Yet Another Low Energy Day

I don't know what this is, but lately I've had no energy!  I'm always tired.  It's probably because I've been lazy with the exercise and sitting around on my butt all day!  I got my tax return, and I am planning on using some of that to pay for a year pass at our rec center.  I hope it's not going to be too odd for me going in by myself, but I'll just have to suck it up.  I hope it's not one of those places where everyone's fit, and you feel like a fat cow walking in there.  (All of a sudden I have the image of Hans and Frans going We are going to pump *claps hands* you up!)

Anyway, for breakfast I had scrambled eggs (1 egg 2 egg whites) with dried basil, salt and pepper, a piece of toast with butter and jam, 1 strips of bacon, and 2 cuties.

It that kept me going for 3 1/2 hours.  That's pretty good for me which probably means I need more protein in my diet.  I really need to find ways to add more...

Around 11 I had 2 string cheeses and 2 cuties for a snack.  I must say I really don't like Weight Watcher's string cheese.  I like TJ's MUCH better.  There's just an off taste about them to me...

Lunch I ended up going out with a friend from work to Mimi's Cafe.  I did my research on what was within my points and I ended up getting their sweet and sour chicken in there lightened section of the menu.  It was really good.  Came with sauteed vegetables and brown rice.

I love their decor in Mimi's.  I love this chandelier!

I didn't know what to do for dinner again, so I ended up making a 2 egg & 1 egg white omelet with bacon and low fat jack cheese and toast on the side.  What can I say, I've been on an egg kick.  They really help me feel full longer.

I needed something sweet after so I grabbed an orange creme sucker from See's.  They have seasonal flavors every now and then, and I wanted to try them!  I still miss their cherry suckers!

Anyway, as the title says, I have no energy again today...  So I'm off to bed!

G'night!

Had No Idea an iPod Could Do That!

I'll explain a little further in why the title for this post....

Breakfast I decided to have my yogurt instead of for a snack.  It lasted until 11:30 which was good.  It has much more protein so that helped a lot!

I had grapes too and they looked great, but they were horrible!

I cut up my English cucumber and had 2 string cheeses (forgot to take a picture of the cheese) for snack while we had a conference call.

My lunch was left over casserole and a Luna bar (again forgot a picture of the Luna bar) which didn't last at all!  I was starving again around 3:00!

I had another Luna Bar because I wasn't feeling that great and didn't think I'd make it until I got home.

It's a good thing I did, because I'm not going to be home until at least 6 or 6:30 because this happened...

Here's the story, I slipped in the bathroom at work (I'm fine, just clumsy!) and it fell out of my pocket completely face down.  It was the loudest noise I've ever heard an iPod make when falling...  I can't believe it cracked like that!  It still works oddly enough, but I'm brought it into the Apple Store or as I like to call it, the Apple Hospital to see if they'll grant me mercy and replace it!  I cannot live without music!  I'm so mad at myself right now!

I got there early, and of course I didn't get help until 5:45, but they replaced my iPod thank you LORD!  But next time, if that happens again, I'm going to have to pay for it.

By the time I got home I was starving!  I made a 2 egg and 2 egg white omelet with low fat jack cheese and dried basil.  If you've never had fresh basil in scrambled eggs you HAVE to try it!  It's so good!  I only had dried so it had to work.  I had a piece of toast with butter and jam on it to round it out.  The first meal today where I actually felt satisfied after eating!  I have to have my eggs in the morning!

Okay off to set up my new iPod and get in the shower.

G'night!

Warning- This Post is Extreamly Disneyland Heavy!!! Reader Discretion is Advised

I don't know if I've mentioned here yet, I know it's on my About Me page, but I don't think I've talked about it in a post.  I am a Disneyland Addict.  There.  I've said it.  I don't know if there's a DA meeting anywhere.(you know like AA) I mean I am a psychopath when it comes to Disneyland!  You think I'm kidding but I'm totally serious!  I'm so totally geeking out right now, but I don't care! 

We are going to Disneyland in early June and I just found out that my cousins are going at the same time for 2 or 3 days and we'll be spending some time with them there!  It makes the whole trip 1000 times more exciting for me!  I just had a revelation about that...  Thanksgiving last year (here's another think I don't really talk about...) was our first Thanksgiving since my dad passed away and out of nowhere, my mom told me that my cousin (different cousin from the upcoming DL trip) and her family were going to spend Thanksgiving with us in Carmel.  They have NEVER been to Carmel at Thanksgiving time before so I KNOW my dad had something to do with that.  Okay that being said, this is our first Disneyland trip since my dad passed and all of a sudden our cousins are going to be there at the same time?!  It's just too much of a coincidence.  I truly believe our loved ones look after us when they pass and I've had proof of that from my dad since he's passed away.

