Finding Radiance

So, regarding our vacation, we are going to be gone to Disney World for 6 days. Ish asked a question that I figured other people might have as well about eating while on vacation.

Out of curiosity, how do you handle the urge to splurge on food when you are traveling? Do you get hit with that, “Well I’m on vacation so it’s ok to have….” impulse, or are you immune to it now? I always have a hard time when pulled out of my regular environment. It just makes me feel like it’s ok to go overboard, even when I know it is not and I will pay for it later!

 

I started to answer in the comment, but the realized it was going to be a very long-winded answer. 

The short answer is “It depends”.  First off, we don’t really vacation very often.  The last time John and I traveled was at the end of 2010 when we went to visit his family in Colorado.  That trip I was more concerned about eating because when we visit his family, we eat out a lot and they are not usually places that are easy to eat on the lighter side (and not much exercise).  That makes it hard.

I am certainly not immune to the pull of ‘vacation food.’  Heck, I have trouble being immune to peanut butter cups at my sister’s house!

When we go to New Orleans, all bets are off on food.  No restrictions at all there because it is a wonderful city to eat in – especially if you are a foodie.  I eat there whatever I want, knowing that I am going to have to take off weight after  a trip there. And I am okay with that.

For Disney, we aren’t going there for the food.  Let’s face it – large volume theme park food is not going to be gourmet.  The great thing about Disney, though, is that there are plenty of opportunities to eat very healthy there.  It’s just a matter of choosing those options.  I am more conscious about eating on a longer trip because I could do some serious damage in 6 days of eating whatever fell onto my plate.  I do have a plan for this week, which is going to be normal breakfasts of oats or eggs with fruit, and a lighter lunch.  John and I looked online at places to eat to make sure we can get things that aren’t so far removed from how we usually eat and have sort of a plan of which places to go to in the various parks.  That helps so we don’t walk into the first deep fried chicken nugget basket we find.

If you do plan on going to any Disney park some time, check out All Ears.Net.  They have current menus and pricing for pretty much all the restaurants and eateries, which has been a great help when trying to stay on a healthier track, or budget track for that matter.  Also, they have healthy options for snacks in all the parks, like fresh fruit, frozen yogurt, frozen fruit bars, popcorn.  Although I do tend to like my afternoon lattes.

The best link on that site?  Where to find real coffee at Disney   You know I am printing that list out.

So, I don’t plan on snacking my way through Disney.  We will certainly be doing a lot of walking, so I am not that concerned about having some treats in there.  I just have to be careful not to go overboard.  I do tend to expect I will have weight gain from vacations.  Not always because of eating choices, but because of the food being different from what we normally eat.  It usually has more sodium than we consume, so I always get travel bloat.

So, long answer is that yes, I do find I want to just splurge on food on vacation.  I just have to find a way to compromise with it and not make it every meal.

And what if it happens where all my good eating intentions go to hell?  It  is okay.  It’s just so not worth it to beat yourself up over food.  It’s just not.  If I am going to gain weight from something, I damn well better enjoy eating it.

In case you missed it, you can sign up for the Healthy Heart Challenge here!

Lots of rain last night. What is up with rain in January? My garden is going to struggle this winter, I think. Rain is not good for gardens in this climate as the roots will rot.  They need to be frozen and under a blanket of insulating snow. Guess that will be an excuse to buy more plants this spring!  I headed out in some foggy weather to the gym.

Then treadmill walking. This was one of those days where I felt huge at the gym. You know those days? When the little women are there jumping around. Even though they are much taller than me, I still feel like a behemoth around them. Ugh. Of course, I could kick their asses if need be, I am sure. I’ll just be smug about that LOL!

Breakfast time was oatmeal!  I just cooked some oats and whisked in egg whites.  Now for a topping that looks like something it isn’t.

This is coconut butter with a spoon of lemon curd!  It either looks like a sunny side up egg or that I opened up a Cadbury Cream Egg on my oats 

It’s been busy at work.  At least on my accounts.  We got an email from Disney today:

You’re almost here!
The Vaughn Party Walt Disney World® vacation is just a few days away! Here are some last-minute tips and info to help you make sure everything’s running on time. We look forward to seeing you again real soon!

(Yeah, it has John’s last name on there since he booked the trip – even though I paid for it – I’ll set aside my feminist nature for a minute on that one.)  One thing I love about Disney is that they treat you right.  Everything has the guest in mind and one reason I just love staying on the property and letting them take care of everything!  I cannot wait for vacation!  John and I did not go on a vacation all last year, so we deserve some time off.

