laura705

Not much to report.  Bf’s mother was diagnosed w/ H1N1 flu yesterday.  She can’t see anyone for a while.  Obviously our dinner at her place was postponed.   Bf and I ended up at the house of close friends.  It was a very nice afternoon and dinner.  I had a full plate of tasty food I don’t normally eat all year, and it was a filling and thoroughly enjoyable meal. 

Yesterday I did two BE workouts and a load of laundry in the morning.  I made a baked corn casserole for the dinner.  Back at home, I finally uploaded the photos from our October visit to bf’s niece, and we emailed her a few of the photos.  I watched the movie “The Accidental Tourist” yesterday.  An oldie but a goodie. 

Today we met a friend for breakfast, then came home and took doggy for a walk by the creek.  It was nice and sunny today, but chilly.  Very nice to see the sun again after several dreary rainy days!  This afternoon I sorted through the mail and put the glass in our back storm door (stored the screen), but that was about it.  Oh wait, I received my Lands End order a few days ago, and tried on the shoes and boots, but hadn’t decided if I wanted to keep either pair, so I tried them on again today and decided to keep the boots and return the shoes.  Well, it’s dark out now, but still, I might get out of the house and go to Home Depot for some new rakes.  Tomorrow will be sunny again, but a bit warmer (low 50’s), and it’ll be a good day for the last leaf-raking of the year.  Oh, need to buy more yard waste bags too. 

I’ll stop rambling now and publish. 

Our plans for today’s dinner are up in the air at the moment because bf’s mother is sick.  We were supposed to go over by her place today.  Last night she phoned and told us she wasn’t feeling well and that her sister (bf’s aunt) probably wasn’t going to come because the aunt hasn’t been well lately and gets sick very easily.  So bf suggested that his mom come to our house so that she doesn’t have to do the cooking (we’re doing some of it, but the reason we don’t host at our place is that the aunt is afraid of dogs).  I wasn’t super thrilled about that suggestion because if she’s sick, well, she’s sick and possibly contagious and a change of venue won’t really help that.  I’ve just gotten over a cold…I don’t want to get sick again.  Selfish but true.  I dunno.  Anyway, she phoned this morning and is coughing a lot and has a fever.  She’s going to one of the immediate care type places to see a doctor.  

Yesterday evening was sort of boring.  Dinner was a salad and a french bread pizza.  Watched some tv, and I fell asleep during a dvd bf & I started watching, as expected.  No formal exercise, just the dog walk in the afternoon and some side planks in the evening. 

Weigh-in this morning was the same as last week (and the week before).  Maintaining is okay, but I know I need to learn to cope w/ changes in routine  - find workarounds.  Logging my eating is helpful to me, and when I don’t do that, things go off course.  If I know I won’t log in the computer, then I’ll need to go back to paper.  I will try that. 

Right now I’m going to put on some sweats, bring my laundry down to the basement, and do a couple BE workouts after I get a load going in the washer.  I haven’t made the 2nd dessert I’d planned yet, but I can do that after exercise and a shower.  If at all.  I think it’s best to postpone dinner w/ bf’s mom until later in the weekend when she’s hopefully feeling much better.   

Haven’t done much w/ the day.  I woke up early w/ chest congestion and coughing but felt fine once I took my allergy meds, plus some mucinex.

I did some reading, watched some tv (watched 1+ episodes of 18 kids and counting - that family draws me like some sort of freak show, although they must surely be more normal than the Jon & Kate family), and internet browsing.  I decided on my recipes for dessert and made a shopping list for the few remaining items I need.  I finally got dressed and got doggy out for a walk.  It’s damp and dreary out, so I didn’t rake leaves, even though yesterday’s rain helped the oak drop almost all of the rest of its leaves.  If it’s dry this weekend, I’ll definitely do some raking!

