Recommitting in January!

Carla_wfpb

Happy New Years everyone!

I have been without power since 4pm on FRIDAY until today (Monday) at 5 pm!!! We had no source of heat for the first night, and on day 2, managed to find a little propane heater in town that runs on Coleman stove-sized propane bottles. They are meant for a 200 sq ft room, but we put it on the table in front of us and it helped quite a bit. It isn't safe to run unattended, so we had some chilly nights.

We're going to have to toss almost everything from the fridge, but we picked up some fresh greens and some almond milk. I'm going to have to get by with a smoothie and salad until Joe gets home from work tomorrow. Our stove is propane so we were able to make some Amy's chili and tea, but other than that we had a lot of ready to eat snacks and meals out. I'm ready for this reboot!

I love to go for a big walk early in the morning on New Year's day, but this year it was too cold to do with no way to heat up at home. Joe and I are going to go for a walk out somewhere every weekend this year.

bisky

Happy NYs Carla - I am so sorry to hear about your power and heating problems. How cold was it? I am cold just thinking about you and Joe.

I was just looking at generators and wondering if we should buy one.

All my planned activities were cancelled today. The bike riding with a cycle club...was going to be my first one...approx 14 miles, was canceled due to the cold and then in the afternoon a tennis event was also canceled. Well the dogs were good to go. Bundled them up in their jackets and we did a 5 mile walk. It was 28* when we got home. We let Cleo (the black schnauzer) off leash and this is something new for us.....she found an Armadillo in the brush! We tried to get a picture of it after we got her back on leash but it disappeared quickly.

Brooks made this delicious dinner tonight, red pepper stuffed with spiraled sweet potato, black beans, corn salsa and avocado!

whats_her_name

Happy New Year! I am WAY too busy to read back on all the posts I've missed... Maybe I'll have more time this week; I'm still on holidays, if you can call it that... It's time to pack!!

I can't remember when I last posted. So I apologize if I'm repeating myself. We had an offer for our house just 2 days before Christmas. We countered and she accepted. We had our home inspection last Friday, and the inspector said we had a cracked heat exchanger in our furnace. So right now, the furnace guy is here and he has confirmed that we have 2 cracks. Our furnace is 26 years old, so it's no longer under warranty. We have to replace it. BOO... That SUCKS.

So chances are good that I'll be MIA for the next couple of weeks while we pack, clean, move and unpack. Sooooooo much to do...

Carla_wfpb

Hi Karrie, congrats on the sale of your house! That sucks about the furnace in your old place.

Donna, the stuffed peppers recipe sounds so good! It wasn't horribly cold outside while the power was out, so we were lucky. It was freezing overnight but it got up to almost 40 F most days. Inside, it was 48* in most of the house, and went from 52* to 62* in the the area we were heating. We had sunny days, and the sun shining through the windows helped quite a bit.

I've got some cleaning and walking to do this afternoon before I run out of oomph, so I'm going to get to it. Feeling good about a new year and a fresh start!

Carla_wfpb

I have the caffeine withdrawal headache from hell, guys!

As part of my reset, I'm off of caffeine for January, and I think I'll just stay off of it from now on. It isn't worth the agony of withdrawal, and once I don't have it every day, I don't miss it too much. I need something hot first thing in the morning, but I'm going to stick to herbal tea. My mom got me a wonderful Aveda herbal tea for Christmas, so I'll start with that.

Part of my reset homework for the week is to clean my kitchen. It's a timely assignment, since things got pretty out of hand while we were out of power. Yesterday, I threw out all of the spoiled food in the fridge and gave the fridge a good cleaning. Today I've got dishes to hand wash (dishwasher is broken, also never buy Viking appliances!) and then I'll do a final wipe down and polish of all surfaces tonight if I'm up for it, or first thing tomorrow.

I went to use my treadmill yesterday and it isn't working! The belt keeps slipping every few steps and it almost makes me fall over every time. That really got me down yesterday. The ground is covered in crusty iced snow so walking outside isn't a good option right now. I know I can work around it - last night I walked inside our workshop along the the perimeter and up and down the stairs each time I got to that corner - but it isn't ideal.

