Workout Challenge

After reading a post on Exhotgirl's blog about being a lazy bum when it comes to working out, I thought I would come clean. My gym membership is paid off and has been paid off since I put it on my credit card May 2008. The membership expires May 2011. So right now the gym is FREE. And I'm not going.

I'm going to challenge myself to go to the gym three times a week for 4 straight weeks. If I can accomplish that, I will reward myself with a new pair of workout pants that actually fit me. (I bought some today at Target, so I will put them up until a month from now.) The challenge will start on Monday 10/26.

It makes sense that I'm not losing weight like I want and I'm not going to the gym. I get mad at the scale b/c I think I did good in a week. When in reality, I'm not tracking my daily food intake and only working out once or twice.

A few months ago, I told myself I wanted to be in the 140s for my birthday. With two weeks until said day, I won't be making that goal unless I become deathly ill or loss a couple of limbs. And let's hope that doesn't happen.

I'll update this blog with how the challenge is going and what forms of exercise I'm doing. It would be great to be smaller by Christmas/New Years.

What was I thinking?

I challenged myself to do the Day Zero Project, but I didn't print out my list of 101 things to do until yesterday. What the hell?!?!? How am I suppose to keep track of my progress or remember everything on the list if I don't look at it everyday?!?!

So I printed it out and have been looking it over and checking off things I've done. My boyfriend has seen my list and is helping me get some things accomplished. :) So here's an update:

- I've eaten at 2/10 new restaurants.

- I have received my new drivers license with my Houston address on it.

- When I was at the Tax Accessors office, I verbally registered my car in Harris County. Now I just have to wait until March when I get the renewal papers to make it official.

- My boyfriend bought us a bigger filing cabinet and shredder for the house.

- He also installed a shelf, using part of the system from my closet, for our recycling. The shelf is a little narrow, but it holds 2 boxes on it that aren't on the washer/dryer anymore.

- I've also expanded my business wardrobe. Sort of. I picked out a bunch of shirts from Kohl's that I wanted for my birthday/Christmas. My mom bought them and they are currently sitting at her house until November or December. So even though I can't wear them yet, I count that as being 1/2 accomplished.

The goals of taking a vitamin everyday, working out 3x a week, emailing people everday, unplugging for 1 day a week, and wearing makeup 5 times a week are more difficult than I thought. Again, what was I thinking?!?!?! I've lost track of a lot of these daily things and it's only been a month and a half.

I'm not sure if I should have a redo and change those goals up a bit. Or if I should restart the goals and hopefully get my butt into gear with them. Any suggestions/ideas?

And now to an update on my closet....I did clean it out, change around the shelving a little, and added a few personal touches. I still have some work to do on it, but it's so much better now. My parents possibly have a dresser that I want to use in my closet for more drawer space. But they have to search their garage for it and make sure it's in good enough condition for me. Hopefully I can get the dresser in the next few weeks. If not, I'll be staking out garage sales and craigslist to find one!

Here are updated pictures of the closet:

Full length view:

Here's the right side of my closet. Taking out that shelf made for more room to hang clothes.

I want to replace the wire shelving/cube thing with a dresser. I also want to put a set of hooks above the dresser to hang up all my purses and bags on.

These clear boxes from Target are a lot bigger than those Xerox boxes I was using. Plus I can see what's in them.

Here's the left side of the closet. I still have some baskets of clothes that need to go into the dresser.

We moved the shelf up here and it feels like there is more space to store things in here.

Now I can easily find my boots and some other shoes that don't fit in my over the door shoe rack.

I finally got my mirror hung up. It's so nice to be able to see my whole body in the mirror with no boxes in front of it.

My mom made this for me when I was a baby and it means a lot to me. It may seem strange to hang it up in a closet, but I go in my closet everyday. So it's up there for me to see everyday.

Once I get the closet totally finished, I'll post more pictures.

Closet Dilemma--Sort of solved

So after pulling everything out of my closet, I kind of just stopped and did other things around the house. I eventually went through a bunch of the boxes that were in my closet and got rid of a few things. I also went through my collection of purses/tote bags and narrowed those down.

Ephram helped me by getting rid of one shelf on the right side and putting it above the wooded shelf on the left side. I think just doing that has cleared out a lot of space for me to start putting everything back inside. I thought I'd buy an expensive closet organizer piece, but I didn't have too! The only thing I'm waiting on is to get a small dresser from my parents' house. They have a set of 3 drawers that I can have and I think it'll be a perfect addition in my closet to store things.

