I'm a bloggin' slacka

Its been a couple of days since I last blogged, so here I am. I've been doing good with eating in moderation which is my goal. We had turkey dinner last night for no particular reason, and I did pretty well at minding my portions. My Mom made a spinach salad - which was uber yummy - to go with the meal, so I loaded up on that.


For dessert, she had made chocolate cupcakes with fondant icing (my fave) and I had 2; I think this is just fine though because I haven't had any kind of "over-indulgence" for 3 weeks now. YAY! The exercise is still an issue, although I do run around a lot at work all day, lol. I think I might take a walk on my lunch breaks, even if it's just for 15 minutes; it is SO nice out.


I'm down 5 pounds, a pretty decent loss for 3 weeks I think. Even if I lost a pound for 3 weeks out of every month until the wedding, I'd be a whopping 18 POUNDS lighter! I ended up taking the beautiful tight pants back - the last straw was when I found that they were dry clean only...grr


Here was what today looked like:

banana - small
2 tbsp PB - need to buckle down on the PB

turkey on a small bun
pickles & cukes
thinsations
gingerbread hot chocolate - 140 cals - yum

cadbury thin

Chicken pita - Opa Souvlaki
medium FF chocolate frozen yogurt - Yogen Fruz

steeped tea 2+2 sweetener


Not too bad, I think I've found my favourite supper out - at the food court anyway lol. We're meeting with a real estate agent soon to look at condos & townhouses, and getting pre-approved on Monday - Woot Woot!

Not too shabby

So, I was back on track today and sported my new pants, white t-shirt, and wine coloured blazer. I wish the pants had a little more give to them, or any at all. They are rayon, polyester, and wool, talk about tight lol.

Anyhoo, here's my menu:

1/2 grapefruit - nothing else to eat...
Nescafe w/milk

Smart Ones Rigatoni
1/2 cup 1% cottage cheese
Oreo Thinsations

hot dog + bun & 0 point/low cal condiments
salad
fruit & yogurt parfait

Toffee cadbury thin


Should be interesting to see what tomorrow's menu will look like. I have a year end party for work (fiscal year) and I have no idea what they're feeding us. I have a sneaking suspicion that it'll be pizza or something equally bad; it's at a movie theatre - weird eh?

Retail Therapy

Oh so sweet...


I decided to take a bit of my tax return and unload it at Ricki's. I got some really nice things to add to my wardrobe and feel that much better about my new 9-5 life; they include:

1. Black pin stripped dress pants
2. Wine coloured short sleeved wrap shirt
3. Brown Blazer - $30 off!
4. Wine Blazer - LOVE it!
5. 2 t-shirts (white & hot pink) and 2 cami's (cream & wine) to go under the blazers

I love my new clothes and I think they will definitely make me feel more professional, especially the blazers. When I tried on the pants, I was very happy to see that the size 12s were way too big, 10s it is; not too far from single digits!

Here's today's eats:

yogurt

Nescafe w/milk

kraft dinner (easy mac) -- blech!

pudding

about 600 calories worth of cookie dough - I'm only human

grilled chicken pita wrap - Opa Souvlaki

LF frozen yogurt - Yogen Fruz

Chips Ahoy Waffer stix - meh

Not the worst day I've ever had, trust me. I'm still not feeling so great, hopefully that goes away soon. I've got a brand new outfit to wear tomorrow, right down to the socks! Should be a good day. I'll be weighing in tomorrow, I'll keep ya posted on that.

Oink Oink

Yep, I'm a pig. I guess the good news is that tomorrow is a new day. I've got quite the headache today that is making me want to eat whatever I have to to avoid feeling or being sick. To keep me honest, here is my menu as of 5:30p.m:

Brunch?

2 slices veggie pizza + 1 small slice BBQ chicken pizza

Yogurt & granola cup from Good Earth Cafe

Supper?

Steeped Tea - 2+2

3/4 grilled chicken sandwich w/o mayo - McDonald's

small fries - didn't eat all of them

Enough crap for one day? I think so...

Mmmm, Pizza

I did really well today with food and work, until my Dairy Queen salad had a bunch of brown lettuce in it and a caved in to the yummyness of Pizza 73. On a positive note, although I did eat 3 pieces of pizza, it was vegetarian.