Today I'm going to have a green smoothie for breakfast, a salad with farro and an almond sesame dressing for lunch, and chili for dinner.

bisky

Hi

I have two good but different recipes for stuffed red peppers One with vegetables and wild rice or lentils and now this one. It does call for olive oil and cooking spray.

Southwest Quinoa and Spiraled sweet potato stuffed Bell peppers serves 12 bell pepper halves
(you could also chop sweet potato....Brooks loves cooking gadgets and he is spiralizing now.

Preheat over to 375*

6 Med-large red bell peppers, halved seeds removed
1 large sweet potato peeled chopped or spiralize
1.5 cups cooked red quinoa
14.5 oz diced tomatoes

For spices Carla, you could just use your taco seasoning blend. Brooks followed the recipe and I was surprised how good it turned out (remember the Persian stew fiasco?).

1/4 tsp each of: cayenne pepper, paprika (he used smoked paprika) and onion powder
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp each: chili powder and garlic powder

15 oz can black beans drained & rinsed
1 cup of whole kernel corn (can or frozen) drained - we used frozen roasted corn
2 tablespoons minced cilantro
1-2 avocados peeled, pitted and sliced (cucumbers would also be good instead of avocados)

1. Spritz peppers and cooking sheet or baking dish with cooking spray and lay peppers out.
2. Large skillet over med-high heat, warm olive oil then add sweet potato, season to taste with salt & pepper (we did not use salt), Cook for 5-7 minutes (now these are the spiraled ...cubed potato might take a bit longer) They don't need to be fully cooked because they will cook longer in the peppers. Add the quinoa, tomatoes, seasonings, black beans and corn...mix together.
3. Stuff peppers with mixture and once peppers are filled, cover and bake for another 10-15 minutes until peppers start to brown.
4. Remove from over, garnish with cilantro and avocado.

We only used two peppers (due to the persian stew)...and because you halve them = 4 servings. We had quite a bit of leftover black bean sweet potato mix that I can use on salads or easily stuff more peppers with. Recipe called for cheese but I skipped that. Brooks added cheese to his portion.

Mihani

Congrats on the house Karrie!

Cute pups Donna! Sorry your NY plans got cancelled. Recipes sound good.

Oh no Carla! That sucks about the treadmill. Can it be fixed easily you think? Well done on the kitchen, and glad you have your power back!

I am dealing with a lot of work and personal stuff so I may be a little scarce still until the weekend. I hope things calm down a bit next week.

y'all!

bisky

Carla - I missed your post about the treadmill and caffeine. That is too bad. Do you have enough snow to snowshoe? I use to do that in Colorado. I was going to do it in Whistler but all the walking paths were cleared off and the walk around the lake was packed snow. Do you have Apple T.V. with You Tube on it? I am enjoying a few of the You tube work out videos...esp. spinning but also yoga and weight lifting...plus they are free. It takes a little time to find ones that suit you.

The caffeine withdrawal is very real and it is such a weird headache...almost as if you can't think or similar to a migraine. I admire you for making the healthy change.

Mihani - I hope everything is okay...take care.

I had an interesting offer this week!!! My best friend in Italy, Sarah is the veterinarian on base. She has a conference to go to in March in US and also wants to visit her elderly parents. She is very picky about her dogs and asked me to come watch them in exchange for free place to live for two weeks in Italy and use of her car (aka the dog mobile). Brooks has requested the time off to go with me but not sure if they will give it to him. We still have several friends living there. It is a 45 minute drive north of Venice. Our days will consist of getting up, hiking in hills with dogs, indoor lap swimming at the base pool (as Brooks is training for the Ironman), sight seeing in the afternoon and then another walk with dogs. I know it sounds like a long ways to go to walk a dog but it is so beautiful in Aviano, Italy. One of her dogs is a Russian Laika spitz that she hunts with. This dog if it gets out or loose can be very difficult to find. I have watched her before and she has never gotten away from me but since I have been gone there have been a few scares when Sarah had to leave the dog with other people.

A lot of people are interested in the position in England. Does not look like we will get it but thats okay.

Carla_wfpb

I hope this year you're able to catch up on your work and take some time for yourself, Mihani. You deserve it! How is your car running lately?

