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Ben’s Room WIP

Ben’s room is coming along … slowly. It’s always hard fitting in home improvement projects during the few precious hours you have at home at night during the week, but we are managing!

The room is painted – I really like the color and am so happy we picked it! And we’ve also moved most of his furniture back in there. The old dresser remains in my office. I keep trying to get rid of it and no one is biting. A shame really, it’s very cute! The new storage pieces, from IKEA’s STUVA line, are working out great. He’s got so much more storage than he did before this. And as soon as we can get some things hung on the wall, I can get some stuff cleared out of his closet too.

The yet-to-do list includes:

  • get carpet fixed (scheduled for Monday)
  • rout the baseboard
  • sand and oil the baseboard
  • install the baseboard
  • cut the wood for the bed
  • sand and poly the wood for the bed
  • assemble the bed
  • put it all together
  • hang photos, bulletin board, light
  • install wall decal?

One of the final decisions I’m making is about putting a wall decal behind his bed (like this one or this one or maybe this one or this one). Since it’s a large wide-open (green) space and the bed is treehouseesque, I’m thinking about putting a large tree decal behind his bed. Too much? I can’t decide.

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Tex Mex Meatloaf

Last night we tried the first recipe from Zone Meals in Seconds. I always love it when the first recipe I try from a new cookbook is a winner and this one was a MAJOR winner. Though this is Zone specific, Matt and I both agreed that we would eat it anytime. It’s your basic meatloaf, with a few interesting additions and served with a side of guacamole. Best of all, both kids loved it! Really, what’s not to like?

The full zone recipe has a side salad with romaine (we used baby greens), 1/4 C low fat cheddar per person, thinly sliced celery, shredded carrots and a 1/4 cucumber. Adding the salad makes it a full 4-block Zone meal if you’re interested. I added just a little salsa for dressing. I love me some salsa.

Ingredients

  • 2 eggs
  • ¾ cup  black beans
  • 1 tablespoon chili powder blend
  • 1 teaspoon ground cumin
  • ¼ teaspoon ground red pepper (optional)
  • 1 tablespoon tamari soy sauce (optional)
  • 1/3 cup non-instant rolled oats, uncooked
  • 15 ounces lean ground beef  (ground turkey works too)
  • 2 tablespoons dried onion flakes
  • ½ cup fresh or frozen corn
  • 1 cup minced yellow or red bell pepper
  • 1 cup no-salt diced tomato with jalapeño
  • avocado

Directions

Mix and mash as you would any meatloaf. Place yummy mash in a 9×5 loaf pan. Bake at 350 for 60 to 75 minutes or until thermometer regisiters 160 for beef or 180 for poultry. Mash/chop avocado and season as desired for guacamole (we use chili powder and garlic salt). Serve slices of meatloaf with guacamole. Groan and say “oooh” a lot while eating.

We actually made this the night before and baked it about 15 minutes extra to compensate for the chillier meat temps.

 

 

 

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Chaos!

Our house is in chaos right now. See two things happened in late December and early Janurary:

1. We got a new couch. While I’m very excited about this new couch, our old one is in our living room (which already has its own couch), waiting for a friend to take it away, or failing that, be sold on Craigslist. There are also a few other items that we are getting rid of hanging around in that general vicinity, so the room to your right as you enter our house? Not really a room so much as a furniture dumping ground. Our tree is also still up, somewhere behind there. Cheers!

2. We started work on Ben’s Big Boy Room. Part of that was getting him a new dresser and bookshelf. See, there used to be cabinets in his room because before it was his room, it was an office,

and we needed a dresser/bookshelf arrangement bigger than the old one to hold the stuff that came out of the cabinets when they were removed (shelves are gone too!). The old bookshelves went to a friend, but the old dresser remains, still needing to make its way to Craigslist. But in any case, new dresser, new bookshelf and old dresser are currently residing in my office because they can’t be in Ben’s room because work is on-going. Ben himself is bouncing between his toddler bed in his room and the aero bed in Sissy’s room (where he stays up ’til all hours chatting with Sissy and making mischief – thank God they don’t have to share a room regularly).The room currently looks like this:

Cabinets are gone, shelves too. There is a strip of bare floor against the wall that we’re trying to cover with remnants. No word yet on whether or not this will work. Matt is making new baseboard for the pieces of wall the cabinets were covering and the wall is primed (it will be a darker green AND I don’t have to do any of the painting – yay!). Once all that (baseboard, carpet, painting) is done, we can start building his bed … and of course get his furniture out of my office.

