Change in Plans

When we woke up Saturday morning and looked out the balcony window, this is what greeted us. Well, really, I knew at 6:30 when I ran Sadie out to the bathroom but still. The picture helps, no? Even if it was taken through a screen.

The day before, no snow. Today, snow. Now, we were up for running in the cold. Some of us a bit more enthusiastic than others. But, snow? Nuts to that. Sorry, heart health. We'll have to support you in some other way. I would have fallen down so many times on that course. It would not have been pretty and I would have messed up my over-priced shoes. Pffft. Instead, I decided to bake scones. Mmmmm.

Earlier in the week I found a recipe for Buttermilk Whole Wheat Scones here at Stephanie Cooks. Because I am all about the whole wheat, I was super interested in these. I love scones. The problem with scones is that when they taste so delicious and buttery, that means they're chock full of butter. This recipe had butter but not nearly the amount I was afraid of. They were delicious! Here they are before they went in the oven.



I didn't think it was necessary to show you the empty plate after shot. But, John and I had to restrain ourselves not to eat all of them. We showed some restraint at two apiece. YUM! Also, I only had to buy one ingredient; the rest I had on hand. I love when that happens. And really, I did have raisins, which she says you can substitute but I'll take any excuse to sub in Craisins. And since we're all about counting calories at Chez John & Ashley, I estimated each slice has about 125 calories. Not bad!

Now, off to the mall!

TGIF -- Almost

OK, no joke, I opened up this post to start typing, and Sadie stepped on the Enter key and posted a blank box. She must have lots to share with her doggie readers.

Anyway.......

Y'all, I am in need of some retail therapy. I feel like I haven't been shopping in FOREVER! I take that back. I haven't had a successful shopping trip in forever. I did go to the outlets a couple weeks ago but only spent $6. Lame. So, we're headed to the mall this weekend and I'm super excited. Buying things always cheers me up and I've got the winter blues, big time. The problem with building up a shopping trip this much is I'm almost always disappointed by the outcome. I guess I'll never know if I don't try. Right? I'm not even in search of anything specific so I have better odds of coming out loading with packages.

I promised John two dinners out this weekend. TWO! Unheard of. This is in order to prepare for our month-long restaurant hiatus. Also, we're moving our grocery shopping to Friday night for the second week in a row. Watch out now. This is because we are losers and never have plans on Friday night. This means we can sleep in on Sunday now because we don't have to beat the rush to Meijer. Anyway, Friday we're going to Noodles & Co. which is a restaurant we have just discovered. It is a chain so maybe there's one near you and boy howdy is it GOOD! And inexpensive. Thumbs up! Saturday night is our actual Last Hurrah at Bonefish Grill. Yum. And we have a gift card. Thumbs up again. Thumbs up for everyone!

I guess my point is, this week and February in general have been long and hellacious. I won't be sad to see them go.

Brrrrracing for a Race

Even though it's crazy, I successfully convinced John to run a 2 Mile race this weekend. Yes, it's still February in Ohio and the high for that day is only in the 20's. No, we don't ever run in cold weather. Yes, we have only run inside since our lovely Thanksgiving trip to Austin. But, it's only 2 miles. That's nothing! We'll be running for 20 minutes (less for John) and then we can go inside to a health fair where I'm expecting to pick up as much free stuff as possible. And it's a for a good cause....heart health! We like healthy hearts so why not support it?

This kicks off my goal of running 5 races in 2010. Last year on the 4th of July we ran our first and only race and had a lot of fun. So, I want to do more this year. Even though it's not a 5K, I'm still counting it. I've never run a 2 mile competitive race so I'll chalk it up as a learning experience.

Can my pace give me a finishing time below 20:00? Is my foot pain going to hold off until I'm done? Will snot freeze to my face? (Sorry that was gross). Stay tuned!

Food Rules

Food Rules is the latest in Michael Pollan's what to/what not to eat writings. It is comprised of 64 relatively common sense rules for eating. Well, common sense for most people although we are an obese country so maybe I'm putting too much faith in America's sense. Anyway, Pollan swiftly describes little credences and adages that are easy to remember. My favorite, "No sweets, seconds or snacks on days that don't start with S."

Here's the thing about Food Rules. Each of these rules is less than a page. So, this book took me approximately 20 minutes to read. I almost feel like I shouldn't count it towards my 2010 total reading list but, I'm going to anyway because I am the keeper of my reading rules. So, while Food Rules is very easy to swallow (pun intended - ha!), you're not going to get a whole lot of background behind these rules. If you want a more in depth look at Pollan's theories, try reading his last book, In Defense of Food. In that one, you'll basically get these 64 rules followed by much more detailed descriptions. However, if you just want it in small bites (I'm on a roll!) stick with Food Rules.

