meat-free/man-free wk 3

January 30, 2011

My attempts at complete meat free have been foiled by the Pioneer Woman. While I was on a straight and narrow path she posted this recipe for Shrimp Pico de Gallo. Which reminded me of the Shrimp Ceviche we had in Galveston for our anniversary. But you woulndn't count shrimp as meat would you? Me neither, at least not this week. So without further hesitation I will give you my meatish-free meal plan for the week. 


Breakfast:
Whole wheat toast with honey nut cream cheese/ or hummus. (depends on the day)


Snacks:
Morning-The 1 leftover Kashi bar I have and apples w/ caramel. (which are only 70 cal yay)
Afternoon- Banana


Lunch:
guacamole w/ baked whole wheat pita chips
greek yogurt
Kombucha


Dinner:
I am going to blend these 2 recipes- Shrimp de Gallo & Avocado Shrimp Ceviche
Garden Vegetable Soup

Either way I am eating a lot healthier than I do with Jeremy around. Even if I am wanting shrimp this week. 


Oh and do you know that if the only meat you have had in 2 weeks was a chicken tender last Friday that eating a big honking steak, fried onions, roasted potatoes, and a massive salad for you Pop's Birthday will make you sick? I totally should have toned it down. But those fried onions kept calling my name. I'll post more on it later. Until then I am going to cap off my meat-weekend (cause the man is around) with some pecan praline king cake for breakfast with coffee and then a big burger for lunch after church.







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FITBF-on Saturday & some ramblings

January 29, 2011

Now I know I said I would be good, but after a whole week of being good...actually two weeks minus one day of "being good". I couldn't help myself when I stopped for gas heading into town to see the husband.
I had to buy dill pickle chips, a cherry limeade Icee, and (I now regret) Butterfinger Snackers. I say regret because the Snackers were gross. They tasted like the cheapest chocolate you could ever find on a oyster cracker. It tasted nothing like a Butterfinger. Waste of money (calories). I then spent the next 30 miles telling that dog paw you see to stay away from my Icee.

I then got to my parents house to find out my Mom was making tacos...on white flour totillas. I managed to stray away from the tortilla and instead made a taco salad. Looks like weekends are when the meat eating will occur.

I plan to make a giant pot of veggie soup for next week, and I need it after this mess. I woke up this AM craving fruit.

.......................................


1.   If my house was on fire and I could only grab 3 things I would grab       my antique Lincoln rocking chair, my laptop, and my wedding album    .

2.  A smell I really like is    I know this sounds weird, but new car or new plastic. I love the way it smells to open a brand new shower curtain.   .

3.  Something you might not know about me is       I hate math with a passion. If I were told I'd have to teach math I would probably quit my job. My students try to get me to help them with homework some times...I'll do ELA all day long, but I'd rather have my toes burnt off then do any sort of math   .

4.  Some of my favorite websites to putter about on are    Etsy, Amazon, almost all the blogs I follow, Facebook and Twitter, and last but not least Teach Louisiana. I am in the midst of finding a job so when I move to South Louisiana I am not freaking out wondering if I will have one     .

5.  This weekend I will     hanging out with Jeremy at my parents house, being lazy, doing homework, and celebrating Pop's birthday with some steaks and cake  .

6. Nothing makes me happier than       having nothing to do, no homework, trying a new recipe, shopping for clothes    .

7.  A bad habit I have is       biting my nails when I am anxious. I also have developed a bad habitat of having a bad attitude about my job lately. Hopefully the job part changes when I get to move. I just can't take constant negative      .
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only 120 days...till school is out for summer

January 26, 2011

I can't think of a better way to say it. But in the spirit of teachers I am going to steal Abby's statement: I am 12 kinds of exhausted. Lord help me, but school is making me nuts. I have been so busy that I didn't start planning for my 2nd formal observation (that only the non-tenured teachers get to enjoy) until today. I am days late on turning in my six weeks junk, which I never had to do at my other school. Even worse I am neglecting my graduate class and my internship assignments like crazy. Oh and forget sleep, my body apparently doesn't feel the need to partake in it. Which led me to this purchase this morning:
I know it was a waste of money, but home girl has no milk... therefore home girl has no latte.  I was not about to sneak soy milk or 2% out of the fridge, I only partake in skim. (My moo cows are fat free, and don't taste like watery beans) 


Oh and Jesus help me if roommates have not made me look like a recluse. I know I am one, but nothing makes you look less like a people person than hiding in your room 14/5 (that is how often I am home on weekdays). I just don't want to interact with humans after the number those 10-60 yr olds pull on me daily. Can't take it at all. 


