Changes Need to be Made

I'm warning you now this I'm not going to be a normal post.  I'm not going to delve too far into issues but I feel like I need to vent and get this out at least for myself since it is a weight loss blog after all.

I haven't been doing well with my diet.  I have also noticed that I'm tired lately.  Always tired.  I am very sedentary and I don't exercise anymore.  I feel like I don't give a damn anymore.  I know I can do this, I've done fairly well in the past, but for some reason, after the first few days of the week I get into the "f it" mentality where I just say, eat whatever you can possibly get into your mouth until Tuesday.

Growing up there were many things in my life that made me extremely insecure with myself most of it being from school, but that's another story.  So I'm not used to feeling good about myself and I know I'm the only one that can change that and since moving up to Sacramento, I've been much better at that, but lately I've seem to have gone downhill.

I know if I lose weight and exercise more I'll get more energy but every day at lunch I want to go into our private room at work and sleep.  I want nothing more than to go take a nap and if you know me, you know that I NEVER used to take naps.

Something in me needs to change.  I know I have a food addiction, and I love Weight Watchers, but I need help.  I need more help then that.  I don't want people thinking this is me feeling sorry for myself.  It's more venting then anything, but if anyone has any advise, I could sure use some.  I just don't know what to do anymore.  I'm worried about how tired I've been, and I'm worried about not getting control of my weight. 

Also, I'm damn lonely.  I have work friends, but I don't have any social life outside of work.  If I do go out somewhere, it's with my aunt and her friends.  I'm not putting them down because I love them, but I need people my own age to hang out with.  People tell me to take a class or join a group or something, but I'm having a really hard time finding something like that here too. 

Okay, I'm done with my pity party. But really, if you have any advise, I'd love to hear it.

TJ's Shopping Trip

I had my bimonthly appointment today and my bimonthly trip to TJ's.  I got some essentials and the ingredients to make this Sausage and Bean recipe I saw on Extra Virgin.  It was good and I'll post the recipe at the bottom. (no pictures yet though... Sorry!)

At lunch today I went with a friend from work to Black Bear Diner and had their granola pancakes.

  You get three HUGE pancakes!  I ate 2 of them and was stuffed!  I saved the third for tomorrow.

Okay that's it for the day.  Short and sweet!

Casual Day

We got a casual day at work today so it was nice to be able to have 2 "jeans days" as we call them.  I had my yearly review at work and I'm glad it's over with!  It wasn't bad, I just get stressed with those things.  I worked on starting to organize here at work and set up a system for my various projects.  I like organizing, but when something is a huge mess (not at work, this is more for my room) it's too overwhelming to me and I have so much crap that I don't have places to put everything!  I have my entire life in one bedroom...

Anyway, when I got home I started roasting some carrots and a half of a fennel bulb.

It tossed them with 2 teaspoons olive oil, salt, red pepper flakes, and black pepper.  I roasted it in the oven at 400 but I may try 450 next time to get them a little darker.  I cooked it for around 30 minutes but I don't know for sure because the timer battery kept dying and never ended up buzzing!  Oh well!

This picture is of the vegetables raw.  I am not a fan of black licorice but I like a mild licorice flavor in something like this with the fennel or in biscotti with anise in it but I still can't get into the strong flavor of licorice itself...

Okay, time to get to cleaning up!  My mom and Nick are coming up for Easter tomorrow!

Greens and Beans...

Tonight we are had our neighbors over for dinner and my aunt is making a specialty of my Grandfather's called Greens and Beans.  It's soup with savoy cabbage, canellini beans, and a ton of garlic (she used a head and 1/2!).  The whole front of the house smelled like garlic this morning!  The smell of the soup cooking reminded me of when my grandfather would make ham hocks and cabbage which was really the only dish I remember of his.

