Where Did My Weekend Go?

It was my “short weekend” with only two days off.  The plus side is starting Friday, it is my “long weekend” with four days off.  Yippie.  This short weekend went superfast.  Here I am on Monday and I’m not ready to be responsible again!

On Friday, I left work early as a flex for coming in last Monday to cover for a sick coworker.  I hit up the morning Meridian meeting.  It is the same leader from the Monday morning meeting in Nampa I really liked.  She said she remembers me from back in the day when Mom and I would go to our meeting and eat “the good popcorn” from Target.  It is funny what stands out about a person.  I knew she seemed familiar but couldn’t quite place why I might have known her.  I think I do remember her from my early WW days.  I really like her as a leader.  I’ll report in on my Weekly WI tomorrow.

About 1:30pm, my Mom called saying my aunt was really bad and needed to go the ER.  Saturday and Sunday was spent at the hospital.  The positive part is getting to visit with family but it is always difficult to see your loved one not feeling well.  In between hospital time, I played with some kiddos and went to see Jay Mohr at the comedy club.

Saturday afternoon, Phoenix and her boyfriend Stacey had a “day date” planned with lunch and a movie.  I had offered to babysit and since my nieces were at the hospital visiting, I invited them along.  It was a fun day but a bit stressful.  Kids need a lot of entertainment!  We had Dutch Bros, Red Robin, played at the park, hit up a carnival at Sockeye Brewery, and then saw The Greatest Showman at the cheap theater with popcorn and candy.  And, we all survived! 

Hailey "the teenager"

Right after I dropped the kids off to their respective mothers, I did a quick change and met up with Danielle and Rebecca to see Jay Mohr at the comedy club.  Side note: Kenyon couldn’t figure out why I was getting all dolled up to go to the hospital.  He had forgotten I had plans with my girlfriends.  I told him maybe I had met a cute doctor (or nurse).

In March, we bought tickets to see actor/comedian Jay Mohr and then he had to re-schedule due to a scheduling conflict.  We finally got to see him and it was well worth the wait.  He is hilarious, but a bit crude, and we had a full hour with just him on stage.  It is so crazy to see a celebrity in front of you!  He shook hands with those in the front row and when he finished, he walked right by Rebecca.  I had hoped to get a photo with him but he wasn’t doing photos after.  The show was packed!  We got to see another really funny comic we had not seen but the MC we had seen before. 

It was such a nice evening with my girlfriends.

Delicious Homemade Salad & New-To-Me Halo Top Ice Cream

It’s fRiDaY!  WhooooHoooo.  And, if all goes well, I’m getting off work at 10am.  Fingers crossed.

I made myself an amazing salad this week that I wanted to share.  When I made the Chipotle Chicken recipe from Daily Dose of Pepper, I saved half the marinade for another time.  Instead of making the chicken, bean, and rice bowl, I decided I would make just the chicken again and have it has a salad.  I also had some mini street taco sized white corn tortillas on hand that I cut into strips and toasted up in the Air Fryer.  This made the salad!

I ran out of beans on the first day I had a salad so I made sure to pick up some black beans for round two and three.  I also got some corn on the cob from Albertsons on their 5 for $1 deal.  I sautéed some corn and black beans and seasoned it when cumin, garlic, and lime juice. 

I dressed my salad with OPI Jalapeno Ranch that I’ve had on hand but didn’t particular love.  The base of my salad was chopped up romaine lettuce. 

The combo of everything was perfect!  It tasted just like a McDonalds Southwest Chicken Salad.  It was so good that I gobbled it down and didn’t mind leftovers for the rest of the week.

The other new find this week was a new-to-me Halo Top variety.  I had Kenyon look for some of the Endlightened brand ice cream at Walmart.  He didn’t find any but when rattling off the Halo Top kinds he said there was a toasted coconut.  I had not ever seen that and asked him to pick one up.  I realized I’d never seen it because it was a non-dairy type so I think I’ve overlooked it.

 

I really enjoyed this flavor, although it is not very sweet.  It is made with coconut milk so it is 4 SPV per serving.  I thought it was creamer than other Halo Top varieties and it melted faster too.  I could be tempted to try other non-dairy options as I really liked the texture over other the regular Halo Top.  It also was no additional cost at Walmart than the regular ones.  The only downside for me is that it wasn’t that sweet, which is what I enjoy about ice cream.

I had been to Winco last night to pick up my iced coffee supplies and almost brought home a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.  I had worked so hard to stay on track at the birthday pizza party though that I didn’t want to mess it up!  So, I went home and dug into the toasted coconut ice cream.

