071. An Excess of Lazy

I've been having far, far too many lazy days recently. Last night I laid on the couch watching TV almost the entire day. While this is certainly okay every now and then, I was in seriously slacker mode last weekend as well. This is not okay.

Since I slacked off so much yesterday, I've got a ton of stuff to get done today.

So far I made it out for a 3.3 mile run, made and eaten breakfast, and taken Chris to work.

Before my run I ate a clementine to fuel myself up.

(See the painted nails, that was the one thing I managed to accomplish yesterday)

My run was miserable. I seriously need to get back into a routine with my running. I had to take several walking breaks in addition to the stop at my parent's house for a potty break. I clocked in at 47 minutes included my warm-up walk, cool-down walk, and my potty break. The run itself probably took 30 - 35 minutes.

After I got home I made egg scrambles and red potatoes for Chris and I.

My scramble included chopped red onion, spinach leaves, chopped broccoli, and some shredded Mexican blend cheese.

Here's what still needs to get done today.

• Shower
• Laundry
• Cleaning my house
• Blogs, blogs, blogs!
• Meal planning (I finished while writing this blog.)
• Grocery Shopping
• Go to PetCo for some stuff for Hermione
• Go to Kohl's (I have a 30% off coupon, and I pretty much always need new clothes.)
• Pick Chris up from work at 5.

There will be plenty of posts to come later including my dinner plans for my 7 Day Vegetarian Challenge which starts today!

068. 7 Day Vegetarian Challenge: Details, Goals, and my Thoughts Going into the Challenge

So, due to my case of the blahs and total lack of productivity over the weekend, I’ve decided to push back my 7 Day Vegetarian Challenge until next week. I want to give myself some time to reflect and prepare so that I don’t decide being a vegetarian sucks and bail on my ultimate goal of a 30 day challenge.

What? Starting Sunday (1/17), I’m going to go 1 week eating 100% vegetarian. For this particular challenge this means no meat – including fish. This 7 days challenge is a pre-cursor to a 30 day challenge I plan to do later this year.

Why? There are several reasons I wanted to do this challenge.


Initially, I was inspired by a few things Laura’s post about reducing her meat consumption and transitioning to a flexitarian diet. Caitlin's post eating ethically also got me thinking. The Vegan Week/ Blogger Vegan 4 a Day Challenge that took place back in November also piqued my interest though I wasn't read to tackle that challenge at the time.

I already knew about the cruelty a lot of animals endure when they’re being raised and slaughtered. I also had an idea of the negative impact the meat industry, and factory farming as a whole, has on the environment. However, I’ve justified this in my own mind a million different ways.

It was a complete coincidence that I read Skinny Bitch as I was decided to start my first veggie challenge; however, reading the book fueled my plan. It’s also motivated me to learn more and stop trying to justify the cruelty and negative impact on the environment that my eating meat has.

Where is this going? I don’t think I will ever become a full-fledged vegetarian, but who knows. Maybe after I do my 30 days, but I doubt it. I do have a few goals in mind for this mini challenge and my upcoming longer challenge.

• This will make my look at my meal plans for a week and make truly conscious decisions about what I'm eating since I'll need to make sure they're 100% meat free.


• Prove to myself (and others) that you don't need meat to be healthy and get enough protien


• Find more creative ways to incorporate fruits and vegetables in to my meals (rather than having meat with a side of veggies)


• Increase the number of vegetarian meals I eat weekly and decrease the amount of meat I'm eating.


• In eating less meat, I want to increase the quality of the meat I do eat (e.g. buying organic free range chicken rather than the giant bag of frozen chicken breast from Sam's Club.)


• Learn more about factory farming and it's impact on the environment.


• Find new and yummy recipes to add to my files.

Coming up...
Meal plans for my Challenge
New recipes I'm trying (complete with pictures and reviews)

062. Blogger Fail

I was a bad blogger this weekend. Yesterday was my planned work/ blogging day, but I had a serious case of the blahs so rather than be productive I called up my mom to go shopping/ run errands. I’m feeling much better today though. We’ll do a quick recap of my weekend. Unfortunately since I was in bad blogger mode, I don’t have photos for you.

