Monthly Archives: July 2018

Blogging, Dogs, Humor, Writing

ISO something new

1 Comment

Life is really, really good for me right now. I have few legitimate complaints. I’ve got a solid marriage. Together we earn a steady, livable income. We are both in good health. I have a part time job that I truly enjoy. A church family. Loving relationships with our spawn. A good routine.

I feel, however, that I am in danger of becoming complacent. Too comfortable. Boring, even. I am craving something new in my life.

I started something new about a year and a half ago-blogging. I continue to enjoy it but suspect I have yet to reach my full potential. I feel that I ought to be bolder, edgier; take more risks with my writing. This feeling was reinforced by my realization this summer after sharing a couple of blog posts on my Facebook page, that my fears of family, friends and other random people I have friended on Facebook over the years reacting in horror and disgust do not seem to actually give any f*cks about what I’m posting. Actually, the few responses I got were pretty encouraging.

So there’s that. It’s time for me to take some risks on this blog. To you, my sweet readers who I am so totally thankful for, the risks I undertake with my writing may seem timid. Maybe you won’t even see them as risks. But I will. Because while the topics I will write about are not exactly fleshed out at this point (I like to think of myself as quite the planner, but not so much with my writing, if I’m being real), I will be embracing a quote I heard recently which I find to be quite awesome: “Growth does not come from a place of comfort”. What that means is that before I hit “publish” on a post I’ve penned,  I need to feel at least a teensy bit uncomfortable.

Okay, onto my diatribe about my craving for something new in my life. I’ve got a few thoughts rattling around in my brain about that. At the top of these thoughts is adding a new member to our household: a furry one. Hubs recently told me, and I think this time he really truly means it, that now is the time to start the dog-shopping process. We absolutely adore canines. We haven’t had a dog in our house since our beloved bichon, Homer, passed away in 2013. It has been long enough. We are ready.

However, I do have other ideas about ushering in something new into my life. Maybe I ought to make a list of these ideas of things I want to do, things that are foreign to me now.

Here goes nothing:

Learn to speak Spanish. Those “Babbel” commercials have got my attention these days. Though it bugs me that this company chooses to spell their name incorrectly. It’s “Babble”, people!

Start writing a comedy show for Netflix about our alter egos, Rita and Max. They would be the interesting, somewhat wacky empty-nester couple who are always up to some type of shenanigans. Netflix does appear pretty open about producing new shows at this point in time right? Trying my hand at fiction would most certainly be a new endeavor for me.

Volunteer with the democratic party in Colorado, specifically to get people registered to vote. Then I can at least look back on this period of my life and know that I did my part to get our country’s people’s heads out of their asses and engaged in politics. 

The dog is going to be the first priority, however. First things first.

Stay tuned….

 

 

Cooking, Health and Nutrition, Humor, Inspire, Summer vacay

Food, how I love Thee

8 Comments

 

20180618_181017 (1)

What you see above is a picture of a supper I made a couple of weeks ago. Hang with me here, and I’ll share the oh-so-simple recipe at the end of this post.

For lack of a better term, I am a die-hard “foodie”. I understand that one should not “live to eat”, but rather “eat to live”. Intellectually, I know that is the healthiest way to think about food. In spite of this, however, I lean towards the latter and not the former.

A few years back, I made a decision to adopt healthier eating habits. My weight had grown to an unacceptable level in my view and I believed it was time to make some serious changes in my daily diet.

So after reading a few dieting books, I decided to go low carb. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. I found myself mostly missing bread and baked goods, but not much else. I kept a daily food diary, which I think was the best tool I could have employed for this endeavor. I ended up losing 23 lbs over the course of about 5-6 months. I felt great about myself. I got myself down one pants size. People noticed.

However…I slowly but surely started to slip back into my old ways, enjoying bread on a semi-regular basis and increasing my consumption of chocolate. About a month ago, I told myself that while I’d managed to gain approximately half of the weight I’d lost, I was not continuing to gain even more weight. I was not gaining but “maintaining”.

Oh, the things I tell myself to justify poor nutritional choices.

I will at some point, in the not so distant future, purchase myself a brand spanking new notebook in which I will document my daily food intake. After of course I  recover those tried and true low carb recipes I collected back in the day when I was uber motivated to shed the weight.

Hubs and I recently returned from our epic summer road trip to visit family in Minnesota and Wisconsin.  I made the conscious decision to wholeheartedly embrace the “live to eat” method. The “YOLO” diet, if you will. Justified by the fact that I was on vacation. 

My vacay diet consisted of the following: cheeseburgers and french fries. Ice cream treats. Potato chips. Lots of those. Candy. Cinnamon rolls. Cookies. Pancakes. Banana cream pie.  I basically ate like the 10 year old version of myself in the lazy days of summer. And I have no regrets. Though to be honest, I am a good 6 lbs. heavier now as a result of this “no holds barred” foodie fest.  I am verging on the precipice of having to purchase pants in a larger size at this point.