Lunchtime and I had one of my Trader Joe’s items.

This little portion is 250 calories, which is annoying, but it is pretty good.  I need to try making my own paneer because we don’t have any stores here in tiny town that carry it.

Pixie was my lap partner today. Like that is anything new.

It was a warmer day today, but still a good day for a latte.

I cannot even tell you how happy I am that my eyes are normal now!  I am hoping that the redness won’t return with the end of the eye drops.  We still don’t know what caused the reaction, but maybe it was transient (fingers crossed).

John was out in the late afternoon with his math learner and asked me to meet him down the street for a slice of pizza for dinner when he finished.  It was a nice night for a walk!

Hawaiian pizza.  With my date.

Now settling in for some Downton Abbey tonight after I do my literacy lesson plan.  I caught a bit of this on PBS a couple weeks ago and now have it in my Netflix instant queue to watch.  It’s a good show and I just love the setting!  With snack:

Chocolate covered almonds.

It’s time!!  February will be the 2nd annual Blogger’s Healthy Heart Weekend!

If you want to see last year’s results, click here.

On this weekend, do some kind of activity on 1 of the 3 days of Friday, Saturday, or Sunday.  You don’t have to have a blog in order to join, either.

Like last year, I just want this to be a focus on getting healthy. If you want to walk, that’s fine. Elliptical bunny? Knock yourself out! Take a long bike ride? Go for it! The only stipulation is that you need to take a picture of yourself before, during, or after your event and send it to me. I will post the pictures here. Get creative, too! You don’t have to have your face in the photo if you don’t want to, so have fun with it!

Date: Just before Valentine’s, of course! February 10th, 11th, and 12th! Feel free to chose Friday, Saturday, or Sunday to complete your event.

Distance: Your choice. I know many of you are training for an event, so you can use whatever distance fits in with your training plan. It’s all about a healthy heart, not a specific distance or time.

After you complete your event, please email me the photo and what you did at javaqueen01 (at) yahoo.com .

Please post below if you would like to participate and what you plan to do! Feel free to post about it on your blog if you have one and see how many people we can get to participate! You may grab the logo above and link as well. Last year we had 50 sign ups, but only 36 actually did it.  Let’s get at least that many this year!

I will be giving away some prizes, too.  I just have to think of some.  You can be from wherever in the world since I am the one sending – you don’t have to just live in the US.!

I know 1 prize will be some coffee roasted by yours truly. Or some local tea if the person selected doesn’t drink coffee (GASP!!).

I need to come up with a couple other prizes, but I wanted to get this sign up post going.

Saturday was supposed to the the road trip to Trader Joe’s, but snow came and we decided to postpone until Sunday.  Good decision because Sunday was nice and sunny, even it if was cold.

Also, upon request, here is a shot of me with my glasses.  I actually like how I look with my glasses, I just don’t like wearing them because I don’t see peripherally as well with them on, plus the whole exercising thing.  I can’t just leave them off because I don’t see well enough without them.

My eyes are mostly white again. Just a touch red in the corner of the left eye still, but that was the worst part anyway. Yay!  Plus I am liking the new hair cut.  Quite easy to style.  I only use my fingers when drying and no brush at all!

Enough of that, though.  It was road trip time!  TJs is about 2.5 hours away.  We are slated for one to open in Albany this spring, so that is only an hour away, but we wanted to have some fun and take a trip.

Me and sis:

We did lots of singing to this:

My niece ignored our singing and read her book:

I am so, so happy she is a reader!  Especially with the work I am doing as a literacy volunteer.  I told Logan it was such a great thing that she loved reading.

Crossing state lines for a pitstop:

Then we got to TJs.  They don’t allow pictures in the store, silly peeps.  The one  thing I like about Trader Joe’s is the price on things.  Particularly for chocolates, nut butters,  and frozen foods. I’ll get to the loot later.

After shopping, we were hungry for lunch.  We did shop hungry, oops!  We went across the street to the mall and went to Brio;

It looked really swanky inside, but the prices were very reasonable.

I ate off the brunch menu with crepes stuffed with ricotta and fresh fruit sprinkled with granola.  This had a bit of shredded basil in it, which was a really interesting flavor with the fruit.

Delicious!!  I love crepes.  I would definitely come here again… if it wasn’t 2.5 hours away!

