Sunday, December 31, 2017

Keeping Up With...Food (Meal Plan for Jan 1 - Jan 7)

It's a new year and I'm back to meal planning!  I took the whole month of December off and did a lot of non-cooking, leftovers and easy meals all month.  Plus we ate out a lot since we were on vacation for 10 days in the month.  It was nice to be a little more low key with cooking and planning but it was not nice to my waistline.  So we are buckling down, planning our meals and eating healthy with the hopes of losing some weight this year.

I got a new toy for Christmas and I am already in love!
Santa brought me the 8 quart instant pot and I have already cooked two things in it and loved every minute of it.  I can't wait to play with it even more this year and see what else I can make.  My first meal was Parmesan Risotto and it was super easy and super delicious.  I love risotto but it takes so much time and is very labor intensive so I never make it.  It will be on our menu more often now I'm sure.  I also tried to make homemade mac and cheese when the boys ran out of the boxed stuff.  It was quick and good, but the boys didn't like it because of the dijon mustard.  So I'll try a different recipe this week for them.
I'll continue to share my meal plan each week as well as reviewing some of the recipes from the week before.  I will also be trying at least one new instant pot recipe each week, at least for the first few months of the year.  And I'll continue to share my overnight oats recipes each week as well.  I'm excited to get back to being a little more organized and a lot more healthy!

Here's what we're eating this week:
Monday - Ribs & Saurkraut - traditional New Year's Day meal in our house, but I will be making them in my instant pot because I'm using any excuse to use this thing! 
Tuesday - Dinner at a friend's house - she's making spaghetti & I'm bringing a salad
Wednesday - Cauliflower, Potato & Corn Chowder with salads for the adults and Mac & Cheese in the instant pot for the boys
Thursday - Jambalaya - in the instant pot of course!
Friday - Parmesan Chicken and Green Beans
Saturday - Shrimp Scampi Tacos with Caesar Salad Slaw
Sunday - Chili - yup, you guessed it, in the instant pot

Water Flavor - Orange.  I still have a few free oranges from my mother in law so I'm hoping to use them up this week.

Overnight Oats - Since I haven't shopped in almost two weeks, I'm at the mercy of what I have.  I have some Greek yogurt and frozen milk so I'll be able to follow my normal recipe to make the base oats.  I'll add PB2 and chocolate chips to some and applesauce and cinnamon to some for an apple pie flavoring.  That will be enough to get me started until I get to the grocery store.  My friend posted one about PB2 and blueberries that I would love to try! 

OK, I may have gone a little overboard on instant pot recipes, but I'm so excited to use this thing!  And all of this sounds so great, I can't wait to make it.  We also are still on break most of this week so I will be out and about with the kids a lot of these days and I don't want to have to stress about dinner, yet I still want healthy meals.  Also, last year I was doing a "use it up" challenge and I will get back to that starting next week.  I'm honestly writing this and planning this week still in "lazy break" mode so I don't feel like checking to see what I need to use up, HA!

I wish you all a happy & healthy New Year!!  Thank you for reading about what's going on in my little corner of the world!!

 

Saturday, December 30, 2017

Keeping Up With...Goals (2018 Goals)

