James Friday!

Hello all and happy Friday to all!! I forgot to mention I’ll be away this weekend at home with my family. Hope everyone has a good weekend. I get to see lots of friends and I’m babysitting this guy today!!

WBWW: Man Version :-)

Jill and I were considering some ideas for a Way Back When Wednesday post, and she came up with this crazy idea of letting me do a post. How exciting!

So first I was thinking back to toys, and Stretch Armstrong came to mind. I remember three things about my Stretch Armstrong: I was beyond excited to get it, it was fun for about an hour, and when it ripped the stuff inside was really, really sticky (especially when it ended up on the carpet of my closet).

Now music… I’m no pop music expert like Jill, so I had to do some extra thinking on this one so that I could come up with something that most of you would remember. Finally, I remembered ‘Waterfalls’ by TLC. Despite having never really been a fan of R&B, I’m pretty sure I still know all the lyrics to that song. I also remember my cousin telling me a story about it. Her grade school teacher asked the class what kind of music they would like to listen to during class, and they decided on ‘Waterfalls.’ The teacher proceeded to bring in a nature soundtrack of actual waterfalls. I can’t imagine what would lead a grade school teacher to think that his class would want to listen to the sound of waterfalls crashing, but at least he was trying!

Now, celebrity crush would have to be Alicia Silverstone. I distinctly remember my baseball friends and me considering watching Clueless just because she was in it. Fortunately we decided it wasn’t worth the effort and went back to either playing sports outside or playing Goldeneye for N64 (is a video game category needed for WBWW?). Anyway, I’m proud to say I’ve never seen Clueless and I don’t think I will ever have to (sorry, Jill).

Movies! A lot of movies came to mind, but Mrs. Doubtfire really stuck out. I loved it when I was a kid, and I remember my favorite part was when Mrs. Doubtfire threw the orange at Pierce Brosnan and called it “a drive-by fruiting.”

And last, but certainly not least, food! Most of my favorite childhood meals were Italian food made by my Great Grandma, my Grandma, or my Mom. When I went to LSU for undergrad I didn’t have anybody who could make those meals for me anymore, so I decided I had better learn how to cook (I still haven’t mastered my Mom’s meatball recipe). Anyway, like every kid I also loved candy. One of my favorites to get at the baseball park’s concession stand was warheads. I also remember having challenges to see who could eat the most lemon warheads at one time, but then we stopped when we realized we couldn’t taste anything for a few hours afterwards.

Well, I guess that’s it for me. It’s been fun reminiscing! I suddenly feel the urge to watch Mrs. Doubtfire with Alicia Silverstone while eating warheads, listening to TLC and playing with a Stretch Armstong doll…

*This requires a throwback pic, courtesy of Jill 🙂

Little Joey & his sissy

Happy Meal Toys are Making Kids FAT!!

Good morning to all and Happy Wednesday! (Next time I hear someone say “hump” day I’m going to pretend I have never heard anyone say it before, ha).

This morning I came across an article in New York Time Health that says Santa Clara County in CA has ruled to ban Happy Meal Toys from fast food restaurants. The direct quote is “What we’re trying to do is de-link the connection between unhealthy food and toys, why would a kid say ‘I want a burger with fries’? It’s the toys that they want.”

I could not agree with this decision LESS, as a matter of fact I find this idea just silly. I agree with Joey who was quoted this morning as saying “oh good, let’s not deal with the real issue here, the food.”

I mean I get the concept of this idea, but the sad thing is kids, especially heavier children who have been indoctrinated to this type of food, DO want the burgers and fries. I ate fast food growing up (on occasions, my parents didn’t let us have it all the time) but we led healthy lifestyles that consisted of a lot of PLAY.  The food and the activity levels of children is the issue, NOT the advertising/toys.

What do you guys think? Will this help at all??

4 Questions

Good evening to all! Hope everyone had a happy and successful Tuesday! I had class, worked out, and read a BUNCH in my Twenties Girl book (I’ll prolly finish tomorrow or the next day and it’s 430 pages!) Even when I’m not that busy, which I’m not now since I finished my paper and presentations, I like to have a set schedule of things for my day. I REALLY hate just sitting around all day, it drives me crazy. So, I set small goals like “read this many pages today” I’m a nerd I know 😉

At the gym today I did 60 min on the treadmill. I have been trying to incorporate a little bit of interval back into my life.

