Recently in health Category

It's Sunday, and even though it isn't the normal grocery day, E is working late tomorrow so we set out to shop today instead.

I've had a harder time tracking my meal plans the last few weeks, so I'm keeping it simple tonight. :)

• Sunday: out and groceries - went to a thai place (@yelp), Trader Joe's, and Fred Meyer.
• Monday: Vegetable Broth soup with Tortellini, cornbread  (note to self: write up this recipe while making it for theredkitchen!)
  
• Tuesday: Mexican meal with grilled peppers, quesadillas, low-fat corn chips, and whatever E thinks up that he wants.
• Wednesday: easy dinner for knit night - probably microwave dinners or sandwiches.
• Thursday: Asian meal with vegetable stirfry, chicken/tofu, potstickers.
• Friday: Waffles (leftover idea from last week) with striples or breakfast links.
• Saturday: probably out
• Sunday: soup and sandwiches?

Starting out the week typing out last week's plan and this week's at the same time.  Last week was a hard week for me, I was extra sore and needed more rest, and that slows down everything, including healthy eating.  There were several days when I failed to track my points and didn't make it through normal amounts of exercising.

But, we are starting off a new week, with goals intact, and some healthy meals planned based around fruits and veges.  We had hoped to see Megan today (Sunday) and that didn't work out, so now she's coming over for dinner tomorrow, and that has us doing some fast thinking to plan on what to grab at the grocery store.

• Monday: plus Megan and Liam - Red pepper soup (trying again after disaster at beginning of month, from @allrecipes), polenta with ricotta, and challah bread.  We got a delicious apple spice cake at whole foods and tried some already Sunday to make sure it was good!!!
• Tuesday: Ricotta Gnocchi (from @allrecipes) - to use the leftover ricotta from Monday.  We made this recipe several times last year and enjoyed them.
• Wednesday: quick food for knitting night: Baked potatoes and butternut squash.  I bake the squash with a little brown sugar and apple sauce in the center.  Apple Pear crisp for desert.
• Thursday: Asian meal - peanut sauce (from @tasteofhome), rice (or fried rice), stir-fried broccoli and snow peas.  Bought some vegetarian potstickers at whole foods to try out with this.
• Friday: leftovers
  
• Saturday: out to library meeting and girls day out.

The nice thing about this is we planned all this on the fly in Whole Foods and won't need another shopping trip on Monday night like normal!

Looking back at last week meal plans, and it seems so long ago (I'm writing this a week out) that I don't have much to supplement how it went.

• Monday: out for groceries
• Tuesday: Broccoli Cheese soup (adapted from recipe @allrecipes) with asiago cheese bread.
• Wednesday: Lasagna - E has Milton's Vegetable lasagna in the freezer from Costco and I have SmartOnes lasagna in the freezer.  A quick meal for knit night, but I didn't end up going.
• Thursday: Sandwiches - cheddar paninis?
• Friday: Crepes (low fat crepes from @about.com) with lemon curd and jam, potato cubes, and striples
• Saturday: out?
• Sunday: Mexican - quesadillas, soy chorizo burritos.

 Ideas came from what was leftover from last week.  We didn't get to do crepes, so it was moved.  Lasagna had been in the freezer and we were looking forward to eating that.  The soup meal was inspired by wanting bread bowls, but Safeway was out of them, so we went with some soft squishy other bread.  Paninis was meant as a use for leftover bread from the soup meal.  So it was pretty much a kristine-is-being-lazy-with-barely-any-ideas week :)

I was excited when writing up this week's list, considering that I would get to blog about the plans :)  It's been a while since I've been this excited about blogging, truthfully.

Recap of last week: We had several meals with new recipes to test out.  I tried getting jarred red peppers at Costco to use in soup instead of roasting them myself.  As my tweet said, I didn't think to rinse the peppers first, and we ended up with vinegar-y soup!  Sandwiches with the leftover herb rolls the next day turned out great (a little high in points, but paired with a salad wasn't bad).  Our asian meal was completely new: a lot of dirty dishes and two sets of wontons (potstickers and apple dessert wontons) later, and we decided the potstickers weren't necessary, but the fried rice worked very well and E's new wok was awesome.  Finally, the roasted vege idea for Friday was great: used breakfast links cut into little rounds, and that was delicious.