As this year draws to a close, I'm excited to look towards next year.  I had a pretty great year achieving most of my family/personal goals for the year.  My fitness year didn't go as planned but I'm looking forward and not back.  I need to do my final recaps for Nov/Dec monthly goals, but I'm waiting until the year is over to finish those posts.
As I look forward to 2018 I have been trying to decide what to do for my goals.  For 2016, I did 40 goals for the year and it was overwhelming and I felt a little all over the place.  In 2017, I did monthly goals and I was definitely more focused and achieved a lot more.  In 2018, I think I'm going to do a combination of both.  I decided to set 10 goals for the year with monthly goals towards those big goals.  I will update the goals each month and see how I need to change my focus and energy going forward. 
You will notice a theme for this year - I'm focusing on getting healthy and getting out of debt.  As I already said, my fitness goals didn't go as planned last year and I actually gained a good chunk of weight, mostly because I wasn't eating well.  This will be a huge focus for the year and will lead into the other goal because we are hoping to eat out as little as possible.  As far as finances, we had a lot of expenses in 2017 and while we didn't incur any new debt, we didn't pay off any outstanding debt so that is our goal for this year.  We also pretty much depleted our savings so we need to build that up again.  I won't go into specific monetary amounts on here, but I do want to at least vaguely talk about it so it keeps me accountable.  Thanks for understanding!
So here are my 10 goals for 2018 and what I'll do in Jan to start achieving them:
1. Lose 50 pounds
  • Meal plan each Sunday
  • Count calories every day starting Jan 2
  • Go to at least one class per week that I am not teaching
2. Read 20 books again
  • Finish 2 books ("Super Fudge" & "The Bell Jar")
  • Make progress on "Americanah" (40% on 12/30)
3. Watch 25 movies
  • Watch 3 movies
4. Go on 12 dates with Adrian
  • Text our sitter to set up Jan's date early next week
5. Pay off 1 credit card and my student loans
  • Sub at least twice each week
  • Help Adrian work at least 3 hours of OT each week
  • Spend as little as possible
6. Finish my CEUs for my YMCA certification
  • Attend one Zumba jam session 
  • Figure out how to upload all of the CEUs I already have
7. Clean out the house
  • Spend 20 minutes each weekend going thru our DVD collection (because it's everywhere!)
  • Moving to our loft (which has become a dumping ground for everything) when DVDs are done
8. Keep up an active blog
  • Meal plan posts every Sunday
  • Week in review posts every Friday
  • Monthly goal posts the last day of the month
9. Play more board games (12 family game nights)
  • Have one family board game night
10. Improve my classes
  • Attend one Zumba jam session
  • Change warm up/body weight sections for Silver Sneakers classes
I think this is a pretty well rounded list and really helps me focus on my two main goals for the year.  I have daily and weekly tasks to help me reach these goals as well.  Come back at the end of January to see how I'm doing!

Friday, December 29, 2017

Keeping up with...Family (Weekly Wrap 12/22 - 12/28)

Friday (12/22) Last day of school for two weeks!!  Everyone was super excited to get up and get moving today since they all had parties and special events at school.  AJ had a great time watching the spelling bee, a chorus concert and then having a party with his class.  Daniel had a "snowed in" day where they watched movies, played games and had snacks.  And Zak had a party in his class that Adrian and I were able to attend.  We had a fun time helping with the "make a reindeer" station and visiting with Zak and his friends.  Zak's favorite parts were the snacks and the fidget spinner that he got in his stocking.
We took Zak home with us after his party so he hung out with us for the rest of the day.  He played video games while we got a few things done around the house.  Before we knew it, it was time to pick up AJ after school and then Daniel.  After school,  their friend Keaton stopped by for about an hour to play while I caught up with his mom.  Then we all had dinner and a pretty relaxing night.  The elf left us a gingerbread house so we worked on that together as a family.  It did not go great, but we got it together so that's something.  The boys seemed to have fun once we got started, but it continues to be my least favorite Christmas tradition.  Maybe we'll skip it next year.  We put the kids to bed at their normal time because we're all exhausted after the week.  And Adrian and I wanted to at least get started on some wrapping tonight.  It's going to be a few late nights for us to get this all done! 
Saturday (12/23) Zak decided we should start our break at 5am.  Thankfully Adrian got up with him and I went back to sleep for hours.  It was glorious!  I got up and started doing a few things around the house while Adrian took the boys to Krispy Kreme to get us donuts for the next few mornings.  Then we spent most of the day baking, cooking and cleaning.  The boys helped us, played together and watched video games.  It was a very productive day and I feel great about where we are for Christmas prep!

After a quick dinner, we headed out on our annual Christmas light scavenger hunt.  Our elf left us a list today so we loaded up the car and started looking for the things on the list.  We went to a bunch of neighborhoods around here and saw a lot of great houses.  I feel like a lot more people decorated this year than they have the past few years, and we loved it!  We went to a few big displays in Gahanna, including one set to music.  And after about 90 minutes we had found all but one thing on the list - the Grinch!  So we enlisted some help on Facebook and found another neighborhood that had a display with the Grinch.  The boys were so excited to finish the whole list!
When we got home, we had a snack and watched the Toy Story Christmas special before putting the boys to bed.  They decided to stay up as late as possible so they will be tired tomorrow night and go straight to sleep for Santa.  This is a fine plan except that it means we have to wait longer to start wrapping our many presents tonight.  So we watched some of the Survivor finale until they fell asleep and then wrapped until we were nearly asleep ourselves.

