Thanksgiving and Graduate School

I know that I've been a bad blogger since I haven't updated in a while. I've had a lot of stuff come up this week that has kept me busy. It is all good news, but no good news on the weight loss front as of now. Sometimes I eat healthy, sometimes I don't, and it shows on the scale. I really do need to focus in December, so I can lose a little bit of weight by the new year.

Monday I did some cooking and baking for the week since I took the day off. The real reason why is in the next paragraph... Anyway, here is an easy recipe.

First cook up some ground turkey, chicken, or lean beef (which is what I used this time).

Then preheat the oven to the time on the crescent roll container. While your meat is cooking and your oven is preheating, take some reduced fat crescent rolls and shape them into a muffin pan. I used two packages of rolls and only had two leftover.

When the meat is cooked, add some barbecue sauce to your liking.

Lastly add meat to the crescent rolls and top with a little bit of cheese. Bake them for the time on the crescent roll package. They come out looking like this.

I also made some chocolate cupcakes with just cake mix and pumpkin.

Monday the 19th was a big day for me. I know I haven't written about it in a while, but I have been in the process of trying to get into graduate school. Monday was a group interview with some of the faculty. There wasn't much of a way to prepare, so I was super nervous. They started off the interview with a little bit of information on the program. Then most of the hour and a half was spent on questioning the nine of us. A couple of questions I was prepared for such as "Tell us about why you want to be in this program." and "Tell us about a situation where you had to deal with diversity and what you did in this situation." Then there were questions that I wasn't prepared for such as "Give us one word that you would like us to remember you by and then explain why in one sentence." and "Tell us why someone else in the room would make a good therapist in one sentence." We were told that we would find out in about a week if we made it in or not. After going through everything a week felt like forever to wait!

I took this picture in the parking lot before the interview. I really don't think that most people want to trespass in a marshy, wooded area.

Tuesday and Wednesday were normal work days for me. I unintentionally kept wearing stripes even though the stripes challenge ended last Friday!

I wore this outfit for the interview (and pajamas the rest of the day) on Monday and for work on Tuesday.

I wore this striped dress, sweater, leggings, and boots on Wednesday.

Tuesday I got an exciting e-mail:

I consider that close enough to being a grad student and a part of Purdue, so I got myself a sale sweatshirt on black Friday:

We had a two hour fog delay on Wednesday morning. I was kinda worried that I would have to drive in the horrible fog, because I work in a school in the city that usually doesn't call off for fog. The school in my rural hometown called off school for the whole day! Here are a couple of pics of the fog from my house:

On Wednesday I got my birthday present from the hubs. He asked if I wanted to wait until my birthday next week or get it now since I had a four day weekend and some time to try it out. I went with lets try it out now. :)  He ordered a Wii U (the new Nintendo system) and we got it on Monday. It came with a game called Nintendoland which looks like it would be fun to play with friends. My present was Sing Party which is singing game. You can practice singing by yourself or play with a group of people (that is really what the game was designed for). There is a wide range of songs from the '60's to today's hits. I found out that I really suck at most of the songs only getting two or three stars out of five. I still can't wait to try it out with my friends though!

Thursday was Thanksgiving, so I had lunch with the hubs and father-in-law at Cracker Barrel. It has been a tradition for us the past five or so years. There is only three of us and it is actually cheaper to eat there than cook the same stuff at home! We all had the Thanksgiving special with our choice of sides and dessert. I had turkey, sweet potatoes, green beans, stuffing, cornbread, and no sugar added pumpkin pie.

For dinner I went to my uncle's house (my dad's brother). I haven't been over there for Thanksgiving for two years, so I thought it would be nice to go there and see some relatives I haven't seen for a while. I didn't take a picture of my meal, but I had turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, carrots, and shared a piece of pecan pie with the hubs.

The rest of the exciting stuff from this week will be in the next post.

Beginning of November Update

October was such a busy month for me at work and personally. When things finally slowed down, I crashed into being lazy. I actually watched more than just The Voice, surfed the Internet a lot, and slept in or got extra sleep whenever possible. I haven't lost sight of my goal of losing weight, and have started to get back into some of my good habits again. I'm using this post to catch everyone up on all of my news, so here it goes...

On the 3rd I got lunch and went antiquing with my retired teacher friend Chris. She asked me to stop by K-Mart and pick up a cute Cheshire Cat hat and she would pay me back for it. I decided to just give it to her as an early Christmas present. She was really happy with it and end up buying me a ring that I liked while we were antiquing.

I also now have my own dedicated, new-to-me computer set up in my office. Since I will hopefully being going to grad school this winter, my husband thought it would be a good idea for me to have a fully functional computer. He was going to buy me one as a birthday/Christmas present, but I didn't really have need of a fancy computer. He found one on sale that fits his computing needs, so I got his old one with a new keyboard and mouse. I can now blog whenever I want since I'm not sharing a computer anymore!

Speaking of grad school, I have a group interview with the other potential candidates and faculty in the department on the 19th. When I got the e-mail about it I was really excited and happy, so I think that I have made the right choice on this. I'm still quite nervous and a little bit scared about working and going to school for so long, but I guess I won't worry about that until I have been accepted.

I found a wonderful and easy recipe on Pinterest to help with the sweets cravings. Instead of brownie mix and pumpkin, cake mix and pumpkin. I guess if you use regular cake mix and a can of pumpkin (no eggs or oil), it is two Weight Watchers points per cupcake. A can of pumpkin with sugar free cake mix is also yummy! In fact, I've been eating too many of these, so I'm going to take a break for a few days before I make any more.