For this coming week, I had 5 meals to plan in a row because we aren't going anywhere again until next Sunday.

• Monday: out to Sweet Tomatoes (are you on Club Veg to get their coupons?) and groceries at Trader Joe's. 
• Tuesday: Vegetable soup (broth, peppers, celery, tortellinis, and charrizo) with cornbread (healthified version of @allrecipes).  Maybe no-pudge brownies for dessert?
  
• Wednesday: (quick food for knit-night) hamburger without the bun, baked Kettle chips
• Thursday: Risotto (lemon, celery, peas - modified slightly @tasteofhome.com) with chicken, herb-y salad
• Friday: Breakfast for dinner: crepes (low fat crepes @about.com) with lemon curd and berry preserves, potatoes, striples.
• Saturday: freezer lasagna (SmartOne meal for me, vegetable for E), broccoli, and breadsticks (from herb bread dough from Trader Joe's)
• Sunday: out to Clackamas and ABC for vegemeat sale.

Inspiration-wise, I had a short idea list leftover from last week to start with.  Watching an episode of Giada at Home (episode More for Less) where she used lemon juice in her chicken soup reminded me it had been a while since I made risotto.  The vegetable soup came out of having leftover peppers from our Costco trip last week, and I looked in my newest cooking magazines for ideas using them and didn't see anything new so I'm just making it up based on the last few soups I made.

E got a bunch of lunch meals, I've got plenty of cereal and applesauce, and the week is looking to have a good healthy plan.  Yay!

Taking the time to write out my meal plans again this week.  This may become a regular segment!

Recap of last week:  We were pretty successful in eating on plan.  Our cottage cheese for the baked potatoes went bad before we could use it.  The frozen steam-in-bag veges (Green Giant Valley Fresh Steamers) were both a great success - Broccoli, Cauliflower, Carrot with Cheese sauce and Buttery Rice with Vegetables - I'll certainly get these again.  I didn't end up making the pizza crust thinner as planned because I just couldn't imagine how it would roll out.  And I ate it all instead of saving some for lunch, it's just too good to pass up.  Omelets turned out *great*, I'm excited to try this again.

For this coming week, we don't have many plans for leaving the house, so I needed more days worth of menu plans.  Only a few leftovers remained from last week, so working off that didn't help for ideas.  A Costco trip means inexpensive red peppers (bag of 6), so I wanted meals to use that.

• Monday: out (at Olive Garden - Apricot Chicken) and grocery shopping (Costco, Safeway)
• Tuesday: Red Pepper soup (adjusted from AllRecipes) and yogurt rolls (@theredkitchen) modded with herbs and cornmeal 
• Wednesday: Salad with carrots, leftover yogurt rolls turned into sandwiches with cheese and vege-turkey lunchmeat
• Thursday: Asian meal: fried rice (recipe @weightwatchers), chicken strips, steamed dumpling/wontons, and apple wontons (recipe @weightwatchers) for desert.
• Friday: Roasted vegetables (zucchini, onion, pepper, garlic) over whole wheat pasta with morningstar sausage (recipe @foodnetwork).  maybe desert to go with this?
• Saturday: out?  No plans yet.
  
• Sunday: Mexican meal: quasadillas on corn tortillas with 2% mexican shred, roased veges, chicken strips.  E could make tacos with beans.
  

The asian meal was inspired from our trip to CA, where we helped make the giant Beeson-Vixie asian meal they do when there's a holiday or something special going on.  It's all vegetarian, with great sauces and fried foods to go with.  When I saw my Weight Watchers app highlighting fried rice, I thought it was about time to try it.

I watched the first episode (Penne for Pennies) of Ten Dollar Dinners from the winner of the Food Network Star (watched some eps on New Years Eve!) this weekend, and I loved her creation.  I'm modifying it for what we like and to be vegetarian, it was a really good base idea.

