Daily photos 1.28-1.30 and weekend update

1.28 Night Market at the Nashville Farmer's Market.

Where else can you find gems like this?


We ate Nachos from  the Mexican Restaurant inside the Market House. I know nachos don't exactly scream Farmer's Market, but the Hubbin had a craving.



And then he had a craving for a cupcake. And later, a piece of peanut pie.




Needless to say, he doesn't complain when I ask him to go to the Farmer's market with me.

1.30 Oh, Saturday held such promise at first. I went on a nice walk with Meredith. That's where I snapped these photos.



It all went rapidly downhill after that. I don't want to get to into detail and dwell, so here's the short version: I need to trade in my car. Soon. It's a piece of crap. As for why I ended up with it and how upside-down I am on it, if I tell ya that story I'll get mad all over again, when I really need to be in forgiveness mode. Anyway, let's just say we found a car we were very interested in, but it was an hour and 15 minutes away. We called the dealership, told them we already had the financing in hand (which we do - they didn't even have to worry about financing us), and we asked if the price was negotiable. They said yes. We told them the numbers we were looking for, including the amount we needed for trade-in (which still leaves me upside down on the vehicle, BUT it was not an outrageous amount we asked for, it was an amount we had been offered for it at another dealership and very much in keeping with the BlueBook value). They called us back and told us it was very doable and they should be able to get us very close to the numbers we wanted, if not exactly. The Bipster said he'd go down there Monday (today) to see about it. But no, they kept calling us and calling us, wanting to get the deal done that day. So even though Josh had other things he needed to be doing, we drove down there. And you know what? Not only did they not come ANYWHERE CLOSE to the numbers we had talked about, they also refused to change the price of the vehicle. They would not go down even one dollar. I mean seriously??? And they offered waaaay less on my vehicle than the previous dealership we had been at did. I have never seen such uncooperative people in my life. And then when we left they didn't even apologize for anything... they were just like "See ya!" OMG, we were fuming. So we basically wasted a whole beautiful (65 degrees!) sunny day when we could have actually done something fun and not frustrating.

1.29 car wash


I think I'm just going to hang onto my current hunk o' junk until I pay it down more, even though a newer vehicle would save us about $100 per month in payments and insurance. I'm literally pissing money away on this thing.

Anyway, we looked at a couple more vehicles elsewhere, but found nothing we really wanted, and then I went home and promptly got a headache which was still hanging around on Sunday. After a nap on Sunday, I felt some better and went to the grocery store. When I got home, Josh asked me to come in the office, where there was an overpowering gas odor. Great. Think that explains my headache? So we called the gas company, who came out and confirmed we had a leak. However, they couldn't fix it because it's not one of their lines, it is part of the HVAC itself. Grrr! Thankfully, we had two large electric heaters in the garage to bring in and keep us toasty last night, and hopefully the problem will be fixed today.

The highlight of a somewhat-disappointing weekend was last night's dinner.

1.30 Weight Watcher's shrimp sandwiches:



So good that the Bipster ate two of them, AND claimed the leftovers for himself. He has no mercy!

Looking forward to tonight's dinner, too. And no more thinking about or dealing with car salespeople for a looong while!

How am I doing?

Since it's the last day of January, I thought it would be fun to look back on my resolutions the things I wanted to accomplish in 2011 and see how I am doing with them, one month in. I just copied/pasted the text from that blog below, my updates are in bold type.

1. Cook more - I love to cook, but usually by the time I get home, I'm so damn tired I don't even want to think about it. I am cooking like crazy, thanks to WW! We eat maybe a day or two of leftovers a week, but I cook nearly every night. Which is where #2 comes in:


2. Meal Planning - every week I will make a plan of meals for the next week and then.... This is something I look forward to all week - planning my meals for the next! I have been doing great with this, no problem.

3. Go to the grocery store every weekend - often times we buy/spend too much and try to stretch it out for as long as we can, but we end up running out of key ingredients. I think shopping weekly is going to be much better for us.Doing great on this, too. I go to the Grocery store usually every Sunday. (sometimes Saturday, but usually Sunday.) As long as we...

