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Thursday, July 29, 2010

Technical Difficulties

Hi all.. I haven't jumped ship yet. I have so much to say and so little motivation to say it. Or rather, blog it. Why do today what you can put off till tomorrow? Right now I'm in a weird place between happy and going slightly mad.

I'll come back. Please don't leave me, I'll be sad if I come back to dead air!

*hugs*
~A

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

The Unedible & Edible

I have no idea if I spelled that word correctly or not..Ha! I sometimes think of myself as a pretty decent writer, but there are some words in the English language I CAN'T PRONOUNCE. OR SPELL for the LIFE of me!
Some examples: Preliminary. Specific. Receiving. Niche. Yeaaaaaaaaa... anyone else feel like English is like a second language??

Well nothing too much as been up lately for us.. we have just been hanging out! I did get a pretty decent tan laying outside by the pool! It was nice! I know, I shouldn't be in the sun, but something about the lawn just calls to me..

Tonight I spent some time on the yoga mat and in the kitchen! Shocking, I know! But I have been practicing my hard yoga poses which are getting REALLY easy with all the Pilates I've been doing, so it's pretty cool! Here's what I made in the kitchen-

Mexican Casserole! It was a mix I bought a while back - and I've been wanting to try it, now here's my chance! It was pretty cool! I'll let the pics do the talking!




As you can see it was pretty simple to make! And it was a little bit on the spicy side which I loved! I packed up the rest of it for leftovers for the week too. Yay! No more wondering what to eat for lunch or dinner : )

I also made something that WASN'T tasty at all! I wanted to whip up Oatmeal, Chocolate Chip, Peanut Butter cookies. What I ended up with was lumps of clumpy sticky burnt balls of crap. Look!


These ended up in the trash. So sad! I won't share what I did with the recipe, just so you guys don't end up trying to make them :(

Well- I also did my hard yoga right? Yea! Here are a couple of the poses I did- I know you all want to see pictures of me in my sweatpants on my yoga mat... even better that I am in the TV room. Which is completely ghetto! Haha! You'll even see that hanging on the wall is my little sister throughout the years. My mom did that for all of our high school graduations- and even though she graduated 5 years ago... it's STILL hanging on the wall. Go figure!



Interesting no??? Not too shabby I think! I have to admit, I do really like my shoulders in that last picture! I LIKE my shoulders! They look pretty strong!

Well, I'm off to bed now! I'm wiped!

What do you like about yourself?? And what words do you not know how to spell/ pronounce??

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Shocking, I Know

Happy Weekend! It was a hot day today over here in NE. I still haven't made it to the beach yet. I'm very upset about that one, I need to tan! I really shouldn't - I'm trying to stay out of the sun, but.. I can't help but love the sun!!!

Well Friday was uneventful. And I mean that. My Pilates workout that I penciled in, I got in at the end of the day. And that's ok by me! As long as it gets done at some point, it's all good! I did eat my weight in fruit salsa and pita chips that my mom made. I really love this!! My mom has outdone herself! Simple! Sweet! Delicious!

My mom made Jambalaya with shrimp and chicken as well for dinner and I helped myself to a nice plate of it. This was easy as well. GOYA (be still my beating heart..) RICE and shredded chicken and cut up shrimp. See? It's easy to cook ladies, even if you have no clue what to do!

My dessert was something that has been sitting in my freezer for a while now-


This was so yummy! A nice little dessert for the end of a hot night!
Saturday was a big day for us, me and Peanut had a lot to do! I started the day by doing a Hip Hop Abs Total Body Burn.. it burned my body, gave me a nice boost!
My breakfast to power up for the day.. yummy waffles with Raspberry preserves and Dark Chocolate Dreams PB. YUM!

Lunch was.... a salad, shocking, I know!

I tried a new dressing, Annie's Raspberry Vinaigrette- it was pretty darn good. I liked it! But... I hate to break it to you, but I ONLY had a salad because for my "real lunch" I was having one of these:

This is a caramel frappacino from Starbucks made with soy milk for an extra 50 cents. I LOVE these things, but I practically have to pawn my belongings to pay for one. But, it was my treat and was worth the trade off for "real food" for a change. And hey, it's the weekend!!
And here, my dears was my dinner! Barbecue chicken and apples sprinkled with brown sugar. I had two pieces of chicken.. it was so good! The skin was crispy and juicy at the same time and the flavor was awesome!

