Category: Health & Fitness

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness, Paleo

Sooo….Training for a Triathlon and managing cravings

heather

Today Tim and I did our first “brick” which means we trained on 2 of the 3 exercises.  We swam 600 yards in the pool and then biked 15 miles in the super cold, sunny, windy outdoors.  It wasn’t as exhausting as I anticipated, at least not physically   However, I think it’s rather draining emotionally.  At least something is draining me emotionally today.  Exercise usually makes me feel happy and energetic, but yesterday and today I’ve had a serious case of the Sundays (I just want to lay around, not do anything, and think about how I don’t want to go back to work tomorrow because I have so many things I would rather do at home, none of which I feel like doing when I have a case of the Sundays).

I think that my mopey grouchiness, while exacerbated by the 1.5 hours of pretty intense exercise, is compounded by a few factors:

1.  My bro was in town last weekend, and as is our custom, we ate a lot of delicious (non paleo) food and drank A LOT of beer.  I drank mostly cider, which is gluten free but definitely not carb free.  I gained the Benny differential (about 3 lbs).

2.  We had a little get-together here Friday night.  We had a great time, but having a party is an emotional roller coastal in and of itself.  You have the stress of preparation, the stress of hoping the weather cooperates, the excitement of looking forward to the event, the stress of hoping people have a good time, and then you enjoy the party, and then it’s over.  You have nothing more to look forward to except for cleaning up and dreading Monday.  Plus, at parties you usually eat too much (pizza, pretzel turtles, Triscuits, etc.) and drink too much (whiskey, Rumchata shots (BAD IDEA), and caramel apple shots (another horrible idea), which does not leave you feeling awesome the next day.

3.  And finally, Boys – feel free to skip this paragraph – I’m in the hell week of my cycle.  I’m 36 years old and should have figured out how my body works by now.  However, I’ve just generally noticed that around day 15 I hate everyone.  I hate life.  I hate myself.  I hate everything except for sugary, fattening foods.  Life would only be fair if this period of the cycle lasted one day at the most.  However, I’ve been feeling this way for like 3 days, so I finally googled it today.  I found it hilarious that the first search results for “What to expect during days of your period” were hits for adolescent sites.  I should have read this stuff when I was 13, evidently.  Anyway, I found this enlightening article.  I’ve discovered, much to my dismay, that “hell week” is actually “hell 12 fucking days.”  Sorry for the cussing, but it’s warranted in this instance.  The only reassuring portion of that article was the assurance that gaining 3-5 pounds during this time frame is normal.  So that, combined with the Bboo’s visit, explains why I can no longer see my abs.  Man, sometimes it really sucks to be a woman.  Except for days 6-13.  Why do the feel good days only last for 7 days, and but the bad days last for 12 + the 5 days of your actual period??  It is SO unfair.  Bleh.

Anyway, I’m done wallowing.  On to brighter topics.  I’ve planned some delicious paleo meals for the week.  I’m going to try writing more in this blog now that school is over – hopefully once/day.  I’ll post reviews of the recipes.  We also bought some herbs (cilantro, dill, and parsley) and flowers (vincas and impatiens), so I’m going to plant those once the weather cooperates.

My cravings also drove me to discover a tasty “paleoish” treat.  I had some sunflower seeds hanging out in the freezer forever.  I kept trying to get Tim to put them in smoothies, but he wasn’t listening!  So tried to make sunbutter out of them.  No matter how much I processed it, the butter was pretty mealy.  I even added some honey and olive oil.  Finally I got it to a point of tasty paste and gave up.  However, I’ve really been wanting some peanut butter cups, so I had a flash of inspiration. I put 2 squares of dark chocolate in the bottom of a silicon muffin liner, added a tablespoon of the sunpaste, then a shaving of coconut butter, and put it in the microwave.  I did the first one for 30 seconds, which was too long.  I burned the chocolate.  The second one I microwaved for 15 seconds, and it was just perfect.  I used a knife to slightly mix up everything, and then put it in the freezer for 10-15 minutes.  They turned out really tasty!  They don’t look beautiful, but they taste really good.  I got my peanut butter cup fix!!

