The Road to Fatsville is Paved With Good Intentions

I was gonna be good, I swear.  

I had spent a whopping seven(!) hours doing some major housework.  I had miraculously transformed a disaster zone into a beautiful, nearly pristine bedroom all by myself.  I craved a naughty fast food meal, and I deserved it!  But no...I'll be good.

So, I go to the kitchen.  I get out one of my "salad in a jar" specialties (hmm...I totally need to write about my experience with "salad in a jar").  I grab a cucumber, some carrots, an apple, and a jar of fat free dressing.  I'm slicing and dicing my way to a healthy meal.  I'm being so damn good!

But then, Heather comes upstairs.  She and I have had a rough day spent trying to see who was the bigger bullhead (it's a tie).  So, how can I possibly resist when she says, "wanna go with me to get some grub?"

That's how my Weight-Watchers 1-point "Good Intentions" dinner
 

turned into

a belly-busting 24-point reality.  (But at least the drink was diet, right??)

In the end, I got to spend some much-needed time laughing with Heather, so it was totally worth it...no matter what the nasty Wii Fit bitch says tomorrow morning while I weigh myself.   


And I have that salad all ready for my lunch tomorrow.

Grumbellies

As if my unsatisfied taste buds didn't already make it clear, my belly is screaming with the borborygmi of hunger pangs.


Such is the life of a dieting computer-chair potato ('cause I never make it to the couch).


I decided to get serious regarding my efforts with Weight Watchers with the beginning of the year.  Last year when I was tracking my "points," I was rarely hungry.  I didn't even mind cutting way down on my fast food feasts.  Oh, but last month when I went on an all-out food-fest, I must have corrupted all of my willpower.  Now, every night, I'm scouting the cupboards for those elusive 0-point treats because I've already reached my quota by dinnertime.  Let me tell ya, eating a can of green beans at 11 p.m. is just not what I'd call "a treat."  Well, maybe if they were those amazing deep-fried green beans that T.G.I.Fridays sells, but when they come straight out of the can, they're just about as tasteless as their calorie count would indicate.


But I'm determined.  I've lost 45 pounds...and gained back 8 of 'em.  It's time to get that scale moving in the right direction, even if it means convincing my brain that green beans are a treat.  

Checks and Balances

Sometimes, it's just the little things that make me smile.


Like trying to balance my checkbook at almost midnight...and it came out to the cent.  


Now if only there was any money left over so I could buy myself something to celebrate the achievement.

12 Months?

My last blog post was in January!!  That was January from a frickin' year ago.  What the heck happened?  Was there some sort of time warp that made me miss the last 11 months?


No...it was just the usual thing.  Life got in the way.  Or, to be more specific - teenagers, work, friends, and housework got in the way.  Sheesh.


I used to love to blog.  I made so many friends from keeping an online journal (yes, Andi, I'm talking about YOU!).  So why would I slack off from something I enjoyed so much?  Pure laziness.  Just call me Queen Procrastinator.  


A year ago, I was freshly starting a new Weight Watchers diet.  To everyone's surprise (mostly mine), I stuck with it.  I'm proud to say that I waddle just a little bit less when I walk nowadays.  I lost 47 pounds...and gained back 8 of 'em.  So here I am, new year, but same resolution.  I'm back to tracking my points.  Hopefully, I can get that Wii Fit Bitch to stop groaning and saying "That's Oh-beeese!" when she weighs me every morning. 


I made some other small but surprising changes, too.


For the first time in my 43 years of slovenly living, I decided to start making my bed.  Like, every morning.  Sure, when I have a pretty girl sleeping in it, I decide to wait to make the bed until she finally wakes up for the day, but once my four-legged girlfriend finally stretches, purrs, and crawls out of bed to head for the litter box, I spend a minute or so making the bed look gorgeous.  I'm at 27 days in a row.  There is hope for my fellow slob-sisters everywhere!


One of the highlights of my year was having my dear friends, Michelle and Jim (and their daughter, Tessa) come to visit from Philadelphia.  It was a week of lots of food, a bit of sight-seeing, a few Yu-Gi-Oh/Magic card games, and lots of "I want to see Marvin the Martian!" comments from the little one.  


In the middle of the year, my work clientele practically exploded.  I went from having two offices (8 doctors) to having six offices (21 doctors!).  I've had to hire several more workers and things are going great.  My mortgage company probably has a heart attack every month when I actually pay a couple of hundred bucks extra on the house payment.  


Most surprising of all was that I gave up Facebook.  The changes they made in September or so were just so damn annoying and I hated wasting my time trying to maneuver the site to read what my friends wrote.  Try as I might to get friends to join Google+ (which seems to work just exactly the way Social Media should), very few would make the leap.  The irony is that everyone said "I don't want to go to Google+ because nobody is there"...but nobody is there because nobody wants to go there until other people are there.  Hmmph.  I was recently coerced into coming back to Facebook...but just on a limited basis.  Basically, I have time to make a quick post and glance to see if anyone has written anything interesting.  But I refuse to jump hurdles to read posts, so basically, I'm becoming a "status updater" instead of a "commenter."  I guess if my friends want me to read their updates, they'll have to post on Google+ where it is easy to read.  It sucks, but I only have so much time to goof off and FB just makes it too hard to get to the good stuff.


Anyway...we're back to a new year and that means hopefully updating this old blog more than once every 12 months.  