After the walk, I went to the market for my stuff and came back home.  It wasn’t all that crowded, so I’m glad I went early in the day.  Right when I got home, I started some macaroni to add to the Italian veggie soup we made last week.  While that was cooking I put away the groceries and got the graham cracker crusts ready for the mini cheesecakes I’m making for one of my desserts.  The recipe for the crust was perfect for 6 cakes (baked in cupcake cups), which is what the recipe yields.  After I ate my soup for lunch, I did the filling for the cheesecakes.  It made more than enough for 6, so I put the remainder in a small ramekin and put that in the oven too.  No crust, but I’m sure it’ll be tasty.   It smells awfully good in here!   This is a good recipe for our 4-person gathering, because I’m also going to make a cranberry-pecan upside down cake and there won’t be tons of leftover cheesecake.  I’m glad I already had some pecans because the prices for them at the market was staggering. 

Nothing much else to report, so I’ll get this published.  I’m going to make a list of all the things I want to do this weekend, little and big, so I don’t squander the time off and regret it come Tuesday.  A Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate it!

Drizzily today.  Yuck.

Eating was alright for the rest of yesterday.  Dinner was baked salmon and steamed green beans.  I get grouchy when bf doesn’t get started on dinner until late because he’s kind of slow at it and doesn’t like sharing the prep duties.  He definitely doesn’t like it when he helps me.  I’m sure he feels it’s beneath him to pull out ingredients, open cans, rinse items, etc.  So it was just him, taking forever.  And asking me what we should have with the salmon.  It bugs me that he can’t be bothered to plan it out in advance.  And then he gets phone calls, etc.  We didn’t watch the dvd from the library because it was getting too late for me to start watching a movie.  In the end, his schedule is too erratic and I need to plan and prepare meals for myself and if he wants to join me, he can. 

Nothing much going on today.  I have one meeting this afternoon.  Nothing going on tonight, but I should get my butt down to the basement and exercise.  I’m skipping the movie because they are seeing that new Twilight movie, which I have no interest in. 

I’m still in a grumpy mood, but I suppose I’ll perk up a bit at the end of the day because I’ll be off work the next six days.  :) 

Quiet day here.  The boss and the other manager are out today, and it’s just me and the new admin.  Lead admin is out on vacay, and returns to her new department, not us.  So now I’ll be able to refer to the new admin as just “the admin” going forward. 

Weekend.  Food and exercise weren’t good.  Friday night I watched some tv and had a carbfest instead of a real dinner - a single serving of potato chips (we had one bag of chips left in the house - glad it was only that!) w/ some dip, pretzel rods w/ some dip, and later on some popcorn.  Saturday was my hair appointment, some cleaning, a dog walk, lunch (lamb kebob sandwich & baba ganoush), and some errands.  (We finally ordered the light fixture for the dining room.  This is it )  Dinner was garlic/herb pasta (mix) w/ shrimp added to it, and then some popcorn.  Sunday was the baptism of a friend’s baby, a party afterwards (my portions were okay), a dog walk, and then some tv and snacks (granola bar, pretzels and last of the dip, 2 squares dark chocolate).  Dinner was pasta leftovers and a glass of red wine.  Dessert was a piece of baklava I bought Saturday to take home from the middle eastern restaurant. 

Thanks for your ideas for green beans! I like the idea of them w/ carmelized garlic or shallots w/ parmesan and/or sauteed mushrooms - simple & tasty.  Bf doesn’t like cauliflower, so that wouldn’t fly…  I looked up some pumpkin desserts and cranberry desserts, but I don’t want to make multiple full-sized desserts.  I’ll do some more searching.  Bf suggested things like brownies or bar cookies, but I want to make something more special for the holiday.  Speaking of pumpkin:  I read a newspaper article on Thursday that said due to rainy weather at harvest time, the biggest supplier (Nestle) couldn’t get their tractors into their fields to harvest the pumpkin, so there will be a shortage any time now.  After that, there won’t be any more available until the next harvest in August.  One of the markets at which we shop still had canned pumpkin in stock, so I bought a couple cans.  A stock person told me a neighboring store was already out of it. 

Today hasn’t been off to a great start - I overslept due to user error w/ my alarm clock - I tried to turn down the volume and ended up turning it off, not snoozing it.  I took the next train after my usual one.  Food hasn’t started off well either.  For the first time in a long time, I stopped to pick up something to eat on the way to the office.   And I’d already had a bowl of cereal at home.  And today I met a friend for lunch and I had a sausage and mushroom calzone and ate it all.  Sigh.  I feel like I’m already in vacation/holiday mode and that historically has meant not sticking to a plan.  Well, that’s not going to bode well for maintaining or losing weight.  So, I went back and finished logging my food for Friday, and input my food for today.  I will get back on track and log my food!!  I need to get better at tracking food when I’m not at work.  (At work, I’m already in front of the computer, so it’s easy to enter it. Not so at home.)