Got Food?

Life Cereal

Nescafe w/milk

cheese & breadsticks handi-snack

leftover hamburger helper - 1-1.5 cups

banana cream yogurt

cadbury thin

grilled chicken from my brown salad

3 pieces veggie pizza

I'm going to try to get activity in tomorrow, I haven't got as much I would have liked this week, but that will change.

Today's Menu

Okay, since I didn't post it earlier, I'm doing it now:

banana
1 TB PB
Nescafe w/milk

Gardennay broccoli soup
4 saltines
grapes
1/2 cup cottage cheese

cadbury thin

Tim's tea 2 + sweetener

homemade hamburger helper stuff - about 2 cups
pudding

Snow snow go away!

Holy Lightning ! We've had at least 9 inches of snow here in the last day and a half. Our poor trees look similar to the ones above, just not as pretty. What we have is a big, wet, heavy, slushy mess! It's friggin' April, we shouldn't have almost a foot of snow on the ground. Hopefully it all melts in the next couple of days and makes everything all springy again.

Work was good today, I was so on top of my game. I got one of my Bridget Jones movies today - finally. So, I think we'll curl up under a blanket with our kitty and watch it :).

Bed Time!

Today was much better than yesterday as far as work goes, which makes everything else better in general. I was able to do a lot of catching up because neither of my appointments showed - yay!

I did stick to two of the things on my laundry list from yesterday; I ate my bagged lunch, and I didn't let work bother me. The exercise didn't happen today, but that's okay with me because I'm adjusting to my new workload (and schedule) so I'm more tired than normal.

Got Food?
mini fruit tray - no dip
Nescafe w/milk

Smart Ones ravioli
Tim Horton's fruit & fibre muffin - someone brought them in...

3 small cabbage rolls
salad w/0.5 TB of thousand island
3/4 cup mashed potatoes - no butter!

Not too shabby if I do say so myself. The only issue I had today was with the muffin, but I think it was one of the better choices and I thought it would fill me up more than a cadbury thin :). I'm thinking about having either a pudding or a cadbury thin before bed; I need my chocolate fix.

The cookie monster got me..

I was going to accompany my post with a picture of the cookie monster himself, but blogger doesn't seem to like pictures tonight. As the title suggests, I had a small run in with some cookies tonight; it was a rough day.

I really tried to stay focused on the positives today: the beautiful orange and purple tulips that Calvin gave me yesterday and a couple of happy clients, but today just wasn't meant to be easy lol.

The weather was miserable. It alternated between rain and snow for the entire day, which made for a cold, sloppy MESS. I tried to stay on top of all my paper work today, but with a 2 hour training session before the bank opened, I didn't have my usual prep time. I guess that's life, we'll see what tomorrow brings.

Eats
banana
TB of PB
1/2 grapefruit
Nescafe Cappuccino w/milk @ training

PB thinsations

Applebee's (damn eating out!)
grilled Parmesan tilapia
about 2/3 cup of the rice
1 cup steamed veggies
garlic toast - yummm

Wendy's (Damnit all to hell!)
Large chili w/4 saltines

2 TB raw cookie dough
2 cooked cookies..lol

Activity: Walking a couple blocks to and from my car downtown for the training..

Not too bad in the grand scheme of things. Tomorrow I will:

1. Eat the lunch I pack
2. Exercise at least 30 minutes
3. Not let my work stress me out

My 1st day in the "real world"

Despite starting my morning off with a cranky customer, the rest of my day was pretty decent. I got to go out for lunch with my two managers, as well as the new summer student. I hated being called "the summer student," I wonder why I would pass that label on to another poor soul lol..My weigh in this morning was awesome, down 3.2 pounds for the week! Too bad it couldn't be like that every week...Anyway, here's what my day looked like on the food front:

Breakfast
1 cup kashi go lean cereal
1/2 grapefruit
Snack
apple
Lunch
chicken terriyaki rice bowl (Moxies)
Supper
1 cabbage roll
green beans
3/4 cup mashed potatoes
salad w/FF thousand island
tea w/creamo
Snack
thinsations or a cadbury thin

Activity: I'm going to brave the elliptical and if I don't last more than 20 minutes, I'll be on the treadmill too

Lazy Dayz

Didn't do much of anything today, just lazed around the house and enjoyed having absolutely nothing to do. Tomorrow is my first day being full time at the bank, how scary lol. This is forever now....