I'll get into that on another post though.  This one is about Disneyland!  A little history on myself and my love of Disneyland.  My first trip to Disneyland was when I was maybe a year old give or take a few months. My first ride was the carousel.  I definitely got my love of Disneyland from my dad.  He had been going to the park just about every year since it opened in 1955.  In fact, they were there the summer it opened.  I must say though I think I became more obsessive then he was.  I am a total Disney nerd as I have said.  My mom loved Disneyland, my brother's not crazy about it but he goes.  I think he secretly loves it, but he's too "cool" to admit it.

Okay, I got that off my chest!  I feel much better!

Tuesday Weigh-In

I had a Garfield kind of Monday.  You know, Garfield???  He hates Mondays!  Kind of like how I felt yesterday, so I'm just going to pretend yesterday didn't exist.

Okay, so onto today.  I have been curious about almond butter lately and I didn't want to buy a whole jar in case I didn't like it, but I found these packets at Nugget.  Single servings of Almond Butter.  I got a plain one and a Maple Almond Butter.  I had the plain one for breakfast on toast.  It was okay.  It tasted like ground up almonds.  I added a little honey and reduced sugar organic jam.  I'm glad I found these packets so I didn't have to waist a whole jar.

I had the maple almond butter for lunch.  I didn't taste any maple in it...  Well, you win some you lose some..

Oh by the way, look at what that damn blister turned into!!!  It doesn't hurt, but it's annoying me!

Can you believe tomato sauce did that?  People have a hard time understanding how I hit myself under my chin with tomato sauce!  It's hard for me to believe too, but I blame it on my grandmother on the count I got my clumsiness from her!  :)  Anytime I trip or do anything goofy,  or have what I've been calling a "Shannon Moment," I think of her! 

At weigh in I gained .6 but that's better than what I expected.  Our meeting was about having a weight loss buddy.  I guess "technically" my aunt is, but we just don't talk about that kind of stuff together.  I don't know, we used to be good weight loss buddies, but I think I need someone my age.  I could do with being her buddy on the occasion, but I need someone more like me I think.  So, my question for the day...


Do you have a weight loss buddy?  If so, does it work for you? What do you do with your buddy?
As you can see, no, I do not have a buddy, so if anyone's interested, please let me know!

New Casserole Recipe!

Okay, while I'm not mentally or physically a morning person, I sort of have to be for work, and I want to be, so even though it's in my nature to sleep in late and go to bed late, I'm used to my early schedule.  So going to bed at midnight and waking up at 10 is weird for me!  We went to mass at 11 at the Cathedral so my mom could hear their choir which is amazing.  They got to sing for the pope a year or two ago that's how good they are!  So after that long incense filled mass, we went to Carol's for a late breakfast.  We were both starving because we hadn't eaten yet.  I ordered San Francisco Joe's Scramble which is ground beef, spinach, onion, and mushrooms scrambled into eggs.  I got egg beaters so it wasn't too bad.  I did break down and got their hash browns, but only ate 1/2 (I know good hash browns when I see them and theirs are very crispy!) and wheat toast (I should have asked if I could get fruit instead of toast) and I only had 1 piece of toast so I didn't do that bad.

That kept me full for 5 or 6 hours!  It was so good!
After that, we went to the mall again so I could get this head massager we saw at a store in the mall on Friday.  My mom got one, I tried it, and just HAD to get it!  It feels so good! 
We went home right after that so I could put together her bookshelf she got, then we cleaned up a bit around the house, and she left around 7:30 to go back home.
I started throwing together a casserole, just experimenting but I like the way it came out.  I rinsed what turned out to be 3 cups quinoa.  By the directions I saw online, I added 4 1/2 cups water for the 3 cups of quinoa, turn the burner on high to let the water boil, once it boils, turn down to med-low and cover and cook for 15 minutes or until water is absorbed.  Fluff with a fork.  It made 6 cups of quinoa and I only used 1/2 of that in the casserole.

While the quinoa was cooking, I browned 1 pound of chicken breasts chopped into pieces.

Then I removed that to a bowl, added a cup of chopped shallots, let them brown a little, then added a pound of cut up mushrooms.

Once the mushrooms were cooked down and browned a little, I added 1/2 cup of marsala wine.

I let that cook down until it almost evaporated.  Then I added 1 can condensed cream of chicken soup, 1 can chicken broth, and 1/4 cup light sour cream.

