Fourth of July 2013 + Some Healthy Eats

I'm here with a Fourth of July recap and to share some of the healthier things I've been eating recently. Let's start with the Fourth of July...

I spent most of the daytime doing fun activities like working on homework, doing the dishes, working on homework, mowing the yard, working on homework, doing some laundry, and oh yeah, working on homework. I didn't realize how much work summer classes are. I guess I'll know for next time! And while Sebastion is cute, he was not much of a help with the homework...

The hubs and I grilled out for dinner. We made chicken kebabs with onion and green pepper. Our side dish was potatoes with onion which were grilled in a foil packet with some olive oil, seasoned salt, and pepper. It was healthy and on plan.

After dinner I did a little more work for grad school. Then we went to my father-in-law's house to shoot off fireworks. He lives on a cul-de-sac which is convenient for that kind of thing. I don't mind watching fireworks, but I'm really not into buying them and setting them off. This year I actually found one that I wanted to buy and actually set off myself. It is called "Frog Princess" and it is pink. Enough said!

It was a fountain that had some pink in it which was cool.

When I picked it up the hubs said I could get the Frog Prince too. Both of them have eyes and mouths which light up and flicker. They are definitely cute.

To be completely honest, I've been trying to follow that super aggressive plan this week. I've had some great days and some not so great days. My downfalls are cravings of chocolate (specifically Kit Kats) and Egg McMuffins. I've also done some great things like sit through cravings without eating them and finding other alternatives to snack on. Here are some of the healthier things I've eaten this week so far:

Preparing for Heatlhy Eating + Recent Randomness

I actually plan on writing about weight loss type stuff this time around! Don't expect those DIY project posts to stop though. I still have more projects to do and write about.

I plan on going big this week when it comes to eating right. I'm going to try to follow a more aggressive than usual plan and just try it for a week. At the end of the week I'll evaluate if I would like to continue or go to a slightly less aggressive plan.

I started out by making a shopping list and shopping. I had some of the items around the house already like brown rice, frozen vegetables that I can steam in the microwave, and some fruit. I was able to get the rest of what I needed at Aldi, so that was a great way to save some money. I've become enough of an Aldi shopper to keep a spare quarter in my car that I never use except for the carts at Aldi. Here is my grocery haul:

The following is my plan for the week. Since I tend to be a bit hypoglycemic, I will add in complex carbs such as a potato or rice when I feel that I need it (such as with snacks).

• Breakfast: 3 egg whites and 1/2 cup berries
• Snack: 3 oz. turkey breast and 1 cup greens
• Lunch: 2 oz. chicken breast, 1/2 cup rice, and 1 cup veggies
• Snack: 3 oz. turkey breast and 1 cup greens
• Dinner: 2 oz. chicken breast, 1/2 cup rice, 1 cup veggies
• Snack: 1 cup berries

This morning I took some time to cook up chicken, rice, and veggies to have ready for meals. The snacks don't really need prepping since I'm at home most of the time now. I can just grab from the fridge and measure out what I need when I need it.
 

 

As with any big effort, I've decided to weigh in to see what happens by the end of this week. My weight is 207 which is down two or three pounds from the heaviest I've been this month. Not a great loss, but at least a little bit down.
 
Here are some other random pictures and things that have been going on recently...

While I was cooking my healthful food that you see above, I took the time to clean the fridge. I threw out some old food, wiped down all the shelves and bins, and reorganized. Here is what my fridge looks like prepped for some healthy eating this week:

 

 

Don't judge me by the cookies. Those are my husband's along with the milk. The rest is mine.

 

 

 

This weekend I found some Boca Chicken patties while shopping at Aldi. I had them this weekend with some baked Lay's chips. They were good.

 

 

 

We've been having lots of thunderstorms recently and one of my dogs, Sebastion, is afraid of them. When they happen he either follows you like he's your shadow or hides under things. I got a good pic of him hiding under a bed.

 

 

I finally got my orthodics which are supposed to help my Achilles tendon situation. I keep injuring it due to how I walk on my left foot. These are supposed to help keep my foot in the correct position. They don't fit in my Sketchers go-walks well, but they can be trimmed down later after I break them in if needed. They are a pretty penny, but it is better to have them to prevent a major injury and surgery.

 

 

 

The last piece of randomness is the TV situation. My husband has a newer TV in his "room" in the front of the house. It is not hooked up to cable. We have my father-in-law's old TV in the great room hooked up to cable. The picture and color went weird on it. It looks 3-Dish and the blue color can't be aligned. It might need a new board, but that may end up being too much for what the TV is worth. While we are waiting to figure this out, I put my old college TV in there. It is 12 inches. The other TV is 55 inches. Although the TV is tiny, at least I have a back up one.

 

 



Scrapbooking

A while back my Aunt was in town to scrapbook with my sister. I went out to my sister's house to do my first real scrapping session. On the way I took a few pictures of the scenery, because it is relaxing to drive through the country.

Driving through the farmland.

Close up of the corn.

A farm.

I thought it was neat that this country road had flags on the poles.

I love driving down tree lined roads.

I've done a few pages here and there to add to scrapbooks given to me, but never a full on session with more paper, stickers, embellishments, and tools than I know what to do with. I regret not taking a picture of the full spread of scrapbooking stuff, but I was still slightly sick then and not thinking. My Aunt gave me a small dog themed scrapbook with some doggie themed paper. Anyway, here are the pages that I got done that day:

 

 

As for other parts of my life... I've been feeling creative/crafty/DIYish recently, so I've made a couple of things that I've seen on Pinterest. I'll be sharing those projects in posts to come. Also, I'm back on track with eating and even lost two pounds. I have so much to blog about, but have put it on the back seat to try to catch up and work ahead on stuff for grad school. I hope to be getting more posts up soon on everything that I've been working on. 