Half Of Us Are Now In Our 40s

Good Morning.  Is it Friday yet?  This has been quite a week and I am very ready for the weekend.

Last night we celebrated my brother’s 40^th birthday with the family at pizza.  My sister Katie was commenting we needed an update sibling photo so we forced the others for a photo. 

My Mom and Dad now have half their children in their 40s.  I remember vividly teasing them when they turned 40 and now, that doesn’t seem old at all!  Oh how times change.

I utilized the 0 SPV foods with the new WW Freestyle program and kept my points light during the day.  I got myself a little too hungry by the time pizza arrived but thankfully since my Mom is also rocking it at WW, we both got a salad bar.  I had 15 daily points left and with the extra 5 WSPV I could eat and still earn my blue dot, so that left me with 20 points for the pizza party.  I had a tiny slice of one of my favorite pizzas at Idaho Pizza Company and regular sized slice of ham with olives.  I love pizza and boy did it hit the spot!

With Mom doing WW, it is easier to say “no thank you” to things such as the birthday cake.  But, it is also harder because when each of us work our program differently so when I do want to indulge, I often feel guilty or bad.  It isn’t Mom making me feel that way though.  She is rocking her weight loss and is down 42 pounds.  She is a Rock Star for sure! 

It was just the immediate family at pizza plus my sister’s kids and Kenyon.  I enjoyed the time I spent with them and it left me wishing we were as close now as we used to be.  A lot has changed over the last 20-ish years.  We will see what the future brings.

An Odd NSV But A Good One

This is going to be a very weird Non-Scale Victory (NSV) I am about to share but it is still worth sharing:

My husband was able to get my pants down without unbuttoning them

Ha!

It less va-va-voom than it sounds.  Kenyon was being silly after I said something about not wanting to go somewhere.  His usual reply is, “take your pants off and stay home.”  He went a step further and tried to take my capris off for me which they proceeding to slip right off.

I guess it is time for new pants.  But, I’m going to wait a bit longer.  I remember last year when I tried on the size 16, they felt a bit too snug for my comfort level and I’m not down anymore pounds than I was last summer.  It is a nice feeling to have the same capris fit from last summer to this summer.  In the summer of 2016 that wasn’t the case.  By July, I had gotten myself back up to 253 pounds.  It had been the first time in a very long time that I wasn’t able to pull my seasonal clothes out of the closet/drawers and have them NOT fit.  It is not a good feeling for sure.

I’m thinking I’d like to wear capris when we go to Europe in September.  They are lighter weight, back easier, and will also wash/dry easier if I needed to sink wash.  I think I’ll check into getting some size 16 in the late summer.  Or at least try them on and see how they feel.  Of course, I don’t want to wait too long and have them sell out, which is just my luck!  I do have some coupons to JC Penney that I’ve been thinking of using for some new dressier tops.  I feel like I wear the same v-neck shirts all the time. 

My jeans and workpants are also where I feel the change.  One pair of my favorite high rise jeans from Lane Bryant are feeling very loose and the other pair, which was always tighter fitting, now fits really comfortably.  Same with my work pants.  They are feeling nicely straight out of the wash.  It is nice to have pants that fit just right.  I’m wearing jeans at work in support for today for Denim Day.  It is to show support for Sexual Assault Awareness Month and to STOP Violence Against Women. 

What a terrific reason to wear my great fitting jeans!

Dealing With Europe Travel Snags That Were Resolved...Thank Goodness

We hit another snag along the journey of “trip planning with a travel agent” and it was just one more reason why I don’t think we will be using a travel agent again in the future.  Thankfully, we got the issue resolved.

Last week, our travel agent called regarding booking our rail pass from Basel, Switzerland to Munich, Germany.  This is the only thing we have left to finalize and the only part of our trip that the cost could change.  We were hoping for a decrease in price from the estimate she gave us, which was based on last year prices.  Of course it is our luck that the price increased by another $100 total and that made the cost of two one-way 1^st class tickets almost $1,000.  We wanted to experience Europe by train but we weren’t sure we wanted to experience that badly!

 

We set up a call with our travel agent and in the meantime spent the week researching the costs online but just couldn’t figure out why her quote was so high.  I reached out to another travel agent I know and called Viking to confirm that if we decided not to take the train that they would fly us over at no extra cost since we booked our air travel through them.  We were sad to think we would have to cut the train ride but that was just too much money to spend.

