Tag Archives: oats

Strength and being hungry

First off, thanks so much for the comments on my push up video!  (You readers are the best!  That’s one thing I love about the blogging community.  Supportive and friendly!)

I am extremely proud of my strength (uh oh – one of the 7 deadly sins here).  I may not be at the magic scale number, but I am seriously strong. However, it has taken me a long time to build up to this level.  I started serious strength training in August of 2008 using free weights, then the NROLW program (which took 6 months) in 2009.  I started with pushups on my knees and could barely get out a set of 10 to what I can now do.  It takes time and patience – it takes a long time to build muscle.  Jody mentioned having patience today on her blog, and it is so true.   So keep at it!  Doing some of these kickazz moves makes me uber happy.

I had another great workout this morning.  Tuesdays are run days.  I fueled up with a Luna bar and hit the hamster wheel.  I ran 3 miles basically around 5.5 to 6 mph.  Then I decided to do some intervals:

  • 1 minute at 6.5 mph
  • 2 minutes at 6 mph
  • 1 minute at 6.8 mph
  • 2 minutes at 6 mph
  • 1 minute at 7 mph
  • 2 minutes at 6 mph
  • 1 minute at 7 mph
  • 2 minutes at 6 mph
  • super challenge: 1 minute at 7.3 mph!! dying….
  • 2 minutes at 6 mph
  • 1 minute at 6.8
  • 2 minutes at 6 mph
  • 1 minute at 6.5 mph

Then maintained 6.0 to finish up 6 miles.  I wasn’t planning on 6 miles, but the intervals ate up a lot of mileage and I figured “what the heck”!  I had a high when I left the gym.  Good sweaty workouts make me smile, not sure why.  After I am done, of course 😀

Breakfast was fabulous!  Steel cut oats cooked with a banana and almond butter and jam on top.  Then John got out chocolate chips for his brekkie, so I couldn’t resist those.

Work was back up to normal, so I got right to it.  I wanted some extra protein for lunch to have some good recovery superfoods for lunch:

1/2 cup lowfat vanilla yogurt, 1/2 cup pumpkin, 1/2 scoop protein powder, chai granola and a dollop of cranberry sauce.  It was yummy, but cold!

I ended up eating another 1/2 of a protein bar after lunch because I didn’t quite feel satisfied.  I think the run did that to me.  I don’t like being hungry at all.  The Beck book has one section where you write out something called a ‘hunger response card’ which is what you tell yourself when you are hungry between meals.  Here is my card:

This can sometimes be an argument in my own mind over this.  I actually read this card to myself.  I tend to get blood sugar drops when I don’t eat at timed intervals.  Enough to make me sweaty and shaky.  It seems as though I can go from a little hungry to the fall off the cliff blood sugar drop very quickly, so this is a big struggle for me in allowing myself to feel hungry (the fear factor).  One of my biggest in trying to lose the last 10 pounds.  I tend to eat for maintenance, which – duh – doesn’t equal weight loss.  I think you have to be a little bit hungry if you want to be in a deficit, right?  So this is my personal battle and I think probably the last challenge to get to goal.  But patience, right?

Good news on the broccoli front – I got someone to eat some tonight!  We were watching Good Eats last night and I was so happy to see AB doing a show on broccoli!  I was actually cheering 😳  dork alert!  Anway, John said something about trying it and I jumped all over that and got him to agree to try some.  I did my pan sauteeing with coconut oil for him.  He only wanted a little, so that meant more for my plate 😀

Here is his “I kind of am okay eating this, but not really” look.   LOL. We’ve got some work to do.

I am done with work for the night.   These last couple of weeks have been hard.  With a light workload, I have had to work longer days to get in my minimum lines, which often meant working at night as well.  Now we are back on normal schedule and I finished up on time!

Here is my evening snacky snack.

Delicious.  Here’s to a good night’s sleep with the snack!

Ho, Ho, Ho!!

Merry Christmas!  What a wonderful day we had.  John and I were up fairly early – 6:30  😀   Poor John LOL!  It was nice and quiet and we made a pot of coffee and opened our gifts to each other.  This is probably the most unique thing I have ever gotten in my stocking:

Star fruit!  I am excited to try this when it gets ripe.

