Saturday

You sleep in a little and wake up to the sun shining on your face. You open the bedroom door and hear the little pitter patter of twelve tiny feet coming to greet you. Your handsome husband is sitting on the couch saying "Morning, beautiful." This is how every Saturday morning should start.

He makes you a delicious breakfast and you spend some time snuggling on the couch watching part of a movie.

You get ready to conquer the day, making a pit stop at "the man store" Home Depot to purchase a new door for your soon to be newly sided house. You enjoy Dunkin Donuts Iced Coffee while taking a scenic drive to enjoy this beautiful weather.

You grab the leashes as your pups jump all over the place in excited anticipation for an evening walk.

You make a new recipe together for dinner, while sipping a glass of wine and just enjoy each other's company. You end the night snuggling on the couch just as you started it.

This is my Saturday and I love it.

Sunday Brunch

Yesterday I set the table, lit the candles and put out our pretty glasses my mother-in-law gave to me, so we could have our first Sunday Brunch.

French toast casserole was in the oven, the aroma of cinnamon and brown sugar filling the air. My mom and step-father were the first to arrive, mimosas were poured and smiles were upon our faces.

As the men sat watching the television, the ladies made the remaining essentials to a perfect brunch; bacon, hash browns and waffles. The assortment of delicious food was complete and we had a wonderful first Sunday Brunch.

These are the moments in life that you always want to remember. You want to remember the happiness, the smiles, the humor and most importantly the meaning of family.

Recipe: Cinnamon Baked French Toast

Source

Enjoy!

Time to Shape it Up

After all the excitement of the wedding, life seems pretty B-O-R-I-N-G right now. There is nothing huge to plan, nothing too exciting to look forward to, and my days seem rather dull. Don't get me wrong, I am happy but life is missing something.

 Maybe it's the beautiful moment captured here.

Or the fact I miss doing this!

So I think it's time to fix that! It's time to make more special moments with the beautiful people I surround myself with. After seeing some of my favorite people all the time, the normal busy schedules of everyone really puts a cramp in my social life!

New Way of Eating 


As I mentioned yesterday, I signed up for Weight Watchers Online. I have been intermittently doing my own calorie counts on websites such as Myfitnesspal and Sparkpeople which are free (nice little perk!) but its apparently just not working for me. Something about those sites leads me to get bored very easily, very fast. Boredom is a good way to set yourself up for failure and I'm done with allowing myself to fail at becoming healthier.

As much as some like to see the different stats in front of them: Calories/Fats/Carbohydrates/ Protein/Fiber/Sugar/Sodium etc, etc. I think it is a little too overwhelming for me because I'm constantly trying to tweak the numbers. So, maybe one specific number- Points, will be a better fit. I know that the numbers shouldn't be the driving force. I want to stay within my target number of calories/points while eating good wholesome nourishing foods. Foods that will give me energy and make me feel better.

So today is a new day to start my plan!

Breakfast

1 whole grain wheat english muffin
2 eggs
1 piece of american cheese

Made into a delicious egg sandwich. I could eat these everyday for breakfast!

Enjoyed with pineapple.

Meal one down...time to conquer the day!

Good Morning Oats

I'm having a hard time deciding what I want to eat these days. Nothing seems appetizing. Maybe it's because always in the back of my mind is my lack of chocolate. It is day seven in the NO SWEETS ZONE and all I want to do is bake something! I don't necessarily want to eat it, but baking and eating pretty much go together. It's not rocket science.

So I started the day off with some oatmeal love.

In the Mix
1/2 cup oats
1/8 tsp salt
1 tbsp ground flaxseed
2 tsp sugar free maple syrup
1 tbsp peanut butter
1 cup water

It was just what I needed. It filled me up, and made me smile. Is there a better way to start the day?

Now it's time to get this body moving with some Zumba and continue on with my daily dreaded chores.

Pantry Crawl Shrimp

The cloudy overcast doesn't do wonders for my internal clock. I don't think it helps anyone, but I only know from my personal experience that when the sun isn't shining, this girl isn't either!