Unfortunately I don't remember my grandparents' food.  They passed away when I was 5 and 7 but I have heard many a tale of their fabulous feasts.  My aunt and dad told me about the platters they used to eat off of.  Yes EAT off of.  My grandfather had to build a special table in their garage because there wasn't enough room in the house.  That's being Italian for ya! 

My aunt made the lemon pie that was passed out at Weight Watchers a few weeks back and it was INCREDIBLE!!!!  I'd actually like it without the crust to make a puddingy/custardy dessert...  Our neighbors brought cake too and I had a small piece of that.

 I missed Weight Watchers which was for personal reasons that I won't go into. We managed to watch a few minutes of the Giants game before they got here too.

I was beat by the time they left so I'm off to bed!

Back to the Grind

Had another pretty uneventful day...  I did talk to my mom and there was a 3.something earthquake in the bay area!  It's mild but it happened on the anniversary of the San Francisco 1906 earthquake.  Eerie!

I have had Disneyland on my mind for the bulk of the day.  We're only a little over a month away from our vacation and I'm so excited!  You'd think I'm going to Italy or something!  Don't get me wrong, I'd like to go to pretty much anywhere in Europe.  I started making the Disneyland play list for our trip.  I got the songs I wanted added (trust me, I have hundreds of Disney/Disneyland songs on my iPod, which goes without saying I'm sure!) now I just need to organize it how I want it and add/delete to the final play list.  That'll be one thing out of the way.  I need to make a list of everything I need/plan to do before the trip.

Speaking of Italy, I was watching Extra Virgin on the cooking channel and I am really liking this show.  I feel connected to most Italian cooking shows.  They made this dish with turkey sausages, cherry tomatoes (they're cooked, for those of you know me, I HATE raw tomatoes) garlic, cannelini beans, bay leaves, salt, and red pepper flakes.  It looks heavenly!  They also made this light orange cake that looked fantastic, and I think those will be my next recipes!  I'm going to Nugget tomorrow and TJ's on Wednesday and I'm definitely getting the ingredients at least for the sausage and beans.  Don't worry, I'll take pictures and post the recipe here when I make it.

Okay, I'm getting hungry!  Time for bed!

Weekend Shenanigans

I'm just going to go ahead and lump the weekend into one post. 

Saturday we got a late start, we were planning on going to the Earth Day fair at the city hall where my mom lives but we didn't get out until after it closed down!  Oh well, next year!  So we headed off to the mall to relive our high school days.  We just went through a few stores including Cost Plus, Hot Topic, and Torrid (where I went nuts!)

I got a white button up top, a set of bracelets, 2 sets of earrings, and a ring (Jean got a matching ring!) and 1/2 of that stuff of on clearance.  And when I mean I went nut there, I didn't used to like Torrid that much, but their clothes have gotten cuter to me...  I like the fact that they have actual good looking clothes for overweight people.  What a freeking concept!!!  I tried on a couple of dresses and a pair of jeans I liked too but didn't get them because I'm trying to set a budget and I'm still not sure about dresses on me.  Maybe I'll like them when I'm 50 pounds lighter then I am now.

When we finished up in the mall, we were planning on going to my favorite Chinese restaurant but Jean wasn't feeling all that well, so we stayed at the apartment while my mom and Nick went to get a burger at a local restaurant and they just brought us something back.  She also picked up Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 for me since I was planning on getting it and we watched it that night.

Sunday, we went to Pasta Pomodoro for lunch. I got chicken Marsala pasta and it came with minestrone soup. It was all really good.  I ate about 1/2 of the pasta because it was rich and the soup helped fill me up too.

After that we went to Stanford Shopping Center and walked around a little there.  I got some make up from Benefit, then we walked over to Pottery Barn and you have to walk around Abercrombie and Fitch in order to get there so as I'm walking towards Abercrombie, Jean is going Shannon what are you doing?!  Shannon!  Stop! Shannon!!!  Stop! Then I turned by it and she had this look of relief on her face.  It was quite hilarious!  We HATE that store!