Plus some new slippers!

Do you like my Tweety jammies?  Why yes, I am 41 :mrgreen:

After presents, I made us some pumpkin oats for breakfast.  Normally we don’t eat the same thing, as John eats breakfast when I am at the gym, so it was kind of fun cooking one of my favorite brekkies for him.

After the oats digested – I went out for a run!  The temp was about 24 degrees and the funny thing is, it has been zero degrees lately in the morning, so 24 felt pretty warm.  It’s all about perception isn’t it??  Anyway, I was going to do 5 miles, but decided I was a little tired from doing 5.5 yesterday, so I cut it to 4.5.  Good enough!  I listened to Christmas music, too 😀

You all know how I love my eggnog and that I could bathe in the stuff?  Well now I can!  My mom gave me this last night:

Eggnog bodywash!  Yay!  So that was my wonderful shower after the run.   John and I then set to cooking Christmas dinner items for the feast later.  I made some candied pecans:

Easiest recipe ever!  I will share a post this week on these.

We set up the table:

Dinner menu for 8 included roast beef, potato croquettes, savory sweet potatoes, cornbread pudding, brussel sprouts, cranberry sauce.

My plate:

Yum!!!!

After this was the present opening.  A sea of wrapping paper:

Fun gift for me – know what it is?

It’s a gorillapod for my camera.  It’s so cool and no more shaky breakfast pictures!  After we climbed out from under a mountain of wrapping paper (to be recycled) it was time to break out the sweets.  Not like I wasn’t already noshing on these all day:

Plus my grandfather’s cake:

My grandfather’s birthday was on Christmas and we had this cake every year.  My mother made it this year.  It’s a white cake with almost a praline frosting.

Now this is what I’m talking about!

This about put hair on my chest!  Had to cut it with some regular nog :mrgreen:

We tried playing this game:

It had too many confusing instructions, so we just gave up after a while and read some trivia cards.  And had more cookies…. and nog…..

A good time was had by all.  Family, fun, food, and togetherness.  🙂

Everyone has gone home and now it’s relaxing time in my new robe with John and Pixie.

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas!

What has been your most interesting gift?

Treadmillin’ and fudge

I have to say, this weather has been really cold!  It has not been above freezing for a couple weeks now, I think.  😯  No precip, so the air has been very dry.  It’s so hard to get out to go to the gym and get in a cold car (but better than biking in this cold 😀  ).

I had a Luna bar as a preworkout snack while waiting for the car to warm up a little.  It actually was slow to start.  Guess 0 degrees will do that….

Hit the treadmill for what was supposed to be 5 miles, but I was feeling good, so did another 1/2 mile extra!  I used pace music and averaged 5.8 mph.  I did a almost 3 miles at 5.5, then 1.5 miles at 6.0 and 1/2 a mile at 6.8 mph.  It’s funny how running a 10-minute mile seems much harder on the treadmill than running outside.  I can do a 5K in 29:30, which is less than a 10 minute mile.  Go figure.

So hungry when I got home and really chilled from being sweaty in the cold.  Made a fabulous bowl of steel cut oats:

Cooked with banana and topped with almond butter and blackberry jam.  I about snorted this bowl down.  I don’t know which was more awesome today, the breakfast or the shower after breakfast!

While I was hard at work today, John was busy in the kitchen.  He was making some of his fabulous fudge!  He pretty much uses the recipe on the marshmallow fluff jar, although he added coffee powder to it and topped half with pecans.

This is still uncut, so I don’t have to worry about snacking on it.  It’s funny how if a bag is not opened, or something is in it’s ‘whole’ state, I have no problem not eating it.  The minute it is breached, however, all bets are off!

I’m feeling pretty good about this last stretch into Christmas.   If I can just keep it up for a couple more days 😀

Finished up work early today (go me!!) and felt like another BBQ chicken salad for dinner.  I was craving the salty feta and BBQ sauce.  When I run longer distances (for me) I crave salty stuff.  I am not only a profuse sweater, but a salty sweater.  I think my body is trying to tell me something about electrolyte balance.

Ornament of the day:

Another horn!  This one is pewter, I think.

