Ash Wednesday

Today is the official start of lent...  As you can see, I went to mass this morning.  (Don't ask me what was going on with my hair!) I got a nice big fat black cross on my forehead.  And everyone was staring at me today!  Of course it HAD to be the day of our monthly meeting so the whole office noticed I was the only one that went to mass.  :)  Oh joy!  Ha ha!  I only kid though.  I'm glad I went.  For Lent I am giving up junk food, candy, and I am going to say some prayer everyday. I heard a priest say one time that you should think more about what you can do instead of what you can't do during lent, and I thought that was a good idea.  Actually, I think that priest just became a bishop in San Francisco...  Anyway!
For breakfast I just had a 1/4 cup of low fat granola.  I wasn't very hungry and I was running late to get to mass at 7, so I didn't have time to make my breakfast.

For a snack, I had a sheet of Ak-Mak crackers, a mozzarella sun-dried tomato laughing cow cheese wedge (say that 3 times fast!), and an orange after our 1 1/2 hour monthly meeting.

We had our monthly appreciation lunch (instead of breakfast this time) and it was El Pollo Loco which I could have worked with.  I could have had a chicken breast and a couple of tortillas with some guac and salsa and been pretty good, but I forgot that it's a no meat day for Catholics, so I brought an Amy's Vegetable Lasagna with me.

I did go in and sneak a couple of tortillas with a little sour cream and guacamole.  I'm not a huge fan of guacamole, but theirs is really good! 
After work, I headed over to Roseville for an appointment.  I had an hour or so to kill before the appointment, so I went over to TJ's which was just down the street.  I needed to get a few things for a new recipe I am going to make tonight.  It's Sechwan Peanut Noodles.  It looks really good!  So I'll have to post pictures and let you know how it comes out.
When I got home I was starving!  I ended up sauteing the mushrooms I had, heated up a mini whole wheat pita (split in 1/2) with 2 slices of light Havarti cheese melted on top.  I threw the sauteed mushrooms onto the pitas and had a mock mushroom taco/mini pizzas whatever you choose to call it!  It was extremely filling because I sauteed 2 containers of the mushrooms!
Anyway, that was my day!

Mardi-Gras, Weigh-In Day & Sunday Recap

Have you ever had one of those days where you just have no energy?  I have those a little too often.  I know I need to get my lazy butt moving more.  I actually tried to do a 30 minute medium difficulty workout on EA Active and not even 1/2 way through it the batteries died in my heart rate monitor.  You can't play the game without them, and I didn't have any AAA batteries!  I couldn't believe it!  I started using my weights instead of the cheap resistance band they give you and I actually really like using the weights much much better.  I feel it more and the bands chafe my hands, not to mention they are just awkward to use.  I will need to use them for a couple of exercises I think but for most I'm glad I can use my weights. 
Continuing from our movie night, on Sunday we woke up around 7 and went to breakfast at the Pancake House in Rocklin which has the best pancakes called 49er Flapjacks (again I was dork and forgot to take a picture!) they are these MASSIVE yet thin pancakes.  They give you 3 plate sized pancakes.  They are like Swedish pancakes in that they are very thin.  They are SO good!  I ordered a side of fresh fruit and an egg for protein and didn't eat the whole thing so I was proud of myself.  I only ate the egg whites, and not even all of them because they undercooked it!  I HATE runny egg whites.  So gross!  I usually get a poached egg and don't ask me why I didn't this time!  I forgot!
Anyway, after breakfast, we left our cousins to go back to Sacramento.  We stopped at the weekly Farmer's Market in downtown Sacramento under the freeway, then we went to mass at the Cathedral where my boss's boss is one of the main cantors.  She has an amazing voice.  After that, we decided to take a drive into Davis to see their new TJ's.  It's nice.  Really, once you've seen one TJ's, you've seen them all, but I like Davis and I want to see more of it so I can get the lay of the land in case I move there, if I can afford it anyway.  Definitely a college town.  Most of the people in there were college students, you could just tell! And I'm guessing at least 90% of the employees were college students as well.
After that, we finally got home, and Rusty was not happy with us that we went away leaving him alone for the night.  He soon forgot about that after we have him some much needed attention.
The rest of the day was dedicated to studying and putting things away.
Tuesday, I brought my typical egg and toast with me for breakfast.  I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch because I don't like to eat anything too heavy so I don't gain water weight before my weigh in, which ended up being a 2 pound gain.  But that's okay, it  could have been much worse!
I cannot believe today is Mardi Gras!  Lent is tomorrow!  Holy cow! I'm celebrating by going to Hungry Bear for dinner with my aunt after our WW meeting.  I've been craving a burger and their barbecue burger is my favorite!

Movie Night!

