2012 Goals Check-in

Time to check in with my 2012 goals:

Cook 1 new recipe each week
So far, so good.  I didn’t think I’d get a new recipe in this week because we weren’t planning on eating dinner at home this week.  Staying home on Sunday instead of going out to San Francisco worked to my advantage.  I made split pea soup with yellow peas that I found at the Indian market by my house.  Pretty yummy.  I didn’t follow the directions 100% though…  I dumped everything in the pot and let it cook instead of adding the carrots and celery in the last 30 minutes of cooking.

Eat real food
This one I’m falling down a bit on.  Most bread in the supermarket has some kind of weird preservative in it.  I’m also trying to use up my peanut butter and salad dressings before I buy more (budgets, ya know).  And of course the cookies and candy at work don’t really work so well for this.  I just need to focus more and be more aware of what I’m putting in my mouth and what I’m buying.  I can do that.  It might be difficult at Disneyland next week, but I’ll do my best.

No white grains
Do onion bagels count as white grain?  Or the rice at lunch yesterday?  Or the flour that’s used to make those delicious cookies in the lunch room?  I’m pretty sure they do.  *sigh*  FOCUS Danie!  I’ve been doing good except for those three slip-ups.  And my sister was super sweet to buy pizza with whole wheat crust for my nephew’s birthday.  Thanks Sis! Yay me – I’m almost succeeding with this one!

Finish one quilt or sewing project each month
All I have to do is attach a border to this hot pink quilted throw I made and the project for month #1 is done!  I also have the stuff I need to complete at least on project for month #2!  This goal is going well.

Buy a house, not a condo
I showed DH some McMansions around our neighborhood that we almost have 10% down on.  I think we’ll probably end up buying something a little more manageable payment and upkeep wise (read: smaller and cheaper).  We have 20% down on bank-owned prices for smaller homes, but we need to save more for closing costs and any repairs/upgrades the houses might need.

Learn basic web development technologies
I haven’t even started on this one.  DH showed me a series of videos I can watch to get the basics down and then take tests to get certified on this stuff.  I’m just not super motivated on this, though.  Got any tips to get me motivated?

Get Project+ certified
This is a direct response to some project management training work sent me to awhile back.  I have all of the training materials I need sitting in the 2nd bedroom upstairs.  Have I watched one refresher video?  No.  Read one chapter of one book?  No.  Maybe I need some prizes to motivate me, what do you think?

Run a 5k without stopping; complete three 5k races; complete two 10k races; complete at least one half marathon; wear a bikini comfortably in public
I decided to lump all of these goals together because they each build on one another.  I signed up for a 5k, I joined a gym, and my rib is healed so I can focus on these goals more.  My weight went up in response to the gym-going though.  Just a pound, but I know that is water retention from the upper body workout I did yesterday.  Seriously, my arm muscles are so sore that it’s a miracle I could turn on the shower this morning.  I also jogged on the treadmill twice this week, which felt really good.  I’ll keep doing that until I’m jogging for the whole 30 minutes the gym allows.

 

Last night’s thematic dreams

I’ve been having a lot of weird dreams lately.  And of course, this means that I wake up in the night a lot.  Last night was no exception.

I don’t remember all of my dreams, but I remember different parts of each dream:

• My mom stopped breathing in one dream.  She was on her knees with her forehead on the ground.  The attendant next to her said “Just make sure her airway is clear. She’ll start breathing again.”  She started back up again but didn’t wake up.  Afterwards I was shaking and crying in the dream and freaking out about the DNR on file for her.
• I had another where there were bad people in the library and I was trying to protect the public from them.  I set up some kind of an obstacle course that ended with them falling into a pit.  But I had to stop little kids from falling into the pit too.
• There was another where I was at my mom’s house, pre-remodel.  Someone had a baby, but they died and nobody knew what to do.  I took the baby and decided that I would take care of it.  I wrapped it in a blanket and searched through the fridge for something to feed it.  I found mashed potatoes and decided that the baby could suck them off my finger until I could find some formula.  People kept trying to take the baby away but I just held it tighter.  I said “He’s beautiful and he’s mine.”
• In another dream I was at a friend’s house.  They had a few cats.  I somehow ended up on my back on the floor with a pregnant cat laying on my stomach.  She started giving birth.  I was grossed out but excited too.  I remember thinking that I was glad my jeans hadn’t just come out of the wash because then I’d be really upset that they were so dirty.  My friend wanted to move the cat but I told her not to because it might hurt the mama and the babies.  I said that she’d move when she was ready.
• In the last dream my old dog Duncan was there, but he was a lot younger.  Not quite a puppy, but not quite an adult.  He rolled onto his back and I scratched his belly.  I was so glad to see him.  I don’t know what we talked about, but I remember talking to him and he answered.

