Archive for November, 2007

This may to TMI for some people, but what the heck. Knowledge is power. :D

Those of us who had the pleasure of relying on an IUD for birth control, may have experienced the side effect of never having your time* each month. I was one of those. During the three plus years I had an IUD, I may have only had my time once a year. It was very odd at first but something you get used to – and then start to take for granted.

A couple of weeks ago when my time was here, I was left with little in the house to actually use. This meant a shopping trip for various female necessities – necessities I hadn’t shopped for in years. So I take the kids to Target and end up standing in the aisle for at least five minutes ~ I had no idea what to buy! The packaging has all changed and everything has new names. Finally I just had to pick something as I knew I was standing there for way too long.

Lesson to everyone – be prepared! Especially if you used a birth control that stopped such things!

*Disclaimer – I’ve never liked calling a woman’s time of the month a ‘period’ – I don’t know why, it just irritates me. I also don’t like listening to other women complain about their time – yes cramps suck but your time is a gift, you get to create life. I’m not an airy fairy kind of person, but it is just the truth. Women are powerful people and yet we pick to complain about it. I’ve also heard it called your moon, which I switch with ‘time’ often enough.

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You know it is easy to get seafood if you live on the coast, but I always wonder what other foods are popular in various areas. I ask because tonight we went to CiCi’s Pizza, which I just read on the website is a southeastern establishment.

It is a buffet style pizza place – they have salad, pizza and then dessert. They have more then pepperoni or cheese pizza too – I had a slice of spinach and though I ate the whole slice, it was just okay. I’m not really a spinach kind of person but this little girl in front of me declared it was the best so I had to try. But they also have mac and cheese pizza (totally weird I think), barbeque and some kind of chicken one.
And of course pizza has a large portion of bread but the desserts – yeah also made up of bread. One was an apple crisp on top of a pizza dough, another was cinnamon bun, another was basically breadsticks with loads of frosting – and I mean loads.

We all know you aren’t supposed to eat *that* much bread, especially in one sitting. LA Weight Loss considers that a starch and for slices of bread I can have two a day, but not at the same time (sticking to the plan I mean).  I know that other pizza places have multiple things using bread – cinnamon sticks for one – but for some reason seeing everything all in a row like that made me realize people don’t think about the amount of bread they are eating.

I’m thinking I may eat other starches this week to make up for eating pizza and pizza bread stuff for dessert tonight. Even if the apple crisp one was soooo good.

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According to the scale this morning, I’ve lost five pounds. Yay!

Okay I’m not jumping up and down for joy, though I am happy. I don’t usually go by number of pounds lost but how my clothes feel. And my favorite jeans are still tight. Not fun. I’m hoping that by Thanksgiving they will feel better and I know I’ll have lost more weight by then.

Yesterday I got a passport form from the post office because I figure why not get one because Chris’ needs to be renewed. I breathed a sigh of relief when I noticed there is no weight question on the form! We all lie on our drivers license (c’mon, admit it!) and I always dread having to give my weight out, the few times it is needed. I do like that the scale at my house and the one at the drs office is not off but by one or two pounds, I would hate to go there and have it be much higher, yuck!

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Is that it is basically impossible to stick to a food plan when you are babysitting two kiddos and thus having to entertain four kids. Four kids who will eat dinner and then because it is too cold (and dark) to play outside, will dress up and run around your house until someone gets hurt. Of course being hurt only stops them for a matter of minutes.

Whew, I’m tired. And yeah I strayed from the plan.

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Earlier this week on Mom’s Morning Show someone said something about grocery shopping – forgive me, I am pretty sure it was Monday, but that’s all I remember!

We went grocery shopping this weekend. We shop at Costco and we all know that is bulk shopping. We don’t think we have the greatest storage in this house, but we do have a pantry so for food storage we have the fridge/freezer, pantry and another small freezer in the garage. I usually buy bread at the bread outlet so we store bread there as well as extra eggos and meat. You need extra storage if you shop at Costco – the toilet paper goes upstairs in a hall closet and maybe that’ll be my next picture because we have a lot, oh and paper towels, those are in the laundry room on a shelf.

So here is the pantry that could be a mini store. I used to get so annoyed that Chris wanted the shelves so stocked up – but last week our fridge got pretty bare and we were still able to cook entire meals. Even though I did it, I was still impressed. We also have a fair amount of seasonings so that helps spice things up.