Donna, that sounds like a very interesting offer! Fingers crossed that Brooks is able to get the time off and join you in Italy. What do you do with your dogs when you travel? Good suggestion on playing YouTube videos. I've tried some yoga vids but haven't found the right video for me yet. I should go old school and find the yoga DVDs I have. One is with Bob Harper and the other is part of the P90X series. Both are a bit much for where I'm at mentally and physically, but with some oomph and modifications I can get back into them.

Lately I've been keeping Ruby in the garage for most of the day because she tears around the yard at full speed and ends up falling and/or hurting her paws on the sharp snow/ice. She's been limping around and if she isn't doing better today I think we'll have to get her to the vet.

The mole chili I made last night was a disappointment. It wasn't spicy enough, and didn't have enough beans or tomato flavor for my taste. Joe likes it enough that I can freeze it in individual servings for his lunch at work. Too bad I made a double batch! We have a vat of the stuff. I love this week's dressing and LOVE my salad scissors (thanks for the suggestion, Donna!!).

bisky

Carla - when we lived in Italy Sarah (vet) watched them for us. She lived with us 4 days a week with her dogs as we lived much closer to base than she did. During our trip to Canada, the friends moving from Alaska to San Antonio that stayed with us for a month watched our dogs. They also had a little old dog. Ray, the husband who is not working yet walked dogs, hung pictures, put in dimmer switches and best of all: a touch lock pad on our front door. He loves walking his dog but she now has arthritis and can't walk far. I am going to ask if they will watch dogs while we are gone. Second choice a woman who comes 3 times a day to let dogs in and out and feed them but she is expensive. I have watched my neighbors 4 lb Yorkie a few times and she would also help out.

Sorry about the mole chili....don't you hate it when you make a big batch of something and it is not great.

Poor Ruby...they can really damage their paws on ice. When I snow shoed I would try to put boots on their paws and they would always lose one or two. That was in the 90's...maybe they have improved since then.

Carla_wfpb

I'm having a lot of cravings after a holiday of over-indulging. My caffeine withdrawal headaches are starting to ease off a bit, and by Monday I'll have weaned myself off of the green tea entirely.

My kitchen is clean and ready for action! Monday through Wednesday I'm doing a juice fast. I'm not sure what the food is like for the rest of the week. The meal plan this week, which I won't be able to do because of the fasting, is all Indian dishes. I'm excited about this one! I think we'll do it next week.

This weekend we're going to go for a walk at a park in our old neighborhood, and borrow my FIL's chainsaw so that we can clean up all of the limbs that fell during the ice storm. We have some fence repairs to do too. A good workout for us!

Happy Friday!

Mihani

Hey y'all! Made it through the week. My back is acting up though and it has been a painful couple days. Was a little better today than yesterday so hopefully it will be okay soon. I haven't had any issues in a while so it scared me a little. I let my core exercises go and let some weight creep back on, which is SO bad when you have a lower disk out of whack. I have gone a long while with no problems so I'm totally blaming myself at this point. I left work an hour early yesterday and today, and have been using my heating pad which helps a lot. Sitting is much harder on me than moving, so I am going to hit the treadmill at an easy pace every day until it gets feeling better, then I can ramp up the exercise.

Carla, the car is doing okay now (knock on wood!) ... it has been frightfully cold the past couple weeks and I don't think I could cope with another breakdown right now. I forgot about the salad scissors! Darn it, I should have ordered those last week when I made an amazon purchase. Sorry the chili recipe was disappointing. I love the OSG "My Favorite Chili" recipe... it is SO good, and just leave out the oil if you want it ETL. I admit I really like the dollop of cashew sour cream on top. Poor Ruby, are her paws better today? What made you decide on a juice fast? Glad your headaches have subsided.

Donna, the Italy trip sounds wonderful! Hope it works out. I have done some youtube workouts, I actually like the Leslie Sansone Walk Away the Pounds videos, after I've done one once I can play it muted and watch TV just keep one eye on the computer to watch the changes. I started doing them when my treadmill was out of commission, but now the treadmill is working I haven't done them again. I also liked Tai Chi videos when I was taking a class. It helped with the practice. Love stuffed peppers, will make a note of that recipe you shared.

