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Thursday, July 18, 2013

Eat dessert first

Especially when it's from Jones Bros., bakers of the best cupcakes ever.




Especially when your son and pregnant daughter-in-law called from Michigan to tell you they had ordered gender-reveal cupcakes for you and your husband!

IT'S A BOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A grandson will be joining our family sometime in early December! We are all so excited to welcome this little one! It made it even more real when I saw Aly's tummy this past weekend. (She looks way better at 20 weeks than I ever did!)

A new job! A wedding! A baby! This year is bringing almost too much excitement to handle. Thank God my meds are adjusted!

And now on to the mundane:

Boring dinner: chicken breast, summer salad, roasted peppers

Half-marathon training is going well; I just wish we lived in a less-hilly neighborhood! There are no flat parts at all. You'd think with all these hills my butt would look better, but I guess it takes more than that to counteract 58 years of gravity.


 Have a great day, everyone. I'm off to run some errands before what promises to be a busy day at work. I get to relax late this afternoon though - it's much-needed cut and color day!


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Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Party on!

The bachelorette party was SO MUCH FUN!!! Emily did a great job planning it all, and all the ladies had a wonderful time.

The bachelorette and her maid of honor
Aly had flown back to spend a few days with her parents, who drove her up to Omaha on Saturday morning so the two of us could drive over to Des Moines together. It was wonderful for me to spend two uninterrupted hours with my favorite daughter-in-law. Every mom of a son should be so lucky to get one like I got!

We picked up Emmy and Jeanie (who had driven in from Chicago) and went to Palmer's for salad - figured there would be way too much non-salad food for the rest of the day, so we wanted a healthy start. I love girl (daughter, DIL, and sister) time!


By the time we finished lunch and got to Emmy's apartment, Gail had arrived from Minneapolis so we started cooking and decorating. And visiting. I am so lucky to have such wonderful women in my life!


They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here goes:

Wedding night finery



I did make it to one bar after dinner before the girls went on to more fun, but no one wants to see dark pictures of people drinking beer. You've all been there. I was seriously the oldest person in that bar, as I discovered when I had to find the bathroom all the way at the back of the establishment. The bathroom was full of drunk girls - I was just hoping no one would throw up or start to cry. Or both. When did I get old? And why did I think this used to be fun? This is the text I sent Dwight when I got back to the hotel (and had a Templeton in the lobby like a nice sensible adult):



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Friday, July 12, 2013

I think I have a tapeworm

Seriously - I am so hungry all the time lately! Like yesterday, my stomach was growling out loud at 10 a.m. And after this breakfast:


What is going on? Could it be that I am eating just too much junk lately? Probably.

Our friend Dave was in town yesterday and we went to one of our favorite local restaurants, Jam's, with several other friends. One of our friends who is back on the market after a few years of being in a relationship had recently lost some weight (because, as he told the guys, "You know who you're getting undressed in front of at night; I don't!")  I asked him how he did it, and he said he basically doesn't eat bread. Hmmmm.... I DO eat bread. I love carbs. Maybe if I cut out a bit of the carbs and fill up on protein, veggies, fruit, and good fat instead... This was today's breakfast: an omelette of 1 egg, 2 egg whites, and 1/2 an avocado, with fruit:


A few days ago I felt like I needed to get in a few more veggies, so it was the Green Monster to the rescue. Just check out all the spinach! There is a banana in there, a scoop of protein powder, a cup of skim milk, and about 1/2 cup Greek yogurt.



I have been in love with Paradise Cafe's Asian Chicken Salad, and after watching them make it so many times, I thought I'd give it a try at home:


I think it really looks like the restaurant's salad, and better yet, it tastes like it! And even better, it's super easy. I chopped up some napa cabbage, mixed it with Paul Newman's sesame ginger dressing (seriously delicious), topped with edamame, shredded chicken, and some chow mein noodles. I know I could leave off the noodles, but I like the crunch.

Another good meal/snack is some black bean/corn salsa (again with the corn - Nebraska you know) mixed with chopped avocado. Yum.