First 30 (running):

Minutes	Speed
0-5	6
5-10	6.2
10-15	6.4
15-20	6
20-25	6.2
25-30	6.4

Second 30 (walking, all at speed 4):

Minutes	Incline
0-2.5	0
2.5-5	2
5-7.5	4
7.5-10	6
10-12.5	8
12.5-15	10
15-17.5	10
17.5-20	8
20-22.5	6
22.5-25	4
25-27.5	2
27.5-30	0

When I was at the gym I was watching The Doctors. I honestly don’t like this show, I find it a little slow and boring, but there was seriously NOTHING on. I was lucky I watched it today though, because Dr. Stork (who I found out was on the Bachelor when I googled him) was hawking his new book “The Doctor is In” can you say cheesy?? Ha. Well he did talk about something I thought was REALLY cool. When you are preparing/about to eat a meal ask yourself 4 questions:

1. Is it delicious?
2. Is it healthy?
3. How will I feel 30 minutes after I eat this?
4. If I ate these types meals for 10 years, what would I be like?

I LOVE how he incorporates healthy and delicious together! Unfortunately, a lot of people think eating “healthy” is not going to be fun, when, in fact, since eating better I have eaten the best foods of my life!! And I cooked a lot of them!! I just thought this was a really cool message and a neat way to think about how you eat.

It's a shame he's not very good looking....... 😉

Watching an ESPN documentary tonight called Run Ricky Run and checking out Idol on the commercials! Are you guys watching the Hills tonight? That show is too much for me, I wanna watch high school kids, bring back Laguna Beach! hahaha.

Yolks Have Feelings Too!

Morning everyone! Hope everyone’s Tuesday is starting out well.  Mine is going pretty well so far! Just wanted to do a quick blog about my breakfast.  I have been pretty consistently eating oats for months now, and not that I don’t love my oats, but I hate getting into eating ruts. I am putting forth the effort to have different foods for different meals, I can tell my body just likes when I do this, keeps my body on it’s toes! 🙂

I saw a variation of this recipe in the current issue of Fitness (I get this magazine for free somehow) and don’t get me started on how photoshopped their covers usually are.I mean HELLO I watch Sex & the City and Miss Davis has a rockin body, but her hips are NOT this size.

Anyways here’s the recipe rundown.

Broccoli Egg Scramble

Ingredients: 2 eggs & 1 cup broccoli

Heat broccoli in a pan sprayed with non-stick cooking spray for about 2-3 minutes

Mix 2 eggs in a bowl (leave in the yolks ;-), jk only if you want!)

Pour eggs into pan and mix with broccoli

Completed meal: I added 1 nanner and 1 plain Nature's Path organic waffle with fig. Had some iced coffee too!

This recipe got me thinking about eggs and how most bloggers I feel try to eat eggs whites and are really hurting the yolks feelings! I did a little research and found out that although there is elevated cholesterol in the yolks, that is where most of the protein and nutrients in the eggs are! Also HERE is a link to a little info about egg whites from Trading up Downtown, a site Carrots N Cake writes on.  Overall, I think unless you have cholesterol issues or are eating a large amount of eggs in your diet, eating the yolks isn’t gonna hurt ya!

Also, I got like I said I got this recipe from Fitness. It was in this section about Breakfasts under 300 calories. OF COURSE I had to add other foods to my egg scramble because if I ate under 300 cals for my whole meal I would be hungry by 10! I try to keep my breakfasts between 400-500 cals (guesstimate here).  I typically try to have all meals around that size, eating any meals that are exceptionally larger than the others just doesn’t work for me.

Do you guys like big or small breakfasts? And have you been hurting the yolks feelings lately?

I’m the Rhymenocerous

I give up on coming up with post names that have anything to do with anything. This is a lyric of an AWESOME Flight of the Conchords song. Heres a YouTube link. Click if you like to laugh.

What's that?!? You don't like laughing?!

You should check out this site then. Ok, I’m done being weird now 🙂

Just wanted to share some eats from the past day.

For sunday dinner Joey got some MorningStar Mushroom Lovers Burgers and whipped up some SP fries.

YUMMMMM!!!

