Churros!

Here they are. The first churros of the season at the first ballgame of the season. It was a little chilly, a little windy, and we didn't stay long but it makes me smile at the thought of many more ballgames this summer.

p.s. my leg are slimming back down! I never totally despaired because I always knew that even if my legs did get bigger the work I was doing was overall very good for my body and my heart. Now that they are going back down, though, I am a very happy girl.

Biggest Loser Blues

You know that place...where you've been working out for 3 weeks and losing weight (not just a pound, or a couple pounds, or even a few pounds, but several pounds) and then you go to put on a pair of jeans that you regularly wear and they are tight--almost uncomfortably tight? Yeah, I'm there.

I'm counting on this being a result of the millions of lunges and squats that I've been doing and that any day now I'll lose the fat that is now covering my growing muscles. In the meantime, it has become very difficult to continue to do good when the results are so mean.

Happy, Happy Earth Day

(pic courtesy of NASA)

I hope you are all enjoying a beautiful day and trying in some way to do something good for Mother Earth. Here is a fun little tip from me to help you reuse/recycle. Have you heard of The Freecycle Network? It is a fantastic little (well maybe not so little) network of people who want to give and get free things in an attempt to help us reuse rather than throw away. Go here to see if there is a group in your locality (I bet there is). It is free and fun and a very good thing. So far I've seen things from candy to sofas to clothes, to DVDs and it is all free.

Do Re Mi

If you've been reading my blog for awhile you know how much I love those videos that show hundreds of people freezing in Central Station New York or performing a musical in a mall food court. Most of these seem to have been done by a group called ImprovEverywhere, but I've got a new one for you only this one seems to have been done by a different group in Europe.

Britain's Got Talent

My mom called me from work earlier today telling me that I've got to get on YouTube and do a search for Susan Boyle. After getting over the shock that my mom not only knows about YouTube but also goes on the site, I did as she directed and found this lovely treat. (sorry can't Embed a per the shows request).

After watching the clip (you'd better be smiling from ear to ear by now), I've got two questions for you:

1. Have you ever seen Simon Cowell smile so much?

2. How many frequent flier miles does this guy have? This aired on Saturday in England and if I'm not mistaken American Idol airs on Mondays in L.A.

Biggest Loser

I Won!!! The first week anyway. I was so shocked by how much I had lost that I stepped on and off the scale 3 times before I believed it (we aren't talking about 16 pounds like they do on the show, but it was more than I hoped for). The prize for this week, as provided by me (we are each taking turns to provide the weekly prizes) was some lovely peach lip gloss.

Now that I've lost some pounds I feel that I am qualified to give some weight loss tips (according to Hollywood anyway--did you see Kim Kardashian (sp?) has an exercise video? how is she qualified to teach us how to work out?). Actually, I was watching a clip from the Today show featuring the weight loss tips of the super-skinny dancers from Dancing with the Stars and was thinking that I have way better tips.

Here are a couple of the dancer's tips:

1. Drink 1 Tablespoon of olive oil on an empty stomach every day. What? Gross! Does that help lube everything up so your food just slides on through?

3. Leg lifts while you are drying your hair.

What all of them failed to mention was how they spend hours and hours everyday doing high-intensity ballroom dancing.

Here is what I did last week:

1. Drank lots and lots of water.

2. Tried very hard to eat 5 fruits and vegetables every day.

3. Cut out snacks like potato chips completely.

4. Cut down all dessert items significantly (had 1 bowl of ice cream, 1 square of chocolate, and 2 bite sized candy bars spaced throughout the week).

5. 40 minutes of low-intensity cardio 5 times during the week.

6. No snacking after 8 pm.

Doing all that I still ate things like pizza, lasagna, and ribs (portion control) and lost pounds. This week the pressure is on. All of my sisters did really well at losing but not so well at working out and have committed themselves to working out this week. After last night's Easter dinner/Easter candy blitz I'm going to have to be very good for a couple of days.

Easter Candy

What are your favorite Easter candies?

Mine are:

photo from: boston.com

and:

photo from: candyaddict.com

I know you are completely disgusted by my love for Peeps, but there is nothing that can be done about so you'll just have to get over it.

Rainy Day Blues

It is raining today. Typically I love the rain--I even loved it in Ireland where it rained nearly every day (not an exaggeration). Today, though, it is making me tired. Making me want to curl up in bed with a good book. Making me want to sip hot chocolate and eat chocolate cake. None of these are things that I should be doing today.