I’ve been thinking all along that our issues are mainly communication related.  Regardless, she did a search for us again and saw the same prices we were seeing.  Apparently last week her vendor searches came back at twice the price as this week.  I guess it is a good thing we questioned it!  We ended up locking in the price of two tickets for $420.  Her vendor even came down below the online price we saw for our inconvenience.  So that was nice.  We also got a price adjustment on our original itinerary through the travel agency so we almost have our trip paid off.  That is so awesome!

We have a little over four months until we will experience Europe for the very first time.  I am so excited.

Saying Yes Once In A While

Good Monday Morning! 

My Monday started off earlier than expected when my phone rang at 6am looking for sick coverage at work.  In turn, I am missing my WW meeting today.  So far, my back-up plan is to get to a meeting Friday (if I can cut out of work early) or Saturday. 

I feel really great this week even after my indulgences this weekend.  I had wanted to attend my meeting and I was going to do it blindly again and not get on the scale at home ahead of time.  I’m trying to find a healthy balance between the scale, which keeps me accountable, and overall happiness while still continuing to lose.

I have found several weight loss/health/weight watcher members through Instagram lately.  One of the gals I follow commented that her scale broke in the middle of her 80-day challenge and that it was the best blessing in disguise.  She said that she finally shifted her focus from the number to how she felt and she has never felt better in such a long time.  I can really see the difference in her photos from when I first started following to now.  She is looking very tiny (and very happy).

It is always on my mind about how to have a healthy relationship with both the scale and food.  I know that I do need the scale for accountability.  However, when Weight Watcher Freestyle rolled out in December that is when I noticed that overall, I feel really good.  The foods I am eating make me feel good and I tend to get most frustrated when the scale doesn’t show it.  Not having to be accountable to the scale and to just focus alone on how I feel could be a slippery slope.  After all, I was once at goal but currently I am not.

Speaking of goal, or more importantly Lifetime, over the weekend I was getting Facebook reminders that nine years ago is when I earned my Lifetime status.  Pretty awesome reminder and very motivating for sure.

I don’t have all the answers.  If I did, I would have never weighed 300 pounds.  I am a work in progress.  But, that doesn’t have to be always so negative.  Sometimes I get tired of saying, “no thank you”.  It feels good to say “yes” once in a while.

Friday & Saturday SUNSHINE

Sunshine!!! We have had beautiful weather here in Boise and you can tell for sure. There are people out everywhere. Spring-time is officially here. Hooray.

Friday: Phoenix's two year Divorce-ary.

We celebrated the two year anniversary of Phoenix's divorce out with friends. Phoenix was in a very mentally abusive and controlling relationship so she makes sure to celebrate how much happier she is now. I met up with Phoenix and her boyfriend Stacey at Rudy's and waited for another friend, Jenny, to join us. We had wanted to try out this new place in town called Harry's Hideaway, which is a motorcycle bar and has music/dancing upstairs. Jenny says it is quite loud upstairs so we stayed down so we could visit. Jenny invited her old boss/friend, Joe, and his brother, Matt, to join us at Harry's.

Matt is a classic car guy and owns an old school limo complete with a disco ball and sound system. We caught a ride to downtown Meridian so we could bar hop on foot. The limo was pretty awesome.

We hit up a brewhouse called Heritage Hop House which is located in the downstairs of an old building. It was a neat place complete with an exposed rock wall. I tried a peanut butter nitro, which was pretty good.

We walked to another tiny bar and then ended up at The Frontier Club, which has been newly renovated. It could be a new favorite hangout from here on out.

It was a great time seeing longtime friends and meeting new friends.

Saturday: First Farmer's Market of the season

Julie, Kelsey, Danielle, and I met up at the Farmer's Market in downtown Boise. Whenever I walk the market, I need to make sure I have just the right coffee in my hands so I stopped by Flying M Coffee first.

The market seems smaller than in years past and there is construction on 8^th Street as well. It was packed and clearly everybody was taking part in our beautiful weather. We stopped at a nearby store, Green something...I can't remember the name, and browsed around. It has the neatest décor and a ton of funny cards. I had invited my friend Melodie, her daughter, and granddaughter, which were running late. I said goodbye to the other girls and met up with them to re-walk the market again.

Since I missed my lunch offer with my first group of girls, I took myself out to lunch at Zeppole Baking Co., which is another spot that I love to visit when I am downtown. My eyes were clearly bigger than my stomach but lunch was delicious.