So three rooms of our house (Ben’s room, our living room and my office) are completely unusable. This of course is pushing stuff that needs to go into these rooms into all the other rooms. And I am inundated by STUFF. Obviously, we’re getting rid of the furniture, etc. as fast as possible, but it takes time! Meanwhile, let’s just hope I don’t have a pile of stuff fall over on me. I really can’t handle it right now. 😉

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Entering the Zone

So maybe I mentioned that I’m doing something new to start off the new year. I am heading into THE ZONE. My beloved gym is hosting a fitness challenge running from Jan 9 thru Feb 3. We will be recording our workouts and food choices for that period and tracking what kind of changes we can make in our bodies. We have two ways of eating to choose from: Paleo or The Zone. I chose the Zone, mainly because it seems a bit less restrictive, though I will admit that Paleo intrigues me.

Anyhow, The Zone is a way of eating that advocates adequate protein for your body, based on the amount of lean mass you have, and then a matching portion of good carbohydrates and good fats. It’s not unlimited bacon and cheese and no fruit like with Atkins, but the carbs are pretty limited. I really have no expectations on what I will get out of this, but I want to try it. The Zone authors promise fat loss, weight loss, better mental acuity and generally better health. For that? Why not try it? Coming into the two races I most want to do well in this year, I could definitely use a few less pounds to drag around.

So far it’s just taken me quite a bit longer to get my meals ready for work and to figure out what we’re having for dinner all week, but I think it will get easier as time goes on. The good news is that we already eat healthfully so a lot of the things we normally eat can be made zone-friendly with just a few minor changes, mostly reducing carbs (less or no rice, pasta, bread).

For example, yesterday I ate:

Breakfast

  • 2/3 C oatmeal
  • 1/2 C berries
  • scoop of protein powder
  • 1 T flax seed
  • 2 egg whites

2 Snacks (one morning, one afternoon)

  • half an apple
  • a piece of string cheese

Lunch

  • salad greens
  • a few olives
  • 3 oz of chicken breast
  • 1/2 cup of lentils
  • 1/2 cup of berries

Dinner

Now it just takes some discipline and a hefty dose of planning and execution.

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Vail. Weekend. Snow.

We had a lovely time away from home. It was great to have such a nice break after a crazy-busy month and a half (or so). We never did get a good “adult” ski day in, but the kids both got days on the mountain and in the case of Tabby we can actually ski with her.

So for two days, Tabby went skiing all day on the big mountain. She also spent time on the bunny hill whenever Ben was there. She’s really a bit beyond it, but she still had fun. It’s a good time for her b/c she can get on and off the magic carpet on her own and the first day we were there, they had CONES! She took it as her personal mission to ski around them as well as she could and she did awesome. I’m not talking about generally around the cone, I mean RIGHT AROUND the cone. Less than a foot between her and the cone.

Ben shows signs of having pretty great ability and was always gung-ho to “go skiing!” But once he got there he was quite a bit more apathetic about the whole situation, telling us sometimes even that he didn’t want to ski. Since we schlepped him all the way over there, he didn’t really get a choice but to make a run or two and when he did it, he enjoyed it. His balance is good and he seems to have some ability to control his direction, moving the direction Matt pointed to. But he tires quickly and is really still so very little. He was just happy to get outside and play in the snow, really.

With very little snow, we never did get a real day on the mountain just adults. But we got lots of TV watching, game playing, reading, cooking and even some exploring done. It was so peaceful and relaxing. Unfortunately, we woke up on Saturday to find this:

Gorgeous snow coming down, just in time for us to drive home in it!!! GRRRRRRR

The drive home was not terrible, but longer than normal. 2.5 hours compared to 1.5. Compounding the annoyance were our kiddos. As good as they were our whole trip, they were that bad in the car. Whining, crying, screaming, throwing, fighting, grumping. By the time we got home, our nerves were shot. Lucky for us, we had a bottle of premix margaritas in the fridge that we’d barely touched. We did minimal work to get the house back in order (it’s still not nearly back in order) fed everyone dinner and finished off our margaritas. Not often the way we roll, but not bad either.

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The Cookbook Challenge

Since I like to cook, I collect recipes like mad … magazines, google reader, pinterest and of course COOKBOOKS. I adore cookbooks with their glossy pages of photos and yummy yummy words. I own tons. Maybe not the 100+ as the famed Heidi Swanson did (does?), but a LOT. And yet, I find myself rarely cracking them, mostly making recipes that we already know and love or something I found on the interwebs.

So. I’ve decided to issue myself a cookbook challenge! My plan is to choose one cookbook every month and cook EIGHT (or more if I’m feeling masochistic/optimistic) recipes from it, or about 2/week, that I’ve never made before and report the results. I am planning to use cookbooks I already have, with one exception (more about that below). I am excited to try new recipes, but also excited because this will hopefully help me winnow out cookbooks that aren’t up to scratch. At the end of the month if the recipes weren’t winners, they’re gone. I feel like two recipes a week is pretty doable and will leave room for old favorites, trying OTHER new things, and nights off!