Have to clean tonight and get the house ready for company on Christmas!  Also need to resist the siren song of the nutmeg logs :mrgreen:

Look for a post tomorrow about the origin of the name of my blog!

Question:  For those that run, do you find it really different on a treadmill versus outside?

Stress eating and scented gifts

Check out the gingerbread cookie recipe if you haven’t already!  I didn’t put nutritional info there because it really will depend on the size of the cookie and whether you use the protein powder or not.

I took last night off from blogging and the internet in general.  Unplugging is a good thing at times!  I had half a post written, but that will go to internet recycling.  Sometimes I feel a pressure to post every night, but then I realize it’s okay not to do it!  I just really enjoy it most times.

It was soooo cold when I got up this morning.  0 degrees F.   I slept in since it’s my weekend!

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All layered up!   I love this sweater. John and I got up to put on the coffee pot and have a leisurely breakfast instead of me exercising:

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There’s a layer of blueberry sauce on the bottom, too :mrgreen:

I blew the snacking today.   I gave in to some stress eating.  Turns out we won’t be refinancing the rental property after all.  I am pretty bummed, but it was a lack of detail reading on my part.  Can’t refinance for 3 years on this house, not 2.  Sigh…..  So many phone calls later and dipping my hand into the honey roasted peanut jar while on hold and such.  It’s okay, though.  I was very upset for a little while, but it’s only  money, right?  There could be many, many worse things.  We just need to hash out a new plan.

Even after eating nuts, I still wanted lunch 😀

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Egg salad!  This is one of my favorite sandwiches.  I grew up thinking I hated egg salad, but what I really didn’t like was egg salad with pickles and soggy with too much mayo.  My egg salad is a little more on the dry side.

We got a nice gift from one of our suppliers.  Usually they send candy or nuts or chocolate or something scary, so we looked at the box with some trepidation.  Well, this was inside!  Nice scented things 😀

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Will have to see what the other companies send. Fingers crossed they are more like this one!!

Afternoon this:

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Included a little bit of this:

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Hey, it’s my weekend, right?

Ornament of the day:

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Another one I made this year.  John says it looks like a spider, but it is supposed to be a snowflake!

I will give you dinner pictures and end this post – look what happens when I take a day off = epic post!  Is anyone still here??

John’s football dinner that I was required to purchase included a side salad and we split a cheese stromboli.

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It’s basically a calzone that is rolled up instead of folded over.  I think there is less cheese this way?  Although there was still enough 😆   I am so glad John splits these things with me!

On a side note, is anyone receiving RSS emails from my blog anymore?  They stopped on the 11th and I am getting a feed error that I cannot get rid of for the life of me.  I may have to reburn my feed, I don’t know.  Can you believe I am thinking of taking some PTO just to get my blog cleaned up and organized?? 😆   Now that is a dedicated blogger!

Question: Do you fear food gifts?

Friday Fun day!

Yay – the weekend is here!  Today went by really fast, too.

I actually slept in until 7:15 – which is pretty late for me.  I moseyed on down to the gym, where I did my workout:

  • Chin up:  2
  • Barbell squats:  3 sets of 8 at 85 pounds
  • Widegrip lat pull down:  3 sets of 8 at 70 pounds
  • Pushups:  3 sets of 10
  • Static lunge:  3 sets of 10 with 25 pound plate
  • Prone Cuban snatch:  3 sets of 10 with 10 pound dumbbells.
  • Incline reverse crunch: 3 sets of 10.

Then just zoned out walking on the treadmill for 1/2 hour.  A little easier day today, since I ran yesterday.

Came home and had some oats with fresh pumpkin, protein powder and blackberry jam!

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Then sat and relaxed and chatted with John.  Sometimes I really have to make myself relax.  I always feel like I have to go, go, go.  Need to remember that down time is just as important as up time!  It’s very difficult for me to just do nothing.  Some of that is just my inner energy and some of it is spillover from working a production-based job.

I hung around the house the rest of the morning and made some more granola.  I’ll post the recipe this weekend some time.

Lunch was a wrap made with laughing cow, pear slices, and chicken.  Heated up in the X-box.  With brussel sprouts for lunch!

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I wanted a warm filling lunch, as I was headed out shopping and didn’t want to be tempted at the mall.

