Top Secret BLBE Season 2 Date & New Years Eve Blizzard

Happy New Year'e Eve Bloggies!!! I'm not sure what's going on where you guys are this evening, but it sounds like many New Year's Eve plans in Nova Scotia were thrown for a loop this year. We are expecting a blizzard this evening and tomorrow, so we are staying put tonight. Not that we had any extravagant plans this evening anyway, but it makes me feel like less of a dork for staying home! :-D

I woke up this morning and brewed a cup of coffee to sip on while I was getting ready for the day. I had a date with Lynn today to meet for coffee and talk top secret BLBE stuff :-D. Details to come!

My coffee was, of course, my usual 1 POINT:

Then I realized that I was running a bit behind and had no time to whip up a bowl of oats, so for Breakfast I had an equally delicious (but not as satisfying) bowl of Liberte No Fat Probiotic Vanilla yogurt, some runny chococlate PB2 drizzled all over top, then some crumbled walnuts and some fresh raspberries for another 3.5 POINTS:

It was quite cold in Starbucks when I got there and even though I already had a cup of coffee, I decided to have a grande Americano with some shots of sugar free hazelnut syrup and some cream for another POINT:

Lynn and I just gabbed and gabbed and gabbed and before we knew it, it was 11ish and we decided to move the party elsewhere. Both of us had time to kill and both of us needed to pick up a few groceries, so we ventured across to the Superstore. On the way there Lynn cracked open her handy pecan pie Larabar and I tried a bite for 1 POINT:

So we get to the Superstore and we're gabbing and chatting away completely oblivious to the entire Superstore "situation" of 40 mins checkout lineups because both of us realized that it was fun to grocery shop with someone else like "us" who we could swap product ideas and finds. Yeah I am not denying the extent of my dorkiness at all. I never thought I could have so much fun grocery shopping! :-D

Then we were in the healthfood section and we came across this little item:

Mmmmmm "bowel buddies!" Doesn't that sounds scrumptious?! lol

By the time we actually got out of the superstore after waiting for 40 mins at least in the checkout line, although we hardly stopped for a breath we were so chatty, it didn't even matter to us. It was around 12:30 and we were ready for Lunch so we decided to venture downtown for a yummy feast at the Mongolie Grill. I had been there once before with Tasha and Jacki and it was awesome, so I was excited to get the chance to go again.

It's such a great place because you are completely in control of your food. It is a buffet style set up of all fresh vegetables, meats,, noodles, sauces and other stir fry ingredients and you pick and choose what you want and put it in your bowl and they weigh it for price and then they stir fry it for you and bring it to your table. Perfect! Healthy and delicious!

This is a shot of the "buffet" from our table:

A shot of the fresh veggies to choose from:

A shot of the fresh meats like pork, chicken, beef, squid, shrimp, scallop, salmon, crab and flavourings like garlic, ginger, sun-dried tomatoes etc.:

And of course the sauces. You name it: szechuan, thai, curry, peanut, coconut, hot oils, sweet & sour etc. You decide what and how much:

Then this guy stir fries it for you on this big grill. He loved that I wanted his pic, can't you tell? The other guy thought it was pretty funny :-D :

The meal also comes with your choice of soup. Lynn and I both had the hot and sour soup. I guessed this small bowl was about 3 POINTS:

And let me tell you, it's mighty hard to keep the portions down when you get to choose from so many fresh items to include in your dish! This is a lot of food, but honestly, it's 80% veggies, 10% seafood, 5% noodles, 5% sauces. But I didn't feel bad for having a huge portion of so many veggies. My body was pretty much begging me for them methinks:

Let's see if I can remember. It had:

• bok choy
• green pepper
• carrot
• onion
• green onion
• water chestnuts
• bean sprouts
• broccoli
• radiccio
• shrimp
• scallops
• shanghai noodles (not many)
• garlic
• sun-dried tomato
• curry sauce, coconut, mongolie sauce (about 1/2c total)
• red pepper flakes

And my oh my, it was friggin delicious! It was a huge portion, but not really all that pricey on the POINTS end really. I counted it as 10 POINTS.