I plan to make the recipes basically as written, but I will do small modifications for health, since we are health-conscious sort of folk. I will also not be likely to choose, say, a Paula Deen cookbook as that woman has an unholy love for butter (which I admire on one hand but eschew with the other) and all things densely caloric. I have chosen Pioneer Woman and that is probably nearly as bad.

As noted above, I am buying one cookbook to be part of this challenge, a Zone Diet cookbook. My gym is doing a nutrition challenge in January and I will be taking part in this for the betterment of my athletic prowess and waistline, so Zone is the order of the month. Anyhow, here are my cookbook choices for the year:

1. January – Zone Meals in Seconds
2. February – Biggest Loser Family Cookbook
3. March – Moosewood Simple Suppers
4. April – Thai Street Food; my step-mom-in-law got this for me for Christmas and I can hardly wait to crack it!
5. May – Jamie’s Dinners
6. June – Colorado Colore, one of the awesome Denver Junior League Cookbooks
7. July – Boy Gets Grill (Bobby Flay)
8. August – Apples for Jam
9. September – Time for Dinner
10. October – Pioneer Woman Cooks
11. November – Donna Hay’s Modern Classics (at least I think this is the choice – I forgot to write down which Donna Hay book I picked)
12. December – The Illustrated Quick Cook

I’d love it if anyone wants to join me!

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2012 Resolutions

Isn’t this poster cute? I saw it on Pinterest and I may just have to buy it. It made me think about New Years’ Resolutions. I like them and almost always make them, even if I usually forget about them and don’t really make a very big deal about them. They flip a switch in my mind …. something to work towards and I find them useful.

My resolutions for 2011 were:

 

  • work on our grocery budget, specifically by using what we ALREADY HAVE – I will give myself a C on this … I improved in some ways, but not nearly as much as I would have liked.
  • running goals: a 5K under 28, a 10K under an hour and a half marathon under 2:15, 800 miles overall – did great with this, meeting all my race/time goals, though my mileage was quite a bit less, I feel like I worked hard at it
  • improve my general strength and specifically core strength – goal accomplished, thanks to Boot Camp!
  • read 60+ books again, mix in more non-fiction – I kind of forgot about the non-fiction part, but I hit my 60 book goal easily and read some really great stuff

So for 2012 my resolutions are:

  • running: sub 2 hr half marathon, 800 miles for the year – many people run much more than this, but this seems reasonable given my schedule
  • organization: whip my forever-messy “office” into usable shape
  • stick to our enlarged grocery budget and be in the black on our overall budget – I added some more $$ into the grocery budget because we couldn’t seem to get close to sticking to it last year; I want to try harder to see if we can this go-around
  • complete my cookbook challenge – details to come tomorrow
  • have a REAL date with Matt once a month – we do great at getting out on our own, but too often we’re working on a project; I want to be able to relax and watch a movie and have a nice meal here and there
  • have more fun family outings on the weekends – more play, less work … with the kids too; even if it’s just going to the pool or the zoo

2011 was good to us – we are truly blessed and grateful. I look forward to the promise of 2012 and intend to work hard to make it another wonderful year.

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Welcome 2012

We are spending the first week of our new year as we usually do, relaxing in Vail. I absolutely love this tradition, especially since I have a tendency to absolutely KILL IT in the last few weeks of the year. This week is all about relaxation and fun. We ski when we feel like it. We make nice, but simple home-cooked meals. We wander around the town. We watch TV and movies and play games on our laptops. We read books. We PLAY. It’s wonderful and exactly what I need right about now.

The one bummer of this week is that our good friends who were planning to join us for the week had a death in the family and were not able to make it. We’re terribly sorry for their loss and we miss having their company as well. We’re hoping we can get together later in the year and spend some time with them.

We’ve been out skiing twice. Yesterday we took Tabby up on the big mountain and she skiied like crazy and had so much fun. She’s exceeded all my expectations of what a 4yo can do on skis and she’s really loving it which is so much more important. We took both of them to the bunny hill today and Tabby was in her element, going up the magic carpet and back down again with no help from anyone. Ben was not having as good a day and was tired and mostly wanted to hold hands on the way down. No biggie … we’ll probably try again on Friday.

I had a funny moment when I went to put on my ski boot yesterday. I stuck my foot in and felt what I thought to be a rock, so I turned my boot upside down to shake it out and out came a good bunch of dog food. I had a good laugh at that.  I can only figure my industrious little Ben dumped some in one day – the boots are stored in Matt’s shop … not really near the dog food but in the general vicinity. He’s quite the houdini.