Challenge

Because my weight loss has not been going so well, I decided I needed to step up my game a bit. John and I do really well with our eating during the week and just kind of blow it on the weekends. We justify this by saying you need a day to cheat a little on the calories. This is true, but we take the cheating a bit too far. Remember that bag of bunny corn? We finished it in a day and a half. I mostly blame myself on that one. Anyway. We're also trying to cut down our sodium intake. We don't add extra salt to our food but that stuff everywhere, yo! The main culprit for sodium: restaurants. When you go out to eat, you just have no idea what's going on in the kitchen and what extra bad things they're putting in your meal.

Thus, the Challenge.

Parameters: For the month of March, John and I will not eat a single meal in a restaurant. All meals, breakfast, lunch and dinner, will be made with food in our very own kitchen.

Reason: To help move past our plateau, to cut back on sodium/fat/calories/etc, and an added bonus -- it saves money!

Caveat: We are each allowed to have one Shamrock shake from McDonald's in March at some point because this is the only time of year you can get them so we are allowing this one indulgence.

Because John and I don't always have a lot of excitement going on in our lives, we often count going out for dinner as our sole source of Saturday night entertainment. We really don't eat out all that often. I'd say 3-5 times a month including lunches and dinners. However, when I posed this challenge to John, he very begrudgingly excepted (read: was cajoled). Oh sure, there were complaints. "But what will we do for fun?" As if eating is the only thing we can think of. Pfft. I already have lots of fun plans lined up for March to take the place of the excitement that is dining out. What does it really say about us when we plan our meals out weeks in advance and often find them the only things to look forward to? If you're placing that much excitement on food, isn't that wrong? "Do we really have to do this?" Yes, honey, we do. It's more about proving that we can, in my mind, than anything else. I'll count my sister ("But you don't eat out that much anyway") and my mom ("That seems a bit harsh") in the nay-sayers camp aswell. Full disclosure, John doesn't think we can do it. So, I've got a little something extra to prove there.

You may or may not know that your weight is 80% determined by diet and only 20% affected by exercise. Since we've got the exercise portion down, our weight loss failures must be diet based.

Stay tuned to see if we can meet our challenge, and if we can finally curb our weekend pig outs.

The Help

The Help, by Kathryn Stockett, has been on the Best seller list for weeks and months on end. I don't think it's still #1 but this book was published last year and I think it's been on ever since. It was one of those books that I waited forever for on the hold list and, along with all the other ones, came in for me a couple weeks ago. I did a bad thing with this book. Because I didn't want to wait for it again and I couldn't renew it, I kept it over its due date by 5 days. (hangs head in shame) Anyway, onto The Help.

The Help follows three women, two African-American maids and a society gal, in 1950's Jackson, Missisippi. Tensions are thick in the south regarding civil rights and this story plays right along with it. Aibileen has been a maid her whole life, waiting on the white folk, raising their babies. She works for Elizabeth Leefolt, a twenty-something mother who knows nothing about caring for her daughter and everything about planning luncheons. Minny, Aibileen's best friend and also a maid, is outspoken and often gets canned for her sass-mouth. And then there's Skeeter Phelan, a white society gal, who is friends with all of the maids' bosses. Skeeter (real name Eugenia) has just graduated from college and gets a job writing a housekeeping column for the newspaper with Aibileen's guidance. The story moves between the points of view of these strong women and works hard to show what they all have in common.

I really enjoyed all of the characters, even the villianous ones, in The Help. Stockett weaves the lives of these women together seamlessly. She gives the story twists and an unpredictable (to a certain extent) path. It reads relatively quickly for being a larger book but that can mostly be attributed to my insatiable curiosity of the outcome.

Thumbs up for The Help!

Les fetes des weekend

This weekend, we're headed up north for a wedding (dry) and a birthday (no cake). Nevertheless, we're looking forward to seeing family and celebrating these two occasions. We have not been home since Christmas. It always feels strange to call it home considering we live in Dayton full time and have for nearly 5 years. So, that's not really our home anymore and hasn't been for some time. Anyway, this wedding has no booze. I have never been to a dry wedding before. I'll be sure to fill you in on all the not-so-sordid details.

In a wonderful turn of events, we struck it rich at Meijer tonight! John and I have been on the hunt for Valentine's candy corn/mellowcremes. Sadly, we found none. I was going to order some online for John as a surprise but you could only purchase it by the pound and it was pricey. I didn't really think we needed a whole pound of sugar. Since the stores starting putting out their Easter candy, we scour the aisles for Bunny corn. If you're not familiar with Bunny Corn, it's candy corn in pastel shades for Easter. See?


Oh, glorious day! Brach's calls it Pastel Candy Corn but I prefer to call it Bunny Corn. It's cuter and Pastel Candy Corn is a mouthful. I guarantee my sister is jealous of this find. She loves candy corn as much as we do. B, have you found it in Texas? You will have to let me know.