I was hoping that the stores wouldn’t be so crowded on a weekday, but it was pretty crowded!   Eeeek!  I could almost feel the flu germs around. 😯  I actually rocked on the shopping.  I got all of my purchasing done – so no more stores for me for the rest of the year – put your hands together everybody!

I really, really wanted a hot pretzel.  They smelled so good, but I declined.  Instead, I took a break for some sustenance:

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Caffeine and I are partners for life, forever and ever, amen.

Got home right around dinner time.  I am almost embarrassed to show my photo of dinner – can you say rut?  I know you readers have never seen so many salads on this blog than you have in the past few weeks!

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That’s tea in the mug.  It is cold and windy out and I needed something warm!  It’s an almond cookie tea that I got at Sensibiliteas a couple weeks ago.

Ornament of the day:

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This is another ornament I made this year.  The first one, actually, I think.  I used this pattern with a bit of editing (my globe is bigger than the one in the pattern).  I have been having fun doing these. 🙂

Question:  How is your holiday shopping coming along?

Stay tuned on Monday – I have a giveaway coming up!

Country Choice Organics review

A few weeks ago I had posted about my love of steel cut oats (or any type of oats….) and the overnight soaking method for them.  Country Choice Organic read my post and kindly sent me some of their quick cooking steel cut oats to try!

cchoice

Normally when things have been processed to make them quick cooking, the nutritionals suffer.  However, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the stats are almost exactly the same:

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The only difference is 1 less gram of protein, but all the fiber is there – yay!

You can either do these in the microwave or the stovetop.  John decided to make a bowl in the microwave and that took 6 minutes of cooking.  I did mine stovetop, like I do with all my oats (I am too afraid of boil over).  It took 5-6 minutes to cook.  I did find that I needed to use 1 cup of water instead of the recommended 3/4 cup, as it was starting to get dry in the pot.  I just added more water towards the end.

Mixed in some pumpkin pie spice, fresh pumpkin, brown sugar and topped with cranberry sauce and toasted pecans.

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The result?  Thumbs up!  The oats were creamy and slightly chewy, like good steel cut oats.  Big plus is that they are organic, too.  You should be able to find these in your regular grocery store, possibly in the natural foods aisle as well.  They retail for $3.79.  That comes out to about 18 cents a serving.  I think the 5 pecans on top cost more than that LOL!  Yet another reason to love oats!!  Wouldn’t that be a boring tagline?  “Oats – the affordable breakfast.”

In perusing Country Choice’s website, I see they also have organic cookies, hot cereals and breakfast bars.

Have you tried or seen this brand in your store? Is organic important to you or a bonus?

It’s bagel day (or not!) and chin up video

Did another lifting routine today.  I need to sit down and sketch out a program to follow for a few weeks.  I tried another chin up – want to see? I actually shot this video just to show John, but I’ll share it with you, too!   Couple things: this was shot with the camera tipped up on a bench (which makes me look taller 😀  ), so it looks like I am up on the bar already.  I am standing on a milk crate to get up where I can grip the bar without having to jump up, so my arms are a little bent. This is also my “I’m at the gym and unshowered” look, so you are forewarned!

Chin up and over the bar!  WooHoo!  My baby chin up!  I’ll make a better video in a few months when I can do 3 in a row with a full hanging grip 😉

I am not sure how to stop the swinging, as that is really, really tiring on the arms to try to stop.  That’s why I can’t quite do 2 chin ups.

Rest of workout:

  • Barbell squats:  3 sets of 8 at 85 pounds
  • 1-arm dumbbell snatch:  3 sets of 8 at 20 pounds
  • Reverse lunge with forward reach:  3 sets of 8 at 10 pounds
  • Back extension (on machine):  3 sets of 8 at 100 pounds
  • 1-point dumbbell row:  3 sets of 8 with 20 pound dumbbells

Then it was some treadmill walking.  John had started walking to the gym and I picked him up partway and we went off to breakfast.  As you know, Wednesdays are one of the bagel days, but apparently one of the cafe workers hadn’t show up, so the other person was unable to go pick up bagels!  They were out!  It was okay, though – I had this instead:

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Oatmeal with nana and raisins (go iron!!) and brown sugar. It was quite tasty, although not my bagel.