Then, I saw a polenta pizza recipe on NewlyWedNewlyVeg and KNEW I had to try it. Not only did it look good, but I have been trying to think of a way to use my polenta. I also wanted to get something together on Sunday night that I could have ready for lunches this week.

Love you Bob

I changed the recipe only slightly, actually on accident.  I think that Anna used premade polenta and I didn’t realize that till after. Also, I don’t like olives so I took that part off. I think because I cooked up the polenta that I actually made too much, so it took a long time to cook and was still a little mushy.  That being said, the flavor was really good so I will be trying this again in the future for sure!

Ingredients:

1 & 1/2 cups dry polenta (cook as instructed on package)

2 eggs

Pizza sauce & toppings of your choice

I whipped up 1 & 1/2 cups of dry grits with 3 & 1/2 cups water. You have to pour it into the boiling water slow and stir a lot or it will get clumpy

Put cooked grits in the food processor with 2 eggs

After mixing

Poured into the oiled pan

After 20 minutes at 375

Add toppings (clearly I was low on sauce, and I used mushrooms and artichokes) and do 35 more minutes at 375

I cut it into 8 pieces and although I don’t count calories a did a little math and each piece is only about 175 cals; pretty good if you ask me! (And it will be less when I use less polenta next time)

I am trying to spice up my mornings a little so I wanted to shift gears on breakfast this morn.

New ingredients!

1 cup fiber one, 29 biscuits of autumn wheat (that's 1 serving I didn't just pick a random number), 1 cup almond milk, 1 sliced nanner, and cinnamon

I was VERY happy with breakfast and it kept me satisfied all morning and through my workout!

Tonight for dinner I wanted a little Asian meal. I am actually trying to use up food I have in my house, it’s forcing me to get creative and I like it!

Ingredients: 1 eggplant, organic soba noodles, tempeh, and low sodium soy sauce

Cube eggplant, toss in 1.5 tbsp olive oil and salt and pepper, and cook at 400 for 23 min

After

Add 1.5 tbsp soy sauce to pan and heat up cubed tempeh

Add roasted eggplant

Add cooked noodles

Voila!

It was quite delish!!

Well that’s it for me tonight. Off to watch the end of Tough Love Couples (more crap TV I’m admitting to and saying my best friend is KELLI!! haha) Here is the cutest pic of Noodle and me while I was making dinner

Don't mind my neck strain, concentrate on Noodle sitting like a teddybear 🙂

Sometimes I’m a Poser

Hello and happy Monday to all! Hope everyone had a great day. Mine was pretty low key, but I did get my final paper back from my second reader with only a few grammatical errors!!! HOLLA!! That means I just have to change a few things, have it print and bound, and turn this sucka in!! Yippee skippee!!

I will post some eats later tonight during tv time, but I wanted to post a little something to think about.

I have been noticing lately that I have had a lot of negative self talk and I am not sure why, but anyways, it got me thinking, why is it ok, and so normal for women to find things to dislike about themselves?! (Also, I know men do this to). With the majority of women, there is no happy ending in self esteem.  What I mean is that some people concentrate on weight and think “I’ll be happy when I weigh this much” or others think of dress size “If I was just a size ___ I would be happy.”  The bad thing happens when you achieve those goals it seems that either you are still unhappy or you find something else to be negative about.  For instance, I overheard a woman at the gym the other day.  She was watching The View and said “omg, IF ONLY I could look like Elizabeth Hasslebeck.” The main problem came in my mind when I heard later that she has lost 200 pounds!! That is so INSANELY AWESOME, but it was sad to hear her saying things insinuating that it just wasn’t enough.

And HOLY CRAP this woman on Tyra just said that she has an outdoor pool and in the summer (she’s a teacher) she will lay out in a swimsuit and swim, but when she hears her husbands truck she will run inside and cover up. She will not let him see her in a swimsuit. He has NEVER seen her in a swimsuit. How horrible?!?!