And here's Lynn all cute with her notebook where there's top secret BLBE Season 2 info :-D:

And by that time we had some time to kill to wait for Lynn's hubby to get off work, so we sipped on another cup of coffee (my third of the day!) for another POINT:

I was pretty full after all of that and wasn't sure if I was going to have a Supper or a Snack later on. I ended up getting my cooking itch and cracked open my new Giada's Kitchen cookbook I got for xmas and was making the Balsamic BBQ Chicken recipe for hubby and decided to have half of one of the chicken breasts and I made a side of sauteed:

• red swiss chard
• spinach
• zucchini
• onions
• garlic
• EVOO
• 1/4c light ricotta cheese
• red pepper flakes

I had a slice of fresh italian ciabatta with some becel to go with it for a total of 8 POINTS:

Delicious!

And after this is wasn't that I was hungry because I certainly had enough to eat and enough fibre to do me, but I still had about 4 Quality Street chocolates for another 4 POINTS:

So that means that I'm going to forego the glass (or 2) of wine I had planned for this evening. It's not big deal at all. I think that the 32.5 POINTS that I already had was quite enough! MIL is making a New Years day turkey jiggs dinner for tomorrow (blizzard permitting I suppose), but it will be the last big "to do" for the holidays, so luckily I still have 18 flex left and I don't think I'll have any problem getting through until Monday given all of the indulgences I've had lately. I will be eating pretty light tomorrow otherwise. I think I'm ready to wrap it up for 2008!

Happy New Year Bloggies!!! Be safe! MWAH!

Symbolic Sbux Coffee Beans?? Yup all the holiday sugar has gone to my head!

Today was a "so so" day although not too bad in comparison to most of last week :-D I woke up this morning and brewed the last of the holiday blend coffee beans I had from Starbucks. Maybe that was symbolic in a way to put an end of the holiday mindset! :-D I sipped on this lovely cup of coffee with some blend and sugar free cinnamon dolce syrup for 1 POINT while I obsessed with my new BlackBerry! lol


We had plans to meet up with my buddy Brooke and her new boyfriend who were visiting from the U.S. and I wasn't feeling all that hungry, so I decided to "skip" Breakfast (*gasp*) and have another cup of the incredibly satisfying coffee with some more blend cream and sugar free syrup, but with a glass of water too for another POINT:


I'm not a "skip breakfast" kind of gal at all, as you guys know, but before I knew it, I had crackberried the morning away and it was time get ready to meet them for Lunch!

We went to The Old Triangle so that we could try to introduce Brian to something "Maritime-esque" even though it's Irish, but not all together that different! Hubs and I were a tad bit late and they had a nice yummy plate of crab dip and melba toasts on the table when we arrived, and I indulged in 3 toasts and about a tbsp of crab dip for about 3 POINTS:

I ordered the "SBLT" with a side spinach salad which is a "Salmon" BLT with dill mayo on whole wheat toast. It was sooooo goood! I didn't use any of the extra salad dressing they provided on the plate and I estimated this to be about 13 POINTS:

Brooke ordered the Curried Chicken & Chips. Hello Irish food! :-D

Oh and here's a shot of Brookie and I :-):

We had a few stops to make around town and by the time we got home it was Supper time. I decided to have a nice hot bowl of my homemade turkey soup and some organic crackers. Damn that soup is good! Because it's the old "two day" pot of turkey soup, it's pretty much impossible to calculate the POINTS and I would say the broth is on the higher end on the fat front, so I counted the soup to be 6 POINTS and the crackers were 1:

Then I had a hankering for that stupid "something sweet" and I dug into what was left of the Quality Street chococlates and had 4 (2 after I originally planned to only have 2!) for 4 POINTS:

And for no good reason at all, I munched on some toppable crackers with a smidge of cheese ball that was in the fridge for about 2 POINTS:

So my day added up to 29 POINTS in total whic used 6 of my flex.

Tomorrow morning I have plans to meet up with Lynn for a coffee and a walk! Hallefrigginluja for some exercise!

1 Day = -2.2 lbs

I just had to check the scale this morning - HAD to! And low and behold the scale was down 2.2 lbs from yesterday!!!

PHEW!!!

