Get off your butt and eat some Stewi

You'll have to read the whole blog to get the title...sorry. LOL

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving! I am so excited to see my family and eat good food. Josh and I may just be buying a flat-screen tomorrow too. We decided the deals on Black Friday for the tvs are really not that good. *shrugs*

I didn't photo-document everything I ate yesterday, but here's the gist of it...

Breakfast: Medium caramel latte with nonfat milk, an apple and an orange.

Lunch: 1 cup steamed rice and steamed veggies with a little teriyaki-ginger sauce.

snack: 2 pineapple spears and 1 serving of blue diamond almonds

Dinner: (see below)
I had one whole wheat La Tortarilla Factoria tortilla with cheese, salsa and a chopped up veggie burger and a side of sour cream.

Evening snack: I was still hungry so I ate 2 WASA crackers with cream cheese and chicken broth.

Today...

Breakfast:
Pumpkin pancakes! That's right. You heard me. This recipe was deliciouso and oh so filling. I switched out the white flour for whole wheat. White flour burns off too much. I topped them with peaches, a few walnuts and light syrup!
Thanks Martha Stewart for the recipe. :) Click here to give it a try.

Lunch: 1 whole wheat Thomas English Muffin with cream cheese, salsa and cheddar cheese, lightly melted. YUMO! This temporarily satisfied my salty-starch craving.
Dinner: I shall call it Chili Stew. I tried to come up with something more clever, but the alternatives were Stile or Chew or maybe even Chew-e. LOL Yeah this is one of my odd ball creations.
I threw into the pot:

• left over frozen bean soup (1 cup or so)
• left over frozen sloppy joes (1 cup or so) Made with 7% fat beef
• 3/4 cup green beans
• 1 small can of portabella mushrooms
• 1/4 cup or less of corn
• 1/4 cup of salsa
• a dash of chili powder and garlic powder

This creation came out surprisingly really well. It tasted really close to chili, but added the big chunks of veggies like I like in stew. I ate this with a flour tortilla on the side (I ran out of La Tortarilla tortillas)

Get Off Your Butt: My revelation:

If you're one of my regular blog readers (I think I have 2), you may have found my goals, hopes, aspirations and the outcomes of them to be rather flakey. I agree. It seems like I can't stick to anything. I can't.

*sighs* I googled "How to get motivated." I periotically browse the internet for solutions to my life's problems. I found an article titled: "Get Off Your butt: 16 Ways to Get Motivated When You're in a Slump."

I am really lazy. I see patterns of behavior starting to emerge from myself that are a mirror image of my father. He's a "when I get around to it" type of guy. Getting around to it rarely comes often. I can't live my life like that.

Anyway, the author of the article discussed how people who set goals for themselves set too many at one time. That was the biggest thing that stuck out to me. I listed out all of the changes I would like to see happen in my life. There are 8 daily habits that I have been working on impleminting in my life:

• Wake up earlier (at 5:30 a.m.)
• Spend quiet time with God (at least 10 min daily)
• Clean daily
• Exercise daily (1 hour)
• Cook dinner and prepare lunch daily
• Cut calories down to 1300
• Incorporate yoga (at least 10 minutes daily)
• Write my book (1 hour daily)

Each one of these daily habits should individually be goals. The author of the article talks about taking each goal one day and week at a time and breaking them down into obtainable goals.

For example waking up earlier: I'll start with 6:10 a.m and then each week I'll set the alarm back 10 minutes until I am at 5:30 a.m.

The thing is I can only work on one goal at a time. I broke down each of these goals week by week and getting through this would take me until July. But I am excited about it.

The big picture goals in my life are: lose weight, write a book, travel and start a family. I think that if I start working on these goals, I'll get there. I'll still be exercising and cleaning, but my focus for the first five weeks will be waking early, so I have some more time to do those things. If I lose weight in the process, awesome! If not, that's ok too. I want more than anything to be healthy and happy. I think this is a way to achieve it. I am going to give it a try. I'll start waking up at 6:10 on Monday morning. Until then I am going to work on waking up at 6:30 a.m.

Right now, I am going to have some dessert: vanilla yogurt and granola.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

Peaches and Cream: Is there a better way to start my day?

Good morning!

I finally feel like I have a little direction at my new job. It's always intimidating starting a new job and learning how things work. This position is kind of scary in that I'm dealing with people's lives. Well, their education anyway.

I'm in charge of recruiting, informing, and getting prospective adults enrolled in our Family Studies degree completion program. For many of the adults, this is their last chance to finish the degree they've put off for 20 years (or whatever), or it's their chance to get involved in ministry or counseling and help people who've struggled with the same problems the prospective student has struggled with; problems such as drugs and alcohol, or physical, sexual and emotional abuse.

Anyway, I am the one who has to make sure these adults are on track with their incoming (or transferring) credits, I have to make sure they complete all the steps necessary to be accepted, and as of right now I, along with my director, am the acceptance committee.

It's a huge job, with tons of stuff to learn. I've felt like I've had stuff just kind of thrown at me in terms of paper work and responding to students. In the midst of all that paper work, I've also had students "walk in." In these cases I have to drop what I'm doing and go over the program with them. Of course, for now I have another coworker in there with me.