Tonight’s dinner will be baked salmon.  I will do a Body Electric workout.  That’s about it for now, so I’ll finally get this posted. 

Yay for Friday.  And it’s sunny!! 

Not too much to report.  It’s nice I could get into the blogs right away today.  Yesterday was okay at work.  Bf picked me up from the train, and later we went out to eat.  I had salad and pasta, and took about 2/3 of the pasta home.  Very large portion. 

I didn’t exercise, except to pull my fitness ball out of the closet and do some crunches on it while I was watching some tv.  I can tell I need to fill the ball w/ air - I didn’t have to struggle to get the ball through the closet doorway to get it in and out of there. 

The only firm plans this weekend are my hair appointment on Saturday morning and a christening on Sunday.   Tonight bf and I will likely watch a dvd from the library - The Changeling, with Angelina Jolie, which neither of us ever saw last year. 

I might do some more raking on Saturday.  Now we have to bag the leaves, so that’ll be a big pain, but I like getting outside, and I want to keep up with it.  Our big oak still has leaves to drop.  Maybe I should nag bf to do the final mowing.  He knows it needs it, but the last time he went to use the mower, he broke the cord that you pull to start it.  I just phoned to remind him that he needs to look in the manual to see if it’s something he can fix himself. 

I also want to find a recipe for a veggie for Thanksgiving.  Tawnya suggested a yam souffle, but bf’s mom is already making mashed sweet potatoes, so the yam/sweet potato area is covered.  And bf’s mother is a sweet potato connoisseur of sorts - she scouts a few stores to find the best, lol.  Which I can’t really disagree with, because I have ended up buying sweet potatoes that weren’t sweet!  I love the idea of a corn souffle, but then that would be too many starchy veggies.  If it were just me and bf, I wouldn’t care about that…  We may end up doing the Greek style green beans again (in a tomato sauce w/ seasonings) because everyone liked those and bf wants to improve on last year’s version.

I also have to decide on the desserts.  Something w/ pumpkin, and maybe something w/ cranberries.  There will only be 4 of us, so it would be nice to make some mini versions of desserts and have 2 or 3.  Because it would be nice to have something chocolate too…

Okay, getting myself hungry.  And today’s not a good day to do that.  I didn’t bring any snacks today, or lunch.  Lunch was intentional - I’ll eat out - but forgetting the snacks was accidental.  I had a very filling breakfast (raisin bread toast w/ peanut butter, a half banana, and milk), so I should be okay w/o a snack this morning. 

Okay, I have a meeting in 5 min. so I’ll publish.  Have a great Friday and a great weekend everyone!

I’m trying to get into the blogs, but there’s been no connection yet, so I’m typing this in Word.

It’s overcast and misty today.  Ugh.  Was sort of drizzily yesterday too, but bf totally surprised me and did haul all the leaves piled in the backyard out to the curb, and the village did pick them up.  Glad for that, even though there’s still more leaves on the lawn to be raked.  I think it might dry out this weekend.  Crossing my fingers.

Yesterday was alright at work.  I still have a very messy pile on my desk, but that’s about it.  Things have calmed down after our department’s busy time.  It’s a good time to catch up on things.  I’m looking forward to getting my desk cleared.  I don’t know what I’m waiting for though, lol.

In the evening I didn’t exercise.  Instead I finally made the Italian veggie soup.  We had that for dinner, late, but it still needed a bit of simmering to get the flavors melded together.  I watched part of the show Glee.  It was sort of interesting, but nothing I’d watch regularly. 