Regarding Pixie’s foray into the catnip – here she is in hangover mode:

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She has absolutely no shame……

Lunch today was quick with yogurt, protein powder, strawberries, and cranapple granola:

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Ornament of the day:

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As you know, we are big Broncos fans.  We used to live in Colorado and were there at the time of John Elway’s first superbowl win!  It was pretty exciting.  I got this as a stocking stuffer for John one year. It’s always a little weird to see dated ornaments.  Makes you realize how time flies by.

No accidental vegetarian day today, as I remembered to thaw out some chicken 😀  Had a waffle sammie with it!  Yummers.  Plus sauteed brussel sprouts.  I am beginning to actually love brussel sprouts.  What is wrong with me??

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I need to look into some indoor camera lighting since all dinner pictures are now at night!  Love that appetizing yellow hue….

So, I have been working an extra hour a day starting this week.  The nice thing about working based on productivity is that you determine how much you make per hour.  I use word expander software, so I have increased my productivity enough that I finish a normal 8-hour line requirement in 6.5 hours.  So, I was just doing other things.  I have decided to work an extra hour each day and do more lines to make more a little more money.  My company does not consider that over time, unfortunately.  They just appreciate it LOL!  So, I guess that is me being more efficient and productive for one of my goals this year.

Snacky snack:

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Gingersnaps!  Okay, multiply this picture times 3 😳   Good thing they are gone now.

Question:  What is your favorite cookie?

Chin up success!!

Thanks again for all of you offering to send me pumpkin LOL!  We have 5 4 cans left.  No worries, we find more 😀

I was just going to hit the treadmill today, but then I decided to dink around with weights.  I missed my lifting and it’s been 10 days, so that is long enough of a break!

I decided to start with a chin up.  Funny thing is, I have never actually tried one to see if I could do it.  I just did the negative ones in the NROLW book.  It was so hard to lower myself slowly that I never thought to just try pulling myself up.   🙄   So, I grabbed the bar and gave it a try.  I actually did it!  I was shocked!  I tried another one, and it was successful, but I had to swing my body and use momentum to get up there, so I won’t count that one.  Yes!! 1 chin up :mrgreen:

Then I did the following:

40 minutes on the treadmill later and it was home to lunch!  I opened one of said pumpkin cans and made some pumpkin oats with cranberry sauce!

oats1130Plus cafe au lait….. yum…..

Lots more paperwork for my refinance.  The appraisal didn’t come in quite where we wanted it on the rental property, so we have to bring some money to closing to cover costs.   I was hoping it would appraise high enough to roll those costs in. You need a 75% LTV ratio for investment properties.  That’s okay, though – the amount we will be saving in interest will  recoup that in 10 months.   I just wish they would all get on the same page, you know?  If you have a tandem group working on the application, don’t each person call me with the same questions!  😡

Lunch was protein packed with some plain FF greek yogurt, vanilla protein powder, strawberries and some of my cranapple spice granola

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This was a cold lunch, though – and it’s cold and drizzly here!  I had a chill all afternoon.

I have a sweet tooth today, so I satisfied it with some dark chocolate and Fiber Select Wheat Thins with my latte:

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I so love sweet/salty combinations.

We had dinner cooking all day in the crockpot.  I put some boneless pork chops and BBQ sauce in the crockpot and cooked on low all day.  The meat was quite good and tender.  Maybe a touch dry.

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Nothing a little extra sauce can’t take care of.  The comice pear was soo good today, too!   Some pears are really good and some aren’t, and you never know until you bite into it.

Working a little later tonight as we are just getting files back up to speed after the holiday.  Then it is watching MNF – Go Saints!!!  New Orleans is my 2nd favorite football team, cause I love N’awlins so (2 months until we are there, too!!).

This is how dedicated a kitty mom I am – do I have the cat move? No – I sit on the edge of the chair so I don’t bother her:

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John took this pic as I am writing this post!

Question:  Those of you with pets, do you hate to disturb them?

Festive feelings!

Boy was there ever a windstorm last night into today.  Gusts were up to 60 miles an hour!  It wasn’t cold, but I certainly wasn’t in the mood to run outside.  I sat around at home and ate a balance bar while I waited for my gym to open.  Then I did 4 miles on the treadmill.  I have to say with just doing cardio while taking a break from strength training, it has been a breeze!  Lifting really can take it out of you.

