Making Do Rundown

So here we are on day 27 of eating what we have.  We have only shopped for dairy, fresh fruit and veggies and the occasional treat.  I can't believe how much everything stretched.  I also can't believe how much of a grocery shopper I was.  This experiment has definitely taught me a lesson about wasting food and saving money.  I never would have realized this without this test.

Here are some of the pictures I managed to remember to take.  I had every intention of documenting the month (along with recipes) but you know how life gets in the way of well thought out plans.  

I finally roasted the beets and the butternut squash.  I turned out some pretty good soup puree.  Some of it made it to the freezer for future meals.

Because we buy grain in bulk, a majority of the meals had rice, quinoa, millet and pasta.

I even pulled out some dried fruit and nuts along with a veggie juice for some work snacks.

Spaghetti with butternut puree sauce and steamed frozen mixed veggies.

Breakfast was fairly easy.  We always have egg whites, frozen spinach and frozen french bread.  Of course tea finishes any meal well.

Frozen chicken made for many creative dishes.  This lunch was leftover chicken legs (very spicy) chopped and roasted accompanied with rice and steamed frozen veggies. 

I never considered frozen black-eyed peas sauteed with onions, peppers, and tomatoes in a light vinegar sauce.  But the husband was right about the combination.

Spicy California rolls picked up on one of the few grocery trips. Can you tell Baxter is a fan of sushi?

After some heavier, starchy, yet delicious meals, the husband and I are ready for some freshness.  This was today's lunch (enjoyed in the peace and quiet of my car). Very tasty.

I think we did pretty well on this particular journey.  Not only did we save money, but we also came up with some good creative meals that will become regulars on our menu.  This was a fun and eye-opening experiment and I recommend everyone try it at least once. 

Quote of the Day: As a child my family's menu consisted of two choices:  take it or leave it.  ~Buddy Hackett

Tabata Beatdown

What I've learned today is that if you see your workout class carrying water bottles and no equipment (medicine balls, ropes or kettles) leaving the gym in a herd, you should probably ask where they are going and what they will do before falling in behind them.

I did that today and I got my butt kicked all over the field behind the gym.  Just when I thought I was getting the hang of Crossfit, the Sgt throws in a day of Tabata Protocol.  The title alone belted out of his military influenced mouth should have been a warning. I had a slight headache and low motivation so anything I saw or heard seemed difficult.  I decided times like this I need to work through the doubt.  Hmph!  What a time to start it.

In case you are wondering a tabata workout is a timed workout that lasts 4 minutes long. It consists of 20 seconds of hard (intense) exercise followed by 10 seconds of rest, and then you repeat this 8 times. Unfortunately for us, the afternoon is longer than 4 minutes so we couldn't just stop there.  I don't know when the tabata part ended and the Sgt insanity began.  It was hard. Very hard.  It almost beat me.  We'll have to see tomorrow. A friend told me she didn't think she was ready for this type of workout yet.  I told her she would need to go into it blind and ignorant to get there.  She laughed thinking I was joking asking if that's what I did.  Absolutely!  Not only did I ignorantly follow; I also was blind to what was on the field when I got there.  Next time I have a headache and know my head is not in the game, I will ask instead of just following along ignorantly thinking today might just be the one easy day for working out.

Instead of trying to explain everything we did, I figured I would just Google some images.

My group started with ball slams

Moving on to atomic pushups

Then the tire flips. For my back's sake, I pray I did these correctly!

Sledgehammer Slams.  I kinda liked these.

After the Sledgehammers, we had another row of tires to flip.  I've decided I don't like the tires very much.

Not sure what these were called.  For the record, our group did the easier knees bent , straight back version.

After we completed these suspensions, we were back where we started (ball slams) and then we had to end it with pushups.  My time was just under 4 minutes.  Very slow compared to many others but I was just happy I finished everything.  I walked away from it with shaky legs and arms.  Did it feel good?  I wouldn't go straight to good.  I'd have to work my way around confusion, disbelief, resentment, hate, hope and then relief before getting to good.  Right now I'm only at relief.  I'll let you know another time.

Good night.

You Send Me

Saturday was our 2nd Anniversary.  It was a nice and quiet one.  We hugged, we kissed, we danced till the wee hours of the night to Sam Cooke songs. It was a wonderful time and I feel more love for him than ever before. I like him. I admire him. I love him. That's about all I have to say about that.

I'll leave you with the lyrics to our last song of the night.  It is our song. It's the first song we swayed a.k.a. danced to.  It was also the song that played from the card I gave him this night.


You Send Me by Sam Cooke

Darling, you send me.
I know you send me
Darling, you send me
Honest, you do, honest, you do,
Honest, you do....


At first I thought it was infatuation
But oh, it's lasted so long
Now I find myself wanting
To marry you and take you home...

The Bow Out

Thursday I have a standing 5:15 appointment with a group of coworkers who have also committed (loosely) to Crossfit.  They've been at 2 days a week for almost 4 weeks now.  Turns out I'm an inspiration and one of the few reasons they keep the appointment.  How about that?  I was both surprised and a little flattered.  My cube buddy says watching me go most everyday and not give in to junk food and bringing my lunch everyday keeps them going.  Well, this past Thursday I opted out.  I knew they would give me a hard time about not being there so I sent them a nice email. 

Sweatin' Divas,

I regret to inform y’all that I will not be in attendance today. It will be too uncomfortable to work it like I should so I’m going to bow out gracefully. But don’t worry. I’ll be hopping around in front of my TV doing a living room workout in honor of you.
Peace Out!

I got outraged and funny responses.

