Busy days . . . . .

Hello! I'm still here, just had a couple of busy days and haven't had a chance to jump on here. Wednesday is going to be a day when I'm hardly in the house from now on. Bible study started last week and I went again yesterday. I LOVE Beth Moore! We are studying 'Daniel' and so far I'm loving it. There are about 90 women in this one study at church (it's the only study the church is offering right now) but we sit on smaller tables of 8, and we keep this same table for the whole 12 week study. The best part of the study for me is listening to the videos of Beth. She explains things in such an awesome way. When we come home we have 5 days of study to do on our own before our next get together at church.

Bible study is from 9.30am to 11.30am, so I just about have time to clear up breakfast things, run the dishwasher and perhaps throw a load of laundry on, then I'm out the door at 9am. Yesterday I took a detour home to the yarn store! and got home at 12.30. I made myself some lunch, put the laundry in the dryer, checked my email and did a couple of other things, then it was 2pm and time to head out to pick up Kristen. We get home about 3pm, and at 4pm we head out again to piano lesson. We are usually home at 5.20pm but last night there was a truck overturned on the road and the traffic was backed up for miles. We finally got home at 6.15!!!! And that was the day over. After Kristen went to bed I put my feet up and watched American Idol :-)

Today, I volunteered at the church library again. This time I can't do it on the same day as bible study because the lady wants to open it from 10-12 (I think I may have told you this already). So I popped over there today for 2 hours, came straight home at 12, and pottered around doing housework until it was time to go for Kristen.

I can't believe how fast the day goes by. Sometimes I feel like I've accomplished nothing, but I have to remind myself that I've gotten my little girl up for school, drove her to school, helped at the library, cleared the kitchen, vacuumed, loaded and unloaded the dishwasher. . . .AND the washer and dryer! Picked up little girl from school again, helped with homework, made dinner, fed the dog, cleared the kitchen after dinner, spent time with Kristen while she practiced the piano, read her a story at bedtime and (big sigh) am now posting on here! Seriously. . . I need to quit thinking I haven't accomplished anything!

And finally - TGIF tomorrow. What I like best about it is knowing I don't have to turn the alarm on for 6am when I go to bed ;-)

Roll on Saturday!

Just another day . . . . . .

I had to take Boo to the vet this morning for his annual exam and shots. His appointment was at 9am and we were out of there by 9.20, home by 9.30am :-)

Not much going on today, I am staying home waiting for the carpet guy to come and replace the carpet from last week (actually he just needs to put it back in place and seal the seam, not replace anything). He was supposed to come Friday but didn't turn up when he said, so I went out to run errands and of course he called while I was out - left a note on the door! He was supposed to come yesterday but when I called the Pulte guy he called them and turns out no one was in the area to call in here?!!! Good job I called or I would have stayed home again all day for nothing. That freed me up to go for groceries, so I stocked up on more salads and veggies for this week.

The scale isn't moving much when I get on it, but I can tell my pants aren't as tight so something is working. Last night I made tacos for dinner. Kristen surprisingly likes these so I did soft and hard tacos for her and Jason, and opened a can of refried beans too. I opted to not have the tacos but made myself a taco salad instead (although as an afterthought I had one crispy taco and crumbled it on top of the meat.) A picture? Why of course . . . . . . .

Looks yummy doesn't it (you should be able to enlarge if you click the picture). There's no recipe for this other than frying the ground turkey (less fat, more healthy) in a skillet and adding the taco seasoning. For my salad I put shredded lettuce on the plate added a chopped fresh tomato, put the beef on top of that, sprinkled with cheese and added a 'dollop' of sour cream. I couldn't even finish all of this, I was so full!

Hopefully I will eat well today too as I would like to see at least a pound come off by the end of the week - that's not too much to ask is it?

I have to do some tax papers for Jason, so I need to hop off here and get on with it.

Busy In The Kitchen!

Well, I see many of you would like to see pictures of the healthy meals I'm making so I thought I'd share a couple with you tonight. These are from this weekend. On Friday afternoon I popped in to the grocery store for some sushi (which I wanted for lunch, seeing as I wouldn't be needing it for dinner!) and I also wanted some spinach (I'm in the mood for my fav kind of salad, spinach and goat cheese with a raspberry and walnut dressing). What I love about our new HEB supermarket is the 'showtime stations' they have around the store.

