Home Made!

I made some pasta last night for dinner. I came home from working on a Sunday afternoon to find Steve making homemade spaghetti sauce. Why not whip up some fresh pasta to go with the homemade sauce. I can tell you that fresh pasta is 100 times better tasting then the boxed stuff. 

It's hard to judge how much pasta my dough recipe would make.  I went from thinking we wouldn't have enough to far too much. The stuff expands like crazy! The rest will have to be bird food. Not exactly diet food but I did good the rest of the day. I had my last slice of wheat bread with PB for breakfast and veggie soup for lunch. I stayed around 1400 calories for the day. I need to get that lower and add in some extra cardio.

I have been keeping up with my daily planks. 1 minute bent arm, 1 minute straight arm. I lift weight after, which is 10 pounds hammers 10x's, 10 curls, 15 bent over rows and 15 tricep over head rows with a 15 pound weight. Easy to do to focus on my core and tone my arms. I decide to try adding this daily exercises two times a day, morning and afternoon/evening. I will eventually add back in my 1 minute side planks. Building back up slowly to what I use to do a year ago.

I have a plan to start indoor biking until my foot appointment on the 16th. It's a start to getting back to a more healthy me!

Trying to make positive changes!

 I've been trying to make some positive changes in 2019. It's been slow going. My first priority is to work on weight loss. It has not been easy. I need to lose at least 30 pounds by spring. I just need to go back to doing what worked when I lost a lot of weight 7+ years ago. Limit my calories, eat more veggies and exercise!

I ate a lot of salsa and rice to lose weight. Probably more salsa. I'm now making chili soup and eliminating the rice. Just loaded with veggies! Plus, I love the spice, which gives it the flavor I need to love eating it day after day for lunches. I'm trying to skip breakfast because I was just having PB on 1 slice of wheat bread. If I need a breakfast, I'll just cook up a scrambled egg. I also eat popcorn for snacks, but dinner always throws me off. I need to start pre-planning and cooking healthy foods to make sure I dont go off my diet at night. Also I need to stop drinking my apple ciders, or at least dilute them down with ice and drink only 1, not two. It's baby steps but in the right direction. 

I'm also adding back in my daily planks bent arm 1 minute, and straight arms 1 minute, plus, weights for my arms. I stopped doing this back in November of 2018 when Steve had his eye accident. I should have never stopped but I ended up with a right arm injury, pulled something and it hurt just to move. 

It's also tax season where I have to go through all my 2018 receipts for all three businesses. I wait till the year is over before touching them. I should do them quarterly, but I don't. It usually takes me a good month to get all our taxes ready for the accountant. This year I have a little extra to do since we owe back MN sales taxes for 2016, 2017. So I need to go thought every invoice and add that all up too. A lot of extra work! I have it figured out and hopefully it will go quicker then I expect. 

I took a before picture of our messy office with the red walls. This will be cleaned up and painted in January. I'm hoping Steve will get motivated to paint it and I'll do the clean up. It's been like this for 18 years and its time for a change! Brighten up the room and add a gray/blue color to the walls. The last of the walls in our house to be painted in the new colors! 

I'm loving my new cookie spritzer maker. I make cookies for my customers and this press is so much fun. I made these today. Easy butter cookies with almond. I can add chocolate or any other flavor to mix it up and have many different press type cookies to make. I  still want to try making cheese crackers with this press.

I want to start working out every day again. It's been the hardest for me to get re-motivated. My foot has been feeling better the last few days. I tried some electrodes on my left heal and it seems to be working and just wearing shoes with a cush insert has made huge improvement on my foot/heal pain.  I'm hoping that did the trick and my feet will stay feeling pain free. I don't want to risk it by going out running so I'll start in the gym and bike every day, starting with 30 minutes and going up to an hour once again. I'm still hoping it snows at least 3" so I can get back out and cross country ski. I've only skied 3 times this winter where we have had enough snow.

Happy New Year 2019

Steve and I rang in the New Year 2019 by going to Young Joni's for dinner. We shared mushroom in misu butter sauce and then split two pizza's so we'd have some to take home. 

We were lucky to get any reservation at this place. I called mid December and all we could get was the chef counter. Worked out fine because it was fun watching them cook all the food.

After dinner we checked out the secret speak easy in the back ally of the restaurant. It was a cozy hidden drinking spot, but far too expensive for drinks as they didn't even list the prices on the menu. We did find out happy hour at this hidden place you could get their cheese pizza for $6 dollars which is a super deal! We might just have to get a pizza and dash.

We celebrated the last birthday of the year, Tim's which is on the 26th but was delayed a few days. I made at his request a Red Velvet bunt cake with cream cheese  frosting and I made letters in chocolate. It turned out better then I expected. I used a cheater box cake but added in chocolate pudding to make it an extra moist cake. I pretty much copied Nothing but the Bunt cake, only I used all edible decorations on the cake from chocolate. 

Now to start fresh on the new year. Meaning diet to lose 30 pounds in the new year. Start exercising again. I stopped due to my heal/feet issues hurting all the time and not being able to walk when I was in a lot of pain. Back hurting all the time and elbow/shoulder issues. Time to get all that fixed and I'm taking steps to do that. Going to the chiropractor for my shoulder and back pain plus, seeing a doctor about my foot issues. Hoping to get all this figured out and then start running again. In the mean time, I'm starting back on my daily planks/weights. I use to do this daily but the last year, with Steve's eye injury I just never did much of anything. The weight crept back from the stress and the exercise with all my aches and pains when to the way side too. Not the right track at all.

My plan is to do my daily planks in the morning. Limit bread to once in awhile. Cut down on calories, staying around 500- 1500 per day. Start going to the gym and bike till my foot heals and then start running / biking in the spring or when the roads clear. Plus, cross country ski if we ever get enough snow this winter!!

It's a start and a plan to get back on track for 2019.
My other plans are to increase my business sales and build back up our savings which we relied on while Steve wasn't able to work last year. Travel is top priority too. I want to see the world or most of it. Time to start earning more so we can travel. I want to do more camping because I love the outdoors. Also look into more business ideas and try something new.

We also have house projects we/I want to complete. Finish up painting all our upstairs doors white. I started them and will be finishing them up this month. Paint the office, clean out the basement and finish that up this summer. Re-do our master bathroom shower/tile/vanity to update. We also will be working on our front yard. We have a few tree roots that are over the grass and we need to add black dirt and then sod over that area. Add rocks to the front area to get rid of the mulched area. The dog keeps getting dirty and we need to get that all cleaned up and easy to maintain.

Update on Steve's eye. Wednesday 1/2/19 he had the last 3 stitches removed from his cornea transplant. Next appointment in 1 month will be to get a contact lens with color matching to his other eye. Hopefully, he will be able to see more clearly as the eye heals and once the contact lense is adjusted for distance.

Happy New Year 2019!!!