Well tomorrow, there is not much planned. Church, pool, pool, sun, pool, sun. I expect to get crispy and juicy like my chicken. You know, burnt and wet. From the pool!! God guys, what kind of a person do you think I am?! Anyway- have a fabulous rest of the weekend dears, I'll be blog reading soon, tomorrow night, tonight, I NEED to get my laundry done! I'm such a rockstar!!!

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Get Your Green On

Yes, it is official. I have had a salad every day this week. Wow! To those who have followed my blog or know me personally, this is an acheivement! I have one packed for lunch for tomorrow too. I rarely eat salad, and here I am getting my green on for lunch every day. I'm patting myself on the back right now! I used the Newman's Own dressing today, but yesterday I made my own dressing using my nutrional yeast, lemon juice, and olive oil. It was pretty darn good! I'll have to tweak that!!

Anyway, workouts have been MUCH better because of the weather and I'm doing my yoga and my Hip Hop Abs. I have a Pilates workout penciled in for tomorrow morning and a walk planned for SURE at lunch time. I have my workout bag packed and everything!

Thanks for all the warm thoughts about my job too- I'm really hoping that something comes out of it.. I have to convince my managers there is room for me in that area. I found my niche, something they've been harassing me to find. So to keep me from going someplace else, they better hook me up!

Now onto the food for the day! This is what I brought for lunch, today and tomorrow. Yep. I'm predictable!


That is my famouso salad- a spring mix salad with green peppers on top. I ran out of tomatoes!
Also, carrots, waffles, and tuna for protein. And no, I didn't eat them all together! The waffles are breakfast! Haha.


My dinner for the night was soup and sweet potato fries. So good- although the soup was a little lacking- it did have enough substance for me.. but was still tasty. I'll take it!

I just had a piece of dark chocolate, so I am spent, tired, full, and satisfied. I am totally ready for bed now, even though it's only 9 p.m. I feel like I need to get to bed earlier and earlier every night to wake up at a decent hour. Anyone else feeling old lady-ish??

I hope you all have an awesome night! Good luck to my lady Katie on her big move today!! Stay safe doll!

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

When I Grow Up..

I wanna repair panel boards for manufacturing plants through out the United States.

Huh? Did I just say that?? What am I talking about?? Well, today I was speaking with the leader of the repair department in my company- and we were discussing how he was retiring in a few years. We figured that his position needed a replacement and it should be me! Ha! We'll see what happens, I still have to discuss with my boss how a move to another state might affect my team here. They can't survive without me, and I might not make it to the age of 50 here. So I'll be thinking about it hard.. it's an interesting proposition, would be a lot more moolah. And you all know I need that!

So to answer a couple of questions I got. And to comment on a couple of comments. Sophia- go to a matinee! We went at 2:20 and the movie only cost $8.00 for each of us, plus we went to a gas station near the theatre and spent four dollars on candy :)
But hey, you just got back from a 6 week adventure in Asia, so, that beats the movies any day! Haha!
Biz- nutritional yeast TASTES like a powdered version of nuts and cheese. No seriously, it's a wacky way to describe it but it really does. It's not bad and it has a ton of vitamins in it- some I am seriously lacking in, so I try to sprinkle it on a few things a week to get that in there. Why did I put it on my salad though??? After choking it down, I asked myself the same thing!! *shudder*

Well today's eats and actions weren't too bad! I got up early and did yoga, that was nice and stretchy! It felt really good to do that! I'm definitely doing it tomorrow morning too.
My eats for the day mirrored the usual all the way up until lunch time.

Salad! WHAT NOW??? You guys must be thinking I'm sick! No, I just don't want my salad mix to go to waste.

I topped it with some of the above dressing. Lauren suggested that I needed some decent dressing. I must be the only person out there who doesn't really love salad dressing, hence the reason it's hard to eat salad. Too much vinegar, too much garlic, too creamy. I'm not picky about most food, but I am picky about salad dressing! This wasn't too bad, I liked it, but not loved it. So I'll be on the hunt for some decent dressing this weekend for sure!