Friday Evening
After work we headed out for a happy hour for my co-worker/ friend Lauren’s birthday. My plan was to have a beer or two and call it an early night. Things did not go quite as planned. Several Effen and cranberries and a few shots later, we were both pretty tipsy and getting on the El to go home around 10:00! Ooops!

Saturday
I woke up early Saturday morning because I had agreed to help my friend Jennie and John move into their new house. I also needed to get to the post office to pick up my copy of The Spark and (finally!) mail the care package to my friend Dan. The majority of my day was spent helping load and unload the truck and unpack things.

My tip for moving/ unpacking: Unpack the kitchen first. Having piles and piles of boxes staring you in the face begging to be unpacked is overwhelming, and it’s usually hard to decide where to even start. I’ve found the kitchen is always the best place to start.

Unpacking a kitchen is fairly straight forward. Most items are going to go in to cabinets or on the counter top. The only decision you really have to make is which specific cabinet. I’ve almost always used the same organization pattern in my kitchen, and it’s based on what I grew up with. This makes the “where to put it” decision easier. Plus, you’ll end up refining your kitchen organization as you use it.

Getting an entire room unpacked reduces the amount of boxes looking back at you and gives you a sense of accomplishment. I find this usually provides me with enough motivation to tackle something else. (Generally I go for the bedroom next and unpack clothes and my every day items.)

Having a functional kitchen is important if you want to be able to cook for yourself and eat. Since cooking and eating are some of my favorite things to do, the kitchen is definitely a priority for me.

Sunday
As I mentioned Sunday was shopping and running errands with my mom. The highlight of my day was purchasing a new dishwasher for my condo. I went with the Whirlpool DU1300 in white. The reviews I’ve read are all pretty positive saying it’s a good machine particularly for the price. It was delivered about an hour ago so I’m very excited to go home and wash my first load of dirty dishes!

(On a side note: Isn’t it kind of lame the things we get really excited about as we get older?)

I ate dinner at my parent’s house, and after I picked Chris up from work we watched Angels & Demons.

Angels & Demons quick review
Angels & Demons was pretty much what I expected. I went it expecting it to be similar to The Da Vinci Code in terms of direction and production. I was dead on. Overall, I felt the movie was slow moving, but was a good adaptation to the screen.

I did prefer The Da Vinci Code to Angels & Demons; however, I think it’s because I saw movie before I read the book. With Angels & Demons, I already knew all the “interesting stuff” about it so in some ways it was just a slow-moving movie.

In addition to being a bad blogger this weekend, I also failed at getting any work-outs in. I've taken about 6 rest days from Whittle My Middle this past week, but I'm ready to get my act together this week!

I'm also pushing back my 7 Day Vegetarian Challenge a week, but that post will come a little later.

057. 7 Day Vegetarian Challenge

One of the items on my 10 in 2010 is a 30 Day Vegetarian Challenge. However, before I take on a full month of going veggie, I want to do a week long test run.

So, next week I’m going to be doing my 7 Day Vegetarian Challenge. This week I’m going to be planning my meals for next week to make sure I’m 100% meat-free. (Also, I’ve been really terrible about meal planning lately, and I think this would be a great time/ way to get back into the habit.) I’ll be going shopping over the weekend so I can buy ingredients for the weeks meals (and because I want to get back into the habit of shopping weekly as well.)

Does anyone have suggestions of really great vegetarian meals I should try?

This is a precursor to the 30 day challenge I’ll be doing later in the year so the more Vegetarian-friendly recipes I can collect the better.

Hopefully my camera will be working (or replaced) by next week so I can fully document my challenge.

I’ve got a ton of posts in the works right now. So keep your eyes open for these upcoming posts…

• Preliminary thoughts/ reflections on my 7 Day Vegetarian Challenge
• Awesome Ideas for Applesauce (I’ve been working on this one for a while)
• Meal plans/ recipes for my 7 Day Vegetarian Challenge
• Book review of Skinny Bitch (which I randomly picked up and started reading this weekend)