Chicken, chicken, chicken (and no bananas)

Food
B - I was so craving my pancakes with sugar free syrup, peanut butter and bananas. Got the pancakes made, syrup and peanut butter out and grabbed a knife to slice up a banana. Some delightful person left the freaking stems of the banana bunch but ate all of the bananas. Grrr. I don't mind my kids eating healthy things but man I was craving that. Anywho, ate it sans the bananas and it was still good :)
L - leftover smoked chicken breast from the weekend with baby spinach and mixed spring greens, avocado, tomato, banana peppers (craptacular pic but maybe you get the idea). Also had a few slices of my homemade sweet garlic pickles, good gosh those are good.




Snack - whole grain wheat thins and a wedge of laughing cow cheese
Dinner - 1 serving of 3 cheese tortellini(no clue if I spelled that right) with chicken breast, spinach and some green olives thrown in. Good gracious how I love green olives, any olives for that matter, Ghirardelli dark choc. with raspberry filling, some frozen grapes
Snack - may have some popcorn, may not

Today was boring :) I didn't go look for more of my books but found a Janet Evanovich book that my sil gave my daughter to read. Uck. The writing is painstakingly simple in my humblest of opinions. I got through 5 or 6 pages and quit. I am now down to 4 pairs of pants that I can wear to work. While it's wonderful that the others are too big I hate buying new pants, not that I don't like shopping but more so because I'd like to lose down another size at least and hate to spend the money. I think I'll hit Goodwill on Friday and see if I can find anything decent.

til tomorrow

~ amy

Woohoo, 2 days on a row!

Today was a blah day really, nothing particularly exciting.

B - 1 egg white and 1 whole egg scrambled with salt and red pepper flakes along with 2 slices of turkey bacon on a small flour tortilla
L - dh called and invited me to join him for lunch over in the town he works in. I've never been there before but we went to ABC Pizza and it was pretty good. I don't know if it's a franchise or a small business, it was hopping regardless. He convinced me that I should get the salad/sub combo. The description said small salad and grinder. I chose the turkey grinder. The salad was by no means small and really could have been a meal in itself. I was an oval dinner plate piled (no exageration) at least 4 inches high with iceberg lettuce and topped with ham, feta cheese, tomato, banana pepper and olives. The dressing must have been a house dressing of some sort, sorta a creamy italian. Anyway, I ended up eating half of the salad which was really good and half of the grinder (slice of turkey and cheese on a hoagie heated).
Snack - banana
D - the other half of my lunch with some baby spinach thrown in for some heartier leafy greens :), 1 serving Ghirardelli dark chocolate with raspberry filling
Snack - I really wasn't hungry so not sure why I ate, maybe boredom?, but a bag of light butter popcorn.

I finished The Other Boleyn Girl today and even though I've already read it, seen the movie and knew the end of the story regardless, I could not put it down. Phillipa Gregory really does a beautiful job of telling a story and captivating her reader. I've read all of her books on Henry VIII's wives. I have them *somewhere* in storage and now want to go dig out some more tomorrow to re-read them. I find the whole Tudor period fascinating and have been reading biographies of all of the major players in that era. I would love to find some sort of class on it.
Anyway, I've rambled long enough :)

See ya tomorrow!

~ amy

Oh blogger where art thou?

Yes, I've been horribly neglectful of my poor blog as of late. Between crappy internet access and preperation to get the kiddos off to school it's been difficult.
Today however was the first day of school and 4 out of 5 kids were shipped off this morning to their respective classes with their shiny new backpacks, cool new shoes and a mix of excitement and nervousness. My daughter had her first day of highschool today which is bittersweet for me. It seems like just yesterday that I was freaking out about her starting middle school (3 yrs ago) and now look, she's already past that and on to highschool. What does that mean to me? In 4 incredibly short years my baby will be headed off to college. Of course the same year that my oldest baby heads off to college my youngest babe will start kindergarten and so it will begin again, but still... To me, highschool signals that we're nearing the end of Bekah's childhood. They all had a good day with new and old friends, navigating their classrooms and meeting new teachers. Myself and Adan on the other hand rejoiced in having some semblance of calm and quiet around the house. With the bluster of having all 5 home for the last 3 or so months I realized today that I've had precious little time to really play and interact with my little guy. He is just the sweetest thing ever. We played cars, blocks, read and glory of all glories we even napped together, ahhhhhh :) I took a crappy cell phone pic of the 3 boys this morning before school but will have to get a better pic tomorrow with my camera. I'll have to get a picture of Bek after school since she leaves before daylight.
On to food~