And that’s it for today.  It’s about supper time, and we’re making pork chops and roasted cauliflower (spiced with cumin, turmeric, and salt).  It’s going to be super deeeeelicious.

Hope you have a great Sunday and talk to you tomorrow!

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness, Paleo

Freedom!! Sweet Freedom

heather

Wow.  It’s been almost 2 months since I’ve posted!  That’s what I get for going back to school.  I’m so stupid!

But the stupidness is over!  My team gave our final presentation on Friday, and so now all the hard work is done.  We just need to wait for the final grades to come in. I better get an A or all my self worth will be gone. Just kidding.  Kind of.

Between school and work, life has been crazy lately.  With school finishing up, life will start to get a little more normal.  It’s still a little wonky because Teeeeem and I are in full-on tri-training mode.  I’ve been swimming 3-4 times/week, and we’ve been adding in biking and running.  Yesterday I did the March of Dimes 3 mile walk, and then Tim and I biked 23 miles into a headwind both ways (dammit, Iowa!!).  Today we swam.  This afternoon I sat outside for about 3 hours and read, wrote emails, and attempted to vacuum a metric ton of Lucent hair out of the Fusion so that it looks appropriately pretty for the B-Boo’s visit on Thursday.  Yeah, that’s right, the Benny Boo is coming on Thursday!! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Work is super crazy busy right now and will be for months and months.  Fortunately I have Benny’s visit to look forward to.  Then Nate & his lady are coming in June for the triathlon. I need to plan something for November/December, so I have something to look forward to after that.  It’s going to be one crazy summer, and I’m afraid not in a good way.  I’m trying to convince the Timmy Tee to go on a Caribbean trip.  I think that only way I will make it through these upcoming months is with the promise of white sandy beaches, turquoise ocean, and scads of free drinks.

So, that gets you up to speed on my life.  The true purpose of this post is to report on a couple of good recipes I tried last week.

First of all I made an old favorite, Balsamic-Glazed Drumsticks.  This is the 3rd time I’ve made these, and each time 1) They are delicious and 2) They set off the fire alarm for an hour.  I guess it’s the high heat and the oil?  Anyway, they always taste super great, and they are the essence of easy. I do need to get a prasty/food brush though, so I’m not always fingering our food.  Don’t be perverted!!

Chicken in Buttery Caper Sauce:  This recipe was AWESOME.  I put the breasts in a large ziploc baggie and then smashed the hell out of them with a small skillet.  They came out super moist and delicious, as would almost anything that is cooked in 6 tablespoons of fat.  This is a not a cheap recipe, considering the copious amounts of olive oil, butter, and capers, but it’s well worth the expense.

Slow-Cooked Coconut Ginger Pork:  This is another recipe that I found on Mark Sisson’s website (thank you, Mark!).  I thought it turned out super delicious.  I shredded the pork after it cooked all day and served it with sauteed veggies and slices of avocado.  It served up 2.5 meals.  Tim liked it, my friend Michael thought it was super delicious, and I thought it was great too. I will definitely make this again.

As mentioned, the B-Boo is home this week, so we’ll be eating out a lot, but I also want to make him some of my primal favorites – brisket, sweet potato salad, and coconut bars.  Besides that we’ll be eating a lot of brats (NYC only has Johnsonsville brats – travesty!!), beer, and local favorites. I’ll probably weigh about 5 lbs more by the end of the week, but with tri training going into full force, I can probably use the extra calories.

Hope you all are having a great week.  It’s beautiful here in Iowa.  You really couldn’t ask for a prettier, more gorgeous, awesome day.  Hopefully I will be more regular in my posting going forward.  Thanks for reading!