I woke up to the devastating news of the tsunami in Japan and Hawaii, how sad. I'm a huge wimp when it comes to anything weather related. Maybe in another life I got stuck in a tornado? Held onto a tree during a hurricane, only to blow off at the last minute? I am not making a joke of these horrible natural disasters. When I say that I am truly sorry for the lost lives, I really do mean it, it makes my heart sad.

So to make the day better, my love went and got me iced coffee. I swear, if he never bought me another thing again except iced coffee, I could be happy. Well, let me rethink that...it is one of those "in the moment" statements.

Breakfast: Eggs with turkey sausage and a side of healthy banana!

I was so excited when I finally got the save the dates out in the mail the other day, it only took me forever. Well, yesterday they all came back. I guess I should have checked with Mr. Postman on how much the postage would be for said shaped envelopes, Oops! FAIL! It happens..... so I thought I would share with you our cute save the date. They make me happy.

Lunch: I decided it would be a good time to eat the rest of my burger from yesterday. On the side I added some green pepper slices for a little CRUNCH!

I'm still feeling under the weather so I had to cancel my plans for today. Based on how I've felt the past few days after going out and getting things done, I need to stay home, hydrate, rest and get better so my weekend full of work doesn't kick my behind.

So, I cooked instead. It is the little things in life that make you happy, and for me making good meals at home is where it's at today. The honored guest of the evening.... Mr. Shrimp and a few of his buddies.

I'm trying to cut back on the grocery shopping bill and only go when we are out of our staples. So after a little brain pickin' I decided I would use what ingredients I have on hand and what I LOVE. Olive oil, garlic, crushed red pepper, parsley and maybe a little lemon. Simple, tasty, perfect.

After I started to cook some other ingredients fell into place, parmesan cheese and pasta. Meal complete.

I leave you with this. Hopefully in a few hours, I will be doing the same.

Sleepy Beast

-1

I think I may have too much on my mind, because this girl could not fall asleep last night. I was up tossing, turning, getting up, turning the tv on then off, until 5 this morning. Now you ask what time did I wake up? Between 830 and 9. Based on the math, and my typical sleep pattern... it's going to be a long day. As the man said "I'm glad I'm going to work!" Snot.


Despite my lack of sleep, my sore throat and wheezing problem I did make us breakfast this morning. It's nice having him home in the morning even if it's only for a few hours!

Scrambled eggs with s&p, paprika, chili powder, parsley and shredded cheddar (because cheese makes everything better!). On the side sausage, and his & hers bagels. I had a Kim's onion bagel, while the man enjoyed a Thomas' everything bagel. I have to admit, breakfast was quite tasty.

Shortly after the man went to work, it was time for me to finally experiment with some baking in the kitchen. I have way too many recipes I want to try from all the wonderful blogs I follow! Today's winner: Chocolate Butterscotch Cheesecake Cookies from the blog Sweet Tooth Sweet Life. The only changes I made, I used splenda for the sugar and brown sugar splenda instead of plain brown sugar.

These taste like cake cookies! They are delicious.....note to self: must bring to work tomorrow, must get them out of the house.

Dinner: Baked Chicken in the form of legs....yum!

Ingredients: Chicken legs (amount varies depending on how much you want!), salt & pepper, paprika, garlic powder, parsley, crush red pepper, olive oil

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Dry chicken before placing in pan or bowl (so seasoning will stick better). Drizzle chicken with olive oil, add all seasonings to coat chicken thoroughly. Place in oven, bake for about 40 minutes, turning once. Change oven to broil, broil for a few minutes on each side until skin is as crispy as you like. The end.

This chicken just fell off the bone, so good. The flavors from the seasonings and the crispiness of the skin was definitely on point. It was an easy dish to prepare that packed a protein punch without hassle. It'll be added to one of our go to meals! 


Now it's time to continue on with my wedding planning. Finally got the save the dates done (3 months late! grrr). Now going to figure out flowers, centerpieces and favors. Hope everyone had a good weekend!