Oh and what just as awesome (well a close second) is that I'm sending you this post via my new Blackberry Curve which I got for FREE last night from Rogers which is a good thing because I just wasted a bunch of money on a world phone online a few months ago that sucked doodoo and wasn't near as awesome as this little guy!

Oh and it's red too! Is there a theme with me lately perhaps?
Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

WI, Yummy Back on Track Food & General Kick Ass-ness

Okay bloggies here I am, I'm back with my food menu pics! I apologize in advance as I am still trying to get the hang of the manual settings on my new camera and I am not much of a photog, but trying to learn! Here's to a successful day one back on track! I am ashamed and sad to report an awful WI today to the tune of 4 friggin lbs UP! How is that even posssible??? Well I did it and that's that. Now it's time to turn that train around right now! So when I first woke up I puttered around the house with my cup of coffee with blend cream and sugar free cinnamon dolce syrup for 1 POINT and then for Breakfast today, which was more like brunch, I had a bowl of yummy oatmeal with toasted almonds, chocolate PB2 and fresh raspberries and a glass of water for another 5.5 POINTS:

Then, rather than have Lunch, I had two Snacks spread out to do me until supper. The first one was before I went out to the mall and it was organic crackers, spread with a tablespoon of baba ganouj and one sliced up 60 cal Cracker Barrel cheese portion for 3 POINTS:

I just found these recently and they are great! They are only 60 calories of light medium cheese and they are individually portioned and excellent for taking for lunches or snacks in your lunch!

Then later on while at the mall, I had a small skinny hazelnut latte for 2 POINTS and I went armed with a Larabar on hand instead of any high calorie food court nonsense for another 4 POINTS:

And for Supper tonight, I gave these Schneiders Oh Natural Meatless Chick'n Broccoli Melts a try. I gotta say, they'd fool anybody into thinking it was real chicken!

They were pretty damn good I have to say! My only criticism is that they are kind of on the small side for 4 POINTS, but since they have cheese and are breaded, it's not a bad tradeoff:

I had one with a side of steamed green beans, butter and salt & pepper for a total of 5 POITNS:

That leaves me with 2 POINTS left to have a little snacki-poo later on. I'll report on whatever that was later!

Getting it Together

I have to say, I am not happy with the extent of my indulgences over the holidays. That's a nice way to put it, right? My body feels like poop! (not so nice way to put it) I haven't exercised in a dog's age which has mostly been due to me being sick. Yup, I'm STILL sick you guys! Two rounds of antibiotics, my BFF the neti pot and two kinds of puffers and I'm still sickie-poo. We are going on 3 months. It's back to the doctor again I go. I haven't exercised at all. Every time I go out into the cold and come back into the warm, I'm coughing like an 80 year old smoker!

So I don't know what else to do, but try to get back on the exercise routine and at the very least keep up with yoga and hot yoga on a consistent basis. I love yoga and have enjoyed it so much :-D I think I'll also give a real pilates class a try too. I've done the videos and have tried a yoga/pilates/thai chi combo class back in the day, but really, I've never really done a pilates class.

I can do yoga and pilates in my condition and they are an excellent form of full body exercise, so there you have it. Signed, sealed and declared here before you! :-D

I just got back from my interview with the radio station :-D. It went a lot more smoothly than I had anticipated. I was quite nervous actually because I had no idea what to expect. I mean, how often do you get the chance to be interviewed, right?! I'm glad I sucked it up and did it. I do regret not doing it the first time he asked me. He kept the questions fairly easy for me :-D He said that it will be aired next Sunday or the Sunday after, but he'll email me when he knows for sure. He is the husband of Karen, one of our challengers, who is the proud new owner of a body that's about 10 lbs less than it was at the beginning of our challenge and 40 lbs throughout the year! :-D

I'm still in New Glasgow for today, but will be heading home tonight. I am so excited to have the final results posted for our Biggest Loser challenge! You ladies should be proud of yourselves, even if you didn't acheive the results you had originally hoped for. Any progress at all is progress toward your goals and that you should be proud of :-D

Tomorrow's WI will not be a result any of you would be proud to post and that certainly is the case with me. But it is what it is and no sense hiding from it because it's time to get my arse back in gear and get back to the grind! I've got a new camera! Menu pics resume tonight :-)

Hello Lover!

