I’d Rather Be In Key West

I am sure like most of you, one of the first things you do when your alarm goes off in the morning is to a: debate about whether or not to hit the snooze button and b: lay in bed for a few minutes and check all your social media apps.  I check Timehop, Instagram and Facebook for a couple minutes, and then right before I get out from under the covers, I check the weather.

I can almost tolerate that bitter cold if it’s sunny outside.

Hannah was nice and offered to drive me to the train station so I wouldn’t have to park and walk a couple blocks to the platform.  I was only outside for a couple minutes before the train arrived, and I decided to see what the temperature was in Key West:

For the record, I’d rather be in Key West! 

So this whole not grocery shopping thing has got to end.  I was thinking on my train ride home why it’s been so difficult to meal plan and grocery shop.  Then I remembered – oh yeah, I work 7 days a week!  When I just had my desk job I would meal plan on Friday nights, grocery shop on Saturday’s and cook and prep on Sunday’s.  Now that my schedule is what it is, I need to figure out a better game plan.  And if that means going grocery shopping on Monday night, that’s what needs to happen.  I miss having fresh veggies!  Hannah did a bagel run the other day and I ate half a bagel sammie with egg white, cheese and fruit for 8 smart points.

I was supposed to have my weekly WI at Weight Watchers, but it is an 8 block walk, which normally I would love, but when the temperature feels like –16, it’s not that fun.  So I toggled between going to WW or just hitting the office gym, and in the end, the gym won out.  I did a 10 minute warm-up, then ran a mile without stopping.  Lordy, that was hard.  I wasn’t even going that fast (4.8 mph) but I kept it going.  I did 1.75 miles in 30 minutes.  Then did abs with the balance ball, did 50 squats and hit the shower for a hot shower before heading back to my desk.

More leftovers – leftover ravioli, but it didn’t really taste all that great heated up a second time.  The pasta tasted gummy.  I probably only ate 1/2 this bowl and threw the rest out.

When Hannah picked me up we were talking about what we could make for dinner.  She rattled off leftover Chinese food, leftover ravioli (nope!) and nothing really appealed to either of us.  Thank goodness our local beef stand delivers!   I got an Italian beef with lots of hot giardineira.  I only ate half though, and weighed out the second half and it was 5 ounces, so I am calling half of it 12 smart points.

I have to give a shout out to my friend Louise.  She makes the most amazing greeting cards, and this snowman one is stellar!  Look at all the details!

And the baby snowman in the basket?!  I will save this card forever Louise – thank you so much for thinking of me.

Confession time: I have only bought three Christmas gifts so far this year.  I have already told my brother that his family might not get their gift box from me until after Christmas, and normally that would make me crazy, but I’ve decided to just let it go.  There are only so many hours in the day, and I am not going to stress over not going crazy overboard this year.  Just slow down when I am not working, and if that means not getting stuff out until after Christmas, that’s just how the cookie crumbles.  There are worse world problems, am I right?!

Another busy weekend – early morning tomorrow at The Chopping Block in Lincoln Square making “Fun and Fancy” Holiday cookies, and then a holiday cookie exchange at the Merchandise Mart on Sunday.  Did I mention I am working Christmas Eve too?  Thirty people have signed up for a cookie exchange on Christmas Eve!   But I’ll have Christmas Day off and the next day, then New Years Day off and the following day as well.   Just hoping we don’t get the 7+ inches of snow they have predicted from tonight into tomorrow – we’ll see!

Happy Friday – make it a great day!