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness, Paleo

Chicken sucks and Pork is awesome. So awesome I capitalized it.

heather

I tried a new baked chicken recipe this weekend.  Let me go back a smidge.  My baked chicken usually turns out awesome – super crispy, salty skin, moist meat, utterly delectable.  You can eat the skin like a potato chip.  However, last time I made it, we got hit with a one-two punch of a questionable chicken and an undercooking Heather.  The meat measured the right temperature, but when we cut into it, it looked a little pink.  We risked it and starting eating, only for Tim to discover what can only be described as a postule.  It was pretty gross.  So it’s been a while  since I’ve made chicken.  I figured it was time for another go, and how better to refresh the chicken brand at our house than to try a new recipe.  So I tried this one on a $15 chicken from a local farmer.  I followed the recipe pretty closely, just using dried thyme instead of fresh.  I also didn’t make the sauce.

Neither Tim nor I were impressed with this bird!  The skin was chewy, and the meat was chewy too, especially the dark meat.  I don’t know if the recipe is at fault or the chicken or my cooking, but something failed there.  I won’t be trying this recipe again.  In fact, I just put it in the recycling.  We ate what we could, and I stuck the rest into freezer bags to use for bone broth.

I also made this recipe again:  Asian Pork Meatballs.  This has to be one of my all-time favorite recipes.  These turn out tasty every time, and they are so versatile!  Quick note – I didn’t have any fresh jalapenos, so I used pickled jalapenos.  I also don’t know what “chili garlic sauce” is, so I added maybe a teaspoon or two of chili powder and a chopped up clove of garlic.  I also forgot the sesame oil.  As always, they turned out great.  We ate some of them straight up.  The next day, we ate them with over-easy eggs on top of them (amazing).  The next day I chopped up the remaining 5 and sauteed them with cabbage.  Again, amazing.  Pork is just so awesome.  Pigs are smart.  Eating pork makes you smarter.

This week is going to be a fridge-forage week.  Tim and I went to a local brewery on Sunday instead of meal planning/grocery shopping, so we’re going to have lots of meals consisting of eggs, sauteed frozen veggies, and frozen salmon, which actually doesn’t sound too bad.  We are almost totally out of snack foods however.  Today when I got home from work I ate 2 dates and about 10 almonds with some raisins.  Exciting!  I guess it’s better than eating a bag of Cheetos.  I read this article from the NY Times about how mega-food companies literally engineer food to reach your “bliss point.”  The article mentions that Cheetos are basically the perfect snack, and I have to agree.  Ever since I read the damn article, I’ve been craving Cheetos.  Cheetos are like the anti-paleo.

Interesting observation, from the paleo perspective, by the way.  For months after going paleo I was easily able to notice the effects of eating grains or cheese on my system.  It made me all rumbly and gassy pretty quickly (sorry if that’s TMI).  As I’ve been on the paleo wagon longer, I’ve noticed that now I get bad effects if I eat bad oils too.  For example, today I ate lunch at Panda Express.  I had chicken & string beans and the sauteed veggies (broccoli, cabbage, zucchini, and carrots).  This is a meal that would give me NO problems at home.  But my stomach still hasn’t recovered from the the PE version. It looks like I’m slightly pregnant.  I know it’s the bad cooking oils they use on their food.  There is probably some added sugar in there too.  Maybe some MSG?  Anyway, in my experience, the longer you eat well (i.e. Paleo) the quicker and more forecefully your body will tell you when you DON’T eat well.  It’s good in that it makes cheating less attractive, but it’s bad in that it makes cheating less fun.  Yin and yang, Man.

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness, Paleo, Uncategorized

Easiest Ever Paleo Banana Bread

heather

This recipe is delicious.  If you don’t make it, you are a fool.  A FOOL!  I tried it for the first time yesterday, and the Timmy Tee was a huge fan.  He asked me to make it again this morning, so I did, because I’m nice like that.  I made a double batch, so that Tim and I could each have our own full portion.  I doubled the batch and then poured it into 2 separate bowls.  About 30 seconds into the microwaving of the first one, I realized that I forgot to add the cinnamon and salt, , so I pulled out the bowl and dusted the top of the  batter, on top of the chopped walnuts.  On the second batch, I mixed the salt, cinnamon, and nuts all into the batter.