Why would anyone want to live like that if they can help it (which we all can).  So I REALLY am making a change. I have been eating to be healthy but a positive side effect has been maintaining a lower weight than I used to be. Well I can tell that I have been concentrating more on weight lately because over the past few months I’ve gained some poundage, and I’m TIRED of it. Also, I see pics of women who might weigh more than me and think “her body rocks!!!” yet I’m unhappy with my own body still?!? It makes zero sense.  So, I’m not doing it anymore. No more weighing, no more scales, no more beating myself up because I “feel fat” today. I’m over it. I’m eating healthy food because I like it and it makes me feel good, and when I eat something “bad” I’m not going to feel bad anymore (I apologize I have been kind of a poser, because sometimes I pretend like I don’t care when I ate a bunch of snacks when I really do!!) I really feel like I am taking a step in the right direction because 2 weeks ago I cut my workouts down to 5 a week because thats NORMAL!! I don’t like feeling bad when I miss a day, and I don’t deserve it.

I’m saying that today, I think I’m pretty f*cking great, and I think every single one of you are too. And I will rock a swimsuit this summer and OF COURSE let Joey see it 🙂 HA!

Few years back at my heaviest in a swimsuit!! Ahhh!!! Putting all the cards on the table here!!

Please share any thoughts, techniques, or times when you have been a poser and how you are not gonna do it anymore!!

*And a side note, I am NOT saying I was fat or anything in this picture, but it was at my unHEALTHiest and unHAPPYest (yes I know I spelled that wrong, but it looks better like this, hahaha)

Treat Yourself

Hello again! Hope everyone is having a fab Sunday! Just wanted to share a quick blog.

So the weather here has sucked lately and the ambiguity of the future (don’t worry Joey and I are moving SOMEWHERE together) has been weighing on me lately. Although I am more than happy to be pretty much done with grad school, I can’t help but feeling a little down sometimes. Since I have been doing excellent the past week &  1/2 on my new goal of stop biting my nails, I thought I would cheer myself up and treat myself to a mani/pedi. But, since I am on a budget, I thought I would bring down the price by picking up some new polish and doing it myself!

First I stopped by my local Sally Beauty Supply and at the advice of BeautyGala decided to check out some China Glaze polish. Sally had a buy 2 get 1 free sale on polish so I picked up these beauties! (I got all three for $12.99!)This picture doesn’t do them justice, they are neon, vibrant, and VERY summer!!

So I painted the nails

Nubby pink nails on top of my new Sophie Kinsella book, Twenties Girl

and the tosies

I have fugly tiny toenails , I apologize

And then posed with another young lady getting her nails done 😉Obviously, after my spirits where MUCH lifted!! Even though I am not that good at painting my nails, it was def a fun activity for a cloudy Sunday. And it gives me something to improve on 🙂 Also, I am MUCH less likely to bite my nails when they are painted. Thanks for the advice D’A (one of my besties).

What do you guys do to pamper yourself on a budget?

Parsnips, Ravioli, & Chicken…..OH MY!!!

Hello to all!! Sorry for my prolonged absence, I have been finishing up my final paper for grad school!! Yippee!! I turned it in and got it approved by my first reader and now it’s in the hands of the second reader (a lot of steps if you ask me, ha).  What does that mean you ask? Well it means I have NOTHING to do for school until I get it back!!!! Big smiles there!! Well I hope everyone had a great week and I promise to start commenting on blogs again now 🙂

Now on to some eats you missed this week!

On Wednesday I made dinner for Joey and decided to get a little crazy!! I HAD CHICKEN!!! Oh my!!! And I wanted to try out those parsnip fries that I have been reading about all over the blogs. Here is the rundown:

I used the recipe from OhSheGlows (mine is only slightly different)

Ingredients:

4 parsnips

1 tbsp almond butter

2 tbsp chunky peanut butter

1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

salt to taste

Instructions:

1) Preheat oven to 375

2) Cut your parsnips into fry like strips

Before

This is 1 parsnip that I cut up

After

3) Put all ingredients in a large bowl (sorry this looks like baby poop, ha)

4) Mix in “fries”. I tried to put the lid on this container and “mix” by shaking the bowl, but the nut butters didn’t cooperate. So I had to do it by hand, very messy.

5) Lick your hand, because nut butters and olive oil taste really good together 🙂

6) Spread “fries” out on a cookie sheet (I used parchment paper under for less cleanup)

7) Pop in oven for 35 minutes (the original recipe says a lot longer, but mine looked like this after 35)

8 ) ENJOY!