I had some rice on the side for some extra carbonation. It was leftover from my lunch on Sunday. I love leftovers!
For my dinner though?? I tried something totally different, and I LOVED IT. Seriously!
This is an Organic Bistro frozen meal. It was new and looked really interesting in the grocery store - so I picked one up to try. This meal is gluten-free and contains no milk ingredients in it, so I felt safe knowning it would end up bothering my stomach later.
I heated this baby up and went to town. The rice had a nice light flavor to it, with mangoes and a little spice. The green beans were a bit bland, but I think it's really hard to make frozen green beans taste delish. The crab cake? OMFG.. This was SO GOOD! The flavor had a bite to it, some parts of it were really spicy- but there were hunks of real crab meat in there. It was totally unexpected, it tasted homemade. For real. The whole meal did. I was blown away.


I had a meeting at church tonight so I had to eat it quick and go there! The meeting went well and I came home and chatted with my lil baby and my other big baby. Now I'm up here, trying to get tired enough to fall asleep. I worked out at 8:30- not a wise idea on my part. I am still working on my dance for a video for you all. It was WAY too hot last week to work on it! So I'm putting everything I can into it now..
But I'm off to brush my teeth and try to fall asleep! Good night all!

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Despicable Me

Happy Sunday! This weekend has been another whirlwind one... and I can't believe it's Sunday already!
Well, I'm hoping that this week goes by slow. Peanut and Maria's birthday is coming up faster than I can handle... I can't believe how old they are getting!

So in short. I finally made something to eat that required more than heating and serving...

This is my favorite easy dish to make, shrimp- simply spray a non-stick skillet with olive oil spray- and cook up the shrimp! Serve on top of GOYA RICE! I love Goya rice with a passion.. and I believe you should too.. haha.
That was Saturday's lunch- Peanut and I went on a little adventure on Saturday too. It rained like crazy for about an hour and caused chaos everywhere! Route One in Mass was flooded from one end to the other- and Peanut and I were DRIVING in it. Not fun! But, we made the best of it.. It still took almost 2 hours to go 10 miles, but who's keeping track???
Today is Sunday. DUH. We had church, then went and scooped up Maria for the afternoon. We were going to the movies! Yayyy! We came home and I had a salad. Please no one fall out of their chairs, I did have a salad! It was green. With lettuce. And other kinds of greens. I literally eat salads once every six months.. I sprinkled nutrional yeast on it.
This was better looking than tasting! But I ate anyway..

We saw Despicable Me at the movies- please if you have a sense of humor go see this movie!!!! It was sooooo funny! We loved it!

Well, right now we are watching the season premiere of Hannah Montana.. thank goodness this is the last season! I'm kinda tired of Hannah Montana! I think my dislike for HM & Miley is getting stronger and stronger. I don't understand the desire to show how "grown-up" you are by acting like a skank. Oh well, I'll save that for another time!
Good night y'all!!!!

Friday, July 9, 2010

I See Shots & Fireworks

Hi everyone! Oh goodness, I am so sorry! I've ditched you all this week. You know the saying, why do today what you can put off till tomorrow? That's what I was thinking about blogging this week! Everyday I was like, "gotta write a blog post". And every night I went to bed saying, " no.. not today.."

It was HOT in NE this week. HOT HOT HOT and muggy as all hell. This made working out for me, even in AC virtually impossible. I guess according to my doctor, I have allergy induced asthma. But this week, every time I stepped outside it hurt to breathe. Makes it hard to bike ride or do anything because I was coughing half the day. So I took it easy in the workouts.

I kept up eating fairly well though, I definitely didn't take pics of everything plus I forgot my camera at work one night, and you KNOW how lost you get without it!

But to round up the week, it was good. Here are some random eats I did photograph..


Tuesday night's dinner. My grandmother has been in the hospital the last week or so and Peanut and I went to go visit her. Peanut had waffles and I had FRENCH TOAST sticks. They are so good! BTW, my gram is ok.. she was just really sick and asked to be taken to the hospital, they ended up keeping her just for observation- you know when you are 900 years old, they want to keep you there!
My snack on Wednesday..
I know I know, you've seen this before- so who cares?? But I'm trying to keep up with the food pics ok?!

Stoneyfield yogurt with granola.. yummy little snack!
I also let coffee back into my life this week- it's too HOT not to drink ice coffee!

Fortunately at work, it only costs 50 cents and I can make my own.. bring on the almond milk afternoon ice coffee! (plus I made it half-decaf- half reg..)