I wasn't quite ready to recommit this first week of January. Work is so crazy and I am going through a very down period about it. I will rally, I always do, but I've been saying for years I don't see how I can keep this up until retirement. Anyway, I am going to make things easy on myself for the next couple weeks. Oatmeal for breakfast, a Dr. McDougall soup and fruit for lunch, and an Amy's with salad or cooked veggies for dinner unless I feel like cooking. Not strict ETL, but best plan I can come up with right now. I really hope in another week or two I can take a cooking day and stock my freezer with home-cooked meals and soups. I just can't do it this weekend, too much going on at work.

As to the Dr. McD soups, I have narrowed down my favorites to Black Bean and Lime, Minestrone, and Miso Ramen (NOT the "chicken" ramen which is blah). I also like the pad thai and split pea. I would prefer making my own soups, but for right now I'm all about how to eat as healthfully as possible with as little effort as possible!

bisky

Hi -
Carla - good plans you have for exercise and smoothies. I go in spurts with my smoothies. I love thick green spinach, ginger, lemon and pineapple smoothies. Especially in hot weather.

Mihani - I love my kitchen choppers. I am going to get another pair when I go to Italy because they are cheaper there. I know when I worked the last thing I thought about was recipes. It sounds like you have good strategy though to eat healthy.

I reached and passed my December goal (4 days late) and now 4.2 lbs to reach end of January goal. I would love to lose 15 lbs by March BUT I would make myself crazy and I would rather just settle down into this way of eating...I think I am doing the level 2 in the Eat for Health book.

Walked 5 miles today with a friend today and 5 miles January 1. Yesterday Brooks and I swam 40 minutes and then biked 40 minutes.

I might have found the cause of the hip problem....we bought a new super hard mattress recently...our last mattress was too soft. Brooks has been having some shoulder pain. Last night we bought a 3 inch memory foam top for the mattress. It feels so much better this morning. Who knows. I will give it another week and then go see Dr.

Mihani

Woohoo! Congrats Donna. You are doing so great! Hope you'll inspire me to get back on track the rest of this month. That's interesting about the bed. I like a firm mattress myself, but when I had to get a new one a few years ago I went to medium firmness and I think it's better for me. Glad your hip is feeling better.

Need to get moving and head to the office. I did some ice/heat rotations on my back last night and this morning and it feels a lot better. I kind of forgot that ice is really best because it's swelling that is causing the pain, but the heat feels good too.

Oh, and if you all haven't heard, a breakout of e coli has been tentatively linked to romaine lettuce. I just bought two packs of it the other day but I guess better safe than sorry should toss them. https://www.consumerreports.org/food-safety/avoid-romaine-lettuce-for-now/

Carla_wfpb

Donna, I used to be in a groove with the smoothies and have one every morning for breakfast. I'm getting back into it with the reset. I like my smoothies thin, and my default smoothie is almond milk, a big bunch of spinach, 2 Tbsp of flax seeds, and a cup of frozen blueberries. You are doing great with your goals and also getting in a lot of good exercise! Nice variety, too. Interesting about the firm mattress and your hip. We have a very firm mattress, and when I am too sore, I sometimes go to the guest bed which is softer and has a foam pad on top.

I heard about the romaine too, Mihani. I'll have to get something else for my juicing. The 3 day juice fast is part of my reboot. It is to get out of that cycle of toxic hunger that Dr. Fuhrman talks about. By not including any fat or fiber, just the juice, it gives your body 3 days to do nothing but heal and detox. Since I've been eating poorly, I am to expect to feel like utter crap for at least 2 of the 3 days. Something to look forward to LOL But after that, if I don't eat junk food, I should be able to avoid being Hangry

I'm starting up a new journal that I purchased on Amazon. I was going to describe it but Amazon does a better job and they have pictures of the pages, too. It has goal setting, gratitude entries, and is undated. https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01C33U15A/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Having a physical journal instead of doing everything on the computer helps me out for some reason. It has a different feel. I've always liked journals and planners. My primary goal for next week is getting through the juice fast!

bisky

Mihani - Alternating heat and cold is suppose to be very good and gentle movements with back. I have a gentle yoga dvd that has 15 -30 minute movements and one of the shorter sections is yoga at your desk. I know you are working hard and this might contribute to back pain. Too bad about the romaine lettuce. With all the barcode info they should be able to pinpoint where the romaine lettuce is affected. If it was cows we would know exactly where the break out is. Instead all romaine is to be thrown out.