Anyway, once we were done in the mall, we went back to the apartment, packed up our stuff, rested a bit, then left to go back to our homes.  All in all it was a great weekend!  It was so nice to see our friends after all that time!  We have decided since Jean lives closer to me now, we'll get together more often.  And whenever she can get to the bay area, I'll bring her down so we can both get a chance to socialize.  We are both not very strong in that department, and until I find friends here (at least out of work) I'm going to try to get together with them more often!

Meatless Friday Number Six

Wow, I can't believe next week is Holy Week!  I skipped Thursday because frankly, I don't think I did anything... I mean I was busy, but it was so boring that I'm not even going to bother.  Just a lot of laundry and started packing for the weekend but I will explain that for today.\

This weekend, I'm actually going so socialize.  With friends!  (Gasp!) I know what a concept!  After work I picked up my best friend Jean in Martinez at her new apartment, then we were off to the peninsula!  We're staying at my mom's, and we met 3 friends from high school.  I don't think I've seen any of them (except Jean) since our graduation!  Holy crap!  That is almost 10 years ago!  I was so excited to see them.  We met at Chipotle where one of them works, then off to have some drinks.  I'm only had a 1/2 of a beer.  It was so great to see them.  I'll spare the details and just show the pictures!

Jeannie's new apartment!

At the local bar after dinner.

Happy Birthday Dad!

Today, would have been my dad's 66th birthday.  Yes I know I'm 27 and my dad was 38 when I was born, I can do math believe it or not (at least a little) and while this may not be a big deal now, it was in the 80s.  One of my friends was shocked when she found out how old my parents were.  Of course, her mom was 19 when she was born, so there ya go!  So happy birthday dad!

I took the day off and met some cousins at Thunder Valley Casino in Lincoln.  It's a really nice Indian Casino.  We gambled for a bit.  It drove me crazy that you could smoke in there.  What is it with smoking and gambling?!  The longer we stayed the more it bugged me.  My clothes smelled like cigarettes when we left!  We met some more cousins that live nearby for lunch at the cafe in the casino.  I tried to find something that wasn't too heavy on the points.  I ended up having a NY steak and eggs (egg beaters to be presice).  After a 2 hour lunch (our family can get chatty) we did a little more gambling.  I was out about 80 bucks (ikk!) and I had 18 left on me so I was going to stop because it's depressing when you give a corporation $100 for nothing!  Except if it was for a charity, then I'd feel much better. But then, I thought while watching my aunt play, oh hell, just try a little more.  I played a few different games as we walked around, and we ended up going back to this game we played before called Gold Fish. 

It was fun.  I like the ones that you can get bonuses on.  By the time I got down to $3, I hit a bonus where you can choose a treasure chest and it opens up to show how many free spins you get.  I got 20 which was the highest number out of the 5 or so to choose from.   And I must have gotten 5 or 6 "big win" spins which added around $20 to my winnings, then I landed 4 bonuses (there are 5 lines) and a wild card in a row and it gave me another 12 spins.  I kept getting these big wins still and all of a sudden I see that I won 145 bucks!  On one go!  So my net was around 50 but still!  That's more than I had coming in!  All of my cousins were watching and even the guy sitting next to me was going Oh my God!  So by the time it stopped, I cashed out. 

I totally know it was my dad giving me some luck!  Last year on his birthday, I got my promotion, and this year, I win $145.  It's almost a little eerie...  I know the picture's bright.  It looked better on my computer then the rest...
When we got home, I rested for a while then got to cooking lunches for the next few days.  I tried out these garlic parmesan potatoes from TJ's and they were awesome!  They get nice and crispy in the pan.  Leftovers are just meh, but if you reheat them in a pan they'd be much better.

And now it's time to hit the hay!

How Did I Miss a WEEK of Updates?!

I don't know where the time went!  So I'll catch you up from Thursday through Tuesday mainly through picture because I can't remember some of it...

