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.

A Productive Day

Do you ever have one of those days where you don't waste any time and spend your time very wisely to get as much as you can done? Well today was one of those days for me. I got much more than I thought done at work today. I also did some cooking and cleaning when I got home and plan to do a little more later tonight.

It was also a productive day for the hubs as today was his first day on the job. I'm so used to him being at home when I come home, so it will be an adjustment for me. And the dogs. They were jumping all over me when I got home. There weren't any accidents on the floor (and someone actually used the potty patch!), so I tried to get them out quickly (but there was still an accident).

As far as the weight loss world goes, I feel that I have rejoined it in the right mindset. I even cooked myself an easy dinner for the week- chicken tacos. I used crunchy shells (two per meal), fat free beans, shredded chicken breast, lettuce, onions, tomatoes and a sprinkle of cheese on top. They were yummy and easy to make!

 

I also found these while buying the ingredients for dinner. They look good, so I'll let you know if they are once I try them.

I'm going to be off to watch The Voice in a few minutes, so here are today's eats:

Snack

Breakfast

Snack

Lunch

I had two slices of pizza, 1/2 cup of applesauce, and one WhoNu cookie.

Snack

Dinner

Snack

This oatmeal tastes great and comes in little packets that you can use as a measuring cup for your water!

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!

Easy Zucchini and Breakfast Cookie

Day two of my October Challenge (Tighter Belts and Even Tighter Wallet) has gone pretty well. I've stayed on plan all day today and am close to 8,000 steps (should make it there before the end of the day). I still feel kinda icky and don't know if it is lingering effects of the thing I had last week or if my allergies are just that bad.

There really isn't much special to share about today- just a typical work day. I stopped by Strack's after work to get some rice crispy treats for a class that earned a reward that they will get tomorrow. While in Strack's I bought some laundry detergent on sale, a bottle of water, the rice crispy treats, and some strawberry preserves. Everything I got was on sale and will be needed, so I don't count that as frivolous spending. I really only needed the rice crispy treats though. It is funny how I always go in there for one or two things and walk out with more.

The plan for tonight is to make sure I get those 8,000 steps, watch The Voice, play some Song Pop, get the trash out to the cans so it is easier for trash day tomorrow morning, do some laundry, and work on my fall music program a little bit. I know it sounds so exciting and glamorous!

I did do one thing slightly interesting this afternoon and that is cook some zucchini in the convection oven. I just sliced it up, put a little salt and pepper on it, and threw them in for ten minutes. Easy and tasty! Just don't put too much salt and pepper on them like I did...

One of the blogs I follow, The Lean Green Bean, is having a photo challenge for October (the link takes to the page with the challenge). I'm going to try to do as many of the photo challenges as I can and post them on here and the Facebook page for my blog. Yesterday's challenge was to eat an extra veggie at lunch.

Two veggies at lunch- peppers and sweet potato fries.

Today's challenge is to hold a wall sit as long as you can. I haven't tried a wall sit in years, but here is the picture of me completing today's challenge:

I'm doing a wall sit in my dress clothes! It took three wall sits in three different locations to get a decent enough picture, so I more than completed the challenge.

Here are the eats for today:

Breakfast

Snack

Snack

I also had a light string cheese with this.

Lunch

I had applesauce instead of a cookie. I should probably take a picture of that sometime since that is what I have been eating for lunch since August 20th.

Snack

Dinner

Snack

I tried throwing a little cocoa in with the recipe and it tasted great!

Exercise: just surviving the day and getting in 8,000 steps

Catching Up and From the Mouths of Babes

Catching Up

This week has been a busy one so far! Monday was Labor Day, so I didn't have to go to work (no school!). I got some chores done around the house, went out to eat with my hubby and FIL for lunch, went to Menard's to pick out our baseboards and window/door trim, and spray painted the vent and ceiling fan cover for the bathroom. I also worked on finishing more things I need to get done for applying to graduate school. I'm meeting with the head of the program next Monday, so I'm getting a little anxious since this seems real now.

Here is the cover that I spray painted back in place.

My breakfast this week which is my usual egg white wrap but this time with Colby jack cheese and salsa.

We went to Cracker Barrel for lunch since it is next to Menard's which is where we bought our trim.

I made something similar to this a few weeks ago. This time I used an Oreo pie crust, 3/4 cup fat free Cool Whip, and a 16 oz. container of Chobani vanilla chocolate chunk. Very yummy and around 190 calories if you are counting.

Tuesday was back to work and a hectic day at that! I had an appointment after school for a haircut, so that was a nice break after work.

My outfit for Tuesday. I can't wait until I can pick up all this stuff we are using for the bathroom reno that you see all over the place behind me.

Me with my new haircut (which is really the same thing I've been doing).

Wednesday was very busy. I have ten classes to teach, so I don't have prep time and am constantly running around to switch things out and stay on top of what I need to get done. I stayed after work for quite some time to clean up, send e-mails, and do phone calls. Menard's is down the street from the school I work at, so I stopped in to get some stain, hinges, and door pulls for the bathroom linen closet. I also stopped at the post office and got gas for my car. When I got home, I took a short walk with Benjamin (my doggie with endless energy). Then I tried out my new hinges and pulls for the linen closet to find out everything is off by a small amount like 3/8ths of an inch! I think the standard sizes must be slightly different now than they were in the '50's-70's which seems to be when any renovations were done on this house.



My outfit for Wednesday.

My accessories and yes that is a mood ring.

As for the weight loss, Monday and Wednesday I got a little bit of extra movement in for exercise. The eating isn't exactly what I planned out for the week, but is MUCH better than last week. I haven't been eating home cooked dinners, but I am picking things I ate before when losing weight. I've been eating a lot of the same stuff I was before such as PB&Js for lunch, egg white wraps for breakfast, Clif bars for snacks, etc. My dinners have included chicken and a baked potato or a bean burrito and diet Foutain Dew.

From the Mouths of Babes

I thought that some of you might enjoy hearing a couple funny things that students have been saying to me or another teacher at work. Here we go:

• Today I had a second grade girl look at the mood ring you see pictured above that I was wearing today. She asked me if it was my wedding ring! I said no and showed her the ring on my other hand. Even though they call me Mrs. Kramer, she said, "I didn't know you were married!" Then she asked me what my name used to be. Before I said anything, she said "You must have been Miss something." Then I explained how I was Miss before I was married and I changed my name. It was cute and amusing.

• The other day a teacher found a first grade student sitting in the office with a cast on his arm. She asked him what happened and he mumbled something she couldn't understand. There happened to be another teacher standing by that understood. The boy said, "A fat girl fell on top of me." That is how he broke his arm. Only from the mouths of babes!