Trials of a Long Haired Girl

I was feeling a little down last week.  Getting past the anniversary of my Mom's death and with Christmas approaching quickly, it has been difficult for me to get into the spirit.   I have been on an audiobook kick of late and happened to have finished my audiobook earlier in the day than expected.  I decided to take that time to listen to some Christmas music to try to help me get myself where I thought I should be.  I started out listening to the "pop" Christmas music.  I promptly decided that was NOT going to get myself in the Christmas spirit listening to that, so I switched to the Bing Crosby channel.  So many memories popped in my head.   One of the memories that came to mind was working on crafts such as pipe cleaner ornaments at our dining room table, while singing Christmas carols with my Mom.  We sang songs such as Silent Night, White Christmas and Silver Bells.  All this made me a bit melancholy, but I was reminded ...

Today, changes finally showed up in my tracker.  I am trying to prepare myself to get with the new program.  I am of the impression that several of the things that I already eat, are now free.  As I think we discovered when fruit became 0 Smart Points, what works for one, may not work for everyone.  It is going to be an adjustment and everyone is going to have to figure out what works for you, while you are working the plan.  It has dropped my SmartPoints budget to 23 SmartPoints per day.  I think it will be better when I get all the information and can plan ahead a little bit.  I am determined to make this a positive change.   Yesterday, while I didn't hit 10,000 steps, I got close at 9,801 including 53 active minutes.  This exceeded my desired 30 minutes.  I feel pretty positive about that.  I have realized that I may need to focus on other parts of the goals so I can really celebrate my accomplishments.  I have been...

Good day friends!  I hope everyone is doing well.  I am feeling pretty good about my strides of late.  I may not be doing everything perfectly, but I'm trying and that counts.  I tried another recipe last night...one I've tried before, but don't think that I have shared.  Last night, I prepared two things.  One was a big pot of spaghetti sauce from my Better Homes and Garden cookbook.  I have made it before and my family loves it. The basic recipe, as I modified it is this:  4-14 oz. cans of diced tomatoes, 4 cloves of garlic, 1 cup of onion, I added at least 4 of the small snack size bell pepper, a liberal dash of Italian Seasoning and then my husband added some fresh basil, 1 small can of tomato paste and 2/3 cup of water.  We normally have leftovers unless I'm feeding a crowd. I also threw a variation of the 7 can soup (the Pioneer Woman's version) in the crockpot for lunches.  Her recipe can be found here:  Pioneer Woman 7-C...

Good evening all!  I hope everyone had a great day!  You know that moment when things just don't go as planned?  Yep, I had one of those days.  While I think that my dinner plan was a good one, it wound up changing.   Today's meals: Breakfast was my breakfast smoothie, coffee with coconut milk creamer.  Lunch was my Subway steak and cheese salad with a little ranch and 2 of the small packages of Club crackers.  Dinner was leftover pizza (1 small piece and 1 standard size piece and 2 cheese sticks.  Water to drink all day.  I was a little lax on getting my steps in today but still managed to get my current goal of 6,000 steps.  I wanted to hit 10,000 but we got a little busy and it was hard to keep moving and type at that point.  I did get in 39 active minutes so that's a positive.   My spaghetti sauce didn't get started as early as I wanted, but it is prepared and currently in the fridge so we can make a quick d...

Overall, today was a good day.  I didn't get everything accomplished that I wanted to, but I did track and I got over 10,000 steps in on my FitBit...only 15 Active Minutes, but I'm proud of it.  It's a start...and a good way to start off the week.  This is going to be short because I'm so super tired.   I had a breakfast smoothie, coffee and coconut milk creamer for breakfast.  Lunch was a crispy chicken Caesar salad from the deli at work and I added my grape tomatoes.  Dinner was a Steak and Cheese Sandwich from Subway.  We added lettuce, tomatoes, spinach, onions, pickles bell pepper and black olives on wheat.  It wasn't my first choice, but it was within my Smart Points.   Tomorrow is a breakfast smoothie, coffee and coconut milk creamer.  Lunch will be a steak and cheese salad from Subway.  Dinner will be the spaghetti that I was planning for tonight.  Tomorrow's goals: tracking (I've got a head st...

I feel like I've been missing for some time.  There seems to be much going on around our world.  My oldest son had a seizure and wound up on a wheel chair for the time being.  Unfortunately, we don't have a reason behind it at this point, he's still going through testing.  I also was in a car accident so I wound up losing my workout momentum that I had going, but I am determined I will get it back this month.  There has been more, but I don't want to discuss on a public forum.  Honestly, my health sort of got put on the back burner.  While I haven't had a problem with it for a number of years, I am currently experiencing flutters in my heart.  I have an appointment with the cardiologist that took care of my Mom during her last stay at Methodist.  I trust him and appreciate that he's not just going to randomly label with with high blood pressure.  I pray that it is simply a reaction to stress, but I feel like I am better served to get ...