4. Keep it at or under $75/week. This is totally doable. I don't want to disclose exactly how much we spend per month on groceries right now, but it's way more than we should. Eh... not so good at this. I can keep it under $100, no problem. Yesterday's grocery total was only $66, I think, but I haven't been able to consistently keep it under $75. Which means I also need to get better at...

5. Clipping coupons! Sure, I can clip them, but coupons offered are not really for things we need. I usually only shop the edges of the store now - produce, meat and dairy. When's the last time you saw a coupon for 50 cents off of a butternut squash? So far I am only finding coupons useful for non-food items.



Other things I want to do:

6. Hit the gym more, even if it's after work, and find what works best for me. I like doing weights, I see a difference in my body when I do them, but Josh is very big into cardio and kind of pushes that on me. Both are needed, but his body is completely different from mine and I need to listen to my own body and see what it responds to best. I have yet to go to the gym this year, although I did take a nice long walk over the weekend. Definitely need to step up the exercise!

7. Spend more time doing things with my husband - he gets lost in studying and I tend to get lost in my own world, so we need to make a bigger effort to have some adventures together. I see more picnics in our future. We're doing ok with this. Always room for improvement, but I'm not nearly as neglected as I was last semester. Cooking together every night helps, too.

8. Expand my garden and landscape in the spring. It's not spring yet, though it was 65 degrees on Saturday!

9. Watch 1.5 movies a month, or one movie every 3 weeks. The Bipster looooooves to watch movies. I don't. It's hard for me to focus on any one thing that long (and movies just seem to be longer and longer these days), and if I'm going to waste two or more hours of my life, I'd rather read a book or take a nap. But this is important to him, so I am going to make the effort. Have done one so far, it's about time for another.

10. Pick two house projects at the beginning of every month and complete them. They don't have to be big, complicated tasks. For instance, in January I want to clean out all of our closets and rearrange our bedroom furniture. Upcoming projects will include adding more shelving in the library and getting some prints framed and on the walls. Didn't do the projects we picked, or any at all for that matter. I hope we'll do better on this next month.

11. Host a "Mad Men"-inspired cocktail party before spring. I think it will be just the thing to snap everyone out of their winter doldrums. Plus, who doesn't love finger foods and drinks?? Still hoping to do this around March.

12. Go to the Farmer's Market at least 2x a month and be more creative with cooking local, seasonal ingredients. I go to the Farmer's Market usually every week. Not much is in season right now, so I am sure this will come into play more when the warmer months roll around.

13. Get a haircut and color ASAP!! Done!

14. Buy a camera and a new iphone! I found out I won't be getting a tex return this year (cue sobbing), but I'll see what I can do. I don't want to tap into our savings account at all, though.

15. Grow spiritually. I am not an organized-religion person, but whether you are or not we all have improvements to make to better us as people. I think that all starts with your spirituality, but that's just my opinion. YMMV. I need to work on not letting the mistakes I've made define who I am. I know my heart and my true intentions. So does God. I know who I am, and I am not a bad person - not by a long shot. I've done some stupid things, but I truly have learned from my mistakes, and I've been making good decisions much longer than I've ever made bad ones. If anyone else wants to define me by my imperfections, perhaps they should take a look at their own first. But I'm going to stop beating myself up. This is going to be a hard one, but I know I can do it. This will always be a work in progress, and I am working on it!



And I still have my goals from 2010 to improve on. They were:

1. Bringing reusable bags everywhere when I shop/buy groceries - Doing much better on this! about 75% of the time I remember my bags when I got to the grocery store, and I always bring one to the Farmer's market.

2. Learn to accessorize, while still managing to look like myself and not like a jewelry party threw up on me. It's a really fine line and I'm not sure how to walk it. I wore two necklaces last week to work. Does that count?

image via we heart it

Daily Photos - 1.26-1.28

1.26 - Nashville Winter:


1.27 - Pink Sunset:


1.28 - Horrible News:


Coach Fisher is one of my TV boyfriends and I am going to miss seeing him all ticked off on the sidelines. :(

Tonight I have a hot date at the "Night Market" at Nashville Farmer's Market. It was so much fun last time, I am really looking forward to it again.