OK…  So what am I really dreaming about here?  Family, the life cycle, creation, innocence, protection, responsibility, and love.  DH says they’re all maternal/caregiving dreams.  I thought they were all just weird, but at least there’s a theme to the dreams.

This blog is me whining

I made my new recipe for the week last night… and I forgot to take a picture again.  *sigh*  I remember the photos when it’s time for my brother to cook because they’re one of the most important elements of his blog, but when it’s mine I forget.  Oh well.  Dinner was tasty: Lemon-Tarragon Pork Chops with Quinoa (cooked in chicken broth) and some strawberries for dessert.  I forgot to make veggies too.  Oh well.

I haven’t really been doing anything towards my other goals.  I think I’m in a funk.  I want to jog, but I’m scared of hurting myself.  It’s not hurting to do most things now, but I can feel it when I lift anything heavier than a pound (I wonder how long that’ll last).  I know the longer I go without jogging, the harder it’ll be to start up again.  Maybe I can talk DH into setting up the treadmill for me tonight.  I’d do it, but that thing is definitely heavier than a pound!

I’m also out of clean clothes.  Well… not completely out.  I can make it for another 4 or 5 days, but I can’t get the laundry done because the stupid baskets are heavier than a pound, and I never think to ask DH for help.  Something about my need to be “in control” of everything all the time.  It’s funny, I need to be in control, I refuse to ask for help, but then I get mad/annoyed when people don’t offer.  That’s not just funny, it’s stupid and pointless.  It’s something I need to work on.

We’re still saving for a down payment and closing costs on a house.  I keep looking at the listings and dreaming of what our house will be.  There were a few that I wanted to buy late last year that aren’t on the market any more.  They needed work to be sure, but what do you expect for cheap in the SF bay area?  All I can really do is keep saving and hope that DH will give me the green light to go to the bank and get started.  I just don’t want it to be another 16 years before we buy, ya know?

Blah, I’m definitely in a funk.  Time to get up, eat breakfast, go for a walk outside and cheer myself up.

 

Jeans

I went shopping for jeans today.  My jeans all have holes where the thighs rub together or where the back pocket attaches to the pants.  Originally I was planning on just going to the mall by my house, but DH suggested we have an adventure and go to the Tracy Outlets.  Man, that place was desolate.  About half the storefronts were empty, and those that were occupied didn’t seem to have outlet prices on much.  I sucked it up and went into the Levi’s store.

I was ambushed from the time I stepped in the doors.  Christina (she told me her name three times) followed me as I tried to shop for jeans.  She tried to tell me about their new sizing system, she wanted to know who I was shopping for, and couldn’t wait to tell me about the sales.  I tried to be gentle and say “I’ll know what I want when I see it” but she just didn’t get the hint.  Maybe I need to be more direct and say “Leave me alone. I like to shop in peace.”  To be fair, I remember having my first retail job and wanting to help.  And maybe she worked on commission, so she wanted to make sure she got the sale.  But OMG, I was beyond annoyed and I hadn’t even really looked at the options on the shelves!

I found two pair.  Neither fit right.  One was too small, and one was too long.  I slipped out of the fitting room unnoticed (hurray!) and tried to find a different length in the one I liked.  No luck.  I didn’t even want to try to shop for anything else.  I tried to slip out of the store but couldn’t escape without a goodbye.  The other stores were all too expensive, and had weird decorations on them.

We finally stopped in at West Valley Mall.  I tried on two pair of jeans at JCPenney.  Again with no luck.  You see, my hips and thighs are huge, and my waist is small.  Plus I’m short.  It makes things a little difficult.  Their petite section was literally three racks smushed in between the misses and plus sizes… and there weren’t any jeans to be found there.

I wanted to cry.  At that point I truly hated my body.  I hated that my body shape didn’t work for the clothes I was trying on.  I hated that the clothing manufacturers make things for stick figures and for people with big stomachs, but nothing for people with big hips and thighs but small waists.  Even the things that are supposedly made to fit my body type don’t work.  But I realized that if I freaked out and gave up, I’d never find anything that fit.

I tried to find a petites section at the Macy’s too.  This one was slightly larger, but again there weren’t any jeans to be found.  Luckily they had selection in “short” lengths, which are still just a bit too long but I can make them work.  This time I tried on four pair.  Two fit right and one pair was only available in regular length. DH bought the two and I took a picture of the ones that were too long so I could hunt for them online.