Sunday (12/24) Merry Christmas Eve!!  We all slept in a little and then had a relaxing morning before getting ready to head to the 11am service at our church.  We had an amazing service with great music (including a TSO song & the BNL version of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen), informative sermon and a beautiful candle-lighting ceremony.  It was great to see so many friends there as well.  After that service, Adrian took the boys home and I stayed to volunteer in childcare for the 1pm service.

After church, we loaded up the car and headed to my brother's house for our traditional Christmas Eve dinner with them.  We found two different Grinch inflatables on our way out there which made us all laugh after last night.  We had an awesome time eating, drinking and relaxing with Carl, Sarah, Isabelle and Vinnie.  The boys got awesome gifts - light sabers, beyblades, R/C cars and the Despicable Me 3 movie.  Isabelle and Vinnie loved their gifts from us as well.  And we also opened our ornaments from my Aunt Sue.  I love our ornaments this year, they perfectly sum up our year!
After gifts and dessert, it was time to head home to get ready for tomorrow.  It had snowed while we were there so it made for a pretty, if a little slow, drive home.  We got home and sprinkled our lawn with reindeer food and set up milk and cookies for Santa.  The boys were eager to get to sleep so that Santa would come.  When they fell asleep, we finished up the wrapping and set everything up under the tree.  When we were done, we finished watching Survivor finale while enjoying some wine and a snack and then headed up to bed since we knew the boys would be up early in the morning.
 
Monday (12/25) Merry Christmas!!  We were pleasantly shocked that the boys slept until almost 8am.  Daniel and Zak were the first two up and we headed downstairs and waited about 30 minutes until AJ woke up as well.  As soon as he got up, we divided up the presents and got to work opening.  The boys loved everything they got, but they were most excited about their new Switch and fidget spinners.  We spent the day relaxing, playing games, playing video games, eating junk food and enjoying our time together.  We got to video chat with both my parents and Adrian's parents which was nice for all of us.  And we finished our night by watching "How the Grinch Stole Christmas."
Before bedtime, we all had to say our goodbyes to Doctor Donkey until next year.  I know most elves go back to the North Pole with Santa on Christmas Eve but this year Daniel made a special request that our elf stay thru Christmas Day so he could see us open our gifts.  We all thought this was a great idea so he got special permission to stay and fly home to the North Pole tonight.  Unfortunately this caused a little breakdown for Zak who realized that Christmas is over and there will be no more presents until next year (also possibly caused by being over-tired, over-stimulated & over-sugared).  He was so upset that Adrian had to sleep with him in the spare room to calm him down.  It seems like this happened once with each of the other boys as well, it must be this age. 

Tuesday (12/26) We all slept in a bit today but then I had to get up and moving right away to head to my Silver Sneakers class.  I had a great group, but I'm glad I only did one class.  After class, I came home and had a quick lunch and picked up Daniel and we went to see CoCo.  Unfortunately, it was sold out when we got there so we turned around and headed home.  We had a relaxing day of playing games, video games, eating and relaxing.  We put away all of our new things from yesterday and I set up my brand new instant pot.  I couldn't wait so I made risotto in it tonight for dinner and it was awesome!  I can't wait to cook more in it!  After dinner, we watched Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and then got the boys to bed.  Adrian and I finished cleaning up and then watched a few DVR shows before calling it a night as well.
Wednesday (12/27) Adrian had to go back to work today, but the rest of us were still off.  We all slept in and then had a very lazy day around the house.  The boys played a lot of Beyblades and Monopoly while I did a few things around the house.  Then I joined them in a few board games.  We were going to go downtown to see some of the Christmas stuff down there but it is super cold and Daniel has a really bad cough so we decided to skip that.  We enjoyed tacos for dinner and just relaxed for the night.  After we got the kids to bed, Adrian and I watched a few more things from our DVR and then headed to bed since we both need to work tomorrow.