After a late night and an early morning, I needed a nap. That was about it for Saturday. Today, I have a home party to attend called Damsels In Defense that my prior Jamberry consultant, Jenny, is having. It's products for women to keep themselves safe and I'm interested in learning more. Then, I've got my WW meeting on Monday morning. Similar to last week, I'm not going to get on the scale at home before I go.

I Have Some Shocking News For You

What I have to tell you may make you fall out of your chair.  So, before proceeding…make sure you are safe and secure.

I exercised THREE days this week.

That information is quite shocking…how did we do?  Are you still safely in your seat?

After the MS Walk on Saturday, it felt good to be active again.  I didn’t kill myself, I just moved my body.  When I got dressed for my WW meeting on Monday morning, I make sure I was also ready to go to the gym in case the mood struck.  And, since I went to the effort of putting on my workout clothes, that is exactly what I did, stopped by the gym to walk on the treadmill.

I wanted to keep the momentum going so I planned to hit up the gym for some evening classes this week.  Tuesday I went to Chisel, the weight lifting class.  I feel like I need to work on my upper arm muscles.  Of course, we did lots of weighted squats!  Wednesday I reached out to Kelsey about the Pound class so we met up for that.  It is such a fun and high energy class and I really like the instructors. 

The best part of being active again is the reward from my Apple Watch.  After one of the last major upgrades, when you complete one of your circles, it now gives you a sparkly colored one.  When you finish all three goals for the day, you get all three sparkly circles together.  It is my favorite part of the day.

 

Exercising isn’t easy and most days I can easily talk myself out of it.  I need to keep reminding myself that it feels good to move not matter how long, how often, or how intense.

Chipotle Chicken, Bean, & Rice From DDOP

I’d been wanting to try a few recipes from Daily Dose Of Pepper and finally got around to it.  It was a bit labor intensive, but it was really, really good.

 

Chipotle Skillet Chicken <- recipe here

Quick Chipotle Pinto Beans <- recipe link here

Cilantro Lime Rice (I made mine cauliflower rice) <- recipe link here

 

A few changes I made:

• I didn’t put any adobe sauce from the canned pepper.  I’ve learned my lesson…that is where the spice is!
• I didn’t have any bay leaf so I left that out
• I wanted to keep the points low (even though they are already low) so I made the rice with frozen cauliflower rice and added the cumin, cilantro, and lime juice to the rice in a pan over medium heat
• I sautéed some corn with cumin and lime juice
• I topped my leftovers with sour cream (a good addition…as would be cheese if you have the points)

 

And a side note:

I picked this recipe because you blend all the ingredients for the marinade in the blender, which appealed to me.  I ended up cooking less chicken than marinade so I have extra for later this week.  The chicken was excellent!

Weekly WI: Mental Block & Looking For My WW Home

My connection to my Weight Watchers meeting throughout the years has been really big for me.  I often describe it as my “home” and it is what centers me and keeps me grounded.  I’ve been feeling in limbo for a few months now.  I think partly it has to do with my most recent leader Donna officially retiring.  I am also on a day shift schedule with weekends off, which is very rare, and has thrown off my usual meeting time/day/location.  For whatever reason through, I’ve been feeling like I’m flailing around similar to a fish out of water and I so desperately need to get back into water.  My survival depends on it!

On top of feeling like I don’t have a WW home, I have been playing a lot of scale games.  Since I wanted to start doing my WI on Saturday, before I knew it, I was avoiding Saturday WI because of how my Friday would go.  I had a pep talk with myself and decided I needed to get to a meeting ASAP and I would go Monday morning, regardless of what the scale said.  Of course I was expecting the worst and I avoided my home scale just so I wouldn’t talk myself out of going to the meeting. 

Much to my surprise, I had a 1 pound loss.  I have not seen a loss in six weeks.  It felt very good and very motivating! 

 

As I was doing my WI, the gal weighing me in, Susan, is our territory manager and leader on Tuesday nights in Meridian.  She knows me and commented that I was confusing her by attending a meeting that wasn’t my usual.  I almost started crying when I told her I was struggling to find a meeting that fit me, a leader that I meshed with, and meeting members I could click with.  (I do love my Monday night meeting members, I’m just not crazy about the leader).  Susan highly recommended the leader, Rebecca, which I met at the Friday morning meeting a few weeks ago in Meridian.  I did like her and I really liked the meeting members in Nampa on Monday morning.  They are quite a bit older than me but I chatted with a few after the meeting.

