Life With Frenchie

Yesterday, we didn’t go grocery shopping until the evening, so I did have chicken salad for lunch, but after that, I have made an effort to keep meat out of my dieat. Now, since I don’t have anything morally against eating meat, I am not cutting out eggs. I just am hoping that cutting out the meat will do things for my diet that will help me get in better shape.

My first step was making protein balls for snacking. I love those things! The recipe that I found was a no-bake recipe:

INGREDIENTS

1 cup chocolate protein powder
1 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup oat bran

DIRECTIONS

In mixing bowl, combine all ingredients thoroughly. Roll 1 tablespoon of dough each into a walnut size balls and place on waxed paper. You can roll ithe balls in extra protein powder, cocoa powder, or powdered sugar to make less sticky on the outside. You can also add raisins, mini chocolate chips or M & M’s, shredded coconut, chopped nuts, etc into the dough. 
Makes approximately 36 round balls

Nutritional Info

• Servings Per Recipe: 36
• Amount Per Serving
• Calories: 61.9

• Total Fat: 3.7 g
• Cholesterol: 4.8 mg
• Sodium: 33.1 mg
• Total Carbs: 4.8 g
• Dietary Fiber: 0.6 g
• Protein: 1.8 g

So far, I think EP has eaten more of them than I have, but they turned out good. The protein powder was what hurt the most! It was $23 for a big bottle. UGH!!!

For dinner, I made a veggie pizza with bell peppers and mushrooms. And, for breakfast this morning, I made pancakes and eggs. So far, so good!

My friend had told me a while back about making ice cream without a churn. Her daughter made it (at school, I think) just using ziplock bags and ice. This morning, on the Food Network, one of the hosts made no-churn ice cream and it reminded me of the ziplock bag method. I looked it up and found this recipe:

 What you’ll need:

• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1/2 cup milk or half & half
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla
• 6 tablespoons rock salt
• 1 pint-size Ziploc plastic bag
• 1 gallon-size Ziploc plastic bag
• Ice cubes

How to make it:

1. Fill the large bag half full of ice, and add the rock salt. Seal the bag.
2. Put milk, vanilla, and sugar into the small bag, and seal it.
3. Place the small bag inside the large one and seal again carefully.
4. Shake until mixture is ice cream, about 5 minutes.
5. Wipe off top of small bag, then open carefully and enjoy!

So, off to the store I went. I guess I was in a Betty Crocker mood today because I was making a lot of stuff - homemade pizza, chocolate chip cookies, protein balls (remember, going vegetarian…), and now ice cream. We made it after dinner and it turned out great! It was actually very good! I think we’re going to try it at our Girl Scout meeting Tuesday. Go ahead…try it!

Several years back, I was very overweight. I’m a very short woman - just 4′11″. At my last checkup before having MM, I tipped the scales at 191 pounds! YIKES! I always joke that I was nature’s example of a perfect sphere. LOL When I was pregnant with MM, I was a receptionist and admin at a collection agency. I sat up front, all by myself and didn’t have much to do once morning reports were run, so I ate. I had a set routine; I would stop at McDonald’s and get a sausage biscuit with cheese meal. I drank soda with my breakfast. If I didn’t go to McD’s (and sometimes, even if I did go) I’d have a pack of those mini-doughnuts. I drank soda with my breakfast (noticing a pattern yet??). So, it’s easy to see how I ballooned up. I’m not saying I was all that skinny before, but seriously, I wasn’t helping things!

The Spring after MM was born, I had gotten down to about 173 pounds, but almost all of that was what I lost immediately following MM’s birth. I decided to do something about it and joined Weight Watchers. Over the next year or so, I dropped about 50 pounds. I amazed myself at how healthy my eating habits became. One of the things I did was cut beef and pork out of my diet. And, even though I still ate chicken and fish, I began to load up on the veggies. That diet had me feeling wonderful! I went over 2 years without eating any beef or pork. I satisfied my burger cravings with Boca products, and even substituted some of their products for chicken as well.

A couple of years ago, I began eating beef and pork again and my diet slowly became not so great. I have gained about 15 pounds back and have remained there. I can’t seem to find the motivation (or time) to go back to my healthy lifestlye. But, hopefully, that will change.

I think I am going to have to kickstart myself with a little shock to my system, and I think I’m going to try going completely vegetarian. I can easily do the all vegetables part of it, but I know it’s more than just that. I need to start researching alternatives to replace those vitamins and nutrients that I won’t get any longer without any meat in my diet. I can’t live on protein balls and vegetables alone!! (Although I do love protein balls..) If any of you have some yummy, yet not too complicated, tips for me, pleaase share!

Get your mind out of the gutter!!! LOL

Actually, that’s where my mind went when I got an e-mail from Spirit Airlines that was titled “Return of the MILF Sale”

Seriously, someone actually approved this marketing campaign?? And since it’s the “return” this is not the first time they ran this campaign. Personally, I think it’s hilarious, but still a head shaker!