Nothing special today at work, but I do have a couple meetings.  The countdown for the lead admin’s departure is 2 more days.  She’ll be on vacation all next week and that following Monday, and after that, she’ll be in her new position.  The boss asked if she wanted a farewell lunch and she declined.  Goes along w/ her recent bad attitude.  Which is odd because when we’ve been meeting w/ her to go over the transition tasks, she’s perfectly helpful.  It’s when she’s in meetings w/ the whole department that she acts really obstinate and pissy.  I think she likes being in the position of knowing how to do those tasks and imparting her knowledge to us.  After the first meeting w/ the new admin and I, which I scheduled, we had another meeting yesterday and have one more scheduled for today, both of which the lead scheduled.  It either makes her feel powerful, or she plans on totally ignoring us if we go to her with questions after her move to her new position.  We shall see. 

Well, nothing much else to report.  I brought some of the homemade veggie soup for lunch today, and my snacks – apple, banana, granola bar.  I wasn’t tracking food very well since last Thursday, and I’ve not been totally on track the past couple days, but even so, my weight was down a pound from last week. 

Well, I finished writing this before 10 am and now it’s almost 4 pm and I finally managed to connect to the blogs here at 3fc.  So I’m publishing. 

It’s rainy today.  It rained yesterday, but I didn’t know that til I left the office at the end of the day and saw some puddles on the ground.  (I ate lunch at my desk.)  Today is our usual curbside leaf pickup day (the LAST one of the season), but I don’t know if they’ll do it today.  I wouldn’t think those machines they use to sweep or suck up the leaves would work so well with wet leaves.  Not that our leaves are at the curb today.  Bf couldn’t be bothered to do it over the mild, dry weekend or Monday.  So the piles are still in the backyard.  He will have to bag all of them.  On his own, and I will raise holy hell to make sure he does it.  Being Mrs. Nice Guy hasn’t worked w/ bf.

Yesterday was okay.  Our meeting w/ the lead admin went well.  I complimented her on some of the improvements she’d made to her tasks, because they definitely made them easier, and because a little honey couldn’t hurt, right? 

Food went off the rails late yesterday afternoon and evening.  But I’m back to it today.  I didn’t bring my lunch today, but I brought my snacks. 

I did a couple loads of laundry and watched some tv last night.  I also caught the last day of a Lands End outerwear sale and a free shipping offer and ordered myself a new pair of snow boots.  I also ordered a fleece hat, scarf, and earwarmer to wear w/ my winter jacket and my long down coat.  They didn’t have the matching gloves in my size, darn it.  I actually prefer mittens, but they didn’t have those in fleece.  LL Bean has fleece mittens, but not the right color in my size.  They did have the fleece gloves in my color and size.  I might order those.  But first I might check other sources for mittens. 

I actually might try and find a pair of those glove/mitten combos because it’ll be easier to use my iPod w/ that.  I have to say I don’t understand why I can’t work the clickwheel with my gloves on.  Well, the click part works, but not the other things you do with it.  Is that some sort of science thing, like body warmth, or an electrical current, or what?  Like our bedroom lamps, for instance.  We have the ones that are mounted on the wall, above the nightstand, and they swing out over the bed for reading.  So that it’s easier to shut them off, we installed some sort of thingy on each of them that turns them into touch lamps, and they turn off just by touching a metal part.  But you can’t turn them off by, say, reaching up w/ your book and touching the book to the lamp to shut it off.  It doesn’t work that way.  I might have to look this up on the internet.  Anyway, it would be good to have those glove/mittens for my iPod.  Most people would find them handy for their cell phones too, but I rarely use my cell phone, so it would mostly be for my iPod. 

I also ordered a pair of casual shoes, originally in green, but then I decided that color was not me (and I prefer not to call attention to my size 9 feet), and went back and changed my order to black.  Boring black. 

I had a lot of soreness yesterday evening because of my exercise that morning, and it’s still there this morning.  That’s what I get for not exercising in so long.  But I need to get back to it.  I don’t like feeling weak, and I felt that way when I was raking the other day.  I didn’t exercise this morning, but I’ll probably do something tonight.  

Today I’m off all the cold meds, so we’ll see how that goes.  Feeling generally okay.  I’ll probably still need some cough drops when I need to talk. 

That’s about it for today, so I’ll publish.

Today’s pretty much like yesterday in terms of the weather.  I wore my wool jacket and my new scarf and gloves.  I need to buy a hat to match, as I didn’t see anything at Kohl’s on Sunday. 