These are like mini kitchens where you can watch the chef cook things and then buy the ingredients to take home if you like what he's making (and more often than not I LOVE what he's making). Friday was no exception, I walked out of the produce section and right around the corner (the seafood section) there was a chef there grilling salmon with the most delectable marinade - it was 'pineapple sake teriyaki marinade'. And all he was doing was brushing it on top of the salmon once it had cooked! It tasted divine, and even though Jason doesn't like fish it would of course taste just as yummy on chicken. So behold. . . . . I give you Saturday night's dinner -

Teriyaki chicken with broccoli slaw (which I sauted in a skillet with a tablespoon of sesame oil). Served with a spinach salad (with raspberry dressing and walnuts).

I did actually marinade the chicken for a few hours then just put it on the grill outside for about 10 minutes each side. Jason loved this - so I give it 5 stars. We'll be having it again one night this week.

Lately I've been watching a cooking show on food network called Healthy Appetite with Ellie Krieger. She makes tasty meals but cuts the fat and uses healthy ingredients too. Last week I watched as she made 'diner' food, like pancakes, burgers, onion rings etc. Here is her healthy turkey burgers. . . . (which I made for dinner tonight). What you can't see is the mozzarella and roasted red peppers that are stuffed inside. Actually the picture of the burgers cooking here doesn't look very appetizing, but they were very nice.

To serve with the burger I made a simple salad with Italian dressing.

And here's both on the plate ready to be devoured! Another thumbs up from Jason :-) Actually he said that most of what I've made so far on our 'eating healthy' kick has been very good.

So. . . . what are you having for dinner tonight?

A Fabulous Night . . . .

We had such a fun night last night :-) Jason took me HERE! I might have mentioned this place a couple of months ago when I was planning a date night for us. It's pretty pricey, so that's why back then I decided to do my own fondue and we sat out on our upstairs balcony. What's great about this place is the fun time you have cooking your main course.

For starters we had of course the cheese fondue. Jason wanted to try the cheddar fondue because we always usually get the classic swiss, with emmenthal and gruyere cheese (my favorite). I say 'always' but this is probably only the 4th time we've been to the fondue restaurant. The cheddar was yummy but I still like the stronger taste of the classic. Following that comes a salad. I had ceasar, and Jason had the house salad. He really liked the dressing on his salad and I just noticed on the Melting Pot website that you can order their dressings! I think I will call them next week to see if they sell it at their restaurant or if it's just online. Either way I will get Jason a bottle of it as a 'thank you' :-) After all I am 'nagging' him to eat healthier, so lots of salads with a bit of yummy dressing on the side will be nice.

The entree is next. We chose the 'Fondue Feast'. This included: Filet Mignon Medallion, Balsamic-Marinated Sirloin, Garlic and Herb Chicken, Citrus Pork Tenderloin, White Shrimp, Wild Mushroom Ravioli, Roasted Red Pepper Rigatoni and Fresh Vegetables! Needless to say we didn't manage to eat ALL of this (gotta save room for the chocolate!). And finally for dessert we chose the Bailey's Irish Cream Dream chocolate fondue, served with fresh strawberries, bananas, cheesecake, toasted marshmallows, pound cake and brownies for dipping! Are you full yet?

After all that we came home and watched Spiderman 3 on dvd. What a ridiculous movie! I liked the previous two, but this one was just silly. Still we both really enjoyed the whole night together :-)

Tonight we're watching Pirates of the Caribbean 3 - I've heard that wasn't so good either, but I'll reserve judgment until I've seen it.

Date Night!

Kristen is going to Grandma's tonight for a sleepover, and Jason is taking me out to dinner :-) He's planned it all this time (and will even take Kristen to Grandma's, which is something I usually do) and won't even tell me where we're going! I think I might know but I could be wrong so I won't make any guesses and will just tell you where it was when I next blog.