The weekend/ grilled cheese date

I had a 4-day weekend and it was wonderful. I took a couple of days off so that I could get around to some things that were long overdue: changing my name with Social Security, the DMV, the bank, the credit card companies, oh, and I opened a Christmas bank account, too. I love when you get a bunch of stuff like that crossed off of your list.


We also test drove the type of car we are thinking about getting next (Nissan Cube), spent a lot of quality time together, AND we got to spend time on Sunday with a bunch of his family from Michigan that I had not met yet. We thought they were coming last week, and were kind of perplexed when we didn't hear from them, but it turns out it was this weekend that they were in TN. In any case, it was wonderful to meet them, and the time we spent with them was just so happy and full of love that the Bipster and I both left with happy tears in our eyes. It was just good.

On Saturday, we had a GLORIOUS lunch date at the Grilled Cheeserie, which is a food truck that is in a different location everyday serving lunch, and they specialize in alllll different kinds of grilled cheese sandwiches.



Menu:


Waiting in line:




My hubbin, the Unabomber:


I'm not going to lie... I pigged out (and still managed to lose 1.2 lbs this week) and it was worth every delicious bite. The Bipster had the "Breakfast", which was an egg, bacon and smoked cheddar grilled sandwich. I had buttermilk cheddar on wheat and roasted tomato soup:


For dessert we split a salted caramel pudding, AND a nutella/banana/homemade coconut marshamallow on brioche melt. It was impssible to get a good picture of the latter, but trust me it was amazing.





And I washed it all down with a Yoo-Hoo.


I cannot say enough about how wonderful it all was, and I can't wait to eat there again!

This is what a girl who had a happy weekend looks like:

Daily photos 1.22.11-1.25.11

East Nashville, 1.22:


Hubbin and his PawPaw's guitar (1958 Gibson J45), 1.22:


Test Drive, 1.22:


Julio, 1.23


Leftovers, 1.24:


Cuddler, 1.25:

Yay, Weight Watchers!! (week 3)

This morning was my 3rd weigh-in, and I am down about 6 pounds since I started WW, and down a total of 8 lbs since the holidays.

Today is the first day I've really seen the change in my body, and I love it.


My face is thinner, as are my arms, and of course my stomach shows the most improvement (hallelujah)! I am 11 pounds from my goal!

And in 3 weeks of cooking WW meals, we just encountered our first yucky one last night. Chicken Paprika. I guess it's good if you like caraway seeds, but we definitely found that we do not, and this was in no way reminiscent of my mom's Chicken Paprika, or any Chicken Paprika I've ever encountered. So to say the least, it was quite disappointing.

Yuck.

I am sure tonight's dinner (Shrimp and Goat Cheese sandwiches) will be just fine. And I've already got ideas brewin' for next week's menu.

Also, I think my husband is the only person who has GAINED weight eating so much WW food (of course, he eats triple portions and washes it down with gallons of chocolate milk).

Mmmm, food!

Last night was one of the best WW dinners so far - definitely one we'll repeat often.

First up, chili-lime glazed broiled shrimp (except I was out of limes so I used lemons). It's basically shrimp tossed in garlic, chiles en adobo, salt, lime juice & zest.



On the side we had "Warm Chile Spiced Edamame". Oh my heavens. First, we boiled the edamame according to the package directions, then popped it in a skillet for a minute with some canola oil, chipotle chile powder,cayenne pepper, black pepper and salt.




Absolutely full of flavor and delicious!! However, I am so used now to not having salt, that the 1 tsp that was in it felt like too much to me. Next time I'll halve that amount.

I chose to keep it separated:



But the Bipster mixed it all together.


Either way, it was delicious. And speaking of delicious, I have finally finished browsing my newest WW cookbook (and marked something on just about every page that I want to cook!)... how wonderful does this look? The Bip wouldn't be caught dead eating it, but that's alright... just means more for me!

daily photo 1.21.11

(though technically I took this yesterday and already posted a photo for yesterday)



I love my house.

Daily photo 1.20.11

I haven't had coffee in 2 weeks. Today, I opted to cut 4 points out of my lunch and instead spend those points on a lovely little mocha from McDonald's. I'll probably only drink half, since I am already feeling it, but gosh it tastes good!!!