Wait, how'd that get in there?! As you guys might know, my job is high stress and what makes it more stressful are my customers who think they are the ONLY customers in the world. They aren't but don't tell them that. Well anyway, my sales guy for my biggest account was visiting my office this week and brought me a treat. We always joke about needing a drink after getting off a conference call with these customers who shall remain nameless... so here is my drink! He invited me out for dinner with the rest of the sales team after work, but sadly, I couldn't go. : ( No babysitter for Peanut!
He and I still made it out for a drink after work yesterday (Thursday) where we toasted to.... well... we just toasted! I raced home after to head to "work" for my dad. My liquid dinner went straight to my head and I ended up inhaling 2 Pop-Tarts on the way there. (you see why drinking leads to weight gain?!)

Last night the show was 1776. How many of you have heard of the movie or the musical? Well if you haven't, look it up and rent it. It was awesome! Here are some pics.. All before the show, no pics allowed during!
(I was videotaping since apparently, I am the bestest.. and I wasn't being paid.)




This gave me the boost I needed to get through the show! Obviously since we were in 1776 I was ahead of the times!
Here I am "working" hard!


Actually it was intermission and I took a pic of myself, then had the director Judi take my picture :) Can you tell how hot it was in there?? I was roasting! But again, it was HOT in Philadelphia back in 1776! McCann, the windows! Peanut came with me and sat in her own little seat until the director Judi found her and she sat with her.. Peanut was the directors little assistant! So cute!

Well I have GOT to get back to work over here. Your comments on my last post BTW made me smile and tear up. She is a great kid and I only hope that she gets the chance to live with us soon- she deserves it for sure! *hugs to all of you*

Monday, July 5, 2010

A Weekend Like No Other

Wow, is it really July 5th already? I can't believe how fast the weekend went by. We certainly had a thrilling one. Seriously!!
I'm still coming down from the high I have right now. And yes, before you ask, it was completely substance free. Haha..

What did we have going on anyway?? I'm busy digging through my pictures trying to figure out how to chronologically put all this in here. So let's start with Saturday if we can. Peanut and I woke up late and I worked out- doing a Hip Hop Abs Total was Body Burn. It was tough but I loved working my abs off!!! So after that, Peanut and I went to the store at the outdoor mall near my house, we went totally NOT looking for anything to do but to return something. And we walked into a wild kid party. There was some road race going on the next day and there were tons of kid related activities, designed to get the parents excited about the race. I think that's what it was anyway.
So we stayed and got swept up in the action.

Face painting! And Qdoba! Yummy and perty!


We got airbrush tattoos too! So fun! Mine is almost rubbed off and Peanut's is totally gone. But they looked good when we got them!
After that adventure was done and over with we went home, ate again, and headed out to the fireworks... whoooooo!


They were really really awesome! I loved them.. but I was anxious to get myself home again. I was ready for BED. It really felt like the best day ever with the Peanut. We just really went with the flow and had a great time! Amazing!

But then came Sunday. And Sunday, I cried like a baby that night. I finally got to see my step-daughter after trying to survive without her. I have my own little one, but when I say she is the sweetest little girl I've ever met (besides mine of course!) I mean it! I love her so much!
Well, the three of us had an awesome time together. We went swimming (check FB for some fun pics) and then ate dinner and then went for ice cream. It was a blast. My SD said it was the best day ever.

My lil sis and her hubby came over and we had some crazy laughs. My lil sis is an awesome story teller- from her facial expressions to her crazy accents and mannerisms. Love it!
So this morning Peanut had her first day of summer camp and I ended up leaving Maria there as well. It totally broke my heart to see how much FUN she had at camp with the other theatre kids. Her mother won't let her do things like that because ... well I don't think she's interested in what Maria wants to do for fun. BUT I AM! Whatever it takes to make the kids happy (within reason of course! lol)
When I spoke to Maria on the way home she told me she couldn't wait to be living with me and Peanut. Again, I cried on the way home from dropping her off.

I realized something else tonight. I didn't think about food. I ate when I was hungry. I ate enough food and didn't think about "too much" or "do I really need to eat this?". I just ate. And I didn't even take any pictures of any food either! I consider this weekend to be a success. It was the best weekend I've had in a long time. I hope you all had marvelous weekends as well and enjoyed your time off if you had some.
Will be checking in tomorrow at some point! *hugs!*

Friday, July 2, 2010

Dear Justin O-M-G

I've been totally obsessed with a boy named Justin lately.