Mother and daughter:

We poked around the mall a bit, more in Rainforest Cafe so Logan could look at all the stuff there, including the big aquarium.

Rainforest Cafe is just too much for me, though. Have any of you eaten there? It’s pretty gimmicky.

We headed on out after that.  More singing and, of course, a coffee stop!

That was good fuel to get home by!  I did miss the whole early football game, which sounded like a good game.  How I wish the Ravens had won!  Stupid Patriots…

Anyway, this is my haul:

1.5 pounds of blueberries for $6.  Yay!  I’ll be eating those all week before vacation. I had brought along a cooler for some frozen stuff.  I got a couple Indian entrees:

Miscellaneous snack things:

Sesame honey cashews are the bomb!!  I picked up a bag for my mom and one for us!  Lots of dark chocolate things for John.

Coffee beans, granola, almond butter (great price!), red curry sauce, green chiles.

Lots of good stuff.  Had to stock up!  It was definitely a fun day

Are you glad it is Friday? I am glad it is Friday! We had snow last night, but the sun came out.  As it peeked over the horizon this morning, it caught the tops of the trees in a beautiful way.

I wish I could edit out those wires.  This lasted about 10 or 15 minutes and it was gone.

I settled in for work and breakfast this morning.  Banana Bread Pudding.

I put almond butter and peach jam on this.  Tasty!

It was hard working today.  Fridayitis big time.  I was glad for lunch 

This was BBQ chicken on a baked potato.  Plus a kiwi.  Kiwis were on sale, so I picked up a couple.  I forgot how much I like them.

Work slowed down in the afternoon, so I grabbed a piece of dried pineapple and headed out to shop before my haircut appointment.

It was dark when I left the mall.  I went with a much shorter style.  I found  a real use for Pinterest!  I had pinned a bunch of short hair cuts that I liked and brought my netbook to my appointment.   I showed my stylist the board so she had a good idea of what I was going for.  She loved the idea of doing this. Who knew Pinterest could be useful instead of just a time suck?

My new fun cut! (I took my glasses off for the pic).

Now we shall see if I can style it right or just look goofy.  Or style it right and still look goofy.

I was hangry for dinner, so I just whipped up a 1-minute muffin with some peanut flour and lemon curd on top.  No meat thawed out and I didn’t feel like eggs. John had already eaten his dinner.

Taking off in the afternoon means working tonight. Booo.  I do get to have a latte at home, though, since I missed out this afternoon.

My sister and I have a little road trip planned to Trader Joe’s for Saturday!  The nearest one is 2.5 hours away, and we decided to go there just for fun.  Hope the weather holds.

Welcome to Thursday!  The week is almost over.   Pixie says “Wake me when it is Friday!”

I have been using my steroid drops in the eyes for a couple days now, and they are starting to look better!  After a couple months of redness, it is weird seeing more white in my eyes.  What I don’t like?  How nasty these drops taste.  About 5 minutes after putting the drops in my eyes, I can taste them in the back of my throat and they are bitter, bitter, bitter!  Plus it makes my nose run. Yuck.  I have to use them 4 times a day.  I’m not complaining too much, though.  

I also want to take a moment to thank everyone for their comments and thoughts via email, on the blog or Facebook.  To those people who think you can’t be friends with someone if you haven’t met face to face, I say pooh-pooh to them!

I made up some ricotta puffs for breakfast.

Topped with a wee bit of lemon curd.  So good!

Work was a little slow, so I was able to catch up on some blogs and read around the internet today.

So, I am sure you all heard that Paula Deen came out with the fact that she has a diagnosis of diabetes.  It’s not all that surprising.  Whether or not her diet itself played a role, she has a lot of risk factors for developing diabetes.  I have sort of been waffling on either side of the issue with regards to her keeping quiet for 3 years and then partnering up with a drug company.

I can understand why you might want to keep your disease private, because it really is nobody’s business – at all. Yes, she is a cook on TV, but she isn’t ever advocating to eat her foods to be healthy.  I would highly doubt anyone looking to be healthy would be trying all of Paula Deen’s recipes.  On the other hand, she is a very public persona and she could certainly use her platform for diabetes education more than partnering with Big Pharma.

John brought up a good point, though, that it might be helpful in a lot of ways because a lot of Paula Deen’s regular audience and fans are the people that probably would be needing diabetes medication and it is a good way to push them to get more information.  I do like that she is not vilifying certain foods like Alton Brown did when he did a complete 180 on his diet.

Time for lunch break!  I mixed up some cooked chicken with light mayo, curry powder, chopped apple and grapes.