In other news my dog is about to be charged with 20 different kinds of treason. That hoe bag Ellie ditched me last night to sleep with one of the guys. That hoe then came in at 5 am and wanted in bed with me, and I don't play that game. At least Maddie still loves me. Dang Jeremy for being gone, the girls are looking for any male attention they can muster up.
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{what I love that I probably shouldn't}

January 25, 2011

1. Eating over priced ice cream and frozen yogurt.

2. I could seriously eat potato chips until Jillian Michaels personally showed up to stop me.

3. I could stay in bed forever. For example I came home from work at 4 and it is almost 7. I just now got out to let the dogs in my room.

4. Chocolate

5. I'm glad I'm not a caffeine addict, but I love coffee...the fru fru kind.

6. Sleeping with my dogs.

7. I adore McDonald's Big Mac meals. I don't know how I married someone who doesn't feel the same about them.

8. I tend to sound negative even when I'm not. I am just cynical beyond belief.

9. Pulling my bangs out of my face. I know it looks better to leave them down but at this awkward length it is so much easier to pull them back until they are out of my eyes.

10. Workout clothes. I am horrible about wearing them everywhere. But when you have to be dressed up for work you don't feel like being dressed up everywhere else. Sorry I just like comfortable.
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Meat-free-Man-free Eating wk2

January 23, 2011

Since Jeremy has been gone I decided to cut back on how much meat I am eating. I really don't eat a lot of meat anyway, unless he is around. So I decided to just go ahead and cut it out all together...since we won't be living together again until the end of May. Now if he were here it would be impossible to do this. 


Last week was my first week of this and I lost 5 lbs. Of course, I have not had his coke to sip out of and have been drinking a quart of water a day {I really hate to drink, odd I know}. I also went veggie freak and ate stir fry, veggie sticks, hummus, and greek yogurt like a mad woman. I did have a meat craving Friday night and went to the store and got chicken fingers, but that was it for meat the entire week.


With the carb overload this week I don't see that much weight drop happening. However, I do plan to get back into my yoga/Zumba mode, so maybe that will help. After getting sick during Thanksgiving I have not been able to get in a consistent workout frame of mind.


So on the meat-free/man-free menu this week is:


Breakfast-
Whole wheat toast with honey nut cream cheese


 Lunch-
veggie sticks with ranch {made with fat free sour cream and a Hidden Valley ranch packet}
Nonfat Greek Yogurt
Kombucha


Snack-
Bananas
Pickles
Kashi cereal bars


Dinner-
Pasta with Tomato Cream Sauce{I used whole wheat pasta and substituted the cream for fat free sour cream}
Sour Cream Enchiladas  with black beans{sub. fat free cheese, whole wheat tortillas, fat free sour cream}


I made the pasta last night and it is divine! I really can't tell a difference with the fat free sour cream instead of heavy cream in the dish. {I made another dish with heavy cream a few weeks ago and it didn't taste that different from the substitute.}
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because i've always loved shakespeare

January 22, 2011

I don't know about y'all but when I was in high school we did a different Shakespeare play every year in English. My favorite was English I Romeo and Juliet. We had to memorize quotes, that was the one six weeks I made a hundred on every single assignment. My favorite was:


"True I talk of dreams 
which are the children of an idle brain
begot of nothing but vain fantasy
which is as thin of substance as the air
and more inconstant than the wind."

While shopping around Etsy this a.m. I found a few cool Shakespeare things.