Look what Santa brought me!!!!!!!!! What a spoiled lucky lucky girl I am!!!!!!! My obsession with Empire Red Kitchen Aid appliances is not gone away. If you remember last year for Christmas, I got the Food Processor and for my birthday, I got the coffee maker from my Dad, and I got the blender from hubby for some reason or another and as a wedding gift, I got the hand stick blender! Empire Red has now become the accent colour of my kitchen (see stool covers in the background :-D). [See also Teddy in the background. He is 14 years old and he was my dog before I went away to school and dumped him on my Dad 's my Dad's dog :-D.

So far I've made these Raspberry Lemon Cheesecake Squares things in it and it is soooooo fun to use! I can't wait to get good at baking, so I can start getting to work on substitutions for lower calorie and healthier alternatives.

Speaking of healthy alternatives, I didn't have much of that over the past few days! I feel pretty rotten physically too. My body holds onto water like a friggin sponge these last few months. It's crazy!

OH and I got a new digital camera for xmas too and I'm all excited about it because I'll be able to get better at taking food pics for you guys!

I am heading home to my home town tomorrow (hopefully after I throw some elbows and battle the madding crowds for some boxing day sales :-D) and we're heading to my aunt's house for her annual "Bingo Party" which is a great chance to get to see all of my family down home. Also while I'm home, I'm stopping into East Coast FM radio station there where I'll be recording an interview on the Biggest Loser Blog Edition challenge which is coming to an end this week! There will be a new challenge starting up in the next couple of weeks, so they are interested in talking about the challenge in general. I will let you guys know when the interview will be aired and it looks like you can "Listen Live" from the website if you want! I am kind of nervous about it because it's always been easy to type out what I want to say!

Merry Christmas Bloggies!!!!

I just wanted to pop in here to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays :-) I'll be back a bit later to visit you all, but for now, I wanted to pop in and send you my wishes. No matter what this Christmas may bring for you, sincere best wishes from me from the bottom of my heart ;-)

Holiday Goings Ons

I'm so sorry bloggies for not getting my food pics posted last night. It is that time of year where there isn't enough hours in the day to get ready for xmas! I must admit, I am not as prepared this year as I would normally be, mostly due to being sick for so long. So, I was out getting xmas groceries and wrapping presents last night and before I knew it, it was past my bed time! And I make no promises this evening either since I am not quite sure when I'll even be making it home from work. I've got quite a few stores to get to on my way home and my xmas tree has fallen over and the poor thing is back up, but looking pretty tattered! It needs another round of love in re-decorating, so we shall see what the evening brings!

I suppose we all are going to be off of our regular routines this week which is expected, but I'll be posting my pics when I get the chance because I am still snapping them!

Have a wonderful Christmas Eve "Eve"!

WI Results = +3.4 lbs

I had to hold my "WI ceremony" by flashlight this morning. We were without power due to the storm surge and high winds. I even contemplated trying to say that the flashlight weighed 3 lbs, but nope, just wishfull thinking! :-D

Not that I don't feel responsible for this, but it's not fair is it? I mean you have to put 10000% more effort into getting the scale to go down and then it's all negated but a fraction of uncompliance. I will keep going with the mindset that it is not a true 3.4 lb gain, because that is what's going to keep me going, but jeeez I did not want to end BLBE challenge this way. But it is what it is and that's what the scale says and I'm not afraid to report it!

Salvage Sunday?

In an effort to try to detox myself today from last night's indiscretions, I started off the day with a delicious 5.5 POINT bowl of oatmeal consisted of:

• 1/3c oats
• 1/2c unsweetened vanilla almond breeze
• 1/2c water
• 1/2 medium banana
• 1.5 tbsp ground flax meal
• pinch of salt
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 2 tbsp chocolate PB2
• 8g toasted sliced almonds

I sipped on my usual coffee with blend and sugar free cinnamon dolce syrup earlier in the morning for 1 POINT:

