Monday, February 7, 2011

Monday, Monday...

There is no better way for me to describe today than with the help of The Mama’s & The Papa’s lyrics to Monday, Monday:

"Every other day, every other day,
Every other day of the week is fine, yeah
But whenever Monday comes, but whenever Monday comes
You can find me cryin' all of the time."

No, I didn’t cry today but I thought about it. I got up this morning, got ready, made my lunch and breakfast, got a little morning time with the hubby (this is a totally new concept because we have NEVER had the same morning routine) and thought I was setting myself up for an unusually nice Monday. Little did I know just mere seconds later it was all going to fall apart. As I got in the car to pull out of the garage I heard a weird noise and immediately thought I had a flat tire-NOPE, my husband left a bucket behind the car last night while he was playing basketball with the boys. Yup, I totally ran over it. I remedied that problem and went to back out of the garage once more to be met by our fierce trash can-yup, I totally scraped the side of the car all against the trash can because the boys took it out of the garage to stand on last night to fix the basketball goal and put it back in the garage the wrong way. What else could go wrong? Well, as I finally made it out of the garage I hit the garage door opener and sure enough it wouldn’t close. Seriously? Who has time for all this? I had to get out of the car, go through the garage, close it from the inside, go out the front door and lock up before I could finally leave the house. If all that wasn’t bad enough, as I made my way out of the neighborhood, finally, I realized it was trash day. And where was our trash can sitting? That’s right, snuggly tucked away in the garage. This was going to be a GREAT Monday.

As I FINALLY got on the road things started turning around. Traffic wasn’t bad at all and I actually made it to work on time-no thanks to my hubby! Things could possibly start turning around! Nope… after sitting in my cube for 4 hours waiting for an assignment I began to think about those lyrics once more. But, it wasn’t all bad. I got to have a great conversation with a dear friend and got paid while doing it! And, finally by 12:30 I had a new task to work on…but it kicked my butt. I am good in Excel but this company has such an in depth product line that their spreadsheets are MONSTROUS and the task assigned to me today was doing something in Excel I wasn’t at all familiar with (in fact, I learned the function last Friday) but after trial and error-and an hour and a half-I had it figured out and it was a breeze, well maybe not a breeze but I figured it out at least. It definitely made my afternoon fly by.

As I headed home for the day I thought the sky was going to stay clear and I was going to be able to enjoy a bit of sunshine (maybe a bit of a break in this not so grand Monday)-NOPE. As I got closer and closer to home the sky grew darker and darker and as I was coming out of Wal-Mart (I stopped to get some more fruits and veggies because we are going through them like crazy) the bottom fell out. With 5 bags of groceries, ½ a mile walk, and drenched to the core I finally made it to the car. Again, the lyrics popped back into my head: But whenever Monday comes, but whenever Monday comes, You can find me cryin' all of the time.

What is it about Monday’s? Are they just out to get us? Is it not bad enough that they come WAY too quickly and ruin our weekends? Did anyone else have a “Monday” today?

Luckily I didn’t let it get me down on my goals. In the past, days like this would have led to over snacking, over indulging and lots of guilt. Not today. Thanks to my motivation, new habits, and will power today was NO problem. I got home and put away the groceries, changed clothes, and Michael and I immediately did our workout. It was a good end to a pretty crappy day. After our workout we made dinner (it was super easy and quick tonight) and within 20 minutes we were enjoying a nice yummy dinner. To top it all off by 8 we had worked out, cooked, eaten dinner, and cleaned the kitchen. That routine usually takes us to 10 PM on a good night. Forget you crappy Monday and rain-we will make you a good day even without your help!

Tomorrow morning is my weekly weigh in and I’m actually really looking forward to it (not something I say most weeks). I feel like I did a really good job staying focused and on track this week-hopefully the scale shows it. However, if it doesn’t I’m not going to let it get to me because I’ve had so many non-scale victories this week that I’m already psyched about that. I’m just going to keep chugging along-ONE DAY AT A TIME!

How’d you do this week? Did you stick with your goals? Did you struggle? Hopefully if you answered yes to the last question you didn’t let it get you down. I really hope that this is helping you guys out even a fraction of the amount it’s helping and encouraging me. I’d love to share in some of your celebrations: food, scale, or random related. Until tomorrow: good eats!


Monday, Monday (la da, la da da da) Food Breakdown:

Breakfast was a quick and easy fake sausage on a toasted English Muffin with a smidge of Sugar Free grape jelly for 6 points.

Lunch was a yummy mixture of spinach, blueberries, onions, cucumbers, croutons and dressing for 7 points.

Snack was a mixture of nuts (walnuts, almonds and pumpkin seeds-1 T each) mixed with 1 T of chocolate chips for a DELICIOUS, filling and satisfying treat. It was salty, crunchy, and sweet-what better combination could there be?

Dinner was a pairing of 5 oz of ribeye (the hubby cooked them in the cast iron skillet) and a new spinach recipe we tried tonight. The steak accounted for 7 points and the spinach recipe was 4. I also had (a moment of weakness-but we worked out and I had LOADS of extra points left that expire tomorrow: okay okay I’m justifying now-I really felt a tad guilty for the indulgence) 3 T of frosting again-it gets me every time (for 7 points).

That put me at 29 points through dinner and a usage of 7 extra points leaving me with 20 for the week.

Sauteed Spinach with Red Onion, Bacon & Blue Cheese

2 t extra-virgin olive oil

½ c thinly sliced red onion

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 10 oz package of spinach (not baby)

2 strips of center cut bacon, cooked and crumbled

1 T crumbled blue cheese

**Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet or Dutch oven over medium high heat. Add onion and cook, stirring, until beginning to soften, about 1 minute. Add garlic and cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 30 seconds more. Add spinach and cook, stirring, until just wilted, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat; stir in bacon and blue cheese and serve immediately**

*makes 2 servings at 4 points each; I got this delicious recipe (and many others to come) from www.eatingwell.com...they have GREAT ideas!

1 comment:

  1. Here's my Monday breakdown trying this new Paleo thingy:

    Breakfast:
    An apple (0 pts), berries with 1/8 C yogurt and 1/8 C nuts (3 pts), and a smoothie made from OJ and frozen fruit (3 pts.)

    Snack:
    1/8 C raw nuts (2 pts.)

    Lunch:
    Salad with olives and apple cider vinegar (0 pts.), 1/4 C of guacamole with veggies (2 pts.), and stewed tomatoes and okra (0 pts. I think).

    Snack:
    2.5 oz. banana chips (10 pts.).

    Dinner:
    2 bison burger patties at 3 oz. each (6 pts.) and grapefruit (0 pts.). I would have eaten a salad, but I had just gotten a filling and didn't feel like rough food.

    Total points used: 26. I had 3 left that I didn't even eat. I was a little hungry when I went to bed, but that's probably b/c I didn't have any salad. If I had thought about it, I would have put guacamole on the burgers for an extra 2 points.

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