Superstar

A week ago I did something new and somewhat crazy. But we'll worth it. And I will be doing it again. I cooked all day. And I cooked a lot of meals. And now I have a full freezer. It all started with seeing a lot of posts on Pinterest about freezer cooking. My Mom did this all through my growing up years, and I decided to try it myself. I called my Mom for some advice and started putting together the recipes I would use. On Tuesday of last week, I got together with a girl from my ward to plan together (I had someone do this with me so that I wouldn't back out). Wednesday, I made sure my menu was complete and put together a shopping list. Thursday, I cooked the first of the meat I was making in the crockpot (Cafe Rio copy cat Chicken) and went through my grocery list to see what I already had. And then Friday it started. Friday was shopping day. After going to both Costco and Smiths, I came home with my load.

Crazy right? Look at that load. I spent more than I should have, but I'll get better at this as we go. The Saturday morning it started. I started by scrubbing my kitchen so that it was ready for the start and the girl from my ward came over with her load. After trying to figure out where to begin, we got started. I labeled some ziplock bags and started chopping. It was not too bad. Some recipes I doubled, most I just used the single recipe because with the two of us, it's enough to make 2 meals. At the end of the day my feet hurt, but I felt very accomplished. With a full freezer.

All in all I made 25 meals. They were:

2 Rogo (family recipe, delicious)
2 Crockpot lasagna
2 baked ziti
2 barbecue chicken
2 teriyaki chicken
2 Ambers (Italian) chicken
2 cafe rio copycat chicken
2 chile Colorado beef
2 meatloaf
2 cauliflower soup
2 enchiladas
2 creamed chicken tacos
1 roast

I laid out the meals throughout the month. We should have meals for the entire month with 4 leftover. And that's if we stick to the calendar exactly, we may end up with more leftovers than I planned on and need to push back the meals a bit. I'm pretty excited about this! So far the meals we've had have all been delicious! Most of the meals I used were from my normal cooking recipes (or my moms) but others were from Pinterest. They've all been great! We'll see how it ends up by the end of the month.

In other news, I finally bought a belt today, my pants are starting to fall off in a bad way. And I don't want to buy new pant until I'm done losing weight. But I'm half way there! Over 15 pounds lost! Here is to 15 more! :)

All-Star

Well - It's been a month since I last blogged. That's awesome.  I'm really good at this weekly reporting of progress thing huh? Yup, so good.  Someday, I need to blog about our trip to Florida, because it was awesome.  But for now, just some super good news.  I have been doing Weight Watchers now for 6 weeks.  That's right, I did it through the Christmas season, which made me slightly nervous.  But, I was successful, even through Christmas! Tuesday was my 6 week weigh in, and.... I have lost 10lbs! Ta-Da! I was very excited when I stepped on the scale.  Progress is great! I also have been super into making delicious meals the past couple of days.  I have had some delicious restaurant quality, but low-calorie salads.  Last night I made some super delicious cauliflower soup (so delicious that Jordan decided to eat it for breakfast).  Yum! I have been thinking about taking measurements to start tracking inches that I am losing, so I may do that soon too.  I have been super bad at going to the gym.  I probably haven't done that in a month either, so that just goes to show how badly I was eating, or I guess not badly, because I'm eating mostly the same foods, so I guess how much I was eating. Super exciting! Now I just need to get back to the gym to tone up.  Yay! :)

ABC

Yesterday, I had an awesome experience. I was contacted a few weeks ago by a professor at BYU to come and be a guest speaker in a recreation management classroom. In the email, he mentioned I was a "distinguished graduate of the program." I have been looking forward to this since then. Yesterday the day arrived. I got to campus early to make sure that I got parking and to class on time. I pulled into the lot they told us to park in, and there was no parking. I circled the lot for about 25 minutes. At this point, I was starting to panic as I was late. Luckily, I found a parking spot close at that point. I ran to the classroom and made my way down the long set of stairs of the auditorium to my seat at the front.

Once I sat down, the fun part began. There were 3 of us presenting to this class. The class we were presenting to was not a class that I took as it's a part of the new program they are implementing being part of the business school. This was an intro to the major class that introduces you to everything that is recreation management. The three of us were there to tell our backgrounds, what we do now, how we got into the major, what we would have done differently in school and other such things. My favorite question to answer was what would I have done differently in school. The other two girls talked about how they would have volunteered or worked more. When I got up, I said that was the one thing I didn't regret as I had worked almost 40 hours a week while going through the major and had as volunteered a lot. I wish I had paid more attention in classes that I didn't think I had needed to know, like finance or commercial business. Now this is where it got funny, the professor teaching this class and leading the discussion happens to be the same professor who I took commercial recreation from 4 years ago. At this point he butted in and said "Oh you mean like that one time you told me that you would never need to know any of the information I was teaching in my class?" The class was laughing so hard as I explained that I had in fact told him I would never need to know that information because I was always going to work in community recreation. They laughed even harder because I now work in commercial recreation. Oh the irony.