The weight loss has been good and bad this week. The good news is that I lost two pounds this week. The bad news is that I'm only down 20 pounds total (instead of the 35 that I was last spring). I got to use my other poundpuncher bracelet for 12-20 pounds lost. I'm hoping to lose around 8 pounds by my birthday by the end of the month. If I can keep up around 2 pounds down a week, I can be around 35 pounds down by the new year.

A bead for another ten pounds gone for my jar and future bracelet.

You can see the peace sign bead in the jar.

I've also found some fun, comfy, and warm clothes for around the house.

Pink and black zebra striped sockasins.

Beatles sweatpants!

Life the Week of September 10th - 14th

I can't believe that I've gone a whole week without blogging. Between appointments, catching up at work, working on the bathroom, and just plain being tired out some days, blogging hasn't been daily like I wanted.

Monday I got to drive on 80/90 for the second time. This time it was around 2:45ish so there was way more traffic than last time. I once again went to Purdue Calumet, but this time with the purpose of meeting with the head of the program I hope to be in for graduate school. I am so glad that my husband was on campus with his dad, because I haven't been in any of the buildings and got lost trying to find the office I was looking for. I was able to call the hubs up and get directions. Luckily, I was there early and even with getting lost, I was five minutes early to my appointment. I was there for about 20 minutes or so. I got to hear about the program and ask a few questions. I finally decided for sure that I want to do mental health counseling over school psychology. I also found out that there is a certificate I can get (and use these classes as my electives) for expressive arts therapy which is right up my alley since I have always wanted to do music therapy (there are classes for writing, art, and music therapy). I also found out that I could possibly do my internship or practicum with a practicing music therapist! That definitely made my day. I also found out that after they review the applications, they call in potential candidates for a group interview with the faculty. Hearing this made me nervous and still does. She told me that it was a casual get-to-know-each-other kind of thing, but it is obviously still an important part of getting accepted. I got most of my application materials in, but still have to do the writing sections. I hope to get that done this week.

As for the bathroom reno, we are very close to being done. It is really the finishing touches stage right now. The window and linen closet have been sanded and have one coat of stain. Once they are done, the rest of the trim can go up. Once that stuff is done, I can do the fun decorating part. I can't wait to have my bathroom back, organized, and updated. I'll get some pictures up later this week when all the details are done. The rest of the projects around the house will be small touch up or easy projects. I'm tired of working on my house every day.

Work has been going well too, so there isn't much to say about that. I started teaching the songs for my fall music program this week. Most of the kids like most of the songs, so that is a good sign. On Wednesday the gym teacher had an assembly for second and third graders during their specials block. I had two hours of supervising children while they got to have fun. The assembly was put on by the Girl Scouts and was about nutrition and exercise. They had different stations set up around the gym that classes rotated to do. One was about nutrition and the rest were exercise stuff like jump ropes, hula hoops, and frog feet. The kids really enjoyed it. The first graders went on a field trip to the apple orchard on Friday, so I had an extra hour and a half of prep time that I used to do my lesson plans, send e-mails, and do other paperwork/office stuff.

I went out on Friday evening with a few friends to Don Pablo's. I haven't done much fun this week, so it was a nice break. I got my usual chicken fajitas with rice and no beans with water.

The other fun thing I did this week was discover the show "The Voice." I knew about it before, but have never really watched it. I decided to go for it since I don't have any "have to watch" shows right now. I have to say that I'm really enjoying it and wished I watched the past two seasons. They treat their contestants with dignity and don't put a bunch of auditions of people who are ghastly terrible singers. They really had some talented people! I also liked the judges and how they play off of each other. Since Steven Tyler is gone from American Idol, I probably won't watch it anymore and just watch this instead.

The whole weight loss thing has been another week of 50/50 effort. The beginnings of the weeks have gone well, but I end up losing it by the weekend (or even the end of the week). My rocking September so far sounds like the Lite FM station instead of Q101 or the Loop (for you northwest Indiana and Chicago peeps). I hope to have another post up soon with details involving my September goals, exercise, and weight loss. Kind of a mid-month check-in.

One Week Challenge- Day Four, New Shoes, and Applying for Grad School

Today is the fourth day of my one week challenge. I've done pretty well with my eating this week besides the one doughnut a few days ago, but somehow my weight went up! I guess that is why you probably shouldn't weigh yourself every day...

Thursday started off with a small change in my usual breaky (as they say in the Beatles movie Yellow Submarine).

If you don't know what the change is, I used a bagel thin instead of a wrap for my eggs. The bagel thins are good, but I think I prefer the wraps.

I spent several hours at work again trying to decorate, but mostly start organizing my room.

The mess before...

and the organization later.

I have a lot of papers, music, and CD's stuffed away in random places that I'm trying to find good homes for.

My rules bulletin board with some new "motivational" posters on the upper right hand side.

While I was there I had two snacks

and a meal.

I spent the early part of my afternoon at the mall at the Sketchers store again. This time I went for it and bought the Sketchers GOwalk. I wanted a pair of brown and a pair of black, but they only had brown ones in stock in my size. I'm hoping that they get the black ones in before work begins. If you want to see them or read about the new GOwalk instead of Shape Ups, here is a link. Here is a picture of the pair I was able to get.

My afternoon snack was a healthy one I found at Meijer:

My dinner was leftovers from my hubby cooking out the other day:

I spent the evening starting the online application for graduate school. As it stands now, I would like to get a masters degree in mental health counseling. The classes are all at night and most of the students in this program work, so it sounds like the logistics should work out as long as I get accepted. I'm excited and a little bit scared all at the same time, but I guess I shouldn't be sweating it yet until I'm accepted and working full time while taking two classes a semester.

I was so caught up in this whole grad school thing that I almost forgot to have an evening snack. I ended up not feeling like making my usual oatmeal breakfast cookie, so I just had this instead.