B - celebratory crappy fast food breakfast of Wendy's bacon, egg and cheese biscuit and hashbrown
L - Campbells light veggie italian soup
Snack - 1 serving wheat thins with 1 wedge laughing cow cheese
D - Lean Cuisine, pasta with chicken and veggies I will however not by it again because it was full of peas and I cannot stand them, ghirardelli raspberry filled dark chocolate
Snack - 1 cup frozen grapes

Exercise - none however I do plan to strap on my shocks and hit the walking trail tomorrow after dropping the kids of at school

I really don't remember if I've talked about this recently so I apologize if I'm repeating, but I'm nearing my goal that I set for myself date wise for weight loss. I wanted to be at goal on my birthday September 16th. I'm now 9 lbs away. I know that there's no way I'll lose 9 lbs in 3 or so weeks. However, I see how far I've come and I'm truly happy. Yes, I still want to reach that initial goal and likely go 10 lbs beyond it but to say that for my official 1st goal that I have less 10 lbs to lose is a pretty cool thing. I've lost 44lbs and am damned proud of myself. I now hope to reach my final goal which is 19 lbs from now by Christmas. What an awesome Christmas present to give myself, no? I think it's attainable. I'm figuring at 1.5 lbs per week that's around 27 lbs so surely I can do 19 lbs. We shall see. Oh, I've reread Memoirs of a Geisha over the last week and am now rereading The Other Boleyn Girl. I adore both books and would recommend them to anyone. Any book that involves some history really intrigues me. Not to mention that it just reaffirms my desire to travel and see all of the places that I read about.
Anyway, I promise to be more attentive to dearest blog and my millions of readers ;)

Til the morrow...

TGIF!

I actually can't believe that it's Friday already. Time flies.

Food
B - small glazed donut (hey, we hit the road early for school clothes shopping)

L - turkey sandwich with fries at Chilis. By the way, this just goes to show that what you think may be "healthy" isn't. That damn turkey sandwich alone was 900something calories.

D - 2 Morningstar burgers over 3 cups spinach

Exercise - shopping?

First a rant~ why, why, why do stores begin to stock winter clothing in Florida in August? Seriously, why???!!! Had a coupon for Osh Kosh B'gosh and I couldn't even spend the 50 there to take advantage of it. I guess I could have bought for 6 months ahead when it finally gets cold here but I needed school clothes for now. Old Navy? no shorts for boys. Gap? no shorts for boys. I managed to find my 12 yr old one pair of shorts on a sale rack and Aeropostale. WTF??!!
Now, on to wayyyy better news. I, Amy, purchased and am currently wearing a pair of sized 10 pants. Yes, you read that right, 10's. Yay me! 10 was/is my goal size as I know that I look decent in 10's. I would eventually like to get to at least an 8 but I was ecstatic to get these suckers on. The jeans I wore out today to shop were tight, like skin tight, a few months ago and I saw myself in them in the changing room mirror today and I looked outright dumpy they were so baggy on me. :) Anyway, we hit some pretty good sales today, the kids are shoed, backpacked and minus the boys needing another couple of pairs of shorts each, we are all set except for school supplies.

Hope that everyone has a marvelous weekend!


~ amy

No idea for a title

I'm fairly certain that the title of the post is self explanatory ;)
I missed a few days blogging, so shoot me.
Yesterday was my daughter's 14th birthday! I feel sooooo old. It was a good day and on the food front, while I ate like crap I still stayed within calorie limits.
Here's my "little" girl. This is the only pic that I have available of her at the moment. I did an actual mini shoot with her yesterday but haven't had a chance to even load them to the computer yet.

