Weight Watchers Week 1

I went to my first meeting (this time around) this afternoon during lunch.

And.... drumroll... I lost...

1.8 pounds!

I'm excited that I'm actually seeing some progress and I'm hopefully I can keep it up!

This week I didn't eat different foods than I usually do, I just watched the portions and kept account of what I ate with the points.  It made all the difference.  My goal this week is to "Move More" like we talked about in the meeting, and to also do well in my eating.

P.S. I felt really young at the meeting, but that's okay:) 

Creamy Lemon Pie

I made this WeightWatchers lemon pie yesterday.  If you know WeightWatchers it's 4 points for 1/10 of the pie.  It's very rich I thought so you don't need a lot.  It was super easy to make and I thought it was good.  Here's the recipe: 

Creamy Lemon Pie

 6 whole reduced-fat cinnamon graham crackers
2 Tbsp butter
11 oz fat-free sweetened condensed milk
2 large egg(s)
1/2 cup(s) fresh lemon juice
1 Tbsp lemon zest

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350ºF.

Grind graham crackers in a food processor until fine crumbs form. Or place crackers in a resealable plastic bag and crush with a rolling pin. Place crumbs in a small bowl.

Melt butter on stove top or in microwave and pour over graham cracker crumbs, mixing with a fork until completely moistened. Press crumbs evenly onto bottom of a 9-inch pie pan; place crust in refrigerator while preparing lemon filling.

In a medium bowl, combine condensed milk and eggs; mix until smooth. Add lemon juice and zest; stir until incorporated and pour into prepared crust.

Bake pie for 15 minutes. Cool completely and for best flavor, serve chilled.

*This pie can be baked and frozen for up to two weeks. Defrost and serve chilled.

(Picture and recipe from www.weightwatchers.com)

Mid-Twenties Life Crisis at 24 (This is not an April Fool's joke)

Now that my birthday has happened this now feels stupid to even write about this but I'm going to anyways.  The day before my birthday I was having a major mid-twenties life crisis even though I was turning 24, not even 25.  It seems like this is happening every year lately. 

My thoughts: 

"I'm going to turn 24 I should be in the best shape of my life and happy with my body, but I'm not."

"Why don't I have a baby like everyone else?"

"When am I going to have a house?"

I started freaking out wondering what I have accomplished in my life and who I was.  Does anyone else do this?  I realized that some of these things I can't really have right now. 

Scott is going through medical school, and when he's done with that we'll move for residency.  This really isn't practical for wondering why I don't have a house right now.  First of all we are only in our 20's so I shouldn't even be thinking about a house until I'm 30. Secondly, we don't know when we will finally be settled and it's definitely not yet. 

I shouldn't be stressing about not having a baby because we aren't even trying to have one.  With our unstable life, and financial situation I shouldn't even be thinