps waking up, but truthfully I'm taking care of it because I still haven't fallen asleep. I have a great big headache, probably because I'm over tired and I haven't had my glasses on in two hours since I started trying to go to bed. So this is me, not really trying to go to bed.

-- my mom went home Thursday while I was at work. I can't decide if she had enough of me or just wanted to go home, but she called me at work and asked me if I minded. When I got home I realized she left her cookies, her tums, a key to i-don't-know-where and her shoes. Obviously she left in a hurry.

-- Henry stopped army-crawling and is now up on hands and knees rocking his way to putting Momma in an early grave. I have video. Sometimes he rocks too far and face-plants. Mark my words, he'll be fully crawling by Sunday. Which is 2 full weeks before he turns six months old.

-- Did you know eating yogurt helps prevent yeast infections when you're on antibiotics? Why has it taken 30 years for anyone to tell me this?

-- I still haven't blogged about my first 5k. It was hard. It was very hard. I felt very accomplished once I finished though. And I have another one in 3 1/2 weeks and I haven't ran since Sunday and there are a whole lot of my friends at this one so I'd like not to embarrass myself but I'm not sure if that's possible. And BTW, "trail run" with "challenge" in the title=not a beginner's race. Who knew we had terrain like that in Florida?

-- Spencer bit a kid at daycare on Wednesday. And then he said he didn't do it. Kid, you have one tooth. They can tell if it was you. "No Bites, No Fights" is going to be my mantra ... again. He's only done this once before, and it was the same kid about 10 months ago. I'm not entirely sure what to do about it.

-- I think I'm going to try to sleep now. I think I had more to say but it's burned somewhere in the part of my brain that's already asleep.

OH! I made it to the week's Top 10 for BBL this week! Too bad I gained 2 lbs back while not eating because I had strep. Everyone else gets sick, loses weight. I can't even eat (I'm serious, I couldn't eat) and I gain 2 lbs. It's nice to see a Top 10 even though it's unlikely to last. Not giving up though!

Waiting

The thing about waiting rooms is that you spend an awful lot of time waiting. I'm sitting in one right now while we wait to have my mom's second biopsy (lymph nodes this time) and we've been here for now two hours and they say 30 more minutes before we get in for the needle. I'm not looking forward to "being there" for the needle. Fun.

So with nothing to do and me feeling like pulling out my nook is more rude then just fiddling with my phone, I'm here wasting your time by giving you a bit of nothing to read.

Number one had a fever this morning, and then number two had one by 11 am this morning so after this appointment I get to pick up the kids and drag them to the doctor too ... A mother's/daughter's work is never done, right?

I ran 5k on my lunch break yesterday in 39.48, which beat my self-imposed time to beat of 40 minutes. I've been informed that a time over 41 minutes is considered "walking" (who are these people and how long is their stride?) So my goal was to not walk it. Next goal - beat 40 minutes in sunday's actual race while not dying. It's a legitimate concern. This race is a "trail run" which means much more terrain than I'm used to, but hopefully I will be distracted by the pretty trees and the people and will get my butt in gear.

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Sunday Scrambles

Over our Sunday breakfast scramble this morning, my husband asked: "So, are you documenting this?"

The answer was no. "Well, you should."

So here I am, documenting it. The names of the dishes are because my husband also insists on naming any meal I make that I don't follow a recipe for, in case in an alternate reality I were ever to open a restaurant I wouldn't need to decide names for anything. I just use whatever's in the fridge, so it's unlikely that I will ever duplicate these scrambles, but in the event that you want to, here's a list of the ingredients:

1/2: New Year's Scramble
Collard Greens, Black-eyed peas, garlic, onions, low-fat ham, 1/2 eggs, 1/2 egg whites

1/9: Clean Kitchen Scramble
yellow bell pepper, summer squash, onion, garlic, tomato, black-eyed peas, low-fat ham, half full eggs and half egg whites, topped with a little cheddar cheese. For the leftovers for my lunches through the week, I sauteed some spinach and mushrooms and added them in too.

1/16 Mexi-Cali Scramble
onions, green peppers, the last of the black-eyed peas, turkey, pico de gallo, green chilis, 1/2 eggs 1/2 egg whites, topped with the last of a jalapeno cheese ball that my neighbor brought over on New Year's Eve, fresh cilantro, sliced avocado and a dollop of sour cream

These were lovely healthy (more veggies than eggs and just a touch of cheese) breakfasts, and 7 eggs (3 full, 4 whites-only) plus the add-ins made 5 generous meals (feeding me and my husband on Sunday, and then 3 breakfasts for me through the week). I hope to make Sunday Scrambles a weekly tradition, and maybe in the future I'll start remembering to take pictures!

Counting calories

A friend gave me a recipe for chicken a couple weeks ago, but she prefaced by saying that it was delicious but very high calorie and could use a few substitutions. Challenge Accepted (channeling Barney Stinson).

Mission accomplished (channeling anyone except G.W.).