Yesterday I had Pulte 'workmen' coming to the house all morning fixing things on our list, (from after we had the home inspection done.) Today I have one more guy to come back to put the carpet back where they had to lift it slightly to fix the loose floor board. He came yesterday, lifted up the carpet, then a different guy came to fix the floor, but the carpet guy couldn't come back yesterday so it has to be this morning. He said it would be between 10 and 11am. I hope he's on time, as I'd like to go the store at lunchtime and get some spinach and some sushi! I fancy the sushi for lunch, and I'm in the mood for a spinach salad with goat cheese and walnuts with a raspberry and walnut dressing for over the weekend.

I think I'm going to scrap my fit blog and just update on here how my 'healthy lifestyle' is progressing. From your comments I know I won't bore you all too much.

I went to the gym this morning, so that's 3 times I've been this week and I walked with Boo on Tuesday. I'm pleased with the effort I've made this week. I'm 'nagging' Jason to get more active, so he's been out twice this week to walk. We've been eating pretty good too. Last night for dinner we had beef fajitas. Mmmm, they are so good. I just get the marinated beef from HEB (grocery store) and it's simply 10 minutes on each side on the grill, then I thinly slice it. I cooked some green pepper and onions to go with it and had mine on a wholewheat tortilla. Next week I may try to take some pictures of the healthy meals I'm doing. I know you'd like to see them ;-)

Have a great Friday

Sorry for the delay. . . . . .

. . . . . I didn't mean to keep you all in suspense the whole day, but is was one of those days when I was hardly in the house! I had bible study this morning, then was only home for an hour before going out to pick Kristen up, then only home another hour (in which time I prepped dinner) before we headed back out to piano lesson.

So anyway, I guess I should have given you some kind of scale for the size of the ball... here's Kristen with the ball and as you can see it's much bigger than a fabric softener ball, and just slightly bigger than the hamster ball we had for Mr. Monkey! So can you guess now what it is?

OK, here's another clue. . . . we were rolling this thing around on the floor and shaking it (that's what Kristen was doing in the picture above). Still can't guess?


OK . . . here's the answer

It's an ICE CREAM MAKER!!!!!!!! You don't believe me? CLICK HERE! (and if that link doesn't work, go to Amazon.com and search Icecream Ball) Kristen got this from Grandma and Papa for Christmas (as well as other gifts) and we tried it for the first time the other night. In one end you put ice and rock salt, and in the other end you put the cream, sugar and vanilla. Roll it around and shake it for about 10 minutes it says, then add more ice (because of course it's melting by now from the salt added) and you also need to scrape down the sides of the cream - this part we forgot to do! Then you roll for another 10 minutes. When we were finished we had very frozen cream around the inside of the metal bowl (kind of like a thermos shape) but the inner stuff was still pretty soft. Next time we should get good results if we scrape down the sides. But as you can see from the picture, Kristen was well pleased with her efforts :-)

More 'ME' Stuff.... and a clean kitchen!

Mission accomplished! I've finished cleaning and decluttering my kitchen this morning. Here's a few photos to prove it!

There's something about cleared countertops - they look great don't they? I can't stop looking at them. Now the trick is, to keep them looking like that!

'ME' stuff - I'm enjoying using my new Olay skin care products. As well as the 'derma eye-pods' I now have the 'daily regenerating serum' and just the other day I bought the Microdermabrasion treatment. You can use this twice a week, which I will do for this week and next week perhaps, but after that I think I will go to just once a week. The eye-pods you use 3 times a week, and the serum is daily, like a moisturizer. I also have some Olay daily eye cream that I'm using, but I'm nearly out of it so I need a new bottle soon. As for the eye-pods, I can't honestly say that I see any difference around my eyes - yet? Maybe it's too early to tell. I've used the dermabrasion treatment only once so far, but I loved how it made my skin feel so soft and smooth. So far I like everything I'm using. What I need next is the night time cream, or serum. I haven't seen the serum that Darylynn mentioned but I've seen a Regenerist night cream so I might just get that. The Crest white strips, although I don't like wearing them, are working, and I can already see a difference in my teeth.

More housework on the agenda today. It's been raining, so it feels a nice cozy day to stay home, although it is very warm outside. Hopefully if it stays dry I'll be able to take Boo out for a walk later. And on a final note. . . . . . no prizes for guessing, but do know you what this is? I'll reveal all tomorrow ;-)