On to today ~

B - Odwalla chocolate protein shake

L - sauteed shrimp in a small flour tortilla with avocado and baby spinach which is pictured at the top. If someone could tell me how to insert pics into the post I would love you forever. Also had 2/3 of a banana

Snack - 1 wedge laughing cow cheese with 1 serving whole grain crackers

D - Lean Cuisine shrimp with fettucini, Campbell's light italian veggie soup

Snack - banana with 1 tbs peanut butter

Exercise - just played around in the pool

Headed out school clothes shopping tomorrow and while I don't particularly look forward to dragging all 5 kids around I'll try to enjoy it :) A friend of mine was telling me about someone she knows who has used the Nivea cellulite cream and it seemed to work pretty well. I'm going to buy some this weekend and give it a go, figure that it won't hurt. We shall see.

~ amy

Naked!

I know I didn't blog on Friday but uh, whateva ;) Weekend recap~ food was crap on Saturday. I ate crap for bfast and lunch but while I indulged a bit a dinner I think I did well overall with it. We went to Red Lobster and I got grilled shrimp over rice pilaf with broccoli. Normally I can eat at least 2 of their deliciaso cheddar bay biscuits but only had one this go round. I also had 2 stuffed mushrooms, ceasar salad and a dessert split 4 ways. As for Sunday, each meal was good eating wise(yay!). I didn't get any exercise in on Saturday but on Sunday we swam and this time I actually got to swim. My husband took my newly 8 yr old with him to a soccer conference on Saturday and my 12 yr old was at my parent's so myself, my daughter, my 6 yr old son and the babe went garage saling. I found a few outfits for the baby, a ride on toy and then we hit this awesome estate sale. Too bad I didn't have mega money then. Every thing in the house was for sale, gorgeous furniture, clothing, jewelry, art, etc. My son got a game and my daughter got 4 Life magazines for WWII era. Soooo cool. I wish that I could have bought all of the magazines.

Anyway, on to today~

Food

B - 2 whole wheat waffles topped with strawberries and sugar free syrup L - Salad with chicken, avocado, tomato and onion

Snack - Wings of Nature almond rasin bar. It was my first time eating this and it was pretty good. To be honest it looked like bird seed and while it's nothing I fell head over heels for I would definitely eat it again.
D- Michelina's meatloaf and potatoes, 1 serving Green and Black organic dark chocolate . I was really craving a veggie to eat with the meat and taters but didn't have anything with me.
Snack - 1 serving Naked blue machine (see this is where the title comes in). It was my first time having it as well and it was pretty good, a bit overwhelming. By overwhelming I mean really filling and strong tasting but again, good. Also had some popcorn but now I feel stuffed, blech.

No exercise today. I really can't wait to frigging move so I have a place to at least walk again. I hate this.
I did however see 2 pretty good movies today. Confessions of a Shopaholic (loooove Isla Fisher) and Coraline. If you haven't seen Coraline yet I will suggest that if you are going to watch it with your kids that kids who get frightened easily might not enjoy it. The end can be seen as fairly scary for a child.

See ya tomorrow!

~amy

Happy birthday Christian!!

Not the best pic of him but there's my sweet Christian who is now offically 8 years old :)
We went and visited my grandma and she had made a buttload of homemade brownies and cupcakes for him/us. We went and got pizza for lunch, went to to grocery to buy a venus flytrap for him that he wanted and went home and swam. It was a good day. He got a scooter from me and I think my husband is taking him to a play place called Fun Spot on Saturday.

On to food~
B - 1 scrambled egg with 2 slices turkey bacon a a small flour tortilla

L - thin crust pizza with bacon, black olives, banana peppers and green peppers

Snack - reduced fat colby cheese stick

D - Subway club with baby spinach, olives onions and banana peppers, jalapeno chips and an apple pie flavored Lara bar

Snack - crackers with 1 wedge laughing cow cheese and maybe some pineapple

Exercise - swam around in the pool today but had baby with me so not much in the way of exercise. I did run in the water while holding baby from one side to the other for about 8 minutes. Doesn't sound like much but my legs were killing me. I'm sure that water resistance had something to do with that. Also brought my 5 pound weight to work and did about 15 minutes arm work with that and am doing other things throughout the evening such as leg lifts, lunges and such.

I found a very reasonably priced home for rent near where we were living that I'm going to look at tomorrow. I have my fingers crossed that it's okay and we get it.