I think I’ve found my new home.  Having a Monday WI day will hopefully keep me accountable to not letting my weekends go crazy.  You know I love to enjoy weekend activities but I also want to continue to be successful to my WW program and my weight loss journey.

After the meeting I went to Crunch Fitness and walked on the treadmill for 1.5 miles.  It felt good to be back at it.

 

My view from the treadmill

Another Great Weekend

It was another great weekend on the books!

Saturday evening I met back up with Danielle and her brother.  Danielle and I had tickets to see Pauley Shore at the Liquid Laughs Comedy Club but he had to cancel earlier in the week due to the death of his mother.  The club rescheduled our tickets (which I am out of town for….waaaaahhhh) and allowed us to attend the back-up comic for free.

We started our evening at Probst! hoping to try some of their German food.  It was pretty busy and thankfully due to the nice weather, we snagged a seat outside.  We each ordered a beer and decided to share a couple of pretzels since the menu didn’t look as appetizing as we had thought.

 

 

From there, we walk to the comedy club to see if we could get Danielle’s brother in, since he didn’t have an original ticket like we did.  Once that was a go, we decided to have a bite to eat at the club.  Last time I had the Gyro so this time I tried the chicken tacos.  Holy Spicy!  The tortilla chips were good though.  Sadly, we have seen the same comic three times now.  He needs new material (not entirely his fault as we have been to the comedy club a lot recently and will be there again next Saturday for the reschedules Jay Mohr show).  The other three comics were really funny.  We had a great time.

The highlight of the night was ice cream at The STIL after the show.  The STIL is a new ice cream parlor in town that has up to four varieties of alcohol-infused ice cream.  And, they do ice cream and alcohol flights.  It was really delicious and very affordable.  I tried four different kinds for less than $6.  I really liked the atmosphere and think in the summer it will be a hopping spot.  It was already pretty busy on Saturday night with it not quite being ice cream weather yet.

 

Sunday was a surprise 13^th birthday party for my friend Jenny Ware’s son Trace.  He was surprised alright!  We waited in the park near the pond and his Grandma had told him they were going for a walk.  Once they got close, we all yelled “surprised”.  He had told his Grandma that he saw there was a party going on but didn’t realize it was for him.  I’d say that was a successful surprise.

 

 

 

Monday was pretty low key.  I attended a Monday morning WW meeting which I really liked and will share more on that tomorrow.  I also popped into the gym after and walked 1.5 miles on the treadmill. 

I rented The Greatest Showman on Sunday afternoon and ended up watching it all the way through two times and then skipped around to all the “show songs” about a bazillion times.  It was a really great move and the songs are fantastic.

MS Walk 2018

On Saturday, I participated in the MS Walk 2018.

This was my first time able to attend the walk since meeting my friend Julie several years ago. Julie lives with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) which is an auto immune disease that affects many people around the world.

This was the first year the walk was moved to a new location and took place at Julius M. Kleiner Park in Meridian. We all agreed that it was a great location with lots of parking and nice bathroom facilities. But, it was still a bit disorganized overall. Hopefully it is something they can work out as this location was a good one.

We arrived early enough to walk around the booths and collect our freebies. My favorite drug rep from Gilenya was giving out sweet sunglasses and selfie sticks. Both came in handy during the walk.

There is a choice of one mile or three mile loops and before we knew it, the walk was ready to start and off we went for our one mile loop.

We had the best time supporting Julie.

We learned that we could have won the team spirit contest had they seen our team earlier in the morning. Doh! We tried really hard to make our Minions team spirit top notch and have come up with ideas for next year.

After the walk we went to a vendor show at the Senior Center and I resisted the urge to spend money. Julie and I met up at Idaho Pizza Company for pizza and salad buffet for lunch.

It was an awesome day. I love my group of friends so much.

Friday Special Assignment

On Friday, I had the opportunity to work in our Mobile Command Center (MCC) on a emphasis in Owyhee County.

There was several different agencies that came to play including ICE agents. There were ISP troopers, sergeants, and detective, some of which I've not seen in a while. We had a great time.

The weather was a bit cold at the start but warmed up to 62 degrees with sunshine in the early afternoon. By late afternoon, a storm rolled in with some rain, clouds, and temps dropped to 41 degrees. I felt so sorry for some of our guys and gals out there. Everybody was in good spirits and despite some radio troubles, the emphasis was very successful.

I've not been on a deployment since 2014 and even though I've been dispatching for 12 years, I was super nervous. I'm so glad I had this opportunity.  And, I am glad I had great help in the MCC to ensure it ran as smooth as it could on our end.