I added the chicken back into the pan, then let it cook down to thicken a little, then added 3 cups of cooked quinoa.

Pour the whole thing into a 9 x 13 pan, and bake at 350 for 20 minutes or until bubbily.

I took 1/2 serving.  1/6 of the pan is 7 pp.  It was very tasty!  Reminds me slightly of my mom's version of my Grandfather's chicken with rice casserole, except that has cream of mushroom soup in it.  And rice of course....

I'm very happy with the way it turned out.  I may add more chicken next time for protein...

I'm going to start asking questions at the bottom of my posts because I never know how to end them! One thing I was horrible at in English class!

Do you like creating your own dishes, or following a recipe ver batem? 
I am always making my own dishes.  I will go by a recipe then switch it up to my liking.  I'm also bad with writing down my own recipes which I've been told is a sign of a good cook...

Pizza Day!

This is my favorite type of pizza.  Just simple and light!  I think the crust would have been better if I ate it right away instead of rebaking it because it got a little too crunchy.

I started the morning out with eating an omlette made with 1 egg and some egg whites.  I added 1 ounce of low fat shredded jack cheese.  That with a piece of toast with butter and jam, and a couple cuties was the perfect breakfast!

I have a phobia when it comes to working with yeast.  I just never could get a handle on it.  My cousin Mark told me he was trying to find a good pizza dough recipe so we decided to try it out together.  He had made a couple of recipes before and wasn't happy with the ones he tried though.  We ended up using America's Test Kitchen's recipe. 

They had us put the bread flour (I used my imported italian flour), yeast, and salt to a food processor (thank God my aunt had her big food processor!)

While that was pulsing to mix the dry ingredients together, we added extra virgin olive oil and warm water.

We let it mix until it became a dough ball.

Yay first time making pizza dough!!!

We took the dough out and started kneeding it on a floured surface.

My cousin did most of the kneeding since he has done this before, then he formed it into a ball and put it into a metal bowl coated in oil to let it rise.

Covered it with a kitchen towel (my great aunt made this one along with some others that we still use today.

We stuck it in the oven (not that it was on or anything, just to put it in a dark area to rise), and went out to get our ingredients at Nugget, with a quick pit stop at Target.

When we got home, we took a look, and it did what it was supposed to do!  Yay!

We still let it rest in the oven while we prepared our toppings.  Which included:

Sausage-

Mushrooms-

And pepperoni, olives, and you can't forget the cheese!

After getting the toppings in their bowls, my cousin divided the dough into 3 balls, one for his super thick crust, one for my mom's regular crust, and one for my thin crust.

He started working on mine to get it really thin. 

He even attempted to toss the pizza dough a couple of times.  There was a tiny casualty in the tossing though.

My mom and I came to the conclusion that it looked like a T-Rex head.  Hee hee!  When each dough was rolled out to it's respective thickness, we started topping the pizzas.  We topped my mom's pizza with what she requested because she needed her nap.

From left to right its my cousin's pizza which had pepperoni, sausage, olives, mushooms, and cheese, pretty much everything we had for toppings.  The middle was my mom's with sausage, olives, mushrooms, and cheese.  Then mine, which just had fresh mozzerella, and parmesan.

I broke out my new pizza stone and paddle, and put the stone in the oven to heat up.

We baked mine first, but ended up letting it sit instead of eating it so I put it back in the oven after the other 2 and we tried that one last, so I'll show it last. 

The second one we tried to bake was my mom's but the dough kept bunching up and we could not get it on the pizza stone for the life of us!  So, my cousin decided, we're making it a calzone!

And you know what?  It was amazing!  It was like pizza stuffed bread!

I sliced it up and we each had a piece.

It was gooey and cheesy and delicous.  See what I mean by being a pizza stuffed bread?

Yuuuummmm!  We put the thick crust one in last.  It was amazing as well.

It looks like a pizza you can get from a local restaurant! 

We finally got to my pizza, and then I had a casualty.  When I took a bite which was hotter than hell, the cheese whipped up under my chin and scalded my neck!

That thing that looks like a pimple is a blister.  Yes, it happened that fast!  It looks horrible right now!  It's all red and scabby!  Yuck!
But on the upside, the pizza was fantastic!

After our dinner, we were all stuffed.  Our cousin brought home almost 1/2 of the total pizza we made!  I did make us sugar free chocolate mousse with real whipped cream for dessert as we watched It's Complicated. 

Even Rusty came to watch the movie too!

What a day we had!  We were completely exhaused but had a great time!