Success!  DH suggested we shop for a couple of tops to go with the jeans, but I didn’t want to tempt the shopping gods into making me get teary eyed again, so we went home.

So that’s what I did today.

Weekly Recipe: Tagine Chicken with Quinoa and Stewed Vegetables

One of my New Year’s resolutions is to cook a recipe each week that I haven’t cooked before.  This week my new recipe is tagine chicken with quinoa and stewed vegetables.  I found both recipes on Allrecipes.com – it’s a great website to visit for inspiration.  I followed the recipe for tagine chicken pretty closely, and I just used the stewed veggies recipe as a jumping off point for what I actually made.

I had all of the ingredients for the tagine chicken except for the couscous.  So I stopped in at the grocery store to pick some up.  Upon looking at the box and reading the ingredients list, I realized that couscous is highly processed.  *sigh*  So I looked around for 100% whole grain couscous to no avail.  I’m sure it exists, but not in that particular grocery store.  Then I caught site of quinoa.  It seemed healthier than the couscous, so I bought it.  It was pretty good! The main dish was easy to make and made my house smell delicious!

Then I realized that I’d be feeding a bunch of people and there probably wasn’t enough without some kind of side dish, so I did a search for Vegetables on allrecipes.  I found the recipe for vegetable tagine and used it as the basis for the stewed veggies I actually made.  So, here’s what I did with those:

Moroccan Inspired Stewed Vegetables

• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 bell pepper, seeded and chopped
• 1 onion, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 4 carrots chopped
• 2 potatoes, peeled and chopped
• 1 head broccoli, chopped into medium-large pieces
• 1 can sliced stewed tomatoes, low sodium if possible
• 2 tbsp  tomato paste
• 48 oz fat free, low sodium chicken broth
• 1/4 tsp ground turmeric
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1/4 tsp ground coriander
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 15 oz can of garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
• salt and pepper

1. Heat the oil in a pot over medium heat.  Add onion, garlic and bell pepper.  Cook until onion is translucent.
2. Add the carrots, potatoes, broccoli, tomatoes, tomato paste, chicken broth, coriander, cinnamon, garlic powder, turmeric, and cumin.  Bring to a boil and then simmer until potatoes and carrots are tender.
3. Add the garbanzo beans, salt and pepper.  Simmer until the garbanzos are warmed through.  Serve.

This recipe makes PLENTY of food.  And it goes very far as a side dish.  You could make a vegetarian meal out of it if you put it over couscous or quinoa.

So here’s the downside.  I forgot to take a picture.  That means you don’t get to see all the yumminess for yourself.  You’ll just have to make it and see!  DH really liked it.  Our friends liked it too.  I liked that most of the ingredients didn’t have weird stuff in it.  I mean, the apricots in the chicken dish had a couple of ingredients that protect the color, and the canned stuff all had extra salt, but other than that it was real food.

I’d totally make this stuff again.

I found a house

One of my new year’s resolutions is to buy a house.  I really, really want to have a place to call my own.  Someplace where the neighbors’ marijuana smoke doesn’t waft into my living room.  Someplace where I don’t hear gunshots with regularity.  Someplace where I can do laundry whenever I want.  Someplace where I can have a heater that works and appliances in my kitchen that are good, and….  you get the idea.

We almost have enough saved for a down payment.  If we’re really conservative we can buy a very small house by June.  So of course I’ve started dreaming and looking at houses for sale.  And of course I found one… and quickly found that it’s not the right house (whew!).

OK – it sounded awesome on the surface: 3 bedrooms, 1 bath, farmhouse style, 1.75 acres with a creek running through, hillside views, country living close to civilization.  All for $219K in the SF bay area.  My jaw dropped.  I mean, seriously?  So I looked closer because the 4 pictures I saw showed some work needed, and I found a video and 5 more photos.

You have to cross a bridge to get to the house.  The bridge was washed out in 2010 (I think).  The guy who owns the house rebuilt the bridge but without permits.  So first strike: need to get the bridge certified.

The house is water damaged.  There’s no sheet rock, real flooring or kitchen.  The foundation “needs work”.  And the roof is currently a ginormous tarp. I don’t know what it costs to fix a foundation, but I do know that my Mom’s kitchen was redone a few years ago for $30K, the bathrooms were $15k, the floors were $10k, and the roof for her single story home was $20k (this place is 2-story)…  it was all high-end stuff to be sure and this was just before the markets crashed, but it gave me an idea of how much money would need to be sunk into this house to make it livable.

No wonder the house is going for so cheap!!  To give you an idea, there’s another house with the same acreage and same square footage going for $670K just down the street from this one.