Thursday

Breakfast-

Lunch- My friend from work tried a new restaurant nearby.  It wasn't very good... I had a chicken sandwich with green chiles and pepper jack cheese.  Sounds good, but it was just meh...

I guess this was dinner...

Friday I remember more of.

Breakfast-

I had to take an early lunch because my mom came up for the weekend and she had to drop her car off at a mechanic to have a tune up, so we had a quick lunch at Carol's.  Egg beater Florentine omelet with hash browns and fruit.

For dinner, we were going to go to BJ's but there was an hour wait so forget that!  We went across the street to the Tokyo House, a local Japanese restaurant.  Both my mom and I both had the shrimp teryaki bowl. 

They brought out miso soup and salad.

Then the gigantic bowl!

 It was really good!  I'd get it again.  It normally comes with chicken or steak and 2 shrimp skewers, but we had them just give us shrimp since it was our 5th meatless Friday for lent.  The vegetables were really good!  They had a sweetish sauce they were cooked in, and I liked the fact you had to really dig to get to the rice.

The one thing I didn't like, too much sauce!

After dinner, we went to Barnes and Noble and Target to get some presents for the upcoming baptism/birthday party on Sunday.  Of course, I had to get dessert too.  I love the Cheesecake Factory Vanilla Cupcakes they sell at our Barnes and Noble!

My mom went to Restoration Hardware to start getting letters to put on her wall.  She got me a small S!

I don't know where to put it but I love it!

Once we got settled in, we rented The King's Speech on the TV in our room so Nick could see it.  I know it's still in theaters but sometimes certain hotels will have movies that are still out, so we rented that.  He liked it but still thought Inception should have won best picture. Whateva!

Saturday, we took a road trip to St. Helena to visit my dad's grave since his birthday is the 13th of April. We stopped at Dean & Deluca.

I love his store.  They are in the middle of remodeling.  I love all of the interesting things they have.

Next we drove over to the Napa Valley Olive Oil Mfg. to have lunch.  You wouldn't know it was there unless someone told you!  It's a little tiny place.  This is the only indicator that you're in the right place.

They have tables outside so we sat and ate our lunch.

This cute little dog decided to join us.  He/she really wanted some of our food though!

I love driving down the main highway.  It's so beautiful here!

 Here's Michael Chiarello's Restaurant, Tra Vigne

 I love the flowers on this house!

 Next stop was the cemetery. My mom got some black river rocks to make a cross over my dad's grave.

 What a view!

 Here's the finished cross. My brother had the idea to put white rocks around the edges to
make it pop.

 The moon was out too! 

After that, we went for a quick walk around St. Helena.

Hidden Mickey! Sort of anyway...

 Someone painted these posters.  They were cool.

 Went into Olivier and got some of their 25 year aged balsamic vinegar.  Yum!!! It's so sweet!

 Our favorite store Baksheesh!  It's all fair trade and such original items!  I LOVE this store!

 We really wanted to go into Woodhouse to get some chocolate, but we were 10 minutes too late!  :(

 Love the grapes on the street signs.

When we got back, we went to BJ's for dinner.  My mom and I split a burger and had salad.

 Then the 4 of us split a chocolate chip Pazookie.  Hot cookie with ice cream?!  Yes please!!!!!!!!!  It's like dessert porn!  OMG it's so good!

Sunday, I'm keeping short with no pictures.  We went to my cousin's son's baptism, then went back to his parent's house for a double birthday party for the baby that was baptized and his aunt (obviously my other cousin!)  They had sandwiches from whole foods.  Wish I took a picture but I didn't get a chance. Then we went back to the house, took a nap, and my mom and brother went home.

Monday-Just breakfast and lunch pictures...  Litterally not much else happened so, I'm not going to bother.

Tuesday- No pictures.  I gained .5 pound, but I'm okay with it.  I'm continuing with the walking so all is good with that!

Okay, I'm out!