Weekend Love

I have an every other weekend type of job. So when it was time to clock out Friday night at 1230 am, I was a happy lil' nurse. For the weekend, my job is done. I don't have make anyone feel better this weekend, but myself. There are no patients, doctors, call bells, IVs, medications, or chaos.... and it feels wonderful.

Today started off a little later than I wanted, didn't feel like getting out of bed until 10 am! All things considered, based on the time I go to bed it's only 7 hours of sleep so it's okay.

The first thing that popped into this girl's head....breakfast. Made his and hers breakfast sandwiches with wheat toast, two eggs, low fat provolone and a piece of bacon. Again drizzled with cholula goodness. I was so hungry I failed to take a picture before devouring it. So it kind of looked exactly like this.

I have a to do list that I WILL accomplish today. It involves some good stuff and some tedious things, but like I said before, no work. The main event of the day: baking something that involves my one true love, chocolate.

Grilled Cheese, Yes Please

-2 lbs
When I got home from work last night, I was starving. My usual self would put her stuff done, go get cleaned up/change in pjs and then make my way back to the kitchen. My usual self would then find some kind of food product to munch on, whether it be some tortilla chips, left overs, etc. My usual self would then go to bed after eating and wake up feeling like crap. But I am not my usual self anymore. I'm a changing girl trying to make lifestyle changes, which includes....not eating crap when I get home.

I actually was able to fall asleep shortly after getting home. As the man says "I was touching your feet and you didn't move." If you know me, anything touching my feet brings this girl into a 3 year old tantrum moment. I HATE FEET! And worse, I hate when you touch MY FEET with YOUR FEET.

I should own this shirt.

When I woke up this morning, I was very excited for my breakfast. I fell asleep thinking about it actually. Grilled cheese for breakfast, um YES.

Two pieces of wheat bread, low fat provolone cheese and ham. All toasty and melted by none other than the George Foreman. He is my best friend. He makes cooking fast and delicious with a very easy clean up.

It's another work day today. So my in between breakfast (kind of like lunch) and dinner, I'm going to make a smoothie. Definitely inspired by Julie because how could you not want to make something she is so excited about!

In the mix

1 cup milk

1 scoop chocolate protein powder

1/2 frozen banana

1 tbsp Teddie peanut butter

A little xantham gum 

Can't wait to try it! Hope everyone has a great day! I'm excited I have the weekend off which means I actually get to cook!

Breakfast X 2

-0.5 lbs
Who doesn't love breakfast? I could eat breakfast for all three meals of the day. I don't think the mister would like that much though.

Breakfast #1: Two pieces of whole wheat toast topped with Teddie Peanut Butter and a banana. Now I understand why so many of you healthy living bloggers eat this every morning!

The only catch for me, I developed a sensitivity to bananas. I use to eat one every day without a problem. Then one day I started to get nauseous after eating them, I would get dizzy and I almost passed out in Home Depot. So I stopped eating them. But every once in a while I try to eat them again, only to have the same thing happen. My love for bananas runs deep so today is one of those days where I'm going to eat one. I'll let you know how it goes.

The man also was kind enough to get me my iced coffee fix. He loves me!

Breakfast #2: Between breakfast and going to work I don't have much time, but I do need to eat something. It is not healthy to eat at 9 am and then not again until 6. So, sometimes I have a smoothie, or a protein bar with some babybel cheese. Today, I made the time and decided I wanted to have a few eggs. So I had two eggs overhard with a piece of lean ham. I think it will give me the protein punch that gets me through to dinner!

Dinner: Salad! Can't go wrong.

In the mix
Romaine Lettuce
Shredded Carrots
Cucumber
Green bell pepper
Slivered almonds
Shredded mozzarella cheese
Grilled chicken tenders
Ken's Steak House Lite Caesar Dressing

All packed up and ready to enjoy at work. Now it's time to get some things done before having to go to work. Let's hope for a good night!