Both batches turned out fantastic.   I ate the one with the nuts and cinnamon and salt on top.  I also put about 4 of the largest chunks of ghee you’ve ever seen on the bread directly out of the microwave, so that the bread had a nice butter glaze on it.  It was fantastic.  I ate it with like 4 slices of crispy bacon.  Tim loved his batch, with all the ingredients mixed together.  So, either way, I think you’ll like it.  It’s super quick, super tasty, and totally primal.  It’s a win, win, win!

I have to admit, I’ve totally ignored all recipes for microwaved paleo desserts in the past.  I really just don’t trust the microwave.  I’m sure it’s fine and won’t cause cancer or whatever, but it just seems…wrong.  But, I’ve changed my tune.  I’m going to try these next.  I’m a microwave convert now.

Tonight for supper I am doing Take 2 of the Chili Verde recipe I got from a friend at work.  The first time I made it, I added WAY too many hot spices.  We had to cut it with several cups of bone broth/chicken broth.  Tonight I toned down the spices, and it looks fantastic.  We are going to dive in here in a minute.  We are spooning it over sweet potatoes, and topping it with avocado chunks.

UPDATE:  The chili was delicious!!  If you want the recipe, let me know!

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness, Paleo

Sweet Sweet Potato and Poblano Pepper Soup

heather

Found another keeper of a recipe!  Tuesday night I made Sweet Potato and Poblano Pepper Soup for supper.  I modified the recipe a little – HyVee only had 1 poblano, so Tim subbed one for an anaheim pepper.  The recipe also called for a TABLESPOON of sea salt, which seemed like a lot for the amount of soup, so I just used a teaspoon.  I also subbed 2 cups of the chicken stock for 2 cups of my homemade bone broth.  We nixed the sour cream (dairy is problematic for me) and added chunks of avocado instead (avocado makes everything better).  Also, I don’t have an immersion blender yet (I’m going to see if I can swipe one from my parents.  Mom – if you are reading this, ignore that last comment), so I had to transfer batches of the soup into our food processor, blend it up, and then pour it into a new pot.  Not only does this dirty an insane amount of dishes, but if you are not careful and you put too much liquid into the food processor and breach the center pole line (where the processor bowl connects to the base), well, then you have a messy problem.  Lots of soup all over your counter top.  After the soup was blended, we ladled it over cooked ground pork and topped it with cilantro and avocado.

Despite the blending drama, I would still make this soup again.  The flavor was very interesting.  It tasted more like potato soup than anything.  We couldn’t really taste the peppers.  Next time I think I will add more potatoes and peppers and leave the soup chunkier.  For some reason, eating a soup with pureed chunks of veggies is less filling than eating soup with non-pureed chunks.  It’s a pshychological thing.  The ground pork was very tasty in it, but this soup would be fantastic with some ham in it. I think this is a soup, though, that eats more like a 1st course and less like a meal.  It was very delicious though.

And, another side benefit, it gave Tim and I both racy dreams!  So, if you’re into interesting, vivid dreams, give this soup a shot.

Happy Cooking!

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness, Paleo

Wrangling with obstinate pork shoulder

heather

Today I woke up at 4:50 AM, and instead of going to the gym to practice swimming (which I really should have done), I did some floor exercises at home, put away the dishes, ate breakfast, took a shower, got ready for work, and prepped 3 lbs of pork shoulder for Spiced Pork and Butternut Squash with Sage.  The prepping involved me using 3 different knives to try to cut the shoulder up into 1 inch pieces.  My right index finger is bruised and blistered due to the encounter.  I think we need some new knives or a stronger Hlo.

Anyway, I finally got the shoulder cut up and then rubbed it with the spice mixture and let it marinate all day.  I cooked it up this evening, and I have to say, the meal turned out super delicious.  It’s not an easy recipe – I dirtied 3 pans, several utensils, a cutting board, and several dishes.  But overall it was worth it.  It’s no surprise that it turned out well – the recipe called for 6 T of olive oil and 2 T of butter.  You could probably cook dirty socks in that much fat, and they would be tasty.