We call this Bev's salsa because I got the recipe from my friend Bev. Give me a recipe, and it's named after you: Troy's dip, Aly's Oh Sweet Jesus Bars, you get the idea.  You can really use anything you want for the salsa, but I used 2 cans of corn, 1 can of black beans, 1 can of Rotel's, some chopped scallions, diced pickled jalapenos, cumin, and cilantro. It's good with Doritos (what isn't?!), on baked potatoes, scrambled in eggs, or straight out of the tupperware - you name it, it works.

Erin's bachelorette party is tomorrow and she is so looking forward to it except she's already dreading how she'll feel on Sunday. The mom in me wants to say, "Now you know you don't need alcohol to have a good time," but hey, it's her bachelorette party, and yes you do! Emily has been working on the menu for the cocktail party at her house while I'm doing the decorations, and then we're all headed to downtown Des Moines for a night of fun. There will be photos. In the meantime,



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Tuesday, July 2, 2013

How am I doing?

Okay, it's been more than a week after I vowed to start blogging at least a couple times a week. How's that working for me? Oops. And how about getting on my bike at least once a week? Okay - did that. As far as the drinking more water and starting half-marathon training: done and done. And better nutrition? Pretty good, except when I wasn't. Seriously, we went to a wedding last weekend with an open bar and wedding cake. Mmmmm... delicious. But to help metabolize all that, Dwight and I went 4.4 miles around the big lake at Zorinsky the next day. With a bit of a hangover. Go us!

To help with increasing my water intake, I pulled out the infusion pitcher I got a few years ago and had kinda forgotten about. In the insert in this photo is watermelon, mint, and cucumbers. Right now in the pitcher I have just plain lime wedges.


I know my breakfasts are boring:

Oatmeal with blueberries, 1.5 tsp brown sugar, skim milk
Smoothie with skim milk, greek yogurt, chocolate protein powder, and a banana

Scrambled eggs with hot Italian turkey sausage and peppers, berries, skim milk, coffee

Self-explanatory

Protein waffle, blueberries, bananas, and coffee

I discovered that I need to correct my protein pancake/waffle recipe after Emily was having to add some almond milk to make hers thin enough to spread. It turns out I had forgotten to mention the egg whites in a previous post. That'll do it! So the official recipe, courtesy of MaryLu, is 3 egg whites, 1/2 cup oatmeal, 1/2 cup cottage cheese, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, and 1/2 tsp almond extract. Whirl it all up in a Magic Bullet, and make pancakes of a waffle. One recipe perfectly fits my Belgian waffle machine. This recipe has 278 calories, with 4 g fat, 32 g of carbs, 4 g of fiber, and a whopping 31 g of protein.

Some lunches:

PBJ, cherries, and summer salad

Avocado toast with chimichurri spread, and strawberries

Deli ham slices, avocado toast, carrots, and hummus

Cottage cheese, tuna, and capers

Asian chicken salad from Paradise Bakery & Cafe. There is one at Regency, just down the hall from work. I get a half-salad, with a half scoop of dressing. 300 calories of pure deliciousness.

Snacks:

Before a run - 3 of these bloks. 100 calories of energy.
Now don't laugh at this:


Or this:


Sometimes I just want something sweet, and instead of candy or cookies, which wouldn't stand a chance in this house, I thought cereal from my childhood might suffice. And it works! Just grab a handful of this stuff and you will satisfy that sweet tooth. There is the added benefit of (some) fiber and vitamins. We also have Lucky Charms and Golden Grahams. And yes, we're in our late 50's.

And now some dinners:


Huevos rancheros courtesy of Emily's blog, and - because we live in Nebraska  - corn. I swear I could make a meal out of just corn-on-the-cob.

Rotisserie chicken, summer salad, roasted peppers

Salmon topped with capers, chives, lemon zest, and Thai sweet chili sauce then baked,  served with brown rice and green beans

Time to go rustle up some lunch and then go to work. TTFN!