Carla - sounds like a good plan to detox. I have a colonoscopy schedule Jan. 18 so I will be going through a cleanse....but not a detox one I was thinking of doing smoothies the day before. I am going to try your recipe with frozen blueberries!

We are playing in a tennis tournament tomorrow. I have only played once right before Xmas.

Have a good weekend and keep warm! Donna

Mihani

I didn't work as long as I should have today, but sitting at my desk makes my back worse. I will have to put in a long day tomorrow. We're really inundated with new cases and there's a lot of work to do on the cases we already have going! I am trying not to dwell and just keep moving through tasks because otherwise it's too overwhelming to contemplate.

It's supposed to get back into the 30's for a bit starting tomorrow. We've had a long couple weeks of very cold weather and I am SO tired of it. I am actually to the point of thinking 30 degrees will be pleasantly warm! LOL

Donna, I did find it amusing about the article on the e coli outbreak that they said "in 13 states and Canada" or something like that ... it seems like every article written by someone in the states considers Canada like one BIG state. I do have a list of exercises my doctor gave me years ago for my back and core, some he crossed off and said don't do these, but I will dig it out and start them tonight. Have fun at your tennis tournament!

Carla, that journal looks cool. I actually dug out two journals I bought a couple years ago and never wrote a thing in them. My typical oh this will be great, spend money on things then don't do anything with them. You should see the many hundreds of dollars of craft stuff I have that have never been used. Ugh! I do agree that actually writing is a very different experience than typing on a computer. It seems more personal. I hope you don't have too hard a time with the detox days. Hey, that's another thing I bought and only used for a few weeks... a juicer! Good grief.

bisky

Mihani - I find this romaine lettuce E-coli outbreak interesting. So many questions: did people wash their lettuce thouroughly? If you wash the lettuce does this prevent the infection? Is the E-coli in the lettuce or just in the dirt the lettuce grows in?

I always wash my lettuce and run it through the spinner...even if it is the prewashed lettuce.

Here is a good info site about lettuce: http://www.clemson.edu/extension/hgic/food/food_safety/handling/hgic3518.html

Carla_wfpb

Day 1 of my juice fast! I thought I'd post before I get cranky from the detox
This morning's juice has ginger, kale, celery, a lemon, green apples and cucumbers. And a zucchini because I wasn't paying attention and mistook it for a cucumber!

I went for a walk around our property this morning. The ground is finally clear of all snow and ice and it is back to the milder temperatures we're used to.

bisky

How was the added zucchini...I could see me doing that.

Played tennis two days in a row without pain or motrin. I hope I figured out the hip pain. It is low 60's here so I finally opened up windows to get some fresh air.

whats_her_name

Carla! I missed reading that you were without power - THAT SUCKS!! Glad you made it through. Everything back to normal??

As for me, the deal fell through, she decided to walk. So now we are back at square one selling our old house. We're going to have another open house this weekend and hope for the best...

Back to work now. Renos should be completed later this week. We are going to move in next week, after the open house. Before then I will have to scrub down the new house and get the carpets cleaned (only 3 bedrooms and 1 stairway, so it's not too bad...)

I am recommitting in January. My goal is to try to lose 10 lbs. Here's hoping.

I made 6 smoothies, 3 containers of washed & cut veggies, and 4 servings of overnight oats last night. So I'm set for breakfasts all week, and lunches until Wednesday night when I'll have to prep a bit more (I didn't buy as many veggies as I thought I did... )

My treadmill is now set up at the new house along with a television right in front of it!! I don't know if I'll be able to watch netflix, but at least I'll be able to watch SOMETHING - better than staring at the wall!!! We had to get it out of the way at the old house, so it's the only thing we've moved over so far...