I don't know what the original dish tasted like, and I assume my version has a lighter flavor, but it was excellent. Verdict: yummy. Unfortunately I didn't take a picture, but it's one of those meals that is all the same color anyhow so it won't photograph near as good as it tastes. Trust me. If you need something easy, filling and tasty you should try this one out. 3-4 servings at 471-628 per serving. The new dish has 30% of the calories of the original, not accounting for serving differences (because I have no idea how many people the original fed).

Lighter Baked Poppyseed Chicken Spaghetti

8oz whole wheat linguine, cooked and drained
2 chicken breast, boiled and shredded
1 can cream of chicken
1 can water (chicken broth only adds 20-30 calories and would give a stronger flavor)
6oz nonfat plain yogurt (I used regular but greek would probably be better)
poppyseeds

mix all and place in 9x9 pan.

topping
1/2 sleeve whole wheat ritz, crushed
1/2 cup panko bread crumbs
3 tbs butter, melted

Mix together and crumble on top of the casserole. Sprinkle with poppy seeds. Baked at 350 for 30 minutes until topping is browned and filling is bubbly.

Serve with a side of something green and steamed. hehe.

Menu Mondays - can someone please tell my stomach to stop growling?

My downfall is twofold: a) seconds, and b) snacking on leftovers while I clean up from dinner.

Obviously this means that I need to STOP cleaning up after dinner. One plate, do not enter the kitchen again.

Ha.

Anyhow, after Monday I googled "how to make brown rice not taste like death" and I'll be darned - someone thought of that. Friday night's brown rice was way better. Way better. Like, I might get through this switch to brown rice, it tasted that much better. The key, like the Yahoo! answers page says, is to soak it. Did you ever think about the fact that brown rice is a whole grain? Yeah, me either. I know it's better for me, and it's kind of chewy, but I never really thought of the grain-iness. So I threw a cup of rice in some water and let it soak through the day, and then when I was ready to cook I drained and rinsed it and cooked it normal with 2 1/2 cups of water and the rice cooked faster and fluffier, and had more of a texture like sushi rice, except not so sticky. More mushy. But NOT chewy! Score! I added about a Tbs of fresh grated parmesan cheese to it but I didn't really taste it so next time I won't bother wasting the calories.

Last week's menu:

Monday: flounder, brown rice and roasted squash (very uninspiring meal -- I thought it would all be better)
Tuesday: whole wheat linguine with spicy red sauce and ground turkey (I ate mine over salad)
Wednesday: Roast pork, corn and spinach (ate over salad)
Thursday: This healthy broccoli cheese soup. My changes: 1/2 water and 1/2 fat-free chicken broth and skim milk instead of 1%.
Friday: shrimp, brown rice and roasted zucchini and squash (way better than Monday on all fronts)
Saturday: A 6" subway club, sans cheese. Not satisfying, but adequate.
Sunday: homemade pizza with mushrooms and spinach

And I actually have a two-week plan this time, because there were a lot of sales and if I don't document what I'm going to use things in, I'm afraid they'll get lost in my freezer:

Monday: salmon and asparagus and whole wheat pasta with low-fat alfredo sauce
Tuesday: grilled chicken salad
Wednesday: pork enchiladas and beans
Thursday: low-fat version of Sarah's poppyseed chicken with brown rice
Friday: lentil soup
Saturday: shrimp stir fry

Monday: green chili chicken with asparagus (this was an Apron's recipe in this week's Publix ad)
Tuesday: pulled pork sandwiches with homemade baked sweet potato chips
Wednesday: chicken sausages and side salad
Thursday: stuffed peppers (with ground turkey and brown rice)
Friday: filet steaks and spinach
Saturday: mustard and pecan coated pork chops and brussel sprouts

And my ugly-toes picture:

Friday Hodgepodge

-- My mother gave me a pair of boots that her friend gave her because she didn’t like them once she ordered them. They might be the ugliest all-black boots I’ve ever seen, and they are very roomy inside (I think they were made for wide-width feet, which I do not have) but I wore them anyway to work on Thursday. There was a monsoon. They will heretofore be known as the monsoon boots. My feet were dry, and I wore comfy socks with them. I feel that’s a win – who am I trying to impress at work anyhow? I work in a cubical.

-- I made cookies last night for my manager’s retirement party and I managed to not eat a single one.

-- I typed that last sentence on Thursday morning as wishful thinking. I ate the misshapen one, and the hubby had one. And maybe I had a bite of his too. All the others are wrapped for work, and I think I'm stronger now.

-- The amount of money in the pot for BiggestBloggingLoser makes me want to not eat for the next three months.

-- Gold's Gym Dance Workout is really hard, especially when you skip the "beginner" workout and go straight to the intermediate one ... especially when you are not an intermediate exerciser.

-- I may be a wimp, but 49 degrees is really freaking cold to go jogging in. I only got in 1.1 miles before I wimped out and came back inside so I could feel my fingers.