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FITBF - on a Saturday



1.   My favorite quote is       I can't currently think of an actual quote, but I love the scripture I chose for #2 of Siesta Scripture Memory Team  "Strength and honor are her clothing, she shall rejoice in time to come. She opens her mouth with wisdom, and on her tongue is the law of kindness." Proverbs 31:25-26 {yay for typing it straight from memory:)}   .

2.  A bad habit I have is    biting my nails when I am bored or anxious.    .

3.  The first time I felt like a "grown up" was       last year, probably a week into teaching. Nothing like a bunch of kids calling you Mrs. to make you feel old. However, I still have little kid moments when I feel like the baby. I am the youngest in my Heat to Home group and Life Group class. Plus I am the youngest teacher at school. Which is probably why principals treat me like a kid.   .

4.  Weekends are    when I get super lazy and catch up on TV. I usually grocery shop and do laundry. And for the last semester ever I am doing grad assignments yay   .

5.  When I was a child I wished my name was     Emma Lee. I don't know why they named me Emily, because I was never called it until I moved to North Louisiana for college. All of my good friends call me Emma, except N LA people. Oddly I don't think Jeremy says my name much, but after being in Vidalia a few days he starts calling me Emma.   .

6.  I wish        I had gone to culinary school. Opened a restaurant. Or a B & B. Essentially Regina Charboneau, the lady who's house we had our wedding at, has my dream life. She went to France for school, opened restaurants in New York and California {catered for the Rolling Stones}, then came back to Natchez to run Twin Oaks. Amazing.    .

7.  A secret I have is       I hate sleeping alone. My Mom calls my bed a nest because of all the pillows, but without them I feel a little to exposed. Now that Jeremy is at Nicholls State I put the furbabies back in bed with me. Ellie is the cuddle queen. I am not kidding you when I tell you that this dog spoons, and she will stay that way all night haha.     .

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Life these days...

January 21, 2011

Consists of getting up at the ungodly hour of 5am to get ready to go to work.

Then getting to work by 7:10am.

Teaching some of these.
Eating lunch with a few who constantly question my mostly meatless, 95% healthy eating habits. 

Begging boys to hurry out of the bathroom so we can finally have Science class.

Hiding every second of my planning period to avoid for the sake of avoidance.

Coming home at 4pm instead of 5pm like I was when J was here.

Sitting in bed and watching TV.

Attempting to convince myself to workout...but it is just too cold, or I am just too full of excuses.

Eating some meatless concoction...and snacking on sorbet.

Talking to my man via Skype.

Then going to bed by 9pm and cuddling with the furbabies only to do it over again tomorrow.

And if I am really feeling productive...I actually do my grad school assignments.
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{five reasons to not live with a guy}

January 20, 2011

***Disclaimer: don't get offended about this. This is just my rant to journal myself into a better mood.

I would really love to use this post to vent my socks off, but who the heck knows who actually reads this thing. Oh for the moment I would love a private blog where only my bloggy followers could read. 

I feel like I have been neglecting my blog so much that a blog social worker might show up and try to take it away from me. 

Lately, like I told Jeremy, if I could quit my job now and leave town I would. If I wasn't 3 classroom observations from a Master's Degree I would get the hell outta dodge. At the point the degree is the only thing that seems worth it. People are just to underhanded and secretive. The whole environment is just lame, which explains why the state test scores look the way they do. JBHM doesn't show up at the Harvard of elementary schools. {Oh how I wish I would not have been transfered.}

In other news, my two roommates are guys. I don't think I ever said that on the blog. I know it sounds weird but it was the only people we could find. I don't know a single girl who was willing to move in with me. Luckily they are two friends of J's who are good Christian guys. Luckily our house has 2 bathrooms and I can hide out in my room and not have to wander half dressed like I normally do. 

But there is a down side to living with guys. I shall now describe the downside with a numbered list. I now present to you the...

