Freestyle Love

I am going to enjoy this mild weather as long as I can.  We will have above average temps, and then guess what Christmas Day is forecast to be? HIGH OF 17.  Low of 1, which means below zero windchills.  Gah.  December and January always question why I live in Chicago and the midwest when I see all the California people basking in the warm sun.  But, I guess I do like the seasons, and it will be Memorial Day before you know it 😛

I am loving all the holiday decorations downtown – how pretty is this plant stand?!

More skinny bagels!   While I know loads of people have had success without adding yeast to the two ingredient dough (equal parts Greek yogurt and self-rising flour) I think the yeast adds an added texture and taste.  Although this batch, I ditched the boiling part like in the recipe link, and could not tell the difference, so skip that step and that makes these even easier.  Three points for the bagel, 1 point for the mozzarella cheese and a delicious orange – my parents in law sent me a giant box of Florida citrus – love.

I met my sister at Macy’s to go walking and because I needed to buy a candy thermometor.  I had plans to make homemade marshmallows, but forgot my candy thermometer broke last year.  It was rediculous how few employees work at Macy’s.  We literally walked around the kitchen area for TEN minutes and didn’t see a single employee.  So Target to the rescue!  When I got back, I heated up more buffalo chicken chili – 2 points for lunch – you can’t see it, but I added mozzarella cheese to the chili, but it sank to the bottom.  I will have the last of the chili today for lunch.

I’ll be posting the full recipe for the marshmallows tomorrow – making marshmallows at home is really easy – mainly because if you have a stand mixer, you just let the mixer do all the work.  In my story I mentioned that my sugar mixture almost got to temperature 240 in 10 minutes, I posted that when it hit 225 degrees – um, it took another ten minutes to get to the 240 mark.

Doesn’t everyone make marshmallows before making dinner? 😀  Over the summer Simple Girl sent me some samples of their products, and this Carolina sauce got buried in my pantry.  You can tell I hardly like it because it’s almost gone 😛  It’s only 5 calories and no sugar per tablespoon and its vinegar based and delish!  I need to see where I can buy this because I need more.   Stay tuned . . . there may be a giveaway tomorrow 😀

I bought more of the Walmart southwest seasoned chicken breasts and served that overtop a cup of rice sauteed with zucchini.  I used a teaspoon of oil in the saute (1) the rice was 6 and the chicken and sauce were zero.  So good!

If you are keeping track, after dinner I only had 13 out of my 23 points.  But I ate a lot of food!  So I had a 7 point cookie that I made (you know, for quality control!) and ended my day at 20/23 points for the day.  No guilt for eating the cookie, just ate it, and moved on.  I am loving the new #freestyle program!

I am not sure I mentioned it before, but I dropped out of being a Weight Watcher Ambassador a couple months ago – first reason was because I didn’t feel I deserved to be in that group with my weight gain, second it was taking up a lot of my time that I didn’t really have (and while I got free loot, it’s not like I was getting paid for that), so I am thrilled that my friend Kim is now an Ambassador!  She’s lost 114 pounds and counting – now that is someone who deserves to be an Ambassador!  You can check out her youtube page here where she posts recipes and fun stuff – you’ll love her if you don’t already know her.  She has a detailed post about the Freestyle program on her channel, so if you are contemplating checking out the new WW program, you get get the details there.

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When I was with my Mom and Sunday we went thrifting (duh) and I bought these shoes.  Holy balls are these comfy!  I bought them for $25, but they retail for $99 at Nordstrom’s – I’d never heard of this brand before, but on days when it’s not too cold, these will be my new walking shoes at work.  #love

Happy Tuesday!  Let’s make it a great day!  Goal for the day for me – drink more water – I think I only drank 60 ounces so my goal today is 80.  

What’s your goal for today?