Here's today's menu

Breakfast
Life & milk
banana cream yogurt
Lunch
Gardennay broccoli soup
5 saltines
Nescafe Cappuccino
PB thinsations
Snack
Pudding
Supper
2 strips flank steak (4 oz.)
baked potato w/ TB of butter
green beans
teeny peice of angelfood w/lemon topping
tea w/creamo
Snack
maybe chocolate?

Activity: Getting on the elliptical or bike for about 1/2 an hour

Nothin' but Net!

Our activity for the day was a trip to one of the local playgrounds. We sent about an hour and a half playing basketball and swinging. I escaped the hoop-fest with only minimal scrapes and bruises :). I felt kind of flu-ish this afternoon, so I didn't eat a lot, but compensated for it later on in the day.

Breakfast
Nescafe Cappuccino
5 strawberries
slice of toast w/0.5 TB of PB and BM fruit spread
Lunch
small chili w/2 crackers
small frosty
Supper
chicken & veggie stir fry
steeped tea w/2 cream + sweetener
Snack
air popped popcorn w/becel spray
teddy grahams
pudding (maybe)

Activity: 90 minutes of basketball (lots of jumping lol) and swinging on the big kid swings.

I need a nap..

This is what I've wanted to do all day! I didn't sleep at all last night, probably shouldn't have had that tea so late at night. Alas, I made it through the day and now I'm contemplating whether I should have a nice relaxing bath before we watch a movie; I love Saturday nights. If my supper looks a little different than usual, it's because my Mom cooked a special meal for one of her friends' 90th birthday.

Breakfast

slice of toast w/half TB of PB

cappuccino w/splash of creamo

Lunch

banana cream yogurt

Smart Ones chicken rigatoni

Supper

3 slices flank steak (about 6 oz)

jello salad w/celery & onions

baked potato casserole 1/2 cup

2x2 piece of foccacia bread

angel food cake w/lemon whipped topping...yum

Activity: haha....

P.S: I'm going to try these new peanut butter thinsations tonight. They had shortbread ones too, but I held off on buying them..

And I ran...

I ran so far awaaaaaaay. Okay, probably only a km or two, but I ran! My new sneaks are great, they make me feel light and more importantly, they make me feel like I can run.

I think my main roadblock at this point isn't that I eat terribly, it's just that I don't move enough, so I'm going to make sure that I get out and do something everyday.

Here's my food for the day:

Breakfast

Life

milk

Random Eating/Lunch

tall NF white chocolate mocha w/whip

chocolate chunk cookie

3 chocolate foiled eggs

cadbury thin

2 pieces of toast w/1 TB of PB and BM spread

Supper

McDonald's snack wrap

fruit & yogurt parfait

carrots w/LF dip

Tim's 2+2 sweetener

okay, okay...a bit much today...I'll be the first to say it, but not the worst day ever. I got a couple pairs of capris from Old Navy, one 10 and one 12. The 12's are on the bigger side, but their khaki/cargo style, so I figured they should be loose...otherwise people would think, "eww, look at the pockets on her fat!" lol.

Activity: 30 Minutes running

Woot Woot!

What else can I say? I'm Done! 3 years of hard work, unbelievable stress, and many tears, I'm completely done. I don't think it has hit me just yet, but it will after I work a few weeks and realize that I'm NOT going back to school in the fall. I do plan on working toward my CFP (Certified Financial Planner) designation starting in January of next year, but that is purely discretionary; I don't have to.

My mortgage final went really well; it definitely wasn't worth slaving over my textbooks for hours on end. I must admit, I didn't have a fearless clue how to do one of the calculation questions, but I made something up, so I hope it gets me a pity mark at least. Other than that, we'll have to wait for the mark to come out! I think the B- in my sales class will be the worst of it, because I did fairly crappy on both exams. I can deal with that.

Eating today has been....okay..