And I’m very proud to say I stuck to my food plan exactly today! I had tuna the past three days for lunch and I’m definitely tired of that so tomorrow will have to be something new!

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I did so great all day today – until about 9:30PM. Then I went downstairs to get a glass of orange juice and for some reason opened the pantry. Where the kids halloween candy is stashed. And I grabbed a couple of pieces.

I have got to quit! I can’t go all day doing great and feeling good about being back on track only to mess up in the evenings. I’ve been drinking a lot of water but maybe I should just get water instead of grabbing a candy bar. The chips are all gone and we have no popcorn (my usual vice).

I did exercise via finishing painting the bathroom so I suppose that counts as burning calories and I’ll be forgiven. I just want to lose 17 pounds – what I had lost this past spring. I think I gained back 14 so okay I’ll be happy to just lose the 14. I felt better then – and after that I can set a new goal.

Here is to a new day tomorrow – and another glass of water.

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Today I started my LA plan back up again. I felt good about it until dinner – then I was starving! I did another crockpot meal and it wasn’t quite done (that’s what I get for the roast not being all the way thawed!) so we had to wait about 45 minutes from our ‘typical’ dinner time.

I did great though. I ate what I was supposed to eat, drank lots of water…and then put the kids to bed and had a bowl of Doritos. Ugh I know! So horrible. But once that bowl was gone, there were no more so I know it won’t happen again tomorrow! I have that to be proud of at least.

I bought an exercise ball and it came with an instruction book and a dvd. So far the kids have used it more then I have. They say they are going to exercise then do something with it for at least a half hour before they move on to something else. Fairly impressive for little ones.

Tomorrow I plan on trying the basic section of the dvd. And I’m going to stick with LA. Losing weight with the plan is easy, you just have to stick to it.

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I’ve been amazed that we have had meals the past few days – the fridge was empty. Empty as in we were down to a half gallon of milk, mozzeralla cheese, celery, carrots, and condiments. Maybe there was a couple other things, but I don’t think so. But we still had meals because of our very well stocked freezer and pantry! The chicken in the crockpot the other night? All from the freezer/pantry. Don’t tell Chris but he was right about keeping them stocked up!

So today we went grocery shopping and the fridge is full and the pantry and freezer are looking like mini-stores again. I don’t really mind because it does get eaten but with us possibly moving soon (I know, I haven’t said anything! I will soon, I promise) I wonder what to do with it. When we moved the last time we just ate what we had and right before we left we gave our can food to a friend. This time we could be looking at A LOT of food left over. I am just thinking of the money side of it – we spent so much buying all of it, having it left would be a waste of money. Who cares if we would eat it, I have no idea if they will move it for us though I am sure if they did it would keep.

I have to stop thinking about the money. Moving is stressful enough without thinking about non-moving related things! This move will be so different then the last.

Of course we could just have a big going away party and eat it all.

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My friend Jen posted about creative ways to get your kids to eat lunch – she found a cool product with separate compartments inside. I love it! We don’t have to pack lunches since we homeschool but this summer we did a week long camp. The kids each got a new lunch bag which they loved, but of course it was just one large compartment. We still had to separate their food into baggies or a sandwich container and then put it in the lunch bag. I don’t think they minded but I have to admit it annoyed me.

Chris packs a lunch to take to work, but he is much less picky then any kid. We have Tupperware containers that have  separate compartments so that works but he also doesn’t take a variety of things each day like kids usually like. I usually send him with leftovers.

Do you have to pack a lunch? What are your ideas?

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I made the oh so good crockpot chicken again today. The house was a big mess and I knew it would take a bit to pick up and clean – cooking dinner wasn’t something I also wanted to have to do. I used the same recipe and once again I was amazed at how good it is!

This time we ate it in a tortilla, no extras though. I wonder how this would be with tortilla chips? How am I supposed to start eating differently when there are great recipes like this out there! Maybe I should just join the Y again and work with a personal trainer, I knew we got I think ten free sessions and we could always buy more.

I’ve been looking over the November menus from Menu Planning Central. We are going to Costco tomorrow to do the grocery shopping and it feels like I have to check so many places to see what we need to get – the menus for what I want to make, my own meal planning list, the pantry and the freezer. But I really don’t want to buy any junk food tomorrow and I don’t want to buy doubles of what we already have. Buying doubles at Costco is bad because it is already so much food!

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