Thursday (12/28) The boys and I had to get up and moving sooner than we have in almost a week today and it was a struggle.  But we managed to get up and out to my Silver Sneakers classes on time this morning.  After class we came home and were honestly super lazy.  The boys watched video games and I played games on my Kindle.  It was super relaxing and lazy, I think this is exactly what we needed this week.  Adrian worked late so we decided to change our plans for tonight and just stay home.  We hung out, played with the boys, watched TV and relaxed some more.  Adrian and I started catching up on "This is Us" tonight since we have 6 or 7 episodes to watch.  Such a good show! 

Friday, December 22, 2017

Keeping up with...Family (Weekly Wrap 12/15 - 12/21)

Friday (12/15) It's finally Friday!!  This has been a super long week with all of us feeling worn out and tired.  I've felt behind all week as well, it's so hard to come back from vacation.  But I'm hoping after this weekend, we feel caught up and in control again and we're all over our vacation hangover.  We got AJ up and out to school and when Adrian left for work, I went back to sleep for an hour.  I felt so much better after that!  I got the other boys to school and then came home and worked like crazy around the house.  I got all caught up on laundry, dishes and snuck some TV time to watch some recorded Real Housewives from vacation.

I picked everyone up from school and we had a very lazy night at home together.  We watched TV, played video games and ate a quick dinner.  Adrian and I ordered from Max and Erma's to support our church in a fundraiser for a mission trip to Haiti.  We put the boys to bed at their normal time in hopes that we will all get a good night of sleep.  Adrian and I finished up the night with some wine and some DVR shows.  We have so many to catch up on now!  We also did the boys favorite elf "prank" and toilet papered our Christmas tree.  Tomorrow night he will replace the toilet paper with candy canes for them.
Saturday (12/16) We changed our mind a bunch of times about what we were going to do today and after a not great night of sleep we woke up unsure of what we would do.  The one definite was a service project with AJ's Scout pack.  We went to visit a local senior care home and delivered cookies, cards and some Christmas cheer.  It was a nice morning with the seniors.  While I was there with the boys, Adrian went to his first coaches meeting of the season for Crossover basketball.  Even though the boys don't want to play this year, he still wants to volunteer his time as a coach.

After we did that, we decided to bag all of our other plans and stay home and try to get stuff done and get ready for Christmas.  Adrian and I took turns taking the boys out shopping for each other and for us and we managed to just about finish our shopping today.  I only need a few stocking stuffers which I'll pick up early next week.  We spent the rest of the day working around the house while the boys played video games, watched TV and worked on a giant puzzle.  We were pretty tired at the end of the day so after getting the boys to bed, we watched a few DVR shows and called it a night.  Will this vacation hang over ever end??

Sunday (12/17) We all slept in today and finally feel well rested after the past two weeks.  We had planned to go to first service for church, but we just didn't make it on time.  So we all headed to second service together where the boys celebrated Jesus' birthday while Adrian and I heard a sermon about how to be less stressed during the holiday season.  It was a great message as always!  Then we grabbed a few snacks in the car and headed up to Cabela's to see Santa.  Unfortunately when we got there, the line was over an hour wait and the boys did not want to do that (and honestly neither did Adrian or I).  So we walked around the store a little and then headed back home.
We got home and had a quick lunch and then went to work on finishing up our to do lists.  The boys all had a lot of homework to do this weekend so we made sure that was all done.  We also watched the Jets lose (again) and then watched the end of a few really great late games.  Adrian made us amazing ribs for dinner which we enjoyed with a salad.  The boys played some video games and played with their toys for most of the day.  We finished up the night watching the Cowboys game while I was working on our Christmas cards.  I made it just past halftime before heading to bed but Adrian stayed up to see the whole game.  I'm glad they were able to pull off a win and stay in the playoff hunt!

Monday (12/18) Last week of school before break!  I got everyone up and out on time to school and work before heading to the dealer to finally get the oil changed in my van.  I got a few things done while I was waiting and then ran a few errands when the van was done before heading into Zak's class to volunteer.  I finished up the evaluations I was doing with the kids and got to see Daniel at lunch too.  It was a fun morning in the school as always.