I'll post a menu later. I can tell you that I did have a tall white chocolate mocha - non-fat - from Starbucks, but I counteracted the non-fattyness by getting a cookie and whipped cream. Oh well! I had a great visit with one of my friends and it was a good way to relax after a lot of hard work.

My days are numbered...

You see those things in the picture? They are called books, and I should have cracked a couple today. I did do some studying for my mortgage lending final tomorrow, but not enough. I really don't have an excuse for this, other than the fact that I have negative motivation and I only have 4 more days until I have to work for the rest of my natural life. That's right, Tuesday is the day that I get to kiss my cushy 20 hours a week goodbye and with that I will carry 40 hours a week, just like all the other grown-ups.

Today's Eats

Breakfast

Life Cereal

Nescafe Latte

Lunch

Smart Ones Santa Fe Rice & Beans

a cup or so of strawberries

Danone banana cream yogurt

Snack

3 foiled chocolate eggs

100 cal pack of Pringles

Supper

BBQ'd chicken breast

garden salad w/Hellmann's Asian silk

2/3 cup couscous

Snack

Tim's Steeped Tea 2+2 sweetner

Aero Single

Activity: 30 minutes on the exercise bike - 6.0km

New Shoes!

These are my new inspiration to run and transform myself into the buff bride that lies within. When I tried these shoes on in the store, I felt a difference from the shoes that I've been wearing on the treadmill - although I haven't been on the treadmill in quite a while - these shoes make me feel like a runner. Why you ask? Well, because they are running shoes; the ones that I had been wearing up til now were at least 10 years old and had very flat bottoms...not conducive to running.

I'm stoked about my new pink shoes. They look great and they were cheap because they came from the kids section! Ahh, cheers to having small feet. It's a good thing that my shoes only cost half as much as they normally would if they came from the women's wall, because I go through a pair every 6 months, sometimes more often.

Here is how my eating looked today:

B-Fast

Large Banana

1 Tablespoon LF PB

Snack

1 cup grapes

FF source yogurt - nectarine

Lunch

1 cup split pea & ham soup

4 saltines

1 piece of toast w/1/2 Tb of PB and jelly

Supper

hamburger patty (lean)

ciabatta bun - yum!

cheese slice

McCain LF fries - bout 20

Drinks

1 Nescafe Cappuccino

1 medium steeped tea 1+1 (Tim's)

Activity: Walked around the mall for about an hour, got a little warm :).

I'm Pissy

I thought I did such a good job on my take home exams and was looking forward to getting my marks back....boy was I wrong. I got 65% on my personal finance exam and 62% on my personal selling exam; this is so unlike me. I spent a lot of time on these damn things and put a TON of effort into them and got a craptastic mark. Grr.

So blech. I just needed to vent. I hate when I think that I did great on something and then find the opposite when the marks come in..

Price Check

Shop at Wal-Mart if you can. I looked for the Hellmann's dressing and Nescafe coffee and found the coffee to be over 2 dollars cheaper and the dressing was about 75 cents less. Now I feel even better about that coffee; at 43 cents a cup I can't go wrong!

I also picked up a box of the Nescafe instant Latte, I'll let you know what I think of it soon.

Product Review: Nescafe Cappuccino

Oh. My. God. I've been on a bit of a tea kick lately, but picked up some Nescafe Cappuccino on my last shopping trip. Usually instant coffee's aren't anything to write home about, but this one is another story; I think it's the best coffee I've ever had. It has a great flavour and lots of foam, which makes it feel like more of a treat. If you're watching your waistline, this little gem weighs in at only 60 calories (1 point) per serving! If you have a sweet tooth like I do, I recommend adding a pack of Splenda and maybe even a little splash of milk. A box of 8 individual packets is $5.49 at Sobeys, which sounded pretty pricey at first, but compared to a $5.00 drink at Starbucks or a $1.50 at Timmy's, this one is a steal of a deal.