Top 5 reasons living with someone else sucks
{especially when you didn't agree to marry them}

1. Chicks showing up at your house and wondering who the heck you are. {I am sure you all have met the "college chick" I am talking about} Moreover, as one said "Who is that giant picture of that girl?"---said in the snotty-ist of voices. Then she said "Is that a purse in the fridge!?" Again in a snotty voice. I then took that as my cue to apparently forget about Proverbs 31:26 and state who I was, why there were pics of my wedding everywhere (its my house! The giant pic was my bridal portrait) and then smart off about my lunchbox. I was on fi-yar.

2. Much like husband (85%) of the time, I am the only one who knows how to open the dishwasher. 

3. They don't like to be cold. The guys have built fires in the fire place and constantly bumped up the heater. Oh if only others shared my love of freezing to death during the winter. I only turn on the heat if it gets below 60, but since getting married...and now adopting two guys I have not been graced with a not-in-use heater. I can hear the heater cutting on now.

4. With 3 cars at the house I no longer have "my" parking space. Yes I am that girl that had my space and would make my then boyfriend and now husband move his car out of my space at my apartment...and now house. 

5. The furniture has been moved to be in a optimal place for Xbox playing and there is a hanger on my counter. Plus There is a random lamp in the living room that totally does not go there. 

I now live in a "guys" house...only with lots of pictures of me everywhere, and fru-fru furniture in all rooms but theirs. 


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you may be newly "single" if...

January 17, 2011

1. You are constantly having to justify why you and your husband are living apart. (i.e. we are going to different grad school, but I graduate soon) People think we are separated, but then again these are the same people who think I am dieting because I like to eat salad and prefer veggies.


2. Your grocery bill is a whopping $22. Yup you read that right. This week I am eating stir-fry and leftover yogurt and hummus from last week. I got a few snacks and some veggies to dip in the hummus. I really only eat meat because J likes it at every meal. Not that I am a vegetarian or anything, I will go a few weeks and start craving a huge ribeye and baked potato with fried onions. But I'd much rather eat veggies.


3. You were excited about bathing your dogs so they could sleep with you. Jeremy isn't a fan of sleeping with the pups, mainly because  I am super hot natured and the two little heating pads snuggle up to him. So he vetoes any bedroom dog cuddle.


4. You consider fro-yo an actual meal. 


5. You now have the ability to watch 3 Oprah episodes back to back. All without hearing complaining,  having the remote taken from you, or being suddenly forced to watch ESPN. 


Don't get me wrong, I miss my man big time. But watching Oprah without a disturbance is kind of fun. This all reminds me of the Sex and the City episode where they talk about "secret single behavior". Mine use to be examining my pores and sitting around in a face mask in my free time.


What is your secret single behavior?
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Calecas, Cialis, However you say it.

January 16, 2011

So Saturday we drove down south separately. After having not driven more than a mile, literally, in months, and having never driven in Baton Rouge...this trip was something else. I hate driving with a capital H. After we got to the red stick we got separated even farther apart and because of conflicting gps systems we took different exits. That did not make me happy one bit. 

I finally wound up here.

Which was only the beginning of my love/hate feelings for this whole deal. 

J and I quickly found each other on campus and we ran off to begin the long check-in process. Upon first glance you would think all the dorms are just full of sunshine and daisies, but in fact they are not. As we quickly learned. I kept thinking "wow this place is so nice" until we drove up to Jeremy's "dorm" and I told him "Are you sure this is it? It's a police station." 

Why yes it was it. A ghetto dorm attached to a police station. At least we had paid for a single room so he could escape the super ghetto in his own little semi ghetto space. After we walked in and were attempting to figure out where to go a guy walked in behind up and promptly attempted to kill me with his dorm fridge. He was lucky Jeremy caught it before it shattered on the ground. At least we thought he was lucky J caught it. He immediately started fussing at Jer not to touch his fridge. Okay. First crazy down. Check.

This ghetto dorm is called Calecas by the way pronounced Ka-leak-us. I decided to continually call it Cialis. There was one called Babbington. I thought it would have been fitting if Babbs would have lived in Babbington.

Next we walked into the common room to completely check in. If you read Twitter you know what the common room smelled like. My jacket still smells like old ratty crawfish if you want a sniff. Gross. We completed out check-in, or so we thought, and ran off to his new abode. 