Ok, that's more than you ever wanted to know about what I do. LOL sorry. I just think I needed to write that to see who important my job is! :)

Anyway, on to eats...

Peaches and Cream!

Ingredients:

• One whole peach, sliced into sections
• 1 serving of organic Greek yogurt
• 1/4 cup of oats
• 2 tsp of brown sugar
• 1 tbsp of butter (or I used Smart Balance Light)
• A sprinkle of Cinnamon

First melt the butter on medium heat in a non stick frying pan. Place the peaches in the pan and sprinkle the brown sugar over the top. Let the peaches saute for a few moments. Next sprinkle the oats over the top of the peaches. Stir frequently, but be careful. Peaches are delicate. It's done when the oats are soft. Place most of the yogurt in a bowl, place the peach/oat mixture on to top, place the rest or (a dollop) of the yogurt on top of the peaches, and sprinkle with a tiny amount of Cinnamon.

If I had to have a favorite way of eating oatmeal, this would be it! This was the perfect breakfast, with the right balance of carbs, bulk to fill me up after my morning run.

The rest of my eats:

You might be able to click that and make it large, if you want to see what I'm eating. :P Sorry for the bad handwriting.

Anyway, I was so full after lunch. My coworkers and I ate at this little restaurant in Salem, OR called Rolling Bagels. SO GOOD. They had a salad bar, a soup bar (with about 7 varieties of soup), sandwiches and fresh bagels. I highly recommend this place.

I ate a little too much. I also had a strawberry cobbler, as it was my director's b-day and well...I was away from my desk making copies and a piece of it was already dished up and on my desk. So I ate it. It was amazing too.

I balanced the big bulky lunch with steamed veggies and rice for dinner. :)

Exercise:

I was only able to run for 17 minutes and walk for 13. I'm not quite up to my 20 minute jog like I was hoping to be.

Weekend plans:

Tomorrow I am going to Portland to makeover/organize my friend's dorm room for her b-day. My friend Britt and I have some tricks up our sleeves to make her tiny space more livable. Plus, we're sending her away to enjoy a day to herself while we clean.

I plan on blogging about my weekend on Sunday!

Have a fabulous weekend all.

--Shawnee

I so forgot to name this post this morning...oops

I feel like I've finally joined the ranks of the working class. Yes, I've been working since I was 16, but I finally felt like that grouchy man (though I'm a woman) who wanted nothing more than a hot meal and tv. Well, thanks to my preparations on Sunday, I got my hot meal...

I also came home to an empty house and watched Ghostbusters for free on Youtube. It was kind of nice to just not talk to anyone and process for a while.

My enchiladas included rice, beans, and a wee bit of ground turkey. I seasoned the "stuffings" with organic ketchup, salsa and chili powder. I know the ketchup sounds weird, but it adds just the slightest bit of sweet to all the savory.

I cooked the enchiladas in a homemade enchilada sauce:

• 2 tbsp oil and 2 tbsp flour (to make a roux)
• 1 can of Hunts all natural tomato sauce
• 2 cups water
• 2 tbsp chili powder (or less)

I can't tell you all the directions (cause I can't remember), though you make the roux and then add the other ingredients and cook on low until thick.

I make my own sauce because one it's much cheaper and two I've only ever found one enchilada sauce that I love and it just disappeared. After making my own, I've come to the conclusion that mine is just as good.

Eating Assessment of Yesterday

I feel like I ate rather well yesterday. I started off with a serving of oatmeal with banana, 2 tsp of brown sugar, 10 chocolate chips :) , 1 tbsp flax and 1/2 cup of Vanilla Almond Breeze. I also had a cup of coffee with Truvia and Almond Milk.

For lunch I ate a salad with my own homemade dressing, 1/2 oz blue cheese, 1 tbsp sunflower seeds, 1/2 serving of raisins. I also had a single portioned Oikos with 1/4 cup blueberries, 1/8 cup homemade granola.

For my snacks I had 1 serving of grapes, 1 slice of smoked Gouda, 1/2 cup of cucumber slices, 1 carrot, and 1 tbsp almond butter. I also had 5 Starbursts. :)

For dinner I ended up eating 5 of my enchiladas. *YIKES* I know that's a lot, but when I sit down and think about it, the corn tortillas are only 50 calories each and the filling is minimal. I think I'm looking at about 500 calories total for dinner. For dessert, I had my last Pumpkin Raisin Oatmeal cookie.

Anyway, I don't usually type out everything I eat, but it's beneficial for me to see it all listed. I really really want to get back into the habit of writing it all down in my journal and posting my journal page.

Well folks, thank you for reading. I'm now off to shower and get ready to go in early for an In service day. A long day of all the VPs talking about their vision and what not. Hey, at least breakfast, lunch and dinner are included!

Remember to take one day at a time, and love yourself as you are and where you are.

Loves and Hugs,

Shawnee

P.S. I plan on catching up on blog reading tonight.

P.P.S I also just thought I should say that even though I might sound negative about my job, I'm really not. I'm just really tired from working longer hours. :)