Three to four times a year (I wish it were more!) my aunt and I go to our cousins house in Lincoln to have movie night.  They have a spare room and we stay the night.  It's like a mini getaway and it's just a lot of fun.  At first, we ordered pizzas an had salad and stuff like that.  Now, since we are all (except for 1 cousin) are on Weight Watchers, we try to have healthier meals.  I offered to make dinner this time so I made a big pot of chili and corn bread, both weight watchers recipes and it was really good and filling.  Being the dorky forgetful person that I am, I forgot to take a picture of it!  I wanted to take a couple of pictures of their fantastic view, but it didn't work out.  Next time, I will try to take some!

We got to their house in the afternoon and chose our typical 3 movies.  Our cousin Mark (who lives 5 minutes away and joins in as well) picked Taken, my aunt picked Roman Holiday, and I chose Return to Me.  We watched in that order and I'm glad because Taken was an intense, I mean INTENSE movie.  It was hard for me to watch! So it was good to have the two light hearted movies after that!  We have such a great time when we are there.  We're going to try to have another one soon so we can take a drive up to Nevada City so I can see (wait for this one) snow for the first time...  Yes, I have never seen snow before!  It's not my fault!  My parents just never brought us to the snow!  So I can't wait and I hope that I can get a chance before this season ends!  I've never been to Nevada City and I've heard it's a really cute town so I've been wanting to go there as well.

Well, that the recap for Saturday.  I'll post tomorrow for my Sunday update.

I'm Back... Sort Of Anyway...

Well, I'm done with my classes.  They went pretty fast.  It was total information overload though!  But I survived.  I meant some nice people including one woman who works for the same company just in a different office in the area.  Now I need to study my butt off (don't you wish you could literally do that!?) and pray to God I pass the test. 

So I won't go into any other details about that week because it was very uneventful.  On Saturday (I had a 1/2 day class that day too but at least that was the end of it) I did a TON of laundry and my mom came up in the afternoon to spend the night.  We went to mass at the Cathedral in downtown Sacramento, then went to Frank Fat's for dinner.  I've had their food before but never ate in the restaurant.  The food is fantastic there but for the 2 of us, it racked up to almost $90 before tip!  We ordered a sampler appetizer because we didn't know what to try, orange chicken (too fatty and heavily battered for both of us), walnut shrimp (which was the best and lightest I've ever had), steamed rice, and green beans with a garlicky sauce.  Okay so not the healthiest for the entrees (or the appetizer for that matter, pot stickers, egg rolls, fried calamari, and these pork ball type things which were the only thing we really liked) but the food was really good and now we know that we really don't need to order as much.  We're used to left overs with Chinese food so we tend to order enough to do so.
Sunday, we went to the mall and found out my mom's favorite store, Pottery Barn, closed down in that mall.  I discovered a store that I love although I can't fit into their clothes yet (I didn't see anything bigger than a 14 in there!) but as a goal for myself, when I get down to that size, I am going to get myself an outfit there.  My mom left around 4:15 to get home to watch the academy awards and I made a sweet potato shepherd's pie. The filling was really good (I add a small head of curly cabbage to mine to add a lot of bulk and vegetable without calories) but I could do without the sweet potato.  I saw this recipe (although I used my recipe for the filling so that could be why it didn't come out that great with the sweet potato) on another blog I read and it looked really good. Next time I'll just stick to my own recipe. 

Monday, was uneventful (as usual) I had a lot of stuff to catch up on at work. (that I will be catching up on for a while, this is what happens when you're off for a week!) I watched a mini-marathon of Being Human they had on SyFy.  And I was annoyed with myself because I forgot Chuck was on too!
Tuesday, I was completely exhausted and didn't end up going to Weight Watchers...  I know I should have but I didn't and I'm really going to try this week because I know I can do this! I watched Raising Hope, then went to sleep.  (I have such a wild life don't I?!)
Now onto Wednesday... My first day of the WW week.  I had a big huge bowl filled with a container of chobani pineapple yogurt (please PLEASE don't do what I did and forget to read labels because this was low fat instead of non-fat!) 1 banana, and 1/4 cup of TJ's low fat granola.  It is really good and EXTREMELY filling.  I didn't even eat the whole thing as you can see from the picture, it's a lot more than you'd think!

 I went to Panera with a friend from work and had their Asian Chicken Salad and I was a good girl in getting an apple instead of their awesome bread.  (10 pp.) Dinner was just left over Shepherd's pie.
Thursday breakfast was the same and lunch was 1/2 of the serving of shepherd's pie I had at work, I was getting really tired of it.  I was invited to be a fill in for my aunt's bunco group.  It was at my Godfather's house (his wife is in it) and guess what she had for dinner since it was St. Patrick's day themed?  Shepherd's Pie!  So I have had my fill for a while!  I was hoping she'd do corned beef and cabbage, oh well!  It was still pretty good.  She had this amazing wheat french bread from Raley's.  I was good and only had 1 serving of the pie and 1 slice of bread.  They put candy and peanut bowls at each station for bunco so I did have some of the peanuts and a couple of pieces of candy, but it could have been worse.  I counted it still.  Then I went on and had a piece of this pistachio bundt cake she made.  Oh my God it was amazing! 
Friday was payday and I got an extra big one because of the overtime I had from last week so I was lucky to get a head start on paying my bills for the month!  Plus I still have to do my taxes to get that nice chunk of change.  I'm trying to save for our trip to Disneyland (and if we go, Tahoe!).  I'm so excited!  I can't believe it's only 3 months away!  Breakfast was the last of my yogurt and some grape nuts (ran out of the granola). 