But for some odd reason there was junk already in the room. Yes, the single room we paid for. Meaning he lives alone. So off we went to the stinky common room so my jacket could further soak up the sent like a box of baking soda. While begging for a room change Crazy numbers 2 & 3 made their grand entrance. 

Crazy #2 came in offering everyone navel oranges. She was an odd one for sure. The kind of odd I tried to escape in my dorm days years ago. After we turned down her offer she asked for a pen "to open her orange". Hmm. I didn't know Bic made orange peelers.

Thus brings us to Crazy #3. #3 made her grand entrance just as I had finished beggin' mercy on our sad-married-not-your-common-dorm-dweller-selves and demanded her room be changed. Or in her own words "Can you get rid of her then?" The RA then proceeded to tell us how she was sure J would get a room because once people see this horrid place they refuse to live here. Oh and we totally understood. 

You see, on our way back to the office Jeremy made it very clear he was feeling sorry for me at first because he was going to experience all this new, cool stuff and I was stuck in old North LA teaching until graduation. But that changed once he saw his room. He said he wanted to find the dean and tell them to take me, we had the same GRE score and were both Psych. major...so it was a fair trade. He even contemplated getting his old job back.

All of our determination and drive to get him through this program went out the window when we saw the peeling paint of what was obviously a dorm that had seen its fair share of hurricanes.

We were contemplating getting a hotel and coming home when the minute I called my Mom to cry about the horror they changed his room to a single, twin beds, but a single none the less. Praise the Lord! 

So we packed him into his paint peeled room.
Joked about the crazy people we encountered. Did the traditional dorm kid pilgrimage to Mecca aka WalMart and filled his fridge full of the traditional foods of Ramen, Coke, and Oreos. Finally we drove to Applebee's and used the gift card the Special Ed. Department gave him as a farewell gift and had our last date until who knows when. 

This morning we got up, filled my car with gas and went in search of King Cake. Now, as a lover of south LA King Cake I am here to tell all of you....if your cake taste like a cinnamon bun you do not have a real King Cake. 
I got the strawberry cream cheese filled one. Yum! After that we headed back to the dorm and had a breakfast date of cake, donuts, and coffee.
If you were wondering, we ended up staying in the dorm last night. And yes, we both slept in that twin bed. I woke up at 4am plastered to the wall begging Jeremy to roll over haha. 

When I left I decided to meet my long time friend Brittany at What-a-Burger in Baton Rouge to meet her new little man Cayden and visit with her, her mom, and see little Mr. Caleb. I just wish I would have taken a picture.

Which brings me to now. Searching for positive while I feel like I am missing something majorly.

Which is also way I chose Proverbs 31:25-26 as my 2nd scripture to for SSMT this month. 
25 Strength and honor are her clothing; 
      She shall rejoice in time to come. 
       26 She opens her mouth with wisdom, 
      And on her tongue is the law of kindness.
If you read Beth Moore's SLI you remember we repeated verse 25 constantly with the NIV translation of "She is clothed in strength and dignity." I loved that verse. But I liked how the NKJV ended it with "She shall rejoice in days to come" instead of "she will laugh at the future" like other versions had. 

As much as I would love to curl in a ball and just act like a baby I cannot. There are things to do on my end of this deal to ensure I can actually move during the summer. I must daily clothe myself with strength and dignity to make it through this is I ever want to rejoice in the time to come. I also have to practice the law of kindness (which a lot of my blog friends will remember from the simulcast we attended in the Fall) big time, there is no need for me to be short with people because I am not 100% happy about the current situation. I have to be kind and speak wisdom. Honestly kind, not see through nice. 

Well that is all for tonight. I am going to now call my man who is 200 miles in the opposite direction. Night.



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Ellie Airlines

January 15, 2011

I know I posted the picture in my 365 page, but it was too funny not to elaborate on my main page.

Anyway, yesterday we started packing Jer to move down to Nicholls, an stop at my parents house the night before going to break the long drive up. We had spent a few hours packing and hauling stuff out when I finally decided to take out my bags. Well I made it out of the house with one bag and came back in for the other...big mistake.