Oh well…  if I was a contractor or if I had the $150k+ to get all this work done I’d be all over it.  But I’m not and I don’t so I can’t.  Oh well.  That just means that there’s a better place for us, right?  Right.

Damn.

This food thing is hard!

Granted I haven’t been focusing super much on food for awhile, but I don’t remember it being this hard!  Like today, I added one of those little packages of liquid creamer to my coffee when we went out to breakfast today without thinking anything of it.  During a lull in the conversation I thought “I wonder what’s in that.”  I looked at the package and saw that it listed 2% milk, heavy cream, and some weird additive.  Three ingredients, but one of them was weird.  *sigh*

Then I ordered a Denver omelet.  Sounded right: eggs, ham, bell pepper, onion and cheese.  I should have ordered it without the cheese – who knows what’s in the cheese that makes it orange?  Side of hash browns that I only ate two bites of, and a slice of wheat toast.  Notice it’s not 100% whole wheat?

OK, OK, it’s basically day 1, right?  I’m out of the habit of analyzing everything on the menu and all the pieces of a particular plate when I’m ordering.  I just need to do better.  I’ll know better for date night on Wednesday.

Tonight should be easier for dinner.  My brother is coming over to make us some dinner.  He’s making his “California Salad” with tilapia on top and we’re pairing it with an amber ale.  He’s a chef and the author of http://goesgreatwithbeer.com.  It only has one entry so far because he caught a nasty cold right after the first meal.  He’s back tonight.  I’ve had the California Salad before, but this time it will be a little different.  We couldn’t find the strawberries that he’d normally use so he’ll be substituting with raspberries.  And normally there isn’t any meat added in, but since it will be a main dish salad there needs to be something to go with it.  I’m totally looking forward to it.  Since we moved out a few years ago, I haven’t been able to spend a whole lot of time with him and I kinda miss him.

OK…  now onto the exercise portion of things.  I’m pretty limited in what I can do since I fell and cracked a rib a couple weeks ago.  I’m moving better now, but I can’t run or lift anything heavier than 5 pounds right now.  And even lifting 2 pounds repeatedly makes me cry.  So as soon as I finish with this entry, I’m planning on trying some lower body stuff just to get moving.  Squats, calf raises, going up and down the stairs, that kind of thing.  Nothing that requires twisting or using my abs too much – I don’t want to hurt myself worse!

And I weighed myself last night with my trusty Wii balance board…  I’m at 159.4 pounds.  Ugh.  I need to be around 145 to be at a healthy BMI.  So that means I have 14.4 pounds to lose.  I know BMI isn’t the be-all of health and fitness, but it’s a gauge to use.

Time to do some light exercise to get things moving.

Food and Fitness Goals for 2012

I’m sitting on the couch pondering my goals for the next year, and letting them marinate in my brain.  The ones that I’m thinking about the most right now are the fitness goals and the food goals, mostly because they go hand in hand.  And also because there are some limitations to what I can do right now.

Let’s start by further defining the food goals:

1. Cut out wheat and rice
2. Eat “real” food
3. Cook one new recipe each week

I’m focusing on the food goals because those are usually the most difficult for me to follow/stick with, and because they have a direct impact on my fitness goals.

Cut out wheat and rice
Hmmm… OK, this one isn’t really what it sounds like.  It doesn’t mean that I will be cutting out all wheat and rice products.  It means that I will be only eating products made with 100% whole grain, 100% brown or wild rice, 100% corn meal.  If there’s any other weird grains, sugars, additives or chemicals added in, it doesn’t go in my belly.

Eat “real” food
I’ve noticed that when I eat food that has lots of “fake” things inside (like additives, flavorings, colorings, preservatives, etc) it takes more to fill me up and I’m not as satisfied.  When I eat real food I need to eat less and I’m generally more satisfied.  OK, to be fair I really like to have a bit of something for dessert, but doesn’t everyone?  So the rule is that the food that goes in my belly needs to be real.  In other words: no weird additives, no weird flavorings added, no weird preservatives, etc.  Birthday parties and other celebrations are the exception to this rule.

Cook one new recipe each week
I’m hoping this one will help me meet the other two food goals.  Plus I know it’ll help me meet the fitness goals.  It’ll also help me put to use the many cookbooks I have at home.

OK, now it’s time to further define the fitness goals

1. Run a 5k without walking
2. Complete three 5k’s
3. Complete two 10k’s
4. Complete at least 1 half marathon
5. Wear a bikini in public comfortably

Run a 5k without walking
So, you’d think that with all of this training I’ve done that I could run a few miles without stopping somewhere in there to walk, right?  Well, you’d be wrong.  To tell you the truth, I’ve only run 1 mile without stopping and that was awhile ago.  So, to make myself feel like I deserve to call myself a runner, I’m going to run (or jog, whatever) 3.1 miles without stopping.