Came home and made some oats:

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  • 4o grams of oats
  • PB2 added during cooking
  • apple butter on top
  • a sprinkle of granola for crunch.  Yum!

Not sure where the rest of the morning went, but somehow it became lunch without me noticing!  I had another waffle sammie with turkey, cranberry and laughing cow.  luch1128

Not sure if it was the run or what, but  I need more food, so I had some of these:

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If you have not tried these, you must.  Go now.  I’ll wait…..

We then went to the open house at a local artist building called the Troy Shirt Factory (think I mentioned this last year).  This place houses potters, painters, fabric artists, jewelers, metal smiths,  yoga studio, woodworkers, photographers and more.  Plus a tea shop!  It’s a cool spot and I would so love to have a space here.  John, my mother, and I went and both of them managed to find Christmas gifts for other people and I just came home with 2 ounces of tea LOL!

After spending several hours there, we stopped by the Chocolate Mill for a snack and coffee.  I had an apple pastry:

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This was very good.  Quality baked goods are one of my favorite things.

Ate a quick dinner.  I love how things can be on the table in 15 minutes!  Frozen clam strips done in the toaster oven with some broccoli and apple sauce:

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Needed to eat quick to get down to the yacht basin for the annual lighting of the memory trees in Fort Edward.  Each tree is decorated by a family for a loved one.

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I met my mom there:

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It so festive and beautiful.  I love lights!

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It was pretty chilly, though!  I had walked there, but hitched a ride with my mom to get home 😀

I am so excited that we put the electric blanket on the bed today!  Yay!  And the flannel sheets.  I don’t care if that makes me lame for being excited about that :mrgreen:   It’s one of those simple things in life to get into warm and cozy sheets.

Saw this today looking at how people get to my site.  This has to be the best search string so far:  “all good things to share and enjoy a simple happle life”  on Baidu and my site came up first! Sweet!

There is another blogger out there that is doing something incredibly generous.  266 is going to be giving away food to those that need it based on how many comments she gets.  Let’s get her up to the 100 she has set!  Check out her post here

Weekend is here!

Yippee!  Done with work today and my weekend begins!  Any of you who missed it earlier, John hit his goal weight today!  That makes it a good day all around for both of us.  I’ll just keep plugging along LOL!  His reward is new clothes this weekend!

Tomorrow is my last NROLW workout, so I eased up on the exercise today so that I can really give it my all tomorrow.

I was up at 6 am, though, for whatever reason.  I made some delicious oats today:

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  • 40 grams of oats
  • 1 ripe banana
  • 3 dates chopped up
  • 1 tbsp cashew butter.

I don’t know why I have never thought to put dates in my oatmeal before.  They were fun!  This bowl needed a little crunch, though.  Maybe with some nuts or toasted coconuts.

Work went by really fast today, even though I had to take a break and go to my rental property for an appraisal.  My tenant was there with his big goofy dog:

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I like dogs, but I am not a fan of slobber….. friendly, though.

Lunch was an egg and feta scramble in a wrap.  Quick and easy, if not exciting blog fodder.

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I am hungry today.  Or maybe it’s *hangry*.  I think it’s because I did not get enough sleep last night.  I am craving salty stuff, too.

I finished up with work at 3:30 today!  That means my weekend starts!  I did a 3 mile walk to start the weekend.  It takes so much longer to walk 3 miles than run 3 miles :mrgreen:

Passed this sign during the walk:

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I have not had eggnog yet this season except for a couple sips of John’s eggnog latte.  My vow is to wait until Thanksgiving!  Gonna make it 😀

We threw together a stir fry tonight using some leftovers in the fridge.  Pork, brown rice, peppers, onions and some soy sauce.  Requesit broccoli for me!  The pear was not as good as yesterday’s, though.

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So, the weekend before Thanksgiving and it is very important to eat well.  You can already feel a holiday mood around.  This is not an excuse to overeat the day’s leading up to the actual holiday!  I need to remind myself of that.

Last workout tomorrow.  It’s like I am graduating!