Happy Friday!

Morning!  I was having computer problems this morning, hence my later than usual post.  I need to switch out my desktop computer, but still need to weed through all the pictures I have and move them to a flash drive, and well, that’s still on my list of things to do.

Another great week here in the land of self-employment.  I’ve been doing really great on my workouts, and even though my steps are at or around 10k steps, I’ve been adding more strength training and more intense cardio.  Tony controlled the remote control pretty much all the time.  It was just his thing.  So I didn’t even notice that I had a “go interactive” on my remote, and lo and behold I have exercise videos on demand!

While there are some videos for free, for $5 to my monthly service, I now have access to HUNDREDS of videos.  Yesterday I did a 40 minute cardio with some guy I don’t know, but I was a sweaty mess when I got done, then finished off with 20 minutes of kick boxing with Jillian.   The dogs were crazy though, and I had to put a baby gate up to keep them out of the way.  During the cool down I let them back in, and they helped me with my stretches. 

I haven’t had done the stair master for a long time.  On Wednesday I told myself if it was open (there is only one and it’s usually occupied) that I would do that for my workout.  What I love about this machine is that you can pick a landmark to climb as a goal, so I picked the Empire State Building which is 117 floors.  I seriously thought it make take me 20-25 minutes.  Nope!  Try 52 minutes!  But I had the high score by 67 floors and got to add my initials, but entered my name Biz.  I am headed there later today, so I hope I am still in first place on the machine.  I am just a teeny tiny bit competitive!

***********************

I’ve been eating well too.  I never did a formal grocery shop this week other than to buy fresh cut fruit, but I knew I could come up with meals from our freezer and pantry.

1. After my workout at the gym on Wednesday, my blood sugar started to tank.  While I normally don’t eat snacks because that’s just one more shot of insulin I have to take, I needed something to tide me over until dinner.  This is one of my favorite snacks – 1 cut apple drizzled with 1/2 tablespoon caramel sauce (2) and topped with a tablespoon of chopped pecans (2).  Super filling 4 smart point snack.
2. I bought Aunt Jamima pancake mix.  Maybe you math wizards out there can help me with this one.  If I use the WW scanner, a serving is 5 points, or 1/3 cup of dry mix.  But the instructions say to use 2 cups mix with 1.5 cups water.  Their serving size is 3, four inch pancakes, but I never really knew how to figure out how much batter to use.  Does that make any sense?   That was a 7 smart point breakfast with the canadian bacon on the side.
3. Leftover beef from Ruth’s Chris!  Five ounces of ribeye is 8 smart points, and I felt like fruit on the side, so that was dinner.
4. Breakfast tacos for the win!  2 ounces of leftover flank steak (2), 1/3 cup egg whites (0) 1/2 ounce reduced fat Cabot cheese (1) with 2 corn tortillas (3) that I pan fried in 1/2 teaspoon coconut oil (1).
5. Big Mac burger salad.  Tuesday’s at The Fresh Market they have ground sirloin on sale for $2.99 a pound, so I bought a couple pounds.   I weighed the beef before cooking – my 4 ounce patty is 5, topped with 1/2 ounce cheddar cheese (2) served over a lettuce, cucumber and red cabbage salad drizzled with 1 tablespoon light thousand island dressing (1) and one tablespoon of hot gardieniera (1).   A delicious and filling 9 point lunch.
6. Chicken soup for the soul.  I had three frozen chicken legs in the freezer, and while I was doing some computer work, I simmered the legs in chicken stock for about 60 minutes.  The legs thawed and cooked in that time, and I pulled off the skin and chopped the chicken up and added carrots (no celery in the house!) and let that cook another 20 minutes on low, just until the carrots were cooked.  I always keep my noodles separate from the soup, and added 1/2 cup of fideo cut spaghetti to my broth for 5 point lunch, and 2 extra points for the saltines on the side.

***********************

So long time readers will know that I am pretty bad about keeping in touch with former co-workers, even if I ate lunch with you every single day for years.  I don’t know what it is, but once I leave a job, it’s like I close that chapter of my life and move on.  So I am really trying to get better about staying in touch with people I work with.  One of them is my friend Judy, who left the firm actually before me and works downtown now.  She bought tickets for an NPR show called Wait, Wait. . . Don’t Tell Me.   Her husband was supposed to go with her, but he had to be out of town for work, so she asked me if I wanted to go with her.  Yep!  I never miss an opportunity to go to Chicago.  So we decided to eat at Cochon Volant, a French brasserie steak house, which was right across the street from the venue, and near Judy’s office.

We had some pretty strong storms all morning yesterday, but I was so glad that by the time I got on the train at 3:08 (which got me downtown at 4:25 – non express train!) it was beautiful.  Sunny, and a warm 60 degrees.  We started out with the BURRATA AND TOAST spring pea salad, fine herbs, maldon.   Holy balls was this delicious.  It was a crunchy garlic bread topped with fresh burrata (fresh mozzarella) topped with a spring pea salad that had a light citrus dressing on it.  We each happily ate two pieces of that delicious bread.  And, since it was a steak house and this was one of the restaurants on my steak bucket list, I got the steak frites and asked for the béarnaise sauce on the side, but of course said yes please to the herbed butter on top!  It was a good steak, but definitely not anywhere near Ruth’s Chris caliber, but we enjoyed catching up on a two hour dinner before the show started.

Her nephew sent her his Flat Stanley, so we took some pics of him while we were out.  I totally forgot about Flat Stanley!  And while I was in Austin, I realized both my brother and sister-in-law listen to NPR all the time, and I texted Charlie (check out his latest blog post here!) the playbill and he replied “Wait are you there?!” and then said “I’m jealous.”  It was really fun, something normally I wouldn’t have gone to on my own, and just another way of living my life to the fullest by doing different things.  Because of the train schedule, I didn’t get home until midnight, but realized that I could sleep in a bit this morning.  One of the perks of being your own boss

*********************

I am having Party Pizza Friday with my neighbors tonight!  Tony kind of got in an argument several years ago with the neighbors, and once he decides he doesn’t like you, you are dead to him.  We literally didn’t talk to them for five years, and they didn’t even realize Tony died until the summer after he died, nearly six months!  So silly.  So when Hannah and I were walking the dogs, we saw Amy outside, we ended up catching up for nearly an hour, and I basically decided to bring them pizza tonight and start over.    Life is too short not to get along with your neighbors.

Alright, time to get some work done.  I was still so full from dinner last night, and it’s 11:30 already, so I think I’ll be having brunch today and save my points for pizza tonight.  Monday will be my first WI in almost a month – I am really hoping to maintain with my trip to Austin and everything.  I am also going to do a recap of the WW program – since Weight Watchers started following my Instagram page, and sharing some of my recipes on their page, I’ve gotten a lot of questions about the program, do I love it, etc., so that recap will be on Monday.

Have an awesome weekend!!  Make it a great day!