While supper was cooking, I made dessert – cocoa macaroons.  The recipe was very simple, and they turned out very moist and delicious.  The URL didn’t print on the recipe, so I can’t find it on the internet, but if you want the recipe, hit me up in the comments, and I’ll send it to you.  The recipe is awesome, albeit expensive.  Between the coconut and the honey (locally sourced) alone, $6 is down the drain.  For a recipe that made 10 cookies, eek!  I had the pleasant experience of actually getting egg whites to form peaks while making this recipe though.  That was exciting!  It was like magic.

So now comes the real test – horde all these delicious morsels for ourselves, or take some in to work tomorrow to convince people how delicious paleo can be??  We’ll see how my self-control pans out in the morning.  I’m supposed to swim tomorrow morning, so all of my willpower may be exhausted by the time it’s time to go to work (you only have a finite supply, you know!).

Oh, and happy valentines day, everyone.  I’m pissed because I bought 1/2 dozen chocolate-covered strawberries two days ago, and I keep leaving them at work.  They’re probably going to taste like fridge now.  🙁  Poor Teem.  He got me an awesome bottle of Jack Daniels, and I’m going to end up giving him 3-day old fridge-flavored strawberries.  SEXY!

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness, Paleo

Flounder sucks and my shoulders hurt

heather

I made this delicious tilapia putanesca recipe for the second time last night.  The first time I made this, it was the bomb.  Super delicious.  We all loved it.  Last night I thought I would widen my realm of meat experience and give flounder a shot.  Flounder sucks. It tastes super fishy and a little mealy.  At least the flounder WE got stinks.  Maybe it was bad flounder?  Tim pointed out that the name of the fish, FLOUNDER, is pretty unappetizing in and of itself.  A floundering fish just does not sound tasty.  And it wasn’t.  Never again.

I have made 2 awesome recipes this past week though.

African-Inspired Chicken Stew – This soup was delicious.  I even remembered to sub 2 cups of my homemade bone broth for two cups of the chicken broth.  However, I did forget to add in the $9 almond butter (ridiculous), until after Tim and I had already dished up our bowls.  When I cook, I get all of the ingredients out, and then put them away as I use them. So, I look over at the counter, and the almond butter is just chilling out there, mocking me.  We dumped our bowls back into the pot and added the almond butter.  I am glad we did!  It gave the soup a delicious, nutty flavor.  Eating paleo, a lot of our food starts to taste very similar.  I use a lot of the same range of seasonings – basil, chili pepper, oregano, thyme, etc.  The flavor of this soup was very unique.  Cooking the chicken IN the soup (instead of separately) was a novel idea for me too.  I’ll definitely make this again.  When I can afford the $9 almond butter.

Crispy Carnitas – This recipe came highly recommended by a coworker, and he was spot on.  This turned out amazingly delicious.  Sure, it takes awhile to cook it, but most of that time is unattended (we even looked at a house and went to the gym while it was cooking), so the recipe is actually really easy.  I cooked it in a cast iron skillet, which worked out great and seasoned the pan with delicious pork fat.  I took an insane amount of pictures and posted them to Instagram – check out the link on the right if you are interested.  We ate it Sunday with sweet potato salad (I made the mayo with olive oil because we are out of avocado oil.  Avocado oil makes much tastier mayo, in my opinion).  Tim made guacamole Monday night, and we doused the leftover carnitas with that, and it very well could have been the best meal I have ever eaten.  A note on the guacamole – a couple of times when we’ve made this, it’s turned out, well, off.  We think it’s the onions.  Whatever you do, DO NOT mash the onions with the avocados.  Onion juice is no one’s friend.  Tim is not a huge fan of raw onions anyway, so he cut the measurement down to about 1/8 of a cup, and it turned out fantastic.

