PS Carla; ahh the new house and property sounds lovely! 10 acres + pool!! How great. How is the housing market where you are, do things move a little slowly? I'm not sure what to expect; the tricky thing is my husband's new job is about 1.5 hours from where he works now, so we kind of have to move quickly, at least to get temporary accomodations. So strange how quickly things happen! How long do you think your commute will be? Worth it to go home to peace and quiet and a dream home

Ugh...I just wrote a whole post and then clicked my mouse button and it all disappeared! I hate it when that happens!!!

I'm glad no one decided to lynch me after the Fitness in February suggestion

I just got a Microsoft 2 band that tracks my calories burned, workouts, sleeping habits, etc., so I am motivated to get in at least a few workouts a week. Anything at all will be an improvement!

Lia, the Seattle market is very fast, but where we are further North I'm not sure how long it will take. Ideally, we'd like to move in spring so that we have time to plant a garden. My commute takes about 1 minute, or however long it takes me to stumble down the stairs in the morning. I work from home My husband does half days in the office and half days from home, but if we moved to this place he'd probably work from home Monday and Friday and go in for full days at the office Tues - Thurs. It would take him 30 minutes each way. During peak times there isn't really a rush hour, just a solid stream of traffic. One an a half hours for a commute?! Yikes. How soon does he start? I hope you're able to find something soon. It is stressful but will be so worth it when you're closer to his job and hopefully you'll have the nice back yard you're looking for, too!

Karrie, I've never been to Mexico and I confess I'm feeling a little jealous while sitting here listening to the rain drum down outside. You've been doing such a fantastic job with your juicing! I hope you have a fab trip. (Do pina coladas or margaritas count as juicing while in Mexico? I sure hope so)

Mihani, give yourself credit for doing as well as you've done during a busy and stressful time. Think about what all of the other people at your office eat like and you should feel better! Not only that but you bought and ASSEMBLED a treadmill!!! Personally, I'm super impressed!

Sloth3toes, this link is for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1mAGQAw3Oc (and everyone else should check it out too because it is super cute.) The best part is that they hang them up to dry!!!!

I like getting ideas from what everyone else is eating, so I'll start posting my meals again too.

B - smoothie (1/2 banana, 2 oz baby spinach, 1.25 c. coconut milk, 1 cup blueberries, 1 tbsp walnuts, 1 tbsp flax)
L - mixed greens, 1/2 tomato, 1/2 container mushrooms and 1/2 onion sauteed in 1/2 tbsp tamari, 1/2 tbsp tahini
small amount of leftover smoky lentils
S - fuji apple
D - Burrito Bowl (black beans, spices, onion, tomato paste, cilantro, garlic over 1/2 cup brown basmati rice)
guacamole, salsa

So glad your husband and everyone else was okay, Terri! Good luck on the car search.

As for vegetable juice recipes, when my husband and I juice, we throw in all the veggies we'd normally never eat and it is a bitter and peppery nightmare that we plug our noses and drink down haha! Needless to say we don't do that too often! I found a few recipes in the ETL Cookbook, but I haven't tried them.

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Immunity Power Juice (serves 2)
4 kale leaves
5 carrots
2 stalks bok choy
1 apple, cored and quartered
1 medium beet, peeled
squeeze of lemon

Run all ingredient through juicer.

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High Cruiciferous Juice (Serves 2)
3 medium carrots
3 cauliflower florets
1 apple, cored and quartered
6-8 kale leaves
2/3 cup watercress with stems
2 cups broccoli with stems

Run all through juicer.

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Detox Green Tea (serves 4)
1 bunch kale
2 cups romaine lettuce
1 cucumber
4 leaves bok choy
2 cups unsweetened green tea
2 cups frozen raspberries
2 cups frozen cherries or strawberries

Juice kale, lettuce, cucumber and bok choy. Mix the green tea with 2 cups of the green juice. Add to blender with berries and blend well.

Perfect title for February! It has been that for me (not intentionally) because we got walloped with snow recently. I've been outside 3 days running, shoveling snow. It's great exercise and I can tell I'm much stronger, and can shovel longer. My FitBit has been registering over 10,000 steps, something I never do on an average day. My weight has not gone down so I still have 10 pounds to drop --just to get back to where I was before Oct-- but I'm not discouraged yet.
Exciting and stressful, buying a new home and selling an old one!
Car buying, well, not so fun (at least for me). But something new, that's fun.
I made the Lentil Chard Sweet Potato Curry from the FOK website [ LINK http://www.forksoverknives.com/recipes/lentil-chard-sweet-potato-curry/ ] and it is even delicious the next day. A great comfort meal.
I'm making a green smoothie for dinner today. I decided there is no reason to just have a smoothie for breakfast. I may sleep better that way, since heavy dinners result in poor sleep for some reason.
I've been having trouble going to sleep at night and end up awake at 1 AM so sleep is in short supply lately. I used to do this on Sunday night, when I was still working, trying to postpone Monday morning. But I'm retired; I should be getting all the sleep I need with no trouble. Aaargh!