-- I don’t like Chelsea Handler. I’ve never seen her show, but I tried to read My Horizontal Life and I was not impressed. Are the other books any better?

-- I do, however, like Harry Potter. I didn’t expect to like the series, but I finally got around to reading them and I’m thoroughly enjoying it. I’m on Half-Blood Prince now.

-- Henry takes catnaps in his jumper, and then wakes up to play some more. I don't realize he's woken up until his toys start spinning again.

-- I don't think I've named these Friday posts the same thing two weeks in a row.

And on the third day I fell off the wagon ...

I think about how hungry I am all the time, and it’s not because I’m depriving myself of food, but the moment my body hears “diet”, it thinks “HUNGER!!” and kicks into survival mode. I’m still waiting for the screenshot of the weight loss pool so I can print it out and put it on the fridge at work, the fridge at home, the pantry, and anywhere else I might be looking for something to gorge myself on.

Monday and Tuesday – I was relatively good, both in exercise and in eating. I ate what I had already supplied myself for meals. Wednesday I got up and did my run and was appropriate at work and even skipped having a lunch out on my way back to the office after a meeting … but I think my downfall started when I accidentally took the elevator down to leave work instead of taking the stairs. Then I got home and I was so hungry but I held out for dinner – pork roast, spinach and corn, all of which I piled on top of a big bowl of lettuce to keep my portions in check (it was pretty tasty). Then … I ate some candy. Not a little; I have this little canister that I kept an assortment of m&ms, Reese’s Pieces and Skittles as reward candy for when the potty was used. However, now that he’s 95% trained we don’t use it much and it was still pretty full.

I. Ate. It. All.

And let me tell you, lemon skittles really don’t taste that great when shoveled down one’s throat with chocolate and peanut butter, no matter how good all things taste individually. But I live by one philosophy: If I eat it all, it’s no longer there to tempt me. Thus why there are no candies in my house anymore.

Ugh.

Today is a new day, and I’m trying to be a good girl (and even exercised moderation with the breakfast pizza at work today). I couldn’t go running this morning due to a monsoon, but I did my Wii Fit workout until I was exhausted and Spencer generally let me kickbox in peace (and now there is video of him attempting the merengue). At least there’s 11 more weeks to the BiggestBloggingLoser, right? Here’s to a new wardrobe!

Menu Monday, and Fat Plans!

Today = first day of working out and working earnestly on my Plans to Get Healthy. This is my weight:

Which you'll notice is 7 lbs heavier than I was three months ago. It's actually 8 lbs heavier than I was 6 weeks ago, when I went back to work from maternity leave. I blame it all on sitting in a cubical all week, eating lunch at my desk and snacking on the chocolates that my assistant leaves next to the printer.

Saturday - no good about any dieting plans, or working out: we went to the Outback Bowl, tailgated with a box of wine and rosemary tortilla chips and strawberries (yes, random but delicious) and drank beers at the game (Miller Lite - not generally my taste but perfect for game day), ate at barbeque chicken sandwich and broccoli at Alehouse (I don't generally eat fries, so while broccoli is indeed the healthy choice it's my only choice). Then there was sweet, sweet sleep. It was a long beautiful, Gator-winning day.

Sunday - no exercise unless you count walking the mall in wedge heels (I do), but I was smarter about my food choices. We missed out on eating black eyed peas and greens on New Year's day, so I made this fabulous dish with eggs, lean ham (97% fat free), collard greens, black-eyed peas, onions and garlic. Hubby thought it needed cheese to feel more like breakfast but I thought it was awesome ... so awesome that I used the leftover greens/peas mixture and mixed it in with half a dozen scrambled egg whites (and two yolks) for my breakfast the rest of the week. We missed lunch and had linner at our favorite Mexican joint, where I limited myself to one vegetarian mushroom quesadilla (if I would have ordered two, I would have eaten two. There's crack in them thar mushroom quesadillas).

Today was my official start, so I dragged myself out of bed at 5am (okay, 5:30) to go for a run. I only got in 1.7 miles before I felt like hacking up a lung, but I thought it was a good start. I drank my coffee black with a little creamer (not too bad) and had some of the egg mixture and a banana for breakfast. On my way! Hopefully I can keep it up.

So I haven't done Menu Monday in awhile, but here's the plan for this week:

Monday: flounder and roasted vegetables
Tuesday: pork roast and garlic spinach
Wednesday: broccoli cheese soup for hubby, and I'm not sure if I'll eat that or something else.
Thursday: grilled shrimp and brown rice
Friday: a lo-cal version of Sarah's Poppyseed Chicken (if it's successful I'll post the recipe) w/ whole wheat pasta
Saturday: grilled chicken salad

***update, ate 4 (small) pieces of pizza and two Coke Zeros at Chuck E Cheese with MamaFuss today ... pretty sure that's not in my diet. Maybe all the calories I burned off packing Christmas away this morning helped? I'm sadly still hungry so I'm going to go clean my kitchen instead of staring bleakly into my refrigerator.