I mentioned in the last day or so emails that I get from Fitness and I got another great one today. Here's the link to tons of healthy, low cal snacks.

Also, several years ago I bought that face oil blotter papers from Bath and Body Works and really liked them. It has occured to me before but I just remembered it again today that as far as I can tell, those paper liners that they provide in public restrooms are essentially the same thing. So here's my frugal tip for the day ~ liberate a toilet liner and cut or tear it up into the right sized pieces (approx. 4x2 inches) and voila, free face blotters :)

Adios!

~ amy

Done, done, done!

Because I know you're all waiting with baited breath for the results of my math final I'll adress that first ;) I got a 79. Am I proud of a 79? Heck no. It's a C, one point away from a B but still. I am however happy that I ended up with a B for the class, low B, but a B none the less.
Food
B - 2 small pancakes (170 cals), with 1 serving sugar free syrup (25 cals), 1/2 banana (53 cals) and a smear of peanut butter (50 cals). Soooo yum, seriously.

(and no, I don't normally use disposable plates and such, just no room in this kitchen)

L - spring mix lettuce (12 cals) with 1 serving turkey breast (50 cals), 1 tbs salsa verde (11 cals), bit of cheese (40 cals), some avocado (50 cals), onion and tomato

Snack - pecan pie flavored Lara bar (200 cals)

D - Amy's organic tamale verde black bean with rice (looooooove it) (330 cals), 1/3 serving Ghirardelli dark chocolate (69 cals)

Snack - small plum (30 cals), Odwalla chocolate protein soymilk protein drink (2 servings is 340 cals) I've never drank it before but it's pretty good. A lady I work with has been drinking it and was praising it so I thought I'd give it a go. I think she drinks the ones that are more fruity but while I love a smoothie I'm not the biggest fan of something like a strawberry banana juice.

Exercise - nada, no pool, no nothin'



Today is a not good day. I really can't think of a better way to describe it. 6 years ago today my little brother, 10 yrs old, was hit and killed by a city bus. It was at this time 6 yrs ago that I was pacing the halls of a hospital praying for some type of miracle, for God to take me instead, just something. Instead, my brother Clint passed away some time after midnight on the 6th. His death is remembered by us, on his tombstone etc. as the 5th because one, he really did leave us on the 5th and was simply removed from life support on the 6th but secondly because the 6th is the birthday of my son Christian. Thankfully Christian was just 2 at the time and didn't realize that dark cloud that hung over his birthday that day and to be quite honest that still hangs over it a bit now. At that age he worshiped Clint and still talks about him, mainly from hearing us keeping his memory alive. Some day I will talk to Christian more about what also happened on his birthday but I'm honestly going to put that off as long as possible. Clint's death itself obviously changed our lives forever but also changed family relationships. Without going into detail, there was a rift caused surrounding the death and while I mourn the loss of my sweet, spoiled, smart, mischievious, loving brother I also mourn the loss of the family dynamics as I knew them. It sucks, truly. We all have guilt to a certain degree regarding it. Myself and my husband took our family to Disney that day and my husband and I have often said "if we had just taken him with us". I don't know whether it works or not, but I pray every night that Clint be told that I said hi and that I'm thinking of him. I've made it through fine today and now I'm crying, ugh. I'll end it now and try now to look like a sobbing mess before a coworker walks through ;)

~amy

Head explosion

Food
B - 2 egg whites on an english muffin
L - turkey sandwich with swiss cheese and avocado, Campbell's select harvest light italian veggie soup
D - Amy's organic veggie shepherd's pie (my 1st time eating it and it was really good but not quite filling enough for my biggest meal of the day), apple pie flavored Lara bar, 1 serving Ghirardelli dark chocolate with raspberry filling
Snack - peach and popcorn

If you've never eat any of Amy's frozen meals, run to your nearest grocery and check them out. Organic, natural, easy peasy and yummm. I've yet to eat anything by the brand that didn't taste good.

