Zoey and the Owl

On this morning's walk, we heard an owl. This wasn't too surprising since we walk along a nature preserve on the east end of our development. In a way I was kind of surprised that I hadn't heard one before. Zoey is not a huge fan of hooting owls. She picked up her pace and wasn't doing her usual stop every 5 seconds to sniff. She really didn't like it when we turned up the street and the hoots started to echo off the houses. Such a brave doggie.

Recipes

This weekend has gone by way too quickly. We didn't have any particularly exciting plans, but here we are on Sunday night and I wonder where the time went.

Tonight we had my parents over for dinner. We were supposed to do some Wii bowling too, but we ran out of time. We haven't been with my parents for a long time, so there were a lot of things to catch up on. For dinner I made "Sizzling Hot Fajita Salad." I got the recipe from Karen. I thought it was pretty good. And aside from all the slicing I did beforehand, it was on the table in about 10 minutes.

The other day I was thinking about my new recipe resolution. Would anyone like to see me post my recipes that I have been trying online? I know there are a few sites out there where I can create and share a recipe box. But I'm not sure if anyone cares. I mark up my recipe books, so I don't need an online version, but thought I would see if anyone else wants my recipes. Thoughts?

Week 1 Results

It has been over a week since I have decided to be proactive about my health. And it's a good thing too. I got my lab results back and my cholesterol is high. I'm not too surprised since last year it was high too, but I am surprised because it doesn't make sense to me: no family history, I'm at a healthy weight, I don't smoke, I am somewhat active. But my HDL (the good stuff) is at a great level, so for now my doctor isn't worried about it and we will continue to monitor it.

This past week my back has been not happy, so I haven't hit the cardio like I planned. It is feeling a lot better, so today I will start with the exercise. Since I was somewhat immobile, this week I started making small changes to my life. For example, it is pretty much guaranteed that by 10 am I am hungry. Usually I grab a few small candies from the candy dish at work. This week I brought a container of dried apricots to munch on instead. I know that I'm not "saving" calories by doing this, but apricots provide better nutrition than refined sugar (shocking!). At night I have been known to have a bowl of ice cream. This week I have been having pudding instead. This is saving some calories and it is also a better source of calcium. And the final change is that I have gotten into the habit of having pop with dinner. This week I have been purposefully choosing water some of the time instead.

Results: No weight loss yet. No inches lost yet. But that is what I expected.

The Greatest Thing

We tried to get creative with Valentine's Day, but didn't really succeed. But we did have a wonderful day. Ben slept in (he didn't get home until 2:30 from poker). We had lunch (leftover Cheese and Bean Burritos - new recipe from Rachael Ray). We took a nap. Then we decided to get off our lazy bums and go to the grocery store. We had decided that instead of going out for dinner, we would make dinner. We actually have done this for the past several V Day's. It's a nice tradition. We didn't do anything that required too much work. We went to Byerly's and picked up some pre-made crab cakes and beef kabobs. While the crab cakes were baking, I dipped some strawberries in chocolate. Yum!

After dinner it was movie of my choice. I picked Moulin Rouge. Ben thought it was interesting that I picked a tragedy, but I love the movie and haven't watched it in ages.

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return."

One Pound at a Time

Shortly after starting at GMI I ran into a friend, Mike, in the cafeteria. He was giving me a hard time about my burger and fries, and I was giving him a hard time about his salad. He then told me of a friend of his that is extremely overweight. When Mike asked how it had happened, the friend replied, "One pound at a time." So while I don't need to lose any weight (I'm in the healthy range and my clothes still fit) I do want to stop the upward trend. I know that I have been blessed with a great metabolism. I also know that as I get older that will slow down. I want to establish a healthy eating and exercise routine now before instead of losing 7 pounds I need to lose 70.

Global Warming in MN

Minnesota has finally caught up with the rest of the world with this whole "Global Warming" thing - It is currently 38 degrees ABOVE zero. That's right. After what I think has got to be a record-breaking cold winter, we are above freezing. Yesterday it even rained. Yippee!

Yesterday I "got" to meet my new doctor. She was very nice. I'm hoping she stays around awhile. I hate changing doctors. If mine would just stop leaving... Anyway, while I was there I "got" to go on the scale. Turns out my home scale is pretty accurate. That sucks. (Although, as Ben has pointed out, the numbers may not have been right, but the fact that the number has been increasing means that I have been gaining weight). As a result, I decided to get out of denial and do something about it. I'll keep you posted as to what I'm doing and the results.

Not What I Expected

Well, all-in-all this weekend wasn't anything like I expected it would be. Friday I was supposed to go to a party at a friend's house who is joining the FBI. Mid-way through my volunteer thing on Friday afternoon, I started to get a migraine. And it came on fast. And hard. I took some Advil on the way home. Got home took some more and went to bed. Ben woke me up when it was time to leave. I felt OK so figured I would go. By the time I got to the bottom of the stairs, my head was pounding. So I sent Ben off alone. He had a good time though. I slept and watched some TV.

Saturday I was supposed to go to another friend's house for a game decathlon. But I still had a lingering headache, so I didn't really feel like socializing for 10 hours. So I stayed home.

I did make dinner last night. I tried a new recipe: Beef Stuffed Bread from the 2001 Taste of Home Cookbook. It was OK. It wasn't bad, but it was kind of blah. If I were to make it again, I would use Pepper jack Cheese Soup instead of plain Cheddar. (Maybe it was blah because I actually followed the recipe??!! I'm going to use that as an excuse to always play with the recipe).

Today is the only day that has gone as expected.