Diet Dessert Recipe

I found this recipe in a fantastic cookbook (the name of which will remain anonymous so that I don't catch the attention of their lawyers).  It was too good not to share:


Lemon Blueberry Cupcakes
 

Here's the easy-peasy recipe:
For cupcakes:
2 Cups Moist-Style Lemon Cake Mix (half of an 18.25-ounce box)
1 Cup Diet Lemon-Lime Soda (we didn't have Diet Sprite, so we used Fresca and it was just fine)
3/4 Cup Fresh Blueberries (divided)
1 Egg
1 teaspoon Baking Powder

For Frosting (and it was amazingly light and yummy!)
1 Cup Cool Whip Free - thawed
1/2 Cup Skim Milk
2 Tablespoons Lemon Sugar Free/Fat Free Dry Pudding Mix

Optional
12 additional blueberries for garnish

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Make the frosting first:  combine pudding mix and skim milk in a medium mixing bowl.  Using an electric mixer set to medium speed, mix for 1 to 2 minutes.  Let sit for 5 minutes.  Mix in the Cool Whip and refrigerate until the cupcakes are ready to be frosted.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the cake mix, soda, egg, and baking powder.  Stir until blended and lump-free.

Spray a 12-cup muffin pan with nonstick spray.  Evenly distribute cake mixture among the 12 sections.

Place half of the blueberries on top of the cake mixture in the cups (about 3 to 4 berries each).  Bake in the oven for 8 minutes.

Remove pan from the oven and evenly distribute remaining blueberries among cups, pressing down slightly to keep the berries from rolling.  Return pan to the oven and bake for an additional 7 minutes, or until cupcake edges are slightly browned. 

Let cupcakes cool completely, then evenly distribute frosting among the tops.  Add a blueberry to the top of each cupcake, if you like.  Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Makes 12 servings, each are 3 PointsPlus for Weight Watchers new program.

New Year, Old Resolutions

It seems like every year, January rolls around and I say "this is the year!"  My resolutions always involve my weight.  

Sure enough, I started Weight Watchers again (though I'm too cheap to pay for the meetings).  At first, I was just going to list everything I eat on my phone just so I could be cognizant of my intake.  But, there are just so many wickedly cool Android apps for counting Weight Watcher points that I decided to go whole hog (so to speak).

Speaking of hog...when you weigh as much as I do, it's almost a daunting task to actually consume 31 freakin' points in a day.  Yeah, 31.  And that doesn't count any "weekly flex points" or "activity bonus points."   Here it is, 10 p.m. and I'm munching on Ritz crackers just to try to hit my point level, and I still have 10 points left to blow.  

I also decided that I could only use my excuse of "too much work to do" for so long before I had to accept that I deserve a little bit of fun time.  So, I laced up my sneakers and did 30 minutes of Wii Fit.  It's a lot of fun, but I seriously doubt that it has much benefit in exercise.  It takes almost an hour just to get in the 30 minutes of countable exercise, but it's fun, so I'm gonna do it.  Pictures will NOT be forthcoming as seeing me swinging my hips to imaginary hula hoops is not a pleasant sight.  

I did have a pleasant surprise, though.  I looked back to see what my weight was on January 1, 2010.  On that date, I was 233.5 pounds.  A month ago, I was down to 218.  Woo hoo!  Admittedly, the Christmas snacking hit me hard and I'm up another 5 pounds again at 223.5.  But just realizing that I lost 15 pounds this year without trying at all (I certainly never had the time to exercise and I didn't diet at all) was amazing.  The only change I made was that six months ago I bought those Skechers Shape-Ups shoes.  I didn't think they'd help me lose weight, I bought them because they are comfortable.  But I'm convinced that those missing 15 pounds are from the shoes.  Now...I just need to stay away from the damn Christmas cookies so I can continue the downward slope.

Nookie Time

I bought my B&N Nook ereader in March.  That has resulted in a couple of changes in my life:

1. I no longer read magazines in the bathroom.
2. I no longer buy books (Nook lets me download ebooks from the library).
3. My TiVo queue has grown quite extensive as I prefer reading to watching TV.
4. I don't mind standing in line at the grocery store at all...it just means I get to read a page or two in my book.

But being the gadget guru, I'm always looking for the newest/best gadget out there.

After months of anticipation, Barnes and Noble finally announced the new version of their Nook ereader today.

Rumors were that it was going to be everything I wanted:

• 7 inches (instead of the 6 of the original Nook)
• Full color e-ink screen (instead of original black & white e-ink)
• Portrait or landscape mode (instead of just portrait)
• Full screen touchscreen (instead of just the 1-inch strip at the bottom)

Well, it didn't matter that my Nook was functioning perfectly well.  I knew I had to have it.  I planned to drive to Akron to pick it up as soon as it was available.

Today, they presented the new Nook Color.  What was announced was everything in the rumors...except...it is an LCD screen instead of color e-ink.

 

Nobody who has ever read on an e-ink screen will ever read books on an LCD screen.  First, you can't even see the screen if the sun is out.  Second, LCD screens flicker hundreds of times a minute...you just don't notice it, but your eyes do.  That's why computer work gives folks headaches.  

 Here's a microscope view of an LCD screen versus an e-ink screen:




Here's a magnified view of an iPad LCD screen




  




 And here it is on an e-ink screen












Plus, you can't read a book out in the sun on an LCD screen.  Go ahead, look at your camera or cell phone and try reading when the son is glaring on the screen.  On e-ink displays...no problem.

So, the bad news is that Nook Color is LCD.
But the good news is that since it is LCD instead of e-ink, I save $250.

So, no new Nookie for me.  I'd like to have color, but since I mostly read novels, black and white is just fine.  I will miss having the landscape orientation, though.  Sometimes, it's just nicer having the display wider than it is long.