My math final is tomorrow and I feel as if my head might explode, implode, whatever the word is. Agh!! Thankfully my darling sister the math teacher has helped me study some so honestly at this point I'll settle for a crappy C on it. I'm over it. I failed to mention yesterday that I've discovered new wrinkles, yuck. I don't think I've mentioned on this blog my absolute fear of getting, rather, looking old. It totally icks me out. Since we've been in the pool every day for 5 days now I've obviously gotten a bit of sun. I suppose I squint in the sun because you can see lines where not as much sun has gotten in the crows feet area. Super yuck. I hit CVS yesterday and not wanting to spend complete ass loads of money, I settled for Oil of Olay Regenerist Daily Regenerating Serum. What I've noticed more about my skin lately than anything is that it looks a bit rough. This serum has amino-peptides that are supposed to help regenerate damaged skin. Not exactly the answer to wrinkles but a step in the right direction. If anyone has any suggestions for great skin care/face care products please share. I'm in panic mode. Yes, I realize that I'm only 32 but I feel like in the next 10 yrs is when all hell will break loose. My other sister in law (husband's brother's wife) came over with her two kids today to swim and we were talking about pool exercising. I mentioned that I had attempted a little today but really needed to google to find some great exercises to do. And, no lie, I opened up my email this afternoon and what was there but an email from Fitness Magazine with a link to a pool workout, two actually. First one is Pool Workout and the second one is a Swim Routine . I'm excited to try both! I'm now going to go bury my math worries in popcorn and hope that it gets all better.

til tomorrow

~amy

Bathing suit!!???

Helloooooo :)
Weekend recap time ~
Saturday morning I had a photoshoot with an old school friend and her family. So great to see her! After did a bit more unpacking and cleaning then hit the pool. My darling sister in law made a late lunch for us of steak, baked beans, potato salad and corn on the cob. Yummm! For dinner we were heading out to see if we could find a futon but lost energy quickly and just went to dinner instead. We (dh, myself, daughter, baby and I) ended up at Hooters. You may insert obligatory eye roll here. For what it's worth I actually like their food so enduring the shorty shorts and ridiculously ugly scrunch socks is okay. I got a grilled fish sandwich that I shared with babe and hubby got a bucket of steamed oysters. I think I at 4 or so of them. I like them way better raw but he won't have anything to do with raw oysters. We headed home afterward and crashed. As for Sunday we ended up at McD's for breakfast. Yes, I know we've eaten ridiculous amounts of crap food but the kitchen still wasn't in order at this point and well, we get sick of sitting around that tiny place and staring at each other. We headed out for a grocery trip after breakfast. Lunch was sandwiches and mine particulary was a turkey sandwich with avocado, yummmm! We went swimming again in the afternoon and then I had to tackle the kitchen so that I could make dinner. We had super delicious spaghetti made with whole wheat angel hair pasta and ground turkey. I don't think that I'll be doing much cooking here simply because it gets wayyyy too frigging hot. Ended last night with some Wii bowling and golf.

On to today (totally approximating on calories)
Food
B - oatmeal - 150
L - chicken ceasar salad and 1 small slice of bacon pizza -460
Snack - pecan pie flavored Lara bar - 200
Dinner - Amy's organic mexican casserole - 470, 2/3 serving Ghirardelli dark choc.w/raspberry filling - 139
Snack - cup and a half or so of strawberry and pineapple - 50

Exericse
just another day of lolling around in the pool. I did print out several exercise things you can do at home in hopes of incorporating some tomorrow

I royally effed up on my math final review test and if I don't miraculously do better on my final on Wednesday then I'm most assuredly going to lose my B in that class. This sucks. My chest is hurting and whilst I initially thought the worst I think it's just muscles that I haven't used forever in swimming. I alluded to something regarding a bathing suit in my post title and here's why. I have not worn a bathing suit sans shorts or something in public since I was about 12. Now, I wouldn't call a private pool surrounded by a privacy fence public really but I'm telling you, even braving wearing it in front of my kids and husband is a definite step. Now, I don't forsee me doing this in public but it's a step right? Riiiight? Oy.
I have 15 lbs to go until I reach my initial goal and my loss, even with the adding frigging exercise, has slowed to a halt. I'm so irritated. If I don't see a loss by next week I'm going to have to reevaluate my calorie cycling and calorie limits. Frustrating.


~ amy