We ended up with a wide variety of things from Costco that we didn't plan on buying, but all will be useful.  E got hummus and pita crackers for lunches.  I got a couple of microwave dinners with good low WW point values.  I got a WeightWatchers magazine from the 30% off magazine rack, and I'm excited to be inspired with that for next week.  Also, a gift card for Jamba Juice was 39.99 and worth $50, so that will be a good thing to use in the coming months for evening treats here and there.  A lot of our purchases, we had Costco member coupons for (saving $22.25!).

It looks to be a good week, all in all :)

I'm thinking that this is the year we won't have a Christmas tree. 

The last few years, it's been a lot of work to put up the tree.  It's a fake tree, we've had it since we got married, and it's a good choice for us.  I've poked my arms up a ton getting the lights just exactly how I wanted them.  Last year, I was inspired by the holiday decorations in the New Orleans section of Disneyland and I got a lot of beads trying to recreate that... but it didn't quite come out how I wanted.

We don't spend that much time downstairs, so it feels like if I were to put up a tree, it's just going to be for show when we have E's birthday, and that's about it.  Plus, the exercise bike is in the way, and I *must* keep using it through the holidays.  So space is tight, especially if we have 15 people for E's bday, we need every inch.

Also: this year, we'll be flying to California on Christmas morning.  So no opening presents under *our* tree, we'll have to celebrate earlier together.  We'll celebrate around the tree at my parents house on Christmas Eve, and with E's parents on Christmas day.  This is all very exciting!

Alternate plan: I've got some crocheted garlands and snowflakes and I'd like to put those up with lights on the wall.  I'd also like to put some things up in the office where we'd actually get to enjoy them.  And a wreath on the door with my angel in the middle of course.

Decembers are always stressful with all of the things I feel I *MUST* do, and I'm looking forward to keeping things more simple this time around.  Focusing on health and the spirit of the season is more important, I do believe.

I've been torn lately.  My hair has been longer than it has been for a long time, and I'm attributing that to taking more vitamins could be making it grow.  But on the other hand, I've been wishing that I had a shorter "style".

I trimmed a few around my face last week but it didn't do much. 

And it doesn't help its super hot and I really don't want my hair on my neck, so I keep putting it up, and it feels so boring because my hair really only goes UP one way.

I love the pink streaks in my hair, and change them up a bit every time I do them.  The faded ones are more of a orangey blond, but it's not bad.  I added deeper pinky red underneath on a few this time, a little more like my friend Emilia as they pop out from below.

We are alternating between Buffy and Angel and two of my hair inspirations were in those episodes - Azura Skye's character of Cassie on Help (season 7, episode 4) with her purple highlights on blond hair.  I can't get that look without bleaching all of my hair, but so cool with the pop of color coming from underneath.  And then Alexa Davelos as Gwen on Ground State (season 4, episode 2) with her brown hair and red highlights gave me a glimpse of what I could *really* do with my curls and red.

So yeah, just a few random thoughts.  We'll see what I do next to keep it feeling fresh, especially with the Sock Summit coming, I've been thinking about my "look" more because I'll be around a lot of new people for a few days!

I finally am acknowledging something that's been in the back of my mind for a while: I've been mourning the life I had hoped to have. It's easy to compare myself to those around me who I see as "successful".  Things like a traditional job, having babies, being a good housewife.  And I'm not fitting into the plans I had for my life.

I feel like I've failed in my health. How can having serious chronic illnesses be a failure? CFIDS and Fibromyalgia, along with dealing with health/weight issues takes up a LOT of my time and energy.  This has made a serious impact on my plans for life.  Watching an episode of House (Season 2's Acceptance) reminded me of the 5 Stages of Grief.  I think that I've been between Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance multiple times over the last few years.

Another thing which triggered me to think was a new episode of What Not to Wear (Amanda)  She had a business which didn't make it, and she was hiding in big because she felt like she failed.  The whole episode was really a transformation of her attitude to be positive and sexy again.  I can see that some of the things I've done lately have been done in an effort to recapture the SPARK in my life.

What do I take from this?  It's actually quite encouraging to me to write this down.  I am happy and hopeful.  So what's next?  Stay tuned: I know I will do things I love.