Do you believe in signs? I certainly do. And I have appeared to have received 2 in the past two days.

Right now, we’re falling victim to this crappy economy (we’re not in a recession…yeah, right! *eyes severely rolling*) and are having to tighten our budget. I’ve been forbidden from eating out (ouch! that hurts!). We cancelled our Las Vegas trip (waaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! It was going to be my first time!). We’re missing my nephew’s high school graduation (that sucks!). And the worst blow is that I had to cancel my participation in the AVON Breast Cancer Walk. I decided to walk in the AVON walk this year because the local 3-Day starts on Halloween. I didn’t want to give up Halloween with my family, so I chose to join some friends and go to New York for the AVON walk. Well, with the state of things, it’s just an extra expense I can’t afford. But, even so, the decision didn’t sit well with me.

Anyways, back to the signs….

The first one was not so clear - EP & I were watching Part 6 of 7 of the John Adams series on HBO last night and at the end, it showed a preview to Part 7. In the preview, they showed his daughter being diagnosed with Breast Cancer. It was one of those moments where you kind of go “Hm. Weird.” It made me think about what it must have been like to have received that news during that era. Not that it’s any better to find out today, but things were not understood so well back then and just it was different somehow. But, like I said, not a very clear sign.

The second one pretty much screamed at me - I just received an e-mail from our office manager that a former partner in our firm has been diagnosed with Breast Cancer. She left the firm in the last year to pursue another career but she is still very much a part of our family. She also had a 2nd child recently. I am still pretty much in shock over it, but I am also just guilt-ridden that I’m backing out of the walk this year. But, I think I am very close to deciding to walk the 3-Day here again this year. I will just come home that Friday night to spend Halloween with MM (just what I need - walking around trick-or-treating after walking 20 miles!!!). I am going to talk with EP about it more and then see how I can come up with the registration fee, but I just can’t ignore the signs.

When I took my first trip to London with MM, Mamma Mia! was just coming out. I tried to convince my mother and aunt that it was worth going to see, but they wouldn’t take my word for it. They heard ABBA and immediately nixed the idea. Eventually, I convinced them to go see it. No wait, actually, complete strangers standing in the ticket line in front of us convinced them to go see. That’s family love for ya! Not only did I love the show, but so did my mother, my aunt, and MM. I can barely contain myself now that it’s been made into a movie!

In conjunction with the release of the feature film, Pond’s is sponsoring a contest celebrating women over 40. Pond’s is looking for trios of women who are 40+ and fabulous. Go to http://www.ponds.com/dynamos.aspx and check it out! You could win a trip to London for the world premiere of Mama Mia!

I will be honest and admit that, before this morning, I had never heard of Randy Pausch. I still don’t know much about him. I have learned that he is a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University who was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. On September 18, 2007, Pausch delivered his ‘last lecture’. In his lecture, “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”, Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice to students on how to achieve their own goals. Not only is the lecture now available online for millions to view, but there is also an ABC special with Diane Sawyer that will air this Wednesday, April 9, at 10 PM (Eastern) and the book was released today. I have not yet had a chance to view his lecture (stoopid work firewall!) but I am going to go ahead and post it for everyone else to enjoy.

Wow, could my life be any crazier right now? I mean, seriously, everytime I turn around I’ve got something else going on. Things just keep piling on lately.

Anyways, I’ve given up on trying to “catch up” and will focus on going forward.

Around the homestead, things aren’t so much different. Yeah, I’m still furiously trying to plan a wedding while working, helping run a Girl Scout troop, study (and I use that term very loosely) for exams, and ummm…oh yeah - breathe!

On the Girl Scout front, cookie sales were amazing this year! Our girls worked their butts off selling. A lot of them showed up for weekend cookie booths and when the going was slow, they hoofed it from house to house for the second time around (they do that in pre-sales). Now, camping starts for our girls. They have a troop camping trip next weekend so that they can refresh their memories about their responsibilities while camping. Also, the Neighborhood Encampment is coming up in May. Encampment is open to all the girls in our Neighborhood, which is about 100 girls right now, and it allows the different age levels to experience camping together. This year, our girls chose a “Wet ‘N Wild” theme. The activities for the weekend will all center around water. I’m sure the girls are going to just love that! Too bad I have to put myself on lockdown so I can have some inkling of hope of passing my exam this May!

In other news, MM brought home straight A’s again this quarter! Her school chorus put on their spring concert last week, which we attended. While I was talking to her friend’s mom, the assistant principal came up to EP and said “Your daughter is a very good guitar player!” I didn’t get to hear the rest of the conversation, but EP said that the vice principal had MM go up to the front office of the school and play some Beatles songs for the administrators! *BIG HUGE FREAKIN’ PROUD MAMA GRIN*

Well, it’s time to get some grub and MM needs the computer to finish her Girl Scout Sign of the Rainbow award.

While, I’m gone, hop on over and check out EP’s new blog! It’s about appraising.