After we got through the questions, it was opened up for classroom questions. It was fun to hear the questions from students and remember where I was just a few years ago. After class ended the professor and another took the three of us to lunch at Brick Oven. I realized again that I don't love Brick Oven, but it was a good lunch. They brought the new curriculum over to get our opinions on it. It was a fun discussion and great to see the direction that my program is going. They really appreciated our comments and took notice on the few suggestions I had to change it. All in all, it was a great experience and so much fun to still be apart of my alma mater. I love it!

One Week

Well, I'm a day late posting, but the results are in. I lost 3 pounds this past week! Go me! I went to the gym only 3 out of the 7 days, but this week I'm striving for better. I won't be up to 6 yet, but hopefully 5 out of the 7 days. Food is a slight struggle as I still have treats in my house, but I'm tracking everything and staying within my allotment.

I'm planning on taking measurements so I can see where I'm losing inches. That will hopefully be very exciting too (especially when my stomach goes down. I'm excited to see progress while working out as well. I've been doing 2 miles every time I go to the gym. And I'm watching the time go down. I'm planning on upping the mileage soon and seeing if I can keep the pace. My problem is I get real bored and want to stop out of boredom. Any suggestions for that? I was thinking maybe a book on tape or something? But I don't know if that would solve it either. I've been listening to music, and I've tried watching the TV shows I like (tonight X factor was on) but that doesn't seem to help.

I'm thinking goal for next month is a lazy ironman. Basically, you complete the equivalent of an ironman within the month. 26.2 running miles, 112 biking miles, and 2.4 swimming miles. Anyone in with me for January? ;)

Thanks to everyone for the support this week! And for those that have joined with afar! Lets keep going together!

Eye of the Tiger

I've decided to renew my efforts at an old goal. So I am starting a fresh. Since my wedding a year and a half ago, I have put on about 20 pounds. This is hard for me to swallow. I don't feel like I am doing anything different than I was before but the weight keeps packing on. And I don't like it one bit. So I'm going to do something about it. I have a gym membership that I have been using fairly regularly, but now I plan to go as close to daily as I can (tonight I had a commitment with scouts, so I couldn't go tonight, but last night I did some pretty serious working out at the gym.

I have also joined weight watchers online to track food consumption and be better about what I eat. I am sticking to it. My goal is 30 pounds weight loss. I don't do well if I am not accountable, and being accountable to myself isn't good enough, I lose the motivation and come up with excuses. So I am going to use this blog for accountability. And encouragement you can give would be delightful. I'll blog any progress weekly on Tuesdays. I am looking forward to the change this will hopefully being permanently bringing to my life. I am ready for it!

We Didn't Start The Fire

One year ago today was the fire. We had a massive fire in our parking garage. Thankfully, there was no such fire last night in our garage (not that I thought there would be). Because of the year mark, my memory has been returning the to all the things I've learned in the last year. Here is a list of things in case of fire in my life again:

1. Always grab shoes. It's cold out there. Especially barefoot.
2. Grab a cell phone. It's impossible to make a phone call without a cell phone.
3. Grab keys (Jordan was good and did grab these, but I lost my head).

I am very grateful for where we live. This is a great place. In the year since the fire, our apartment has been professionally cleaned 3 times, carpets cleaned, air ducts cleaned, and our entire bathroom redone. Our landlord is so great to work with. We love our little place and will be here as long as we are in Provo. One little fluke of a fire didn't scare us away. This place is too good to allow that. :)

Rehab

Pinterest. I've heard about it. I even created an account. But that was the extend of it. I made up every excuse in the book and I didn't see the point of it. That all changed about 24 hours ago. I had the app downloaded to the new iPhone. It had been on my iPad for months, but I didn't feel the need to look at it. Yesterday, I opened the app to see what all the fuss was about. I see friends "pin" things pretty consistently on Facebook, but what does that really mean. As the app loaded, I was still doubting that I would be on the app longer than 3 minutes. The it loaded and my eyes were opened.

Here was a whole new world. All these things I want to try. Recipes, DIY projects, new hair dos, sewing projects for the sewing machine I have but haven't learned to use yet, everything I could possibly imagine. Next thing I know, it's time to get ready for work. This morning I was back at it. The only way I have to describe my new relationship with Pinterest is an addiction. The only song I could think of is "Rehab" by Amy Winehouse, because I'm not going to be ending this relationship anytime soon. Happy Pinning!