My Life as of Recently

Lots has been going on recently and summer break is finally here. I'll start with the weight loss stuff first and then get into what has been going on in my life. I started using Lose It! to track my food and exercise. I don't have a smart phone, so I use it on my computer. I like the program and I have a couple of family members using it, so it is nice to have some support. I spent two weeks maintaining and trying to get back on track. This past week I know that I have been eating too much and don't even want to step on the scale. Now that I am not working, I'm going to come up with a plan for the summer for weight loss and exercise. In fact, that is one of the things on my to-do list today.

Like I said, lots has been going on recently. We (my St. Joe friends) had a going away party for two of my friends that are moving to Detroit. It wasn't all that long ago that we had a going away party for one of my friends in this group that moved to Knoxville. Even though I didn't live close enough to Lafayette to be there all the time to do stuff, it was nice knowing that in an hour and a half I could be there and see everyone. One got a master's degree and the other a PhD, so I am proud of them for their achievements and first jobs with those degrees.

This is most of our group my freshman year at St. Joe.
 

Here is a pic of us from our group that graduated the same year. Notice how I'm the only BA in the group with the white tassel.

Another exciting thing (at least in the life of a homeowner) is that we got our 70's brown gutters and soffits replaces with some nice white new ones. It is the first thing that we dropped a pretty penny on for the house, but it makes such a difference. I still would like to paint the shutters and sides of the house that are still 70's brown (maybe a nice gray to tie in with the color of the roof), but to be honest, the brown shutters aren't bothering me so much since the white gutters/soffit are up.

The house when we got it.

The house now (please ignore the fact that I need to edge the yard and do some weeding - I'm injured and have bad allergies).

I had a great school year at work and it came to a whirlwind end like usual. This year is the first year that I had students from kindergarten all the way through fourth grade. After five years, you do have an attachment to the students. I was emotional on the last day of school due to that and some of the other changes that will be happening at work. Heck, even seeing my classroom emptied out felt kind of sad. I know that this is no excuse, but it did play a role in why I haven't done as well this past week in the weight loss department.

On last Thursday, my last day at work (teacher work day), we were able to leave early. On the way home, I found some garage sales to check out. I love a good garage sale, because you never know what kind of goodies you can find for a good price. I only ended up buying stuff at one of them, but it was a great find for me. I found a bunch of jeans, shorts, and capris in my current size and most of them were 25 or 50 cents. I also got two t-shirts and a nice pair of size 12 jeans (for that someday in the future when I'm a 12). I spent around $5.75 for all of this stuff:

After that fun, I loaded up all my stuff that I was taking to the garage sale that my mom, sister, and I were having at my mom's house. My mom and sister had furniture and appliances to sell along with their smaller stuff. All I had was smaller household items and a few odd and end items. I helped my sister set up and price this stuff, so it was ready to go on Friday morning. I hope that next year I have lost so much weight that I have a mini clothing store at the garage sale.

This weekend I have done a few things around the house and started my homework for next week. I'm taking two summer classes- Intro to Mental Health Counseling and Counseling Diverse and Multicultural clients. I'm liking the multicultural book so far (two chapters in), but I've always liked learning about culture. Music is an aspect of culture and that is what I teach. I always though it would be cool to be an enthnomusicologist or get a master's in music history.

I know that you are all jealous of my summer reading!

As for around the house, I mowed the front lawn (really regret- my allergies are still killing me two days later), did some dishes, did some laundry, and started grooming the dogs. I also got most of my sickly plants into the ground now. They have been sitting outside in their containers for two weeks now. I'm lucky that they didn't die, but I'm hoping that they turn around now that I have them in the ground.

 

My husband has done a much better job with his garden. This is a whopper strawberry.

 

I'll close this really long post with some total randomness. The doxies like to lie on this sunken in spot in the futon. Lilly is small enough her whole body fits into this spot that we call "the groove." I just caught her napping there and she looks so cute.

May Grocery Shopping Trip

Since going back to school and saving up for new gutters for the house, I have to be more careful and try to spend a lot less money than I used to spend. I've been trying some new strategies for a couple of months which seems to help. Here are the strategies in no particular order:

• I meal plan for three to four weeks (or the rest of the credit card cycle) at a time. Then I make one big shopping trip and get everything I can that will not spoil and can be frozen if needed.
• I've also started shopping at Aldi again. I'm an Aldi kid, so I never had anything against Aldi. I have memories of shopping with my mom and the cart overflowing with a large haul to last us a month or so.
• When I see items I know I use on a regular basis on sale at other stores, I will stock up on them. I hit a great sale at Meijer a while back and stocked up on things like baggies and frozen veggies. I've even found fresh Perdue chicken breasts on sale and bought a bunch of them to freeze.
• I've worked really hard on not impulse shopping or shopping because I'm upset or bored. This gave me more time to do things such as read textbooks, write papers, and other grad school related stuff. 
• Even though I gained some weight back, I haven't been out buying as many sale items as I can to have a variety of clothes. I deal with the fact that I have three pairs of dress pants and three pairs of jeans that fit. I just do laundry more often. I'm not planning on staying a size 16 forever, so I'm not going to give myself any slack to do so.

Here is most of my grocery shopping for May. I might run out of something or need a fresh ingredient once a in a while, but I've gotten pretty good at estimating what I go through in three to four weeks.

My fresh, refrigerated, and frozen foods from Aldi.

The rest of the food from Aldi.

I found these at the Dollar Tree.

This is the stuff I had to get a regular store (Meijer, Wal-Mart, Strack's).


Although this has nothing to do with the rest of my post, here are some cute pictures I got of the doggies today. Since it was nice, they were able to run outside and play at grandpa's house (he has a fenced in yard, we don't). Needless to say, they are tired tonight!