I never thought that reorganizing my closet would take so long! But I'm determined to finish the project today (Thursday) and have everything back in there. Wish me luck!

Closet Dilemma

Including today, I have 4 days off in a row from work. I'm really excited about working on my Day Zero list and getting a few things done.

This afternoon I decided to clean out my closet. All of my belongings that I drug out are now filling up my office area, hanging in other closets throughout the house, and stacked up on my bed. I have a feeling that I've bitten off more than I can chew.

Earlier this week, I started planning how I wanted to reorganize the closet. When I explained it to Ephram, my boyfriend the engineer, he said it wouldn't work because the clothes would be too heavy for the configuration I wanted.

So now I don't know what to do.

Sort through the clutter, and think of ways to organize everything while getting rid of things? Start disassembling the crappy shelves in the closet to get a better picture of how to organize? Start making a list of what I want out of this project? Make a list of things I feel like I need?

AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is definitely more work than I thought it was going to be. Any advice from someone that's gone through this before? What's the best plan of attack?

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Faux Chocolate Dipped Strawberries

I'm in LOVE with this new dessert/snack idea that I've recently discovered. Jello Sugar Free Dark Chocolate Pudding and strawberries! It's the best ever!

I usually take 8oz of strawberries and a Jello Pudding to work multiple times during the week. In the last week, I started dipping the strawberries in the pudding and wow! It's delicious! The Jello Sugar Free Pudding is only 60 calories too!

I mean, how good does this look:

Thought I'd share the idea with ya'll because I LOVE it!!

Goin' Barefoot and Crazy

Every time I hear this Jack Ingram song, I think of my commute to and from work.

Over the last few weeks, I've started driving barefoot. It has something to do with not feeling the pedals as well underneath my shoes. And lately, my shoes have been getting a little "stuck" on the pedals. The stickiness has only been happening while I'm driving in the neighborhood at a slow speed, so it's been safe for me to kick off my shoes and then kick them under the driver's seat.

People on the roads are starting to seriously drive me crazy too. I don't understand why people drive so bad! Here's what I've been dealing with during my afternoon drives:

-People travelling in an exit only lane and not getting out of it until they are being forced to exit.

-Not using blinkers to change lanes or keeping the blinker on while staying in their lane.

-It's raining and drivers don't have their headlights on.

-Driving under the speed limit.

-Driving under the speed limit especially in the left lane.

-Heavy traffic at 3pm on weekdays.

-Heavy traffic at 1pm on weekends.

I personally think all of these things are uncalled for! It's not like there are a ton of people on the road. But the bad driving makes it seem like the freeway is packed!

Sorry for the vent and pointless blog, but this has become a big stresser in my daily life. And it cuts out time that I could spend doing fun or productive things.

Cozy Crock Comfort

One of the ladies on the Weight Watcher community boards had a collection of Crockpot recipes in a Word document that she would email out to people who asked for it. I asked for it, printed it out and binded it at Kinkos.

There are 107 pages of recipes with several recipes on each page. I'm slowly going through the book to find recipes that I want to try. So far I believe I've only made two of the recipes. Both were pretty good, but this one has to be my favorite of the two.

Cozy Crock Comfort

16 oz ground 90% lean turkey or beef

1/2 cup chopped onion

3 cups diced raw potatoes

1/3 cup uncooked regular rice

1 1/2 cups shredded carrots

1 cup finely diced celery

1 1/2 cups Healthy Request Tomato Juice or any reduced-sodium Tomato Juice

1 (10 3/4 oz) Healthy Request Tomato Soup

1/4 tsp black pepper

1 tsp dried parsley flakes

1. Brown meat in skillet on stovetop. Place browned meat in crockpot.

2. Add onion, potatoes, uncooked rice, carrots, and celerey to crockpot. Mix well to combine.

3. Stir in tomato juice, tomato soup, black pepper, and parsley.

4. Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours.

I suggest just slicing the carrots instead of shredding them. I used my food processor to shred them and after cooking them for that long, they dissolved and you couldn't see them or really taste them in the recipe. I did have to add a little bit of water during the cooking process because it looked a little dry and I didn't want it to burn.

This was a nice chili-like dish since it was chunky and an all in one meal.