Da and Ro: What happened?
Me:  Eve happened.
Ro:  Ah...well, carry on.

Da:  That ain't no kind of excuse.  Eve handled the flow with a fig leaf.
Me:  Eve was crazy.

Eema:  You'd better have a good reason!
Me:  It's the same thing you suffered last week and I let you out of it.
Eema:  Oh. Well... OK. I'll pray for you sista'.

Di:  Then I don't think I'll be going.
Me:  Don't make me come over this wall and drag you. Better yet, I just saw Sgt in the hall. We tight...I can make him come and have a talk with you.
Di:  I'm just playin' girl.  I'll be there....cursing you for not being there with me. Lol.
Me:  That's more like it!

I've not worked there very long but these ladies keep me in good spirits and I will continue to try to encourage and inspire them to keep moving.  I held true to my word.  I did a workout in my living room.  It was Jillian's 30 Day Shred.  That's one tough workout but I was able to do so much more than I had prior to starting Crossfit. 

It's me and the hub's 2nd Anniversary so we've been relaxing and enjoying each other's company on this raining and cold weekend.  We've not worked in a workout but have done plenty of walking and seeing the sights.  Come Monday we will be sweating it out first thing since I have the holiday off.  I'll be back with the fit group Tuesday.  I'm looking forward to it.

Have a great weekend!

Day 14 (Soup)

The husband and I are still holding to the 29 day goal of eating what we have.  I'll admit that I've fallen behind on using things from the crisper simply because I've don't remember what recipe I had in mind when I bought them. I located slightly wilted kale in the crisper this weekend.  I decided to make soup.  I've made this one before but used a few substitutions to keep from going out to shop. It turned out OK.

Kale, Sausage and Lentil Soup

2 Turkey Italian Sausage
1 tsp minced garlic
1/2 C thinly sliced onion
1/2 C lentils
1 1/2 C water
1 1/2 C chicken broth
2 C kale (stems and ribs discarded) thin sliced
1 tsp. red pepper flakes
Balsamic vinegar

I always jot down my recipes on scratch paper because I make a mess of a good recipe book.

I'm not sure the sausage I used today was turkey or not. The freezer bag was not labeled (shame on me). I don't think it was because there was plenty of oil after browning them.  But that was no problem as the onions and garlic sauteed well in it. 

I didn't have any prepared chicken stock left so I used half a boullion cube in a cup and a half of hot water.  Probably more sodium than I need but it's what I had.

The broth, lentils and water are added to the sauteed onions. 

I used red lentils ((masoor dal) instead the brown because that's what I had.  Because they are peeled and split, they break down faster.  But they thickened the soup so nicely.  Think I'll continue using those as a thickener. Isn't that kale pretty?

I vowed to use the condiments packages sitting in the jar on the counter.   

The red pepper was a nice touch for this soup. 

Bon Appetit!

Quote of the Day: "I'm sick of 'soup of the day'. It's time we made a decision, I want to know what 'soup from now on' is.” - Mitch Hedberg.

The Row

I caught a smudged pic on my camera phone just before a Friday's workout.  I have a bad habit of forgetting to lock it so I get several pictures of nothing.  In this case, it couldn't have come at a better time.  It was row day in the gym so you get to catch a glimpse of my challenge of the day. 

There was nothing on the workout board so we weren't sure if we would be combining a row with other moves or not.  Turned out it was only the machine that day.  The expectation was 3000 meters in 10 minutes with a slight resting period ever minute or so.  I don't know how long the resting period was.  I only know it wasn't enough! Then when that was done, there was a 3 minute rest and we were back in the saddle and expected to pull out 1000 meters as hard and fast as possible in 4 minutes.  He was feeling generous and gave the ladies an additional 45 seconds.  The display was set and we were off!

I don't know that I've ever heard so many grunts at one time.  I did my share of it.  Sounded like a women's tennis match up in there.  Lol. It was hard but I kept going.  Even had my eyes closed some of the time to discourage negativity after seeing the time on the screen.  At one point I looked at the display and saw that I had less than a minute to go and was short on distance.  At that moment I heard Sgt say, 'If you aren't on mark push to catch up!' And I did.  I dug in and pushed hard with my legs and pulled hard enough to get my wattage over 50% what it had been.  It was hell but guess what? We did it!  Yes we did! I walked away with wobbly and shaking arms and a smile of pride on my face.  Had someone told me that was going to be the workout before-hand, I know I would have thought it impossible for me to complete.  But again, it's that ignorance/blind trust thing I had going on that got me through it.  That and one of my friends from the department was struggling right along side me. 

When I got home, I excitedly told my husband about it and he gave me a hug and congratulated me.  I even had to text a few friends about it.   I won't lie and say I didn't feel the effects of such a workout.  My lungs burned and my still tender shoulder muscles (from the strength training the day before) ached just a bit more.  But you know what?  I was OK with it all because I had met my goal and my reward for sticking it out all week was the long-awaited massage.  That alone will keep me sweating it out for another week.

Pinsperation!

I'm one of the most recent fans of Pinterest. At first I wasn't all that into it. My little sister sent me an invite months and months ago and I ignored it. Then she would post a few pins on her FB page that I thought was cute, clever or drool worthy. Finally she called asking why I had not accepted the invitation and gone in there yet. I told her I didn't really want another social site. She explained it was more like a virtual wish book. I checked it out and lo and behold, I'm hooked. There are some great pics, quotes, crafts and ideas. See? I'm hooked.  I've even found some really good food and fitness sites from there. And talk about inspiration! There are so many good get-of-your-butt poster quotes on there. I thought I would post some of the ones I've found so far. Enjoy!