Nooooo, not this Justin..

Even though I shamelessly dance my little heart out to Bieber on the radio! Shhh.. don't tell anyone!!

THIS JUSTIN:

O-M-G.. every time I open my jar of Maple Almond butter, I forget I've already committed my heart and soul to Charlie.

"There's so many ways to love yaaaaa"

Feel so hot for maple out of all the butters on the shelf
This one got me whipped, just off one taste, yep I fell in love
This one something special, this one just like dynamite... O-M-G!!!

It's offical. I need to open a store and only sell Justin's Nut Butters. This is just amazingly incredible. I am literally telling everyone to go out and get a jar this weekend and spend it, in bed, eating crackers, waffles, and french toast, and pitas, and wraps, and apples, oh yea baby..
I don't have a lot to write about today and no pictures of food. When Charlie asked me today what I ate.. because he always does, I shamelessly told him I ate almond butter all day long. Sometimes I dipped a munchkin (thanks for bringing in the muchkins Gail!) in the jar. I ate an apple too. Dipped in almond butter. Are you seeing the pattern here???

Well, I hope you all have a great holiday weekend. I will be doing fireworks with Peanut tomorrow, other than that we are hanging out and enjoying the weather!!! It's going to be HOT!

And btw, thanks for your comments on my last post, I really honestly thank you.. I am not sure what to do about it, but when she calls me next week with my blood work results, I'm going to make it a point to talk to her about it. I took Prozac a while ago and it worked ok, I'm not a fan of medication, but maybe it would get me over the hump for a while; plus, at $45 a month for a script or $150.00 + for therapy.. I'd rather take my frustration out on my Justin. Ooops, I meant almond butter!

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Say It Ain't So!

It's Thursday people, and you know what that means!!!!!! Maybe you don't. I don't either, don't worry!
I'm still kid-free, my younger sister is taking the Peanut up to my older sister's house for a sleep-over birthday party. Some of us couldn't get the day off, so we aren't able to sleep-over on a Thursday night!!! Sorry twins! Happy 11th birthday to my little nieces! They are getting so big! I can't believe it.. I'm really feeling old at this point in my life!

Well, I had a doctors appointment today for a physical and before I went in, they told me I owe a ton of cashola for co-pays. Welcome to my world! Everyone seems to be chasing me for money this year- don't they know everyone is broke now?!
But I took a mental healthy survey and was kind of surprised at the results. It was about 10 questions and I answered "mostly every day" to every single one of them except for the one where it asked "do you feel like hurting yourself?". I wasn't lying. I'm tired, cranky, down, don't want to do anything anymore, and have a noticeably decreased appetite. So, my doctor sees me, doesn't see anything wrong with me, but they are still doing tests for anemia, and thyroid trouble. I am within a healthy weight for my height, so no worries there. Technically I guess I could be 100 pounds and still be considered healthy. My twisted mind wondered what I would look like at 100 pounds and then I mentally slapped myself out of it!
But the enormous red flag that was waved, the mental health survey- was ignored. I left feeling a little weird. Should I have brought it up? Should I have said, "listen I cry myself to sleep five nights a week- is that normal!?" Maybe it's because even in my most depressed state I can still crack a joke. I'm a naturally funny, fun-loving person. So in order to make others feel good, I make them laugh. But mine is a hollow laugh, no substance behind it sometimes. I do LOVE being happy and I want to be REAL HAPPY all the time; not fake happy half the time.
Any thoughts??

But the only other thing we did determine was that I should be using an inhaler when I work out. My asthma is back due to allergies. Dang POLLEN!!!!! So I got that (it cost arm and a leg people, so I might not be working out until those grow back!) and came back to work for the afternoon.

Well moving onto food. I bought cherries the other day because for some reason I love them. These are huge. Hmmmmm... insert gross joke about big cherries..


I'm eating some of them right now actually.... yummy!
Last night I decided to do more fajitas. I went on an epic hour long bike ride. My ass was sore, my legs were sore, my you know what hurt, and I was upset that none of this was because of my man. I think I'm gonna name my bike after my fiance. At least it will sound like I'm having some fun! But still, the bike ride felt GREAT. Anyway, I made fajitas again. Why?? Because it was stupidly easy and I was tired.

Tonight there is not much on the menu for myself! What are you people doing??? Hopefully it's more exciting than what I am doing.. repeat of the other night!