Not only did Ellie disapprove of me overdoing my bag limit {typically I bring one so she was not going to have the 2nd one board} she was actually going to show it. I went to pick up the strap and Ellie ran over and quickly grabbed the strap with her teeth and snatched it out of my hand and put it back on the floor. I know this sounds exaggerated but it is true. So I went to pick it up again and she did this:
The little sucker jumped up and pushed down on the bag with her front paws. So like any good blogger I pulled out my phone and went to pick up the bag again. And again she jumped on the bag, but this time she growled at me.

Yes, I know this seems like something a dog would not do, but Ellie has spent so much time with me alone she knows what I am up to and is very insistent she goes where ever I go. Once I picked her up she let me finish packing bags. But on Ellie Airlines I had apparently exceeded the bag limit and she was going to have to enforce the law.
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Overstock.com Reader Discount

January 12, 2011

I am offering a great reader discount for Overstock.com at my giveaway & review blog! It is good for 10% off your order and I also have one for free shipping on electronics! Check it out:


http://labridegiveaway.blogspot.com/2011/01/overstockcom-reader-discount.html
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Happy Monday!

January 10, 2011

And Happy Sleet day to those of you in Louisiana. I know some lucky people got snow, but not in our neck of the woods. Let's get on with some bullet points.

  • I'm currently making Chili to celebrate the freezing weather that led to a lack of work, well I planned on making it anyway, but you get the point. 
  • Today is my nephew Joshua's 1st birthday.
  • Jeremy leave Saturday for the graduate School Psych program @ Nicholls. People keep acting like we are "separating". Stupid. I'm not that worried about our minor separation, and neither is J. Some things you just have to do. When a grad/specialist program that takes 6 people a semester says come now (when ULM discontinued their program), you go. I am in the midst of my internship (with only 4 observations left) so I can not go. I'd love to, but it would make zero sense.
  • There is a plus side to having a nephew with a not present baby daddy. You don't have to coordinate holidays, birthdays, or anything for that matter. We all get to be a lot closer to him. It isn't like it is with some people when you have to ask to hold their kid, I just hijack him when I want and do what I please...even when Mommy disagrees. But when you're the bossy older sister you do that anyway. Okay, maybe I am just a baby hog. 
  • Not only was this snow day a major teacher need, the kids need breaks from us just as much. Bad part is my first observation of this semester is Wednesday and I should have email my ULM supervisor Friday but didn't thinking I'd do it today, well no school means no lesson plans. Uh oh.
  • Here is a good recipe I found this AM for BBQ Chicken Enchiladas on Tasty Kitchen. 
  • Now I know owls have been super popular this year and when Jeremy was playing around on theChive today I saw these:

So cute and so easy. It just looks like they iced a cupcake with chocolate icing, topped with halved oreos and used M&Ms for the nose and eyes. Great for anyone who did the owl theme on their little girls room, which I have seen a lot of. 

Well that is all for today, a little rant, a recipe, and a snow day. 

What are all the Snow Day people planning on doing with their day?


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Joshy Poo is 1 year old

January 9, 2011

We decided to do a Hungry Caterpillar themed party. Plus since he is only one and will not remember an ounce of this we went small and had cupcakes before Pop went to the Shrine to play music Saturday night. 
Birthday banner Mom made, and our Hungry Caterpillar cupcake cake.
Josh has become anti-high chair. You can hand him food and he will eat, or set it on a chair and he will walk by and pick it up. But do not put the kid in a high chair. Hence Pop had to hold onto him while Gigi (what they decided Mom would be called) lit his cupcake.
Little dude playing with his fridge magnets. 
 He got a lot of presents, and after everything was opened played with the box. Typical kid behavior, right? Laura gave him this train that he could ride that also had alphabet blocks you could stick through the top, it said colors and all that jazz. (Vtech toy btw) He loved it the most, however, he thought I should push him and he should put no effort in moving down the hall. I wish I had more pics, but Laura didn't upload them all to Facebook. 
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