Lisa, I can't decide if I am jealous that you've got all that snow or not....we've only had maybe 1/4" of snow this year in total and none last year. Either way, it is a great workout. 10,000 steps is awesome! Are you shoveling in the evening? Maybe a later workout is keeping you up at night.

Lia, that soup recipes sounds good! I will have to try it. I just got my Penzy's spices delivered and I'm anxious to start using them.

There's a new house on the market that we're very excited to see. Good internet, 20 minutes from town, and great art studio and workshop. We're going to take a look with our realtor tomorrow afternoon.

I went for another 20 minute walk this morning to get my steps tally into a more reasonable range.

Breakfast - blueberry spinach smoothie
Lunch - salad w/ mushrooms and onions, 1 cup Amy's chili
Snack - apple
Dinner - Red Lentil Cauliflower curry (do you ever still make this one Mihani? It is a staple of ours)

@ CarlaEnsink — Pear anise oatmeal… sounds intruiging.
I am going to try that Hearty Italian White Bean Basil Soup, too. I do a lot of crockpot versions of soups in the winter. Thanks for the link to that one.
@liapr — how did the tofu scramble come out?
And yes, I was shoveling snow in the evening one night but I don’t think that kept me up late. Honestly, I hate to say it, but I think the alcohol I drink at night keeps me up. I usually have at least one glass of wine most evenings (My food diary is open, you can see how much I drink LOL!) and I’ve been thinking that is something that may be a culprit. Then again, it could be I need to exercise MORE. I normally only get 2K to 3K steps in a day; that’s practically sitting still all day. I’m trying to raise that number, now that I can see how sedentary I really am. I’ve been enjoying the physical workout that shoveling snow gives. So I want to up my activity level, definitely. It feels pretty darn good to be active, so that tells me I need more activity. I’d rather blame that for my poor sleeping patterns lately than to give up my glass of wine LOL!

One more week! I'm itchin' to go...

I'm almost down 18 lbs. I want to lose at least 20 before I leave. So that's do-able. 2.6 more lbs in a week; I got this!! I haven't been very regimented about exercise yet this year. Really hit & miss. When I get back from the trip I will have to do better.

I'm glad nobody was hurt in the car accident!! Scary stuff.

I've gotta run, but I am reading everyone's posts - just don't have the time to reply to them all...

Lisa, I don't think it is weird to want to change that default behavior to have special food as a treat. It is very much ingrained in our culture but not necessary. That said, if your husband isn't as ready as you to replace it entirely, I think that Teri and Lia had good suggestions. A place where you can both get something suitable, or a dessert place after dinner where you can get a drink or tea or something. I hope you have a lovely time and get in some good activity too!

Terri, do you live near NYC? Do you go there often? Sounds like an exciting trip to me!

Great job Karrie, excited to hear about your trip once you return! Do you have a bathing suit that you love that you're going to wear?

Lia, funny how once the ball starts rolling with selling and buying a home it really picks up momentum quickly. I guess you guys have the added pressure of needing to be closer to your husbands job. Good luck getting everything done this weekend! At least you'll be getting in some good exercise! Funny...I was also surprised to have run out of greens this morning! I went to make my smoothie and had to have oatmeal instead.

So for lunch I made this White Bean 'Chili' that isn't at all like chili to me. It is spicy but the flavor is more like the insides of a chicken or turkey pot pie. It has rosemary in there and think that's part of why it reminds me of that. In any case, if we have guests over and do a bit of a sort of healthy/sort of splurge dinner, I was thinking I could get some puff pastry, fill it with that and then have a side salad.

Breakfast: Pear and Star Anise Oatmeal (I really like the way it turned out)
Lunch: White Bean Chili, salad with the usual suspects on top
Snack: might skip it, I'm so stuffed after lunch and we're going to look at the house soon
Dinner: Red Lentil Cauliflower Curry

I thought the star anise looked pretty on top, so I took a picture! (Does anyone know an easy way to make the image show up smaller here?)