Then we were off to help some friends pick up a fireplace that they had bought with our truck and it was going to be a long afternoon because we were going to an open house xmas party at a the house of a colleague of hubby's. There would be food and nibbles of sorts, so I snacked on this Cocoa Coconut Chew Larabar on the way over to help calm my urge to over-indulge on the nibbles for 4 POINTS:

I wasn't going to know anyone there other than the colleague and one other person, so I figured I'd be bored and want to nibble for the sake of it. We were there a few hours before I had anything to eat, although their adorable daughter who is about 8 years old and who was wearing a Chef's hat that said "little helper" was eager to serve me with a glass of eggnog, so I happily accepted. I sipped on that and a few glasses of water until around 4:00 when I made my way over to the food and nibbled quite a bit. I had several smoked salmon & cream cheese pinwheels, several peices of baguette with crab dip spread, olives, pickles, asparagus, and crackers and cheese and pepperoni. It was all very good, and it pretty much filled me up for supper. I wouldn't be surprised if it added up to quite a bit though, I think I had a few more pinwheels and crapdip than I care to remember! I bet the entire snackfest was about 15 POINTS really.

And for an evening snack I had a slice of homemade cinnamon raisin toast that MIL made with some light cream cheese for about 4 POINTS:

All in all I had about 29 POINTS today I would guess. Tomorrow's WI is going to be completely out of whack which is a shame because it is my last WI for the BLBE challenge! I have realized now that the closer I am actually getting to my goal (about 8 lbs away), that my body retains water sooooooo much more than it ever did. Last night's shenanigans followed by a lack of veggies today really will throw it up a few pounds I just know it. That's exactly the reason why I had a 4 lbs loss this week, because of these outrageous fluctuations. In any event, it is what it is and I will be reaching my goal regardless of a scale fluctuation!

Saturday's Indiscretions Confessed :-D

Okay here I am, all ready to confess my uninhibited recklessness of last night! It all started off innocent enough. I had a very healthy Breakfast of some Raspberry Liberte No Fat Probiotic yogurt with some Blue Menu granola, fresh raspberries and some sliced almonds and along side of an M&M Meats breakfast sausage round and coffee. It was a late breakfast, almost lunch:

Sarah arrived and we soon were off for the day. We did some shopping and since hubby had never had a Toblerone bar before, Sarah insisted that we get one. I had a peice, of course:

And we stayed around Bayers Lake all afternoon and made a reservation at Opa's for Supper. We had a fantastic meal and while I didn't overeat, I most certainly had exceeded my POINT limit for the day I'm sure. For starters, I had one slice of bread and a glass of wine and of course some EVOO for the bread:

Then are our appetizers came and there were sooo delicious. We shared an order of kopanisti (Imported feta cheese whipped with roasted red peppers) and for hubby, an order of seftalia (Rolled ground lamb, pork & beef seasoned with herbs & spices) which he compared in taste to caribou sausages which is something that they had all of the time growing up in Labrador. I've tried them before and I have to say, they did taste a lot alike! They were very good. I had more than I should have, and even though I resisted the rest of the bread at the table, who can resist warm pita and dip like this!:

For my main, I ordered the vegetarian pasta (Red & green peppers, onions, artichoke, asparagus, tomato & olives in fusilli, herbs, olive oil and feta cheese) and since it didn't have a protein in it (because it is a vegetarian dish), hubby suggested that I ask them to add some shrimp and that's what I did. When the waiter came with the food, he asked me what made me think of adding the shrimp because no one's ever thought of that before and they were impressed at how well the shrimp would compliment the dish :-D. I had another glass of wine and I ate only half of the entire serving:

And here's my buddy Sarah from across the table. I have no idea why we didn't get a picture of us together! Must have been the extra glass of wine already starting to cloud my head!:

So all is good and I feel pretty good about all of that if that's where the calories ended for the day, but nope. The wine had us enjoying the night a little too much already and so we wanted to sip on a few drinks at home and sit and relax for the evening and just enjoy Sarah's visit, so we picked up a bottle of Baileys and decided to try the coffee flavoured one. We thought that since Bailey's is such a rich tasting drink, we'd have one or two and maybe a glass of wine and that'd be it. I went with Baileys, ice and unsweetened vanilla almond breeze and let me tell you, these went down waaaaaaaaayyyyy tooo smoothe and we ended up finishing the entire bottle, of Baileys!:

And that's were the pictures stop then there was wine, and chips and dip, and more toblerone bar. And of course out comes the Rock Band....I'm the singer, Sarah's the drummer and hubby's the guitarist. Damn we should take it on the road we think, at least that's what we're thinking after a bottle of Baileys and a few glasses of wine! We had soooo much fun though! I felt like I was a kid again having fun with my buddy. Hubby got such a kick out of it, especially since the singing wasn't exactly Canadian Idol material :-D

But then that's when my body reminded me who I am now and not who I was to be able to handle all of the crap that I just put myself through. Maybe too much information, but I was in the bathroom for the rest of the night. My digestive system had no idea what the heck I had done to it after all of the healthy food it is used to getting. I felt awful! And my body is holding onto lots and lots and lots of water today because it's showing me waaaaaaay up!

No regrets though, I think we are all entitled to a little holiday fun and I just used up my free pass for overindulgences for this year methinks. My body just can't handle that anymore. I am such a lightweight now! Sarah just couldn't believe the difference in me because back in the day, I wouldn't have been phazed in the least by it. I think it's a good thing because my body knows what's good and tells me the difference now when before it just gave up and let me do whatever I wanted.

So bloggies, I didn't even include the POINTS in all of that because it's over and done and I couldn't possibly be accurate anyway. I will say though that I saved alot of calories using the almond breeze instead of milk and it was very very very good! For what it's worth!

Morning Coffee Oats and Exciting News all at once!

Inspired by Pasta Queen's prize winning oatmeal recipe in the Quaker Living Proof contest (you know, the weekend where Quaker wisked off a bunch of awesome healthy food bloggers off for a weekend in Chicago and where they were asked to submit an oatmeal recipe for judging?) Maybe you don't know, but it happened and the winner was Pasta Queen with Oatmeal Expresso where she combined the idea of coffee and oatmeal into one = GENIUS! So with that idea in mind, I decided to use that idea and spin it a little "ala Chocolate PB2" because who doesn't like the chocolate & coffee flavour combo? Again, *crickets* :-D

This morning's oats were:

• 1/3c organic oats
• 1/2c unsweetened vanilla almond breeze
• 1/2c water
• 1 tsp Nescafe instant espresso powder
• 1 tbsp powdered Chocolate PB2
• 1 tsp almond extract
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1.5 tbsp ground flax meal
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 tbsp agave nectar
• 8g toasted sliced almonds
• 1 tbsp Chocolate PB2, constituted with water

I gotta tell ya, I was a little "unsure" how this was going to go while I was making it, but I think the key, as always with any oatmeal I've ever loved has been the toppings. That has always been the selling point for me on any oatmeal. I have tried, tried, and tried many a oatmeal in my days without success until I discovered this secret - thanks to many other bloggers out there, especially Kath. With this bowl of oatmeal, I decided I would use the other constituted tablespoon of chococlate PB2 and make it extra runny and drizzle it all around the bowl with the toasted almonds in the middle. This stretched it out a long way and boy did it ever make it a winner! I cannot believe I didn't this of this myself because my favourite protein shake was chocolate protein powder, almond breeze, instant espresso and PB2! Duh! So this bowl of oatmeal in total was 5 POINTS:

Okay, okay and I have to admit, even with the instant espresso powder in the mix, I still had my regular cup of coffee with blend and sugar free cinnamon dolce syrup :-D I always pre-program my coffee maker to have it ready when I get out of the shower to sip on while I'm getting ready and before I get to my breakfast, and I wasn't sure how the oatmeal was going to turn out, so yup, I had a double dose of caffeine this morning for another POINT!

