Category: Uncategorized

Good morning!

My last resolution didn’t hold up. As I don’t have any readers (that I know of… yet) I hopefully haven’t let anyone but myself down. It’s been two months since I posted last which is quite unfortunate.

I have a new goal of writing before work each day now, so if I can get the schedule consistent and make a habit of it this could be great!

Over the last several months I have not been doing to great with these goals. I definitely have not been cooking as much as I should, working out at all, decluttering, or blogging. As for learning I have officially blocked time in my schedule for it, yet still sometimes do other things instead.

However, I’m back on track(ish) for this week. My sister and I have decided to try to help each other out. We decided to start going to the gym on Wednesday mornings, and exercising in some capacity on Sunday’s before family brunch. Every other week we are going to go to each other’s apartment’s and help clean/declutter. This week she came here and I have a whole box of things I need to drop off at goodwill! I have also been working on eating healthier, yesterday I had salad for lunch.

Today I have already went to the gym, and my plan is to eat a yogurt, and coffee – make a meal plan, eat leftovers from dinner last night for lunch with a side salad, go grocery shopping after work and cook something (hopefully) delicious for dinner with leftovers.

If you have gotten off track of your goals for the year and are getting back on track mid year, feel free to leave a comment below! I’d love to hear from you.

To start off honestly..

the motivation I had at the beginning of the week faded away pretty quickly. I did cook yesterday, and have made the bed even if not first thing in the morning. I, however, have not eaten the leftovers as originally planned and thus have eaten out for lunch the last several days, and I  have not done the working out thing I was planning on doing.

Next steps?

I will be eating left overs for dinner tonight! The tacos I made last night were very good, so I am excited to eat them again tonight.

I will continue making my bed.

When I finish writing this I am going to do the exercises from the app I mentioned in my last post.

Oh, and tomorrow I have family coming over so I will be cooking and (hopefully) my apartment will be spotless before they get here.

Wish me luck 🙂

Okay, so I got on this bandwagon of writing, cleaning, cooking, working out and then when I stopped doing one I was embarrassed to write about my failings so I stopped writing. I’m back in a mood to turn things around again and I plan to start writing regularly even if I happen to fall off the cleaning/cooking/working out bandwagon again. Instead of avoiding writing when I fail, I’m going to make sure to write about it.

My plan:

Step One –

I re initiated my goal tracking app (I like Goal Tracker & Habit List by Intrasoft, this is the link to it in the Google Play Store).

Step Two –

I made my bed this morning, and picked up my laundry off the floor.

Step three –

Meal plan:

Monday:

• Breakfast: Oatmeal
• Snack: Blueberries
• Lunch: Leftover pasta
• Dinner: Grabbing dinner with a friend

Tuesday:

• Breakfast: Oatmeal
• Snack: Nectarine
• Lunch: Leftover wings
• Dinner: Grabbing dinner with a different friend

Wednesday

• Breakfast: Oatmeal
• Snack: Blueberries
• Lunch: Leftovers from restaraunt
• Dinner: Tacos

Thursday

• Breakfast: Oatmeal
• Snack: Nectarine
• Lunch: Leftover tacos
• Dinner: Veggie Patty & veggies

Friday:

• Breakfast: Oatmeal
• Snack: Nut Bar
• Lunch: Fasting
• Dinner: Cooking Chicken/Shrimp and Pasta for my family

Step 4 –

Working Out. My mom introduced me to this workout app app (It’s called “Lose Weight in 30 Days” and this is the link to the play store for it) that has workouts for each day. So I’m going to give that a shot.

Wish me luck!

 

 

Vegan meal plan for the week!

Breakfast for the week:

Raspberry Chocolate Chip Pancake Bread {Vegan Option}

and I am going to look for vegan yogurt – my sister said she tried some and it was really good!

Three Lunches:

Snappy Plant Power BALANCE Bowls

Dinners:

Crockpot Red Lentil Chili (Vegan)

Vegan Jalapeño Chickpea Mac and Cheese

I have to see if I can find this pasta at the store – otherwise I can get it online!

I will let you know how the recipes turn out! 🙂

So,  I got off track on this blogging thing already. But I’m jumping back in! The last couple of weeks started off by me missing a few days and then next thing you know those couple of days turned into nearly 2 weeks!

In the last 2 weeks I have been working pretty hard to declutter, however my eating habits have kind of fallen apart again.

Decluttering!

In the last week I have made several trips to goodwill with my back seat pretty full – a box of books, 2 bags of clothes, miscellaneous kitchen items, etc. I still have a bit to go through, but I am definitely making progress on getting rid of stuff I don’t need.

Food – vegan cooking?

On the food thing, I have not been eating terribly, but I have eaten out a bit more that I would like to be, plus a bit more candy leftover from Christmas that I have definitely not needed.

As I continue to get back on the meal planning train I want to start cooking more vegan recipes. I’m not ready to 100% jump on the vegan train, but more like being what my sister called  a “reduce-itarian.” Given that I already am lactose intolerant, and have an egg allergy I will be learning about new protein sources that are not animal based. I do, however, still have some meat in my freezer so I will need to eat that – so don’t be surprised if I am eating some meat over the next while! If I go out, or to someone else’s home I plan to eat what they are offering as to avoid being more difficult than I already am – given my food restrictions already (egg and gluten allergy, and lactose intolerance).

So even though I have already broken my resolutions for the year already, I’m still trying. How are your resolutions holding up? Feel free to leave a comment below – I would love to hear from you!