Complete three 5k’s
I find that when I’m training, I get bored if I don’t have little things to work towards.  Upcoming races are awesome for the motivation factor and I love how short a 5k feels.  I just need to figure out which 5k’s to complete.  Oh, and complete means just that: complete it.  It doesn’t matter if there’s walking mixed in, as long as they’re done and I’m happy with what I’ve done.

Complete two 10k’s
Again, having upcoming races as motivation is awesome, and a 10k is twice as challenging as a 5k.  So, as I get back into running, I’ll be working towards the 10k length.  And again, complete means complete.  I don’t have to run the whole thing.

Complete at least 1 half marathon
My plan is to complete the Disneyland Half Marathon on September 2, 2012.  I’ll be using the 5 and 10k races I complete along the way as training.  And if I don’t die and if I don’t totally hate it, I’d like to complete the Wine & Dine half marathon in Disney World in November.  So yeah, complete means finish it.

Wear a bikini comfortably in public
As I’m training and eating healthier foods, I should be losing weight along the way.  I’ll also need to work in some weight training too.  I don’t want to be “skinny-fat”, and doing this will help me become a more effective runner too.  So, I know this is cliche, but I’ve never worn a bikini in public because I’ve always been too fat to do so.  Being able to do this would be tangible proof that I’m not the girl they made up a song about in Jr. High.

I’ll come up with a training plan in another post… this one is already too long as it is!

The New Year’s Resolution Post

It’s the first day of 2012.  Millions of people around the world are making resolutions today.  Resolutions designed to fix some aspect of their lives or improve an internal fault.  A couple years ago my resolution was to try a new restaurant every week.  I’d noticed that I (or should I say we) were getting into a rut of eating at the same restaurants all the time.  There wasn’t that sense of adventure or even a sense of trying anything new when we’d go out to eat.  I thought that resolution would fix that problem.  It did, for the most part.  Sometimes we’d realize that it was Saturday night and we hadn’t yet tried a new restaurant, so we’d dash out the door to get the new restaurant in for the week.  Sometimes we’d start the week with good intentions – we’d even have a plan! – only to be derailed because of illness or other life events.  It was a good resolution and a fun one too.

I don’t remember what my resolution was last year.

This year I started out with a long list of resolutions, much like I do every year.  And this year I narrowed that list down to a few major goals:

1. Household goal: Buy a house.  Not a condo.
2. Work goal: Get Project+ certified and learn web development technologies
3. Crafting goal: Finish 1 quilt or sewing project each month
4. Fitness goal(s): Run a 5k without walking; complete three 5k’s, two 10k’s and at least 1 half marathon; wear a bikini comfortably in public
5. Food goal(s): Cut out wheat and rice; eat “real” food; cook 1 new recipe each week

I’ll explain, explore and define these goals more as the week goes on.  After all a goal will never be met if it’s not defined.

Evil white robes

I fell when I was running yesterday. I slammed my head, hands, elbow, hip and knee into the ground when I tripped. I picked myself up, walked almost to the corner and passed out cold. I woke up called my husband (no answer) and tried to walk again. I started to get dizzy so I tried to sit at the corner. When I bent down I passed out again. I don’t remember doing this, but apparently I called my husband. According to my call log it was every minute or so for 10 minutes. My finger must have slipped and hit my brother’s name – when I kinda came to I could hear his voice but I didn’t know where I was. I finally remembered and he came to find me.

I went to the ER and got a CT scan. All clear, just a concussion, lots of scrapes and bruises. My ribs hurt from where I landed on them. It’s like I did too many sit ups or something. All in all a scary day.

I drifted off quickly when it was time for bed. I immediately started dreaming. I talked in my sleep, but DH said the voice didn’t sound like mine. It was like a gravelly, evil whisper. I didn’t go back to sleep easily. This is what came to me as I was relaxing tonight and thinking about my dream:

Figures in cowled white robes.
Hands, feet, faces cannot be seen.
Floating above the ground to complete their mission.
Delivering evil to the world; they darkly chant their words.
A narrow escape into wakefulness.
A knocking in your ear subsides.
Your heartbeat returns to normal.
You drift to the other world again.

DH said I talked in my sleep several times last night. It’s been known to happen (remind me to tell you some of the freaky things I’ve said and done!) but there aren’t normally as many talking episodes as there were last night.

I hope tonight is more peaceful for both of us.