I felt a little pressed for time on the lunch preparation front last night, so I grabbed the leftover collards from last night and a quick combo of the Raspberry Liberte No Fat Probiotic Svelte Yogurt (which I need to be eating because I'm on antibiotics still trying to kick this sinus infection and bronchitis!) and I mixed some chococlate PB2 in it (of course, right?) and topped it with fresh raspberries (the things that are draining my pockets more than xmas it seems :-D) and two of those cute little mini bananas sliced up and mixed in there too. Lunch in total was 4 POINTS:

Yup! Only 4, but still healthy, nutritious and delicious. ( I sort of was just reminded by "set it and forget it" in my head when I said that! :-D)

So far so good. Then the crack blood sugar slippery slope got the better of me and I wasted 6 POINTS on some more sugary treats. Firstly, how could you not when an adorable 16 year old goes out of her way to come by your office to give all of you this cute little package of a xmas treat? Wrapped inside was a cute little homemade marshamallow treat, which really isn't that bad in the POINTS department to be honest, probably only about 1 POINT:

But that was the beginning of me letting my guard down and I ended up having some Turtles (Almondillos). See the empty spaces? Compliments of moi for 5 POINTS:

Then after work I had to fight the madding crowds to drop over to the mall and to Wal-Mart. I got word that the KitchenAid stand mixers were on sale and that there may have been some there in Empire Red :-D That is the last bad boy that I need for my KitchenAid appliance collection and I've been wanting one forever. Turns out, they only had white left and I've worked so hard at getting all Empire Red, that it's kind of become "the thing" that my kitchen is now centered around, so I'll wait until another one comes up. I then went to Wal-Mart for the sole purpose of getting xmas tree lights and I got all distracted and ended up forgetting the lights, but bought all sorts of little things that I needed around the house. I knew that hubby was picking up pizza on his way home from work and for some reason he wanted to get it from somewhere other than Pizza Town which is where they have an actually healthy menu, so rather than let my appetite get out of control, I pulled out my emergency stash of Larabars from the glove compartment and had this Peanut Butter Cookie one for 4 POINTS:

Yup that's right, I've got a stash in my glove compartment and I'm glad that I do because these little things come in handy if you're stuck and on the go etc. They are 4 POINTS yes, but they are highly nutritious and entirely good for you and won't send your blood sugar on a mad raving crack mission :-D

By this time I got home and honestly guys, I was absolutely wiped. This illness truly is kicking my butt and I hadn't the energy to make anything for myself and I decided I'd use my Flex POINTS on the crappy pizza that hubby had brought home. I didn't even enjoy it, honest and truly. As I was eating it, I kept thinking how yucky it was and it did not feel like a treat at all. I'd say the pizza and garlic fingers was about 15 POINTS:



After this, my sinuses were thumping and felt like they had their own heartbeat, so literally, I got into my jammies and was in bed watching TV at the hour of 8:30 on a Friday night. I chatted on the phone a bit and confirmed plans with my buddy Sarah who is coming up tomorrow (now today at the time I'm actually getting this posted - sorry bloggies about that) and she's staying for the night. She's come just in time for my late decoration of our tree, so I imagine we'll have a few glasses of wine-i-poo and listen to xmas carols and just relax tonight. She said she's in some major need of "adult time." She's one of those super moms :-D plus she's taken in an exchange student for the year and looks after kids before and after school. *Props for her, hey!* Anyway, I can't wait to see her and just hang out and catch up. She was our MC at our wedding and I haven't had any time to spend with her since. So, if that wasn't enough exciting news to get me going, I have MORE exciting news!

Back when I started the Biggest Loser Blog Edition challenge, I was approached by a radio station to do an interview on the whole thing and I have to admit I kind of, sort of chickened out a bit because the whole thing kind of took on a life of its own overnight, but since I've agreed to start another round in the new year from all of the emails I've gotten from people wishing they had the chance to join the challenge, but missed the deadline, I couldn't say no. I mean, it IS a lot of work keeping up with it every week, but all of that said, I have indeed kept my mind on track and have been doing really well, so why mess with it! Anyway, the radio station has approached me again to do the interview to be aired early in the new year before the challange begins. I know, right!

This time even though I am still a bit chicken and of course have no experience doing something like that, I'm going to do it anyway because I do sort of regret not doing it the first time. I think that it could have been the "extra kick in the butt" that the challengers could have used with the idea that "people are watching" and not just the challengers (just like the real Biggest Loser in a way)! So while the details are still being worked out, it looks like I'll be doing the interview sometime over the holidays, to be aired in early January. I am nervous though, so I certainly hope I have gotten rid of this cold/cough by then!