Cooking win/loss

Today, I continued my steel cut oats steps 6-11 and had a delicious breakfast. I seasoned my steal cut oats today with nutmeg, cinnamon and honey. For lunch I finished the queso/veggies with some tortilla chips. Buttttt… For dinner I slipped of the bandwagon and had Chick-fil-a with my bestie, at least it wasn’t alone! She helped me pick up something I found on craigslist I might use for a DIY project I might tell you about later if it comes into fruition.

Decluttering win today

I decluttered some books. I had some textbooks people gave to me (some years and years ago) and when they did I was like these are sooo cool so I took them, but I don’t think I have ever opened them so they are officially in my donate bin after hearing Dana talk about going through your bookshelf on her podcast as a quick win to get you motivated to continue decluttering.

Also today…

I moved this blog to this site! Before I was on a borrowed site for trial purposes, and today I payed for this one 🙂 That, and I got a subscription for stock photos that I can legally use! So that’s a pretty exciting end to the day.

Happy Hump Day! Today I ate lunch out with a coworker so I didn’t eat homecooked, but socialized which is always nice to do. After work, I wend to the gym again and cooked when I got home! I simply made a baked potato and used the leftover queso/veggies from yesterday and it was pretty good! And I meal prepped for the morning by starting overnight steel cut oats:

1. Heat up butter in a small pot
2. Fry 1 cup of steel cut oats for about 3 minutes
3. Add 3 cups of water and bring to a rolling boil
4. Turn it off and put a lid on it and continue in the morning…
5. Go to bed!!
6. Add a cup of Almond Milk (or milk of your choosing)
7. Bring to a boil
8. Portion into a bowl
9. Season to taste
10. Eat!
11. Portion the rest into 3 containers and put them in the fridge.

It’s pretty easy and makes for a yummy breakfast. Do you like to meal prep anything for breakfast? Feel free to share your favorite recipes in the comments!

 

Today was my first day back to work since before Christmas. I came home for lunch and had leftover chicken. While I was home I put up the clean dishes and put my fresh dirty dishes into the dishwasher! (Keeping up with that habit – woot woot!)

On my way home from work, I also went to the gym! I didn’t include it as a resolution, but that’s also a habit I want to resurrect. I’m worried trying to get all these things going at once I’m going to run myself dry and stop doing everything. So, I’m super focused on doing the dishes and the other things will hopefully stay along too.

Then, for dinner I made this queso recipe, cooked bell peppers and onions and reheated the rest of the chicken making had Fajita Nachos of sorts. Unfortunately, the queso was a bit grainy(possibly because I was using Kraft cheese?), but other than that it was a really good use of leftover chicken! This is a picture of my queso and veggies:

Also, after dinner I did the dishes with the help of my wonderful boyfriend! Yay! Dishes done several days in a row now 🙂

How are your resolutions coming along?

 

NEW YEARS DAY!

Today I cooked! I got distracted, and didn’t start until later than planned, but I did it! I cooked a roasted chicken with this Martha Stuart recipe, with a few changes:

1. I pulled it out of the freezer 2 days before
2. 1 day before(it was actually kind of frozen) I rinsed it off and salt and peppered the surface to help dry out the skin(after googling, I found that many people suggested that)
3. I cooked it in my new Cast Iron Skillet
4. I learned how to truss (fancy word for tie it up) a chicken without any twine! and thus did so
5. Also, I only cooked it to 165 (but I made sure it read 165 in several spots.

Here is a picture of the beautiful chicken (and my surprisingly successful attempt at carving it):

While the chicken was cooking, I started simmering the ingredients (minus the chicken bones) in water following this bone stock recipe  and then added the carcass after carving up the chicken. I had no idea how delicious the meat in the middle by the chicken’s inner cavity was. YUM. The stock also turned out delicious, however, by the time the stock was done it was midnight so I didn’t make the soup.

Before going to bed I did my dishes! I definitely didn’t want to, but I did them anyway 🙂 I’m trying really hard to build that habit.

Are there any habits you are trying to build this year?? Feel free to tell me in the comments below!

 

Today

Today, after staying up much later than probably necessary last night, I slept in. Which is nice since I am on vacation, but not so nice since I will need to start getting up at a reasonable time after the New Year (which is only 2 days away since technically today is the 30th).

Since I got up late and then had a busy day I did not spend much time at home. Thus, I did not do much in my home – however I did at the very least make my bed this morning! I also have been working on decluttering and I got rid of some cups I never use. More cabinet space now. Yayy!

Resolutions

Given the fact that New Year’s is around the corner I do want to make some resolutions. I don’t usually, but maybe if I tell you – my readers who don’t yet exist, but hopefully will one day – about them I will stay accountable!

1. Make my bed – its just so nice to walk into a room where the bed is made, isn’t it? Plus I have read and heard if you make your bed it’s a good starting place to give you momentum for your day and it can be motivating to help keep your home clean!
2. Learn one technical thing a week (and write a post about it?) – I’m still figuring out what I want this blog to be, but I would like for it to benefit my career, and I love learning things so why not make it a requirement?
3. Do the dishes! I know this might sound ridiculous, but I have been so bad lately about doing my dishes right away that I really want to build that habit again.
4. Meal Plan(and post it so I can tell you how my cooking adventures, or misadventures go!) – I tried doing this for a few weeks awhile back and it was great, until I stopped keeping up with it.

 

I would love to hear about your meal plan for the week/resolutions for the year in the comments below!

Have a great day 🙂