With Nut Thins.  It’s one of my GF days.  I actually really like this chicken salad, but only make it when grapes are on sale and I buy them.  I like to be frugal.  My sister calls me cheap LOL!

Afternoon snack time!

I actually had 2 pieces of pineapple, but one went into my mouth before the camera got here.

I did win the fantasy football picks last weekend and normally we eat out Thursday nights, but I have not even thought where I wanted to go!  So, we ate at home instead.  That meant a go-to meal, which is pretty much an omelet for me.

That is sausage and Laughing Cow in there.   The filling kind of fell out when I plated it up.  Still tastes the same, though.

Tonight is getting old school with exercise!  I am going to dust off the Leslie Sansone WATP 3 mile DVD to do.

Also of note, not sure how long this link will be valid for, but you can get a free kindle copy of a Weight Watchers Soup Recipe book here.  So grab it while you can.  And if you are like me and do *not* own a kindle, you can get the kindle cloud reader for free on Amazon as well.  Good stuff.  Free is good. 

Icky weather overnight, but the roads were mostly wet. I fueled up with a protein drink and headed on out to the gym.

I had completely forgotten about planks for a while.  That made them really hard today  Then 2 miles of walking before coming home for breakfast!

I made the banana flaxjacks, and didn’t do proper heat management, so they got a little overdone on the bottom, which makes them hard to flip because they aren’t sturdy enough in the middle.  Still taste the same, though!  It’s all good.

Busy work day.  It was busy yesterday, too.  My clinics were open yesterday.  I had actually forgotten it was a holiday for a lot of people.

The day went by quick before lunch.  I made up a quick scramble of egg and sausage.

In the afternoon instead of my latte, I had my eye appointment.  I tried a new doctor and I liked her very much.  She did a complete exam with all kinds of drops and lights and such and such.  It took an hour – she was quite thorough. I brought along a copy of my labs as well.  She ruled out all the big stuff like Sjogren’s and glaucoma right away.  Apparently, I am having some kind of allergic reaction to something.  Phew!  That is a big relief.

Now the doctor I went to last was very concerned about my thyroid and she thought I had bulging eyes (hence causing the redness), which is the reason she wanted me to get all the labs done and freaked me out.  The eye doctor did not see that at all and just stated that my eyes are large (which I knew anyway).  I wish the first doctor hadn’t gotten me all worked up!

The eye doctor kept saying it was not too serious and that we would get it fixed.  Yay.  So, for right now, we have to clear up the inflammation with my eyes.  So that means steroid drops 4 times a day and wearing my glasses for a week.  Have I mentioned that I hate wearing my glasses?  If not, I hate wearing my glasses…

If this clears up my eyes, then we focus on the immediate stuff that comes into contact with my eyes, like changing my contact solution and my actual contact brand.  She said it was a little unusual to not have any itching or burning and that the redness is constant and doesn’t come and go, but she thinks we can get it cleared up.  I sure hope so!  I am quite relieved.  The nice thing?  She gave me a discount for self-pay since we don’t have insurance.  Finally a break!

I came home with my pupils  as big as Pixie’s are. 

I got home just prior to dinner and had some cashews and Nut Thins because I was so hungry.

John offered to cook up a stir fry for dinner.  Heck yeah!

This had chicken, cashews, Kikkoman triple ginger sauce and a boat load of coleslaw mix.

I, of course, had some broccoli on the side!

It has taken my eyes some time to get un-whonky from all the drops.  I had to work tonight since I took off for a couple hours this afternoon  and it was too hard trying to focus on the screen earlier.  I am wiped out now.

I made up an almond milk latte to have while Jeopardy was on!

Now it is time to relax!

Happy MLK day.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

 source – google images.

I finally heard about my labs.  Of course, the phone call came while I was in the shower this morning  :roll: . They left a message that it was normal, but I called back to get the actual numbers.  Since I am paying full price on these labs tests, I want every single number in my hot little hands!  I have the copies now as well.  I am normal in all categories.  Not even low-normal, but normal-normal.  I spent a lot of the weekend reading up on the thyroid and I thought for sure with symptoms that I have that there would be the diagnosis of that, but at least blood test wise,  it appears fine.  A lot of perimenopausal symptoms – yay….not.

No anemia. No diabetes either (yippee!!).  So, that now leaves going to the eye doctor and see what they say.  That appointment is on Tuesday.  Hope *they* have an answer for me.  I don’t like walking around with red eyes.  They don’t bother me, thank goodness.  They just look funny.