Now, on the shoulders hurting thing.  I found out about this website, Bodeefit, that will email you a body-weight workout every day for free!  You can also upgrade and get additional information from them, but for now, I’ve just been using the workouts.  Each workout will list of the movements and times, and it contains a hyperlink to a short video showing you how to do the movement.  It is really cool.  I enjoyed Crossfit for the few weeks I did it, but I don’t really like working out with people in a hot gym.  I prefer the convenience of my own home where only Tim and Lucent are staring at me, wondering what in the heck I am doing.

Well, I’ve done two workouts on back-to-back days, and I am feeling it.  The first day called for handstand pushups.  Yeah right.  I modified it using a technique I learned at Crossfit – you place your knees on the edge of a box (or in my case my bed) and do “pike pushups.”  It’s easy at first, but by later rounds, it SUCKS.  Both workouts had a lot of arm exercises and squatting exercises.  So my shoulders hurt, my ass hurts, and I jammed my thumb while doing Inch Worms.  So I’m taking a day off.  I’m reading the Primal Connection, and it reiterates the needs to GET OUTSIDE.  The weather has not been optimal, but that’s not a good excuse.  I need to get outside and get in some good, slow movement where I am actually moving through space.  I plan to make it out tonight.

Well, that’s my update for today.  Hope you have a fantastic day!!  It’s going to be light until 5:25PM tonight!  Yeeeeeaaaaaahhhhhhhhuuuuaaaa!!

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness, Paleo

Primal Meal Extravaganza

heather

Two of my coworkers have been doing the 21-Day Primal Challenge in January.  So to encourage them and to feed my need to be social, Tim and I hosted a Primal Meal on Saturday night.  We had 5 people over, and here was the menu:

Main course:

  • Garlic Pulled Pork
  • Beef Brisket – I used Mexican style chili powder, and instead of using sugar in the rub, I rubbed the brisket with honey and then rubbed the spice mixture into the meat on top of that.

Sides

Dessert

I have to say, we had a great time!  While we may have perhaps have drank more than was primally-friendly, we all enjoyed the food, companionship, and Nerf guns immensely.  The result was well worth the effort.  It also showed me that our house, with a little rearranging, can comfortably fit more than 2 people at a time.  Perhaps we don’t need to spend $150 – $200,000 on a new place so that we can entertain more!

Here are some pictures from the evening.

Here is our living room.  We pulled the church pews out of the breakfast nook and used them for seating in the living room.  They aren’t the most comfortable seating option, but they will do in a pinch (and it was much cheaper than buying a new loveseat, which we are also contemplating).  Also note the beautiful coffee table built and designed by the Benny Boo (my little bro).

 

Rearranged living room

Here’s a picture of the Love You Long Time Cupcakes.  My bananas were not quite ripe enough, so I added in some honey.  They turned out pretty tasty – not too sweet, but nice and moist.

photo (5)

photo (6) photo (7) photo (8)

photo (9)

Health & Fitness

Tri Training

heather

The Teeeemy Tee and I are signed up to do the Quad City Trathlon.   This will be Tim’s second tri and my first. I have never been a strong swimmer.  It took me 3 tries to pass Beginner’s Swimming.  Plus when I was little, I almost drowned in my grandpa’s pool.  Consequently, I have a lot of anxiety around being in the water, especially when my chest is below the water line.  BUT, I want to get over this fear, and I think that doing a triathlon at 36 will be a good way to celebrate rounding up to 40.

Tim and I hit the pool today for our second swim.  Tim promised that with each visit to the pool, I will get exponentially more comfortable in the water.  I have to say, he is right.  Today still sucked (I think I swam 18 laps, with rests, and then I did 4 or 6 laps with a water board), but it sucked less than it did a week ago.

What did I learn from today?

1.  Do NOT wear 3 inch heels the day before swimming.  Your feet and calves will cramp up something fierce.

2.  Do NOT attempt to put on super tight workout pants after getting out of  the pool, unless you are in possession of a jumbo-sized container of baby powder.

I’m going to try swimming at least 2 times/week.  Hopefully we can get some open-water swimming in before the event too.  From all accounts, swimming in a open body of water with thousands of other people intent on not drowning can be a fairly intimidating experience.