After volunteering, I came home and did a few things and then got ready to teach my Zumba class.  It was a small but might class and we had fun dancing to the students' favorite songs.  After class we ran home and got ready to head to Zak's Cub Scout Christmas party.  We enjoyed a lot of junk for dinner and had fun playing games, making gingerbread trees and making slime.  The boys want to do it again over break so I'll be picking up some glue for us this week.  We got home and were all sugared up and exhausted!  We got the boys to bed, finished cleaning up and watched a few shows on our DVR before heading to bed ourselves.
Tuesday (12/19) Today was a little harder to get everyone up and moving but we did it and everyone got to school and work on time.  After I got everyone where they needed to be, I headed to teach my two Silver Sneakers classes.  When class was over, I went to get a hair cut and finally went back to my short 'do, cutting off just over 10 inches.  I will be donating it as soon as I can get to the post office in the new year.  I'm super excited to have short hair again, I love it already!!

When my hair was done, I ran a few errands and then headed home to pick everyone up from school.  We loaded up the car and headed to Easton to finally see Santa!  We got there and they had about a 15 minute wait so we joined the virtual line (brilliant!) and headed to Cheryl's to get our free cookies from the boys' first quarter report cards.  By the time we were done eating one cookie, it was time to head back to the front of the Santa line.  The boys did a great job visiting with him and we got a great picture for our wall.

After our picture, we fought the traffic back home and had dinner with Dad.  The boys then helped Adrian set up our two new decorations that our elf brought yesterday.  And then we all enjoyed an ice cream party with the gift the elf brought today - ice cream, magic shell & a new ice cream scoop.  We watched Shrek the Halls while we were eating.  It was a fun family night!  After we got the boys to bed, Adrian and I cleaned up and then watched a DVR show.  We were so tired we didn't make it through the whole half hour before calling it a night!

Wednesday (12/20) Somehow Adrian and I both slept thru our alarms this morning so we were late getting moving.  Thankfully he was able to drive AJ to school on time while I got the other boys ready for school and out the door.  AJ had a read-a-thon at school today so he got to wear his pajamas to school and bring his pillow and blanket as well as books to read for the afternoon.  He read for just under two hours today & his 5th grade classmates raised just over $1,000 for water for South Sudan.  And Zak had an excited lunch - he lost a tooth while he was eating!  Unfortunately he actually lost it so he didn't haven't any tooth to bring home.  But I'm pretty sure the tooth fairy will still come.
While everyone was at school, I ran the rest of my errands and finished up my shopping for the next two weeks (hopefully!)  Then I came home and got a bunch of stuff done around the house.  I was supposed to sub in the afternoon but they didn't end up needing me so I got some extra stuff done around the house.  I picked the boys up at the end of the day and we all headed to the Y for my last Zumba class for the year.  It was another small but mighty class and we had a great time!

After class, we headed home and had dinner.  Then we finished up all of their projects for the week, whew!  And I worked on some of the teacher gifts.  It was a busy and productive night.  The boys decided to start a penny hockey tournament so I was able to keep working around the house.  Adrian was out all night at a happy hour for work and then his Bible study.  He came home just in time for bedtime, although he had to work from home after we got the boys in bed.  It was another early night for me, I'm just really wiped out this week.

Thursday (12/21) We are skating by but we are almost done this week and are ready for our winter break!  Everyone got up and out to school on time today and after I dropped everyone off I headed to teach my two Silver Sneakers classes.  My students surprised me with a very nice Christmas gift of a candle and a gift card to the local movie theater.  I am really touched that they did that for me.  We had two great classes and then I ran home to have a quick lunch before heading in to volunteer in Daniel's class for the afternoon.
Daniel's class was doing a few special activities this week instead of a holiday party so I went in to help them with an ice experiment and then an activity about snow.  We read an article, answered some questions and then made snowflakes together.  It was a lot of fun, I enjoyed being in there with Daniel and getting to know some of the kids in his class.  When the day was over we walked home and had a mini heart attack when AJ wasn't here.  Thankfully his bus showed up a few minutes later, they were just running very late.

After everyone was home, we did the few things that they boys needed to do for the night and then they just played and watched TV for the night.  I got dinner ready and then got ready to head to the church to work.  Adrian go stuck working very late, although thankfully he was able to come home and finish up from there so I could go to work too.  It was a bit of a hectic night but we made it work.  I finished up all of the teacher gifts so the boys can take them in tomorrow and got everything cleaned up and ready for our last day of school before break.  Once again I was exhausted so I headed to bed on the early side.