Daily photo for 1.19.11

My little yin and yang.

New Hairs and other good news!

I don't know how I have totally forgotten to mention until now that I got "new hairs" over the weekend. I was way overdue for a cut (my last one was in July - yikes!), and the grays were getting to be too much. It was time to say farewell to my real, untouched color (I used to color it previously, but had not touched it since 2004 and it took a damn long time to grow out completely - like 2 years)!

This was me right before I left for my appointment:


This was me right after I left the salon:


Holy wowza! It's a lighter & brighter red than I intended (I was hoping for more auburn, but I was scared to send her a picture of the exact color I wanted because what if she went too dark and I ended up with that awful purplish/maroon red?), but I really do love it. It's a good change. I even had her cut me a very little bit of a long swoopy bang:


I love it, and it looks so cute in a ponytail now, thanks to all the face-framing layers that hang out. I think next time I will even go for a heavier bang. No telling how long I will keep this red color, but I do plan to go for more of a chocolate brown with red undertones next time I want a color change.

My other good news is that despite Mother Nature working against me, I did have a loss when I did my weekly weigh-in this morning! It was only half a pound, but it showed me a number on my scale I hadn't seen in a very long time!

I've been cookin'!

I promise someday I'll stop gabbing about Weight Watchers... About 13 pounds from now.

Ok, ok...maybe 11 pounds from now. Believe me, I'd rather be blogging about house projects and vacations and parties and those kinds of things (come on, spring!)... Hopefully soon. All I want for Valentine's Day is a damn trip to IKEA. Seriously.

In the meantime, WW is obviously a huge part of my life. I just got a new WW cookbook on Friday, so it was fun to do most of my meal planning this week from that. One thing that I really have a hard time with is not being able to gulp down chocolate milk with abandon. Don't get me wrong, I love water. I gave up soda at age 10 (water just tasted better to me), and I am so glad I did or I might have a lot more than 10-15 lbs to lose at this point in my life. However, I do enjoy a root beer from time to time or chocolate milk, or even a little juice with my weekend breakfasts. But with WW, it's all water, all the time (I don't "do" Crystal Light or any of that other crap). So I was thrilled to find this recipe on the VERY LAST PAGE of my new WW cookbook. It's kind of a smoothie and here's the recipe (it's 2 WW points):
1/4 banana
1/4 c. ice
1/4 c. nonfat choc milk
1/4 c. fat free vanilla yogurt

Blend it altogether and bam:


Absolutely my new favorite thing.

Yesterday was a bit of a cooking frenzy. I love those kind of days. I made pulled pork BBQ sandwiches in the crock pot for dinner:

(sorry I didn't take a pre-eaten photo)

Then I made individual pineapple/candied ginger upside down cakes.

In progress:


Out of the oven:


Ta-daa!:


I only had a bite, but they were good. The Bipster likes the cake part, but not the fruit. Go figure. He hates raw vegetables, but likes them cooked. He likes fruit raw, but not cooked. The boy makes my head spin.

I also got a head start on what will be tonight's dinner. It's chicken marinated in pineapple, jalapeno, ginger, shallots, soy sauce, honey, and lime juice:


And last but not least I made a 1 point veggie soup. My goal is to eat it in the afternoons, about 2:30-3:00 when I start getting hungry and cranky.


Tomorrow is my week two weigh-in. I don't think I will see any loss due to -*ahem*- Mother Nature. As long as I don't have a gain I will be happy.

At this point I'm still enjoying it (except for the afternoon hungry/grumpy thing), and really loving the meal planning part especially. I love to cook and I get very excited deciding what I am going to make each week - not only does it taste good, but it's good for me. This plan is a very good fit for my life (since I like cooking and planning), and I hope as this continues that the recipes I am making now will become a permanent fixure in my life. You know how you always have 5-10 recipes that are your 'regulars' that you fall back on? I am hoping these become my 'regulars'.

The winker.

I gotta get back on the daily photo train, I know. But lately all I am taking pictures of is food. Weight Watchers is consuming me (or should I say I'm consuming it?)

Anyway, this is my favorite photo from the weekend... Love Julio's little wink!