For a snack I had a small whole wheat pita with 2 tablespoons of Better n' Peanut Butter and some low sugar jam on it.  I just can't get into the Better n' PB.  I know some people LOVE it, but it has an off taste to it.  I'd rather have 1/2 of Skippy!  I don't eat it often anyway because I get sick of PB fast. I am going out to lunch with the same friend from work that I went out with on Monday and Wednesday (it's been one of those weeks for both of us!) and we went to one of my new favorite Japanese restaurants.  It's called Tokyo Steakhouse.  They have the best chicken teryaki.  It is right off the grill so you taste the charred flavor.  They do have huge portions so I have to be careful, but as long as I really push myself and stay disciplined I know I can do it. After eating that I used up most of my points for the day.  I only had 4 left, but at least I had some. 
After work, I went to get some groceries at Nugget to make chili and cornbread for our movie night.  I got an Amy's Lasagna to have for dinner which is 8 points, but I still have extra weekly points so I wasn't worried.  When I got home I sauteed some mushrooms that I had on hand and while I was cooking them I thought, I'll make a mini pizza instead.  So I took one of the whole wheat pitas (then decided to open it up to have 2), took 2 pieces of light havarti cheese and broiled them in the toaster until the cheese was melty.  Then I topped each with equal amounts of the mushrooms.  It was so good!  Only 4 points! I decided to have a couple of my girl scout Lemonades cookies for 4 pp extra.  They are really good and I'm glad I only got one box of those!

Well, that's it for my recap.  I know it's a long post, but I'm caught up now!

Another 2-day Update

I know I haven't been the most consistent lately, but I've been super swamped at work and I'm preparing for my classes next week.  I'm taking license prep classes for my insurance licensing exam.  So, I'm going to say that I'll be "incommunicado" next week starting on Monday, I might make a quick update here and there, but I need to focus on studying.  It's going to be a painful week, but I want to pass the first time so I don't have to go back.

Anyway, onto the last 2 days.  The weather has just been horrible!  The complete opposite of last week.  I miss the blue skies!  Well, pretty soon it will be Spring, and then you'll hear my wining about my allergies!  Aren't you lucky!  :)  I'm going to get a head start on the Zyrtec, even though it's really expensive, but it's better then wanting to rip your nose off from being so stuffy and itchy! 

As far as food is concerned, I have been eating left overs all week.  The same as usual.  Egg and toast in the morning, left overs for lunch and dinner.  I know, boring!  I will mention that I had Amy's Vegetable Lasagna for lunch today and it was fantastic!  I love her cheese lasagna, but I didn't think I'd like the vegetable one.  I am kind of picky when it comes to green leafy vegetables (I HATE cooked spinach and swiss chard, and anything that gets slimy!  Yuck!) but the spinach doesn't bother me in this.  So I may grab a couple of those for dinners next week.  I need quick, reheat foods for dinners and something I can grab and go for lunches, so my plan for next week is making this Sweet Potato Shepherd's Pie that I saw a recipe of (it looks really good!) grab a couple of Amy's Lasagnas, and get some lunch meat, bread, and cheese for sandwiches for lunch.  I'll of course grab some on the go fruits and vegetables I can bring with me too.

This weekend's plans are going to the Bay Area (yes, I know I should stay home to study right before my classes, but I haven't been down there in a while so I'm due) and get something for my brother for his 22nd birthday.  Hmmm...  What do you get a philosophical, playwright/actor/director, musician for his birthday?  I'll figure something out!  He'll be 22 on 2/22 so I'll have to get him some gag like gift with a 2 on it!  Just Kidding Nick!

Well, that's it from me for tonight.  I'm off to finish packing! 

Weight Watchers Weign-In

For my weigh-in days, I'm just going to mention the meeting and how I did.

I lost 4.4 pounds!  Yay!  The meeting was about restocking your refrigerator, what to keep in, what to take out.  Not very eventful since we are pretty good about what is in our refrigerator.  So, that's my short post for today!

Yet Another Single Valentine's Day For Me!

Happy Valentine's Day!  Not my favorite holiday, probably because I've been single for all 27 years of my life, but it wasn't too bad of a day.  When I got home from work, I saw this on the dining room table. 

They are from my aunt.  It was so nice of her!  I went and got her favorite See's candy, Scotchmallows and I couldn't find ANY cards that weren't for a mutual other, so I gave her a blank card with an adorable kitten on the front! 

That's all from me for this post.  I know, quick and unfood related, but there wasn't anything to the day that was worth posting!