Product Review: Hellmann's Salad Spritzers

I've been wanting to try one of these for the longest time and I finally came across a wide variety of them at Sobeys. I tried the Asian Silk flavour, and I must say that it was awesome! It was exactly what I was looking for; kind of dry and full of sesame flavour. It's only 15 calories for 10 sprays, which might be alright for those of us who aren't dressing hogs, but even if you are, it won't hurt to double the sprays! I definitely recommend this dressing; it's a nice change from my usual calorie-wise Italian. The spritzer variety is $3.49/bottle, but I think it would be a little cheaper to buy it in a regular bottle, if such a thing exists.

Back to Blogger

I've been MIA for a few days! I started working a few days ago and didn't stop until I ran out of things to do. I am now officially done all of my assignments, including the 30 page beast paper. It was extremely weird to wrap up the last paragraph on that one; hmph, I just finished the last assignment I will ever have to do. Now all I have left on the school front is a final exam next Friday for my Mortgage Lending class; sounds like a ball of fun eh?

I'm trying to dodge as much Easter candy as I can. My Mom did make a little basket for Calvin and I, which included only my favourite treats - in moderation - which was great. She did however, throw in a bag of Hershey's Eggies for each of us. Still having flash backs for the 2 pound bag of Mini Eggs a couple weeks ago, I decided to take both bags with me to work today. There. Now they can haunt my co-workers.

Have a Happy Easter! I've got a couple product reviews to post and then I'm off to the craft store.

Goals for Tomorrow

I've found that I have the most success when I set daily goals for myself, so here's what I'm aiming for:

1. At least 2 more pages on the beast
2. Stick to my 22 points + APs (Activity Points)
3. Get 30 minutes of exercise in
4. wrap up the time value of money assignment!

That list doesn't look too bad, but we'll see how I feel about it tomorrow :). I should also add that I just ordered the Bridget Jones movies from Columbia House and I got an awesome deal...can't wait to watch them..again.

Of course...

It would be just my luck to have my beloved printer run out of black ink while I'm printing my term papers. Oh well, off to Future Shop I go; I have no choice, I still have to print the beast lol.

I have made tons of progress over the last couple of days, I only have a few minor fixes to make on my take home tests and a few more pages to add to the beast. Only 10 more days to go before I'm done school forever, if I want to be. It's nice to think that any courses I take beyond this point are purely discretionary; who'd a thunk I'd ever see the day...

Anyhoo, off to buy ink. I have another movie review to post later tonight, stay tuned :).

Movie Review: North Country

Wow. That's a one word summary for this movie. Charlize Theron was great in this show, I really enjoyed it. I have a hard time staying awake when I watch movies, but I didn't bat an eyelash for two whole hours.

I'm not a super emotional person when it comes to movies, but this one really got to me. I knew before we rented North Country that it had to do with sexual harrassment, but I had no idea just how deep things would go.

I really felt for Josey (Charlize Theron's character), the poor girl had to work so hard just to get through life and be validated by her family. I always think that your family and friends will be the first ones to stand by you in a sitiuation like the one in the movie, but I was shoked to see that, that's not always the case.

I highly recommend that you see this movie if you haven't allready. It isn't even a new release, so it's cheaper to rent!

Movie Review: The Holiday

This movie wasn't exactly what I had expected. When I saw that two women traded lives for two weeks, I assumed that they traded spouses too. I was pleasantly surprised to find that both women (Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet), were newly single and looking to find themselves.

I really enjoyed this movie, it was fun and captivating. I won't ruin it for anyone who hasn't seen it yet, but I loved the little character twists with Jude Law and Kate Winslet; awesome! By the time the movie was over, I wanted to plan a trip to small town England; I just might. I wonder if this house swap deal really exists?

ohmygod...

For those of you that know me, I'm clumsy. Sometimes I lose my balance and fall over for no reason at all. Well, I fell a couple of days ago and this one resulted in a doozy of a bruise! I had to post this because I just couldn't believe how huge it is..it's gotta be at least a foot long.

In other news, I have been slacking on my blog, but I've been working on my term projects (for my last term EVER!), so I haven't had the energy for anything else. Okay, maybe that's not totally true. We did go shopping on Saturday after work and found some really cute do-it-yourself wedding invitations; They have a silver border and linker hearts on the top. I was pretty skeptical, but we did a test run once we got home and I think they look pretty sweet!

We watched a couple of movies this past week, I'm going to post movie reviews later :).