Then I made some BBQ chicken. I had really small pieces of chicken left over from like 5 million years ago in the freezer.  I simply thawed the chicken, put in a baking pan (tin foil underneath for cleanup), cover with BBQ sauce of your choice (I use Bone Suckin’ Sauce) and popped in over for 15 minutes, put more BBQ sauce on them, then put back in the oven for another 15 minutes.

Before

After

*Obviously different sizes of chicken may take longer to cook, so be sure to cut into a piece and make sure that your chicken is fully cooked.

*I put both the chicken and the “fries” in the oven at the same time

Final Product

It was an excellent dinner and the chicken sat well with my tummy 🙂 Success!! Also we used some organic ketchup on the fries, but they were def good without too!

Friday night I made a quick meal, but it was really impressive looking so take notes!! I tried another one of these tasty frozen raviolis from Rising Moon Organics These are one of my FAVORITE products ever!! They take about 8 minutes to cook up and have excellent flavor!! HIGHLY recommend.  So I cooked these suckers up and roasted asparagus.  To roast my asparagus I just preheat at 400, cut the ends off the asparagus, toss in 1.5 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil salt and pepper, then spread on a cookie sheet with tin foil, and pop in oven for 12 minutes. HOLY YUM on this whole dinner.

Final Product: I also sprinkled some cilantro and parmesan on the ravioli

Saturday Joey whipped up some excellent pizza

Pesto, goat cheese, artichokes, and roma tomatoes. ZANG 🙂

I ate 4 pieces, aka half a pizza. I obviously hated it

I also polished off a pint of excellent “ice cream” between dessert time on Friday and Saturday. Purely Decadent brand (it’s made with coconut milk). It was cookie dough, YUMMY!!Well that’s all the noteworthy eats as of lately. Noodle has been looking really cute lately so I wanted to share some pics of her too 🙂

I like the new bathroom mat mama

Please drop some pizza Daddy

Haha. Well that’s it from me right now. I think I will do an exercise post later today too! I hope everyone has a fabulous weekend and again, sorry for getting a little behind! Hope you enjoy the recipes!!

It’s Way Back When Wednesday!!

Morning everyone!! Hope you all had a great Tuesday. I am pretty busy here finishing up my final paper, blah! Yesterday’s eats were nothing to write home about, just a lot of leftovers, and a sweet potato with black bean refried beans and some melted goat cheese, that was pretty divine (sorry no pic).  Well on to the good stuff!! It’s an excellent assortment of WBW Wednesday if I do say so myself!!

Way Back When Toy:
Crocodile Mile slip and slide!! Oh how I miss those fun summer days!

Way Back When Music:

Ok, so not really a song, but musically inclined anyways! The dancing baby from Ally McBeal!! Man, I got so many videos on AOL of putting this baby to different songs. This was one of the first viral videos I think.

Way Back When Clothing/Accessories:

Freak an A’ I cannot find a picture of a storefront of Structure clothing store. Remember when it was Structure instead of Express Men? I remember helping my high school boyfriend shop there! ha. I don’t think it was as “flashy” as Express Men can be.

Way Back When Crush:JT from Step By Step! Or Brandon Call, but no one but me remembers his real name. Don’t worry I know there was a little dispute between ladies on Step By Step and some preferred….The Code-man 😉

Way Back When TV Show:

The Adventures of David the Gnome. Oh how I loved this show. Nickelodeon used to rock.

Way Back When Movie:Of course Home Alone is one everyone remembers, but it’s def a classic. And if you were lucky (I wasn’t) you convinced your parents to get you aTalkboy/Talkgirl. Thanks for nothing mom!! haha. I did however get the knock offYak Bak! I think mine was on a pen though.

Way Back When Food:Squeeze it’s!! I used to feel so cool when I would occasionally get these in my lunch. The squeezey bottle was just bomb 🙂

Way Back When Book:

So I had to add a category today because I randomly thought of a book series my sister and I used to read all the time.

Boxcar Children. There were like a million of these books and we had a ton of them. Weren’t they about orphan kids or something? I don’t fully remember.

Well that’s it from here. I hope everyone enjoyed this addition of Way Back When Wednesday!! Have a great day!!

Oh and something exciting is happening later! I’ll be sure to fill you in 🙂