Cooking/Recipes, Health & Fitness

NY Resolutions – Day 5 Update

heather

We’re five days into January, and I am proud to say that my resolutions are still in effect.  Don’t even say, “Heather, it’s only been 4 days.  Of course they are still in effect.”  January 1 is essentially a holiday, which in my mind means that you should be able to do whatever in the hell you want – including eating out at a nice restaurant, snacking on chocolate chip cookies, and drinking some nice whiskey or wine.  Well, I’m proud to say I did none of those things!

Here is a status update:

  1. Avoid ALL gluten (including no beer at all – no matter how delicious the concoctions at Great River sound).  Goal met!
  2. No alcohol except for social events (no drinking at home, in other words).  We had company yesterday, so I drank with them (it qualified as a “social event”).  I kind of wish I would not have, however.  I had 2 whiskey and waters and one cider (gluten fee).  My right wrist is killing me today – alcohol-inspired inflammation.  Bah.  But I kind of HAD to drink, as it was a key component of yesterday’s activity, “Drink and Draw 2013.”  My friend Michael and I got together to create some art.  We figured alcohol would get the creative juices flowing.  And it did!  Michael created three awesome sketches, and I did a sketch/pen drawing of Lucent and a pastel drawing of Link (of Zelda fame).  We had a very relaxing, fruitful afternoon, and it made me happy to see our living room covered in art supplies.  I even accidentally dyed my slippers with pastel dust when the box dumped out on them.  It was good times.
  3. Eat supper out only 1 time per week.  We are considering buying a new house or possibly even building a new house, so we are trying to save approximately $300/month before making any moves to prove that we can afford a higher house payment.  We figure this equates to about 2 meals out per week (2*$30 = $60 * 4 = $240).  Michael and I did eat out lunch yesterday, but I paid for it out of my personal account, which is not subject to this goal.  We ate supper at home.  We tried out the barbacoa again, which after being cut with a whole can of chicken broth is still insanely hot.  It’s no good on my Hlo tummy.  We have SO much left though.  I wonder if I freeze it, if it will calm down….
  4. Spend 30 minutes each day doing something creative – writing, painting, or reading (reading isn’t technically “creative,” but it is good for your brain, so I’m letting it count).  This goal has actually been keeping me  pretty happy over the past 4 days!  I’ve been reading a lot more.  I’m going to finish “Cloud Atlas” if it kills me. I wrote in my journal for the first time in a year, and I did the aforementioned art projects.  It’s very satisfying to produce something instead of consume something.  Speaking of which, I canceled my order for these awesome $135 LL Bean Boots.  I wanted new boots because my jeans don’t fit OVER my current boots, so I have to tight-roll them to get them INSIDE the boots, and that’s ugly and uncomfortable.  But, I figured I don’t really NEED new boots.  My current boots are cool and functional.  So instead I bought a pair of $20 skinny jeans that fit inside my boots. I never thought I’d get these hips in skinny jeans, but they don’t look too bad, and they saved me $115!

I hope your resolutions are sticking as well!  If you need some inspiration, check out this article, 50 Ways to Achieve Greatness In Your Life.  What I love about this list, is that a lot of the items deal with just improving yourself.  It’s easy to get caught up in the idea that you have to do something grandiose and earth-shattering to be “successful.”  But, nope, you just have to improve yourself every day.  That will make the world around you a better place.  It’s an attainable goal that can still inspire you.  Here are some other thoughts from the list that I really love:

9. Don’t be jealous, be inspired.

10. When you’re talking to someone, listen to them very carefully as if that is the last time you’ll ever hear their voice again.

18. Challenge yourself everyday.

25. Learn everything you can to make yourself better.  To be a better provider.  To be a better man.

31. Progress, not perfection.  Stop beating yourself up for not being perfect and focus on small changes that make you 1% better everyday.

45. Remember, the most important things in life don’t cost any money. Love, friendship, hope, respect, dignity, character…

Good stuff!! 🙂