Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Motivation is weird

This fall I found my "groove". I was swimming regularly and loving it, doing my thing... Then my brother stopped by, and everything got out of sync. I couldn't get started.

Of course I'm not blaming him, I'm just very much influenced by the inertia law, when I'm moving I keep moving. When I'm stopped... it'd take a tow truck to get me started.

Yesterday I was playing around on Facebook, and I came across somebody I know. He's not close enough to be called a "friend", he's more like "a friend of my ex". I like him though, and always wondered what happened to him. Is he still performing? Did his back ever heal...

The point is though, he's a athlete, an acrobat in fact. I was looking at picture and a lifetime of training as done wonders to him. His body is finely tuned, finely toned.

I will never have an acrobat's body, and it's not my goal, but all of a sudden, I feel the need to move, to get stronger, better. I'm tired of being just "OK". I want to go back to being tuned, toned, I want to be in perfect control of my body.

I won't join any circus, but I'll get myself MOVIN' Darn it!

Thanks Damien for the motivation! hehe

See him at work here: Duo Voltart

Be good n stuff!

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

OMG what a day!

Do you ever have one of those days that start as a slow lazy day, with "I have plenty of time to do plenty of things". As the day goes on, things are sort of piling up, but that's OK cause I'll have tomorrow and Friday to get everything done.

Then the phone rings, we need you to work Thursday and Friday. No problem, I need to work, I need the money.

Then you think about it and realize that your mostly short to do list just got a few items added, and your time to do it went from 3 days to a few hours.

I had one of those day.

I spend a big part of the day playing around on Facebook (whoever got me on there should be punished! it's addictive!). Then i had an ingenious idea for a Christmas gift for a loved one, worked on that for a while. Then I got that phone call... By then it was too late to catch up.

I spent the evening working my meeting in Cotati and then stayed around to take out all the 2008 material, and put in, organize the material for 2009.

Food today was horrendous. I ate too many Weight Watchers snacks. I was at the traveler, that's all there was.

Finally my husband brought dinner for me and Cheri (thank god she was there to help me out!) and I had a sandwich, not haute cuisine, but better than a chocolate bar. I like the snacks but really...

I didn't work out, thought I did carry all the boxes by myself.

After everything was said and done, I was ready to go home and crash... I still had to stop by a friend's house in Sebastopol to bring back her keys I had used Monday.

You know when you're so tired that you know you need to go home and crash, but you simply can't move? We talked for a while, I played with the dog, ran around the kitchen island... finally at 10pm, I headed home. 10pm, I usually am ready for bed by 9:30pm, how did I end up on the road that late?

Then of course I think about Facebook and all the old friends I've found on there.

All those people who knew me in my other life. When 10 pm is when I left home to start finding people to go out with. When 5:30 am was the time I would go home, not get up to work out.

Am I who I am now because that's the "real me" that I was avoiding for whatever reason when I was younger? Or am I playing a role because I think that's how I should be?

Maybe as you get older you just change and that's just how it is.

I know people older than me who are still spending the nights out and walking home at 5:30 am slightly offbeat and knowing that they have to get up in 2 hours. Are they still having as much fun as I did at 20 years old? Or are they just caught in a loop?

I don't care really, honestly, I'd rather go to bed early, get up early and not have a hangover. Ah!

Monday, December 1, 2008

Food food food foooooooooooooood!

Hi there!

I'm alive! So, it's blogging day, been almost 2 months. Busy months too! I've had ups and downs (literally) but now I'm on a good trend. I've been "testing" the new Weight Watchers program and am loving it!

I just stopped by to show off a few things that I've been up to. All of a sudden I miss cooking, so expect to see a lot more of it starting in January (after my vacation!).

For now I have a few things to show off:

I went to GNG and bought a pre-made Tandoori marinade. I wasn't too hopeful since I've had many disappointment with those, but that one was DELICIOUS!

I used my oven rack to cook it, so that the air could circulate all around the chicken pieces and the results were wonderful!

I served it with Garam Masala scented bulgur and sauteed red bell pepper and carrot sticks. Here's what my plate looked like:


Since I'm showing off anyway, here's my Thanksgiving table:


Would you believe that's all for just 2 people?

You can see the biscuits/rolls on the right. My husband made those and they were quite tasty. I had only 1 of them, maybe half another actually. hey, it's Thanksgiving!

The longish colorful platter is the roasted vegetables. Red onion, butternut squash, carrots cooked with thyme and rosemary sprigs, salt, pepper and garlic scented oil.

The white plate left of that is slice of turkey. We roasted a turkey breast, bone and all. Put it on a bed of onions, with thyme, rosemary, garlic oil, salt and pepper. Wrapped the whole thing in an aluminum foil. It turned out delicious. If you plan on eating the skin though, cook it unwrapped some, cause it wasn't "crispy".

Finally the glass bowl has mashed potatoes that my husband made with FF milk and a little butter. They were DELICIOUS.

We had plenty of leftovers, I made a soup the following day, and a curry with the rest of the turkey Saturday!

So that was Thanksgiving. I would have skipped the whole thing, but my dear American born husband looked so sad at the idea of just not having Thanksgiving that I couldn't do it.

Can't have Thanksgiving without dessert now can we?

This is the simplest thing!

Mix together 2 small pack of Jello sugar free vanilla pudding (1 big pack is only 1 1/2 small pack not 2!), 2 cups of Fat free milk, 1 cup of pumpkin puree and pumpkin pie spice mix (to taste, I put 1/2 tsp or so). Once that is well mixed, fold in 1 cup of Fat free Cool Whip.

Then, take a fuffy glass, and alternate a layer of Cool whip (not mixed with anything) and a layer of the pudding/pumpkin mix.

You could decorate with a cinnamon stick, a mint leaf... you know..

Delicious and good looking! AH!

After all that yummy food, and 2 weeks of eating out almost constantly while my brother visited, I was craving home cooked food. I was also sick of chicken!!!

Last night we had salmon thawed out, so I made our favorite salmon dish:

Basically, you season the salmon to taste (I use cumin, salt and pepper), heat up 1 tsp of oil in a heavy bottomed pan. Cook on medium high heat on one side 4 minutes (do not move it too much), then turn it and cook one minute, then lower the fire and cover, cook an additional 3 minutes or so (until done).

If you wait for your oil to heat up well, it makes a crispy layer on the salmon without overcooking the middle.

I roasted vegetables to go with it, and cooked some mushroom for myself (my husband won't touch those).

Last bragging subject for today (on here that is.. hehe) is this morning's breakfast:

I was hungry, but didn't want to use up my points, so I made myself one of my "Egg white pie":

Sauteed onions, bell pepper strips (had them frozen) and mushrooms. Added 3 egg whites, minced rosemary and thyme, salt pepper. Cooked in the non-stick pan until almost set. Put under the broiler to finish setting the top.

Et voila! Eating healthy delicious foods is so simple!

Find a restaurant that will serve those foods for cheap and have them taste half as good, AH! Good luck finding it!

Be good n stuff!