Also, for those that didn’t see on Facebook, the photographer that did the photo shoot for the First For Women article posted some of the shoot pics on her blog.  You can see them here

Funny how just the way you stand or the outfit you have on can made a difference.  I was not comfortable in the gold top, although other people liked it  and you can tell. I swear I look heavier in that top even wearing the same pants LOL! The other 2 outfits I loved and it shows!  Flared pants are a short curvy woman’s best friend!!

My eats were really not exciting today.  I ate well, which felt good to get focused again.  I did do some stress eating as I mentioned before, plus football snacks!

Dinner was good, though, and came out with a yummy looking shot.

The chicken is topped with Laughing Cow and hot sauce in an attempt to get warm.  Didn’t work for long, though.

John and I decided to brave the cold and go out for wi-fi time.  We both have our computers here LOL!

Yeah, I brought my own grapes.  This is the new Blonde roast from Starbucks.  I will give it a thumbs up.  It doesn’t have the charred taste that their other blends have, which is quite nice.  Gives it much more depth of flavor.

I hope I can make it to the gym tomorrow.  We have snow expected tonight and a messy commute, so will see.  Hopefully an answer for my eyes as well.

It was a cooooooold weekend here!  All that wind on Friday ushered in really cold weather.  Overnights  below zero and a high today of 15.  Yuck.  Cannot get or stay warm.  I am too much of a wuss to go walking outside in this weather and didn’t want to drive to the gym to walk.  Trainer riding instead!

I won the fantasy picks last week, so John had to pony up for lunch out at Wakin’ Bacon.  This is a new place that opened up.  I like this place!  They made me one of the sandwiches, but I asked them to hold the bread and put it on a plate.

This was pulled pork topped with jalapenos and cheese (plus bacon!).  I had the onions left off.  I like that they easily change stuff to order.

And football.  Oh football.  The Saints/49ers game.  Now *that* was a game!  Wow!  I wish the Saints had pulled it out, but as it goes one week in football, it does not the next.

Same with the Broncos.  That game was damn ugly.  Kind of expected though, although I did have a small glimmer of hope that the Broncos could pull it off, they did not.

My 2 teams out of the playoffs now and I have retired my Broncos jersey back to the closet for the year.

Lots of kitty lap time because of the cold.

I wonder what it is like to sleep that much.

Monday I will be back to bugging the doctor to see if my lab results are back.  I don’t do well dwelling on stuff.

Thanks for the thoughts and well wishes.  (I still have not heard anything yet, so hopefully Monday?) I wasn’t sure I wanted to say anything on the blog because it may be no big deal, but I also didn’t want to just post la-la-la like I wasn’t having anxiety about something.

The waiting bothers me because I am one of those people that just likes to have a plan.  Then I can do something about it,whatever it is.  Control freak, much? LOL!

I had a good workout at the gym today.

This routine tired me out, though.  My lifting has been feeling harder lately, even though I lightened up the weights.  I am now doing 2 days a week of lifting.

I then did 2 miles on the treadmill.  I am not using my bike trainer as much and doing more walking to stay used to walking since we will be doing a lot at Disney!  About 2 weeks away now.  Yay, yay, yay!!

I was ready for breakfast when I got home.  Banana custard oats topped with PB and some homemade peach jam I made over the summer.

The weighing out of 16 grams of peanut butter always reminds me of how much bigger my eyes are than real portions.  16 grams is 1 tablespoon of PB and about 100 calories.  Breakfast is also paired with my Broncos cup for good luck this weekend!

Lunchtime brought eggs!  Cheese omelet to be exact.

One of those days I am glad to work at home.  The temps dropped and the wind has just been terrible!  50 mile per hour gusts.  Yuck.   I was glad to have my latte today.

I took this picture with my left hand as Pixie is laying across my right arm here.  It’s sort of like being locked to the keyboard with that arm.   She is good warm comfort, though.  Not to mention I have a Broncos snuggie that I wear.  And I am not joking!

Dinner tonight was a quick cooking of chicken in taco seasoning topped with sour cream.

I am in that rut with that flavor combo right now.  But it works!

Staying in tonight.  It would be nice to go out on a Friday night, but in this cold and wind, staying bundled up and snuggled up inside sounds so much more appealing!  I have some cereal as my snack.

Okay, 2 of these, but better eating day today for sure.

Question:  Anything fun planned for the weekend?