Yesterday dragged for me at work.  I need to get back into the groove at the office.  This cold has depressed me - I hate being sick.  Feeling better today, and I’m sure I’ll shake this thing sooner or later. 

Food went off track at night, but not too badly.  Until I logged in all the cough drops I had throughout the day.  Boo.  Today I will see if I can get by w/ fewer cough drops and my water and tea.  I didn’t exercise last night.

This morning I woke up a bit before 5:30 and tried to get back to sleep, but couldn’t.  So I got up and did a Body Electric workout.  Just one 30 min. show - biceps, triceps, hamstrings, inner thighs and obliques.  It’s somehow more palatable to exercise upstairs in front of the living room TV instead of in the basement, but then the furnace kicked on right after I started and I soon got really warm.  So now I’ve decided it’s probably better to do the exercise in the basement.  It’s cool when I start, but once I get warmed up it’s fine.

Today the new admin and I will meet w/ the lead admin to have her show us several of the tasks that she currently does that will transition to the new admin once the lead is gone.  I’m not looking forward to it, but it needs to be done.  The lead has been acting very pissy - you wouldn’t think she was voluntarily leaving this job to go to a new job in a new department.  The boss thinks it’s because we’re not all upset about her going and worrying how we’ll live without her.  That’s for sure.  I’ll be happy when she’s gone, I just wish we still wouldn’t have to see her on our floor. 

Tonight’s the movies.  I voted for Law Abiding Citizen again, but again another movie was picked.  The Box, which seems to be getting bad reviews.  I’m thinking of skipping the movie tonight.  Lately it just seems like we’re not seeing such great movies.  Or maybe I’m tired of seeing a mix of both mediocre and good movies and now prefer to spend my valuable time only seeing the ones I’m interested in.  So I might just tell our leader that I won’t vote anymore, but she can still e-mail me to tell me what they’ve chosen and I’ll join them if I want to see what they chose.  I miss going to the movies w/ bf, so maybe I’ll see if he wants to start going to the movies together on Tuesday nights.  We’ll see.  I think it would be fun to plan a night for us like that, regardless of whether we go out to a theater or watch a Netflix movie. 

I think tomorrow I’ll try and get up early and exercise in the morning again.  I like the idea of getting exercise done in the morning.  It’s idea is appealing, but the reality is more difficult. 

Okay, I’ll publish this and get back to work.

Monday, ho hum. 

Food has been so-so the past few days.  I haven’t logged my food since Thursday, so I don’t know exactly how good or bad.  I haven’t been overdoing the snacking because we didn’t have all that much in the house.  I discovered that bf stored his leftover Halloween candy in the downstairs fridge.  Now I’ll have to try and forget that I saw it. 

I didn’t end up making the soup yesterday.  Turns out we didn’t have a couple things I needed for the soup, so I ended taking doggy for a walk and then going shopping. 

I went to Kohl’s and bought my brown socks, as well as a scarf & gloves to match my wool coat (only had it 2+ years, it’s about time) and two bras.  I used my $10 coupon, also got 20% off, and also earned $10 in Kohl’s cash.  Not bad.  After that I bought gas, and then went to two grocery stores.  I knew that would happen because one store has a good selection of brands and the other has lower prices on deli and produce items.  Finally, I stopped at the dairy store for milk. 

In the evening, I watched some tv and had leftover pasta for dinner. 

Nothing much going on today.  It was chilly and windy this morning and I wore my hooded jacket.  Sort of casual for work commuting, but I was running behind (as usual) and didn’t have time to de-tag my new scarf and gloves that go w/ my wool jacket.  First thing this morning at work I responded to a request from Thursday, and right after lunch I listened to a 30 min webinar.  I don’t feel like doing much else, but there’s certainly work to be done. 

Nothing planned for tonight.  I feel okay today, so I think I should exercise tonight.  I’ll do a Body Electric workout, maybe two, tonight.  I DVR’d the two shows in the series that I was missing, so I might hook our DVD player/recorder up to our cable company DVR box so I can get the shows onto our hard drive and then copy them onto a DVD.  Neither bf or I are quite sure how to do this, so we’ll have to figure it out.  We also have some VCR tapes and some camcorder recordings we want to put onto dvd too, so that should be fun to figure out. 

Okay, better get back to work.  Publishing now.