I refuse to purchase larger pants. Even if they are purchased for a pittance at my favorite thrift store. Even if they are far more comfortable and don’t leave red indentations in my mid-section after taking them off. Not. Gonna. Do. It.

Luckily, the recipe for the supper I photographed for your hungry eyes is indeed both low carb and highly delicious. Here it is:

4 chicken breasts

Store-bought pesto (or homemade, if you happen to grow your own basil as I do)

Chopped garlic

Fresh mushrooms

Fresh tomato

Shredded mozzarella

Brown Rice ( I highly recommend Success Rice. Easy-peasy, trust me)

Using a mallet (and some pent up anger), pound chicken breasts between a couple of pieces of parchment paper. Sprinkle the breasts with salt and pepper to your liking.

Heat up some olive oil in a large skillet, then add some chopped up garlic and fry that up a little. Then add the chicken breasts. If it doesn’t appear to be cooking quickly enough, throw in a bit of water and cover the pan for a bit.

In a separate pan, heat up some olive oil and add the mushrooms. Once those are cooked up nicely, add them to the skillet with the chicken in it. Once the chicken is almost done, slather some of that delicious pesto on top of the breasts. Heat that up a bit, then sprinkle as much mozzarella on as you like. Slice up a tomato and put it on top. Cover the pan and heat it up a little more.

I’m going to assume you knew to make the brown rice in between all these steps.

Then simply plop your rice onto plates, and place a chicken breast onto that and chow down.

Enjoy, folks!

Fun, Joy, Laughter, Music, Summer vacay, Travel

Pondering my playlists

3 Comments

I’ve mentioned in at least one previous post that, inspired by a different sort of self-help book entitled “Soul Song Playlist”, I started to create my own soul-soothing, uplifting, personal playlist. What I’ve discovered along the way is that this playlist is a work in progress. For me, it isn’t something I could just put together in one fell swoop.

I’ve added songs that I later removed, because they didn’t speak to me on a soul level like I presumed they would (“Let it Go” from the animated movie Frozen is a prime example) when I initially chose them. I’ve heard songs while driving that jumped out at me as the perfect additions to this very personal playlist of mine. I think I will continue adding and subtracting songs over the course of a good long time.

That said, I found myself last week itching to hear full cd’s of my favorite artists. The ones I cherish the most, to give myself a needed break from the overthinking I’d been doing with creating my soul song playlist. I listened to my very favorite cd of all time, Raising Sand, with Robert Plant and Allison Kraus. I listened to Alanis Morissette’s “The Collection” cd. So many rocking tunes on that one with very thoughtful, purposeful lyrics. And I listened to Sheryl Crowe’s “C’mon, C’mon” cd, which is one of those that I thoroughly enjoy singing along with. Raising Sand is not one I sing along with, for the record, because the sheer beauty of the songs on this cd compel me to simply listen. Few cd’s are like that for me.

That brings me to the new playlist I’m going to start creating this week, in preparation for our big summer road trip to visit family in both Minnesota and Wisconsin. Hubs and I will be strapped in for two full days so I figure a rocking playlist is in order. We can listen to it as we wish, interspersing it with catching up on national and world news on NPR and various podcasts.

The genre of our road trip playlist is primarily classic rock. With a few summery  pop hits added in to enhance our freewheeling, relaxed summer vacation attitudes.

Here’s a few songs that are going to be “musts” on this epic summer road trip playlist.

maxresdefault
A depiction of Hubs and I on our epic summer road trip
  • “2 out of 3 Ain’t Bad”, by Meatloaf (I feel I should know his real name, being kind of a music trivia buff. But more importantly, how did he acquire the name “Meatloaf”?)
  • “Walkin’ on the Sun”, by Smash Mouth (interestingly, at least to me anyway, was that this is the band Hubs named recently when I asked him what band he most wants to see live before he croaks. Didn’t see that one coming.)
  • “American Pie”, by Don McClean. A classic sing along song we always turn up when it comes on the radio. Doesn’t every American, at least over the age of 40, do the same thing?
  • “We’re Not Gonna Take It”, by Twisted Sister. A classic song of rebellion that begs to be sung out loud with righteous indignation, which is wholly appropriate in our current political climate.
  • “Layla”, by Derek and the Dominoes (for me, never the one put out by Eric Clapton years later…it’s just not the same, man).
  • “Margaritaville”, by Jimmy Buffett. A carefree summer driving sing-along classic.
  • “We Built This City”, by Starship. I know that many, perhaps most, people hate this song with a passion. But for Hubs and I, it’s a rollicking tune that reminds us of our younger days.
  • “You’re my Best Friend”, by Queen. Hubs is my best friend and I am his. I used to think it was sappy and unoriginal to proclaim this. But over time I have come to realize that it’s the simple truth. Me and my best friend are bound to have ourselves a great time on this road trip of ours. And now we will have a soundtrack that will set the tone.

images (3)