In an attempt to pull myself out of this rain induced funk I searched other blogs for inspiration (only made me want to be in Paris or New York right now), I searched YouTube for inspiration (I miss The Vicar of Dibley and The Muppet Show), I searched my brain for inspiration (I've got nothing). All to no avail

So I am wondering what you turn to when you shouldn't be reading in bed, drinking hot chocolate, and eating chocolate cake. What are your favorite blogs that I might not know about. What should I be looking at on YouTube?

Black Bean Burgers

Made these black bean burgers last night. They were absolutely wonderful (can't wait for the one I'm saving for lunch). I'm trying to stock up on some good, filling vegetarian meal options (not cutting out meat entirely just trying to cut back significantly). Any suggestions?

Weekend Wrap Up

Things accomplished over the weekend:

1. Finished that book that I've been reading for 2 weeks.

2. Finished that baby blanket that I've been working on for 2 weeks.

3. Felt a burst of creativity and made these hats:

(Three hats will be heading your way Denise once I figure out how do make 1 smaller and 1 larger)

4. Had a very nice, relaxing, spiritually uplifting weekend.

Gearing Up

What does one do when one is about to enter a biggest loser weight loss contest? (Apart from affecting the dialogue of the Queen of England) One eats of course. And this is what one eats:

A deliciously, sinful (and so easy to make) s'more cookie bar (I'm not admitting to how many I have already eaten--but I will say that I resisted having one for breakfast, barely). Recipe found here. I used Symphony bars instead of Hersey (cause Hersey bars are just vile tasting). Watch the baking time. It says to bake for 30-35 minutes. I checked it at 30 minutes and thought it had browned just a bit too much--is that an altitude problem?

Confessions of a Future Resolution Breaker

I come before you today to tell you that I plan on breaking one of my resolutions. In fact, I plan on breaking this resolution 13 times over the next 3 months. Why? Because I have some winter weight to lose and a couple of my sister's have some baby weight to lose and so we are doing our own in-family Biggest Loser competition. This means that I will have to weigh in publicly (in front of my family--eek!) 13 times which pretty much obliterates my goal of not weighing myself this year. I however will only be weighing myself 13 times and not in between weigh ins to determine if or what I am losing so I kind of feel that I am still adhering to the spirit of the resolution (a little bit).

And now for a bit of unrelated business. That crazy woman you might have seen wandering through 2 Walmarts at 11 pm last night wearing hot-pink pleather slippers, baggy ill-fitting jeans, a baggy sweatshirt, no make-up, and crazy hair looking for 6 feet of yarn to finish up her baby blanket project might indeed have been me. In my defense I forgot I was wearing the slippers until I was half way to Walmart and decided I wouldn't go home and change since, after all, it is Walmart we are talking about. Neither store had the yarn--curse you Walmart!

Create

It would appear that my church is now on YouTube. I heard this announcement recently on the news or in the newspaper, but it seems that they have actually been there for since last August so I don't know why the announcement was only being made recently. Perhaps what was meant is that they are now creating some really great clips (not just the fun/thoughtful commercials that we know and love) on doctrinal topics. And by great clips I mean thoughtful, professional, and cool--as in not cheesy.

Here is one from Elder Uchtdorf that is a very good reminder for me right now (I used this quote in a lesson I taught recently and wish that I had known about this clip).

Dear April,

That was some nasty April Fool's joke I woke up to this morning and I think perhaps you didn't actually think through this one very well. Snow? This is not helpful to me right now. You see, I'm in a bit of a funk. I've been reading the same book for a week now (it only has 200 pages and something like that usually only takes me 3 days), I've been working on the same baby blanket for a week now (just when I thought I was done an unnamed niece snipped away a couple strands of my crochet work at the beginning ruining the entire thing and causing me to start over), and just generally I've been feeling frustrated and useless this week. So you see, when I woke up to snow this morning (even though I knew it was going to snow because the local weather man was wearing is white suit jacket last night--it's what he does when snow is forecasted for the next day) it felt like a cruel, cruel joke that had just gone to far.

I realize, April, that that was probably not your intention so I don't want you to feel too badly about it and that is actually why I am writing this letter to you. I was thinking that perhaps if you knew how I was feeling you could find it in your heart not to make it snow for the next three days. And if you could find that in your heart then just maybe you could also find it in your heart to bring on Spring. I'll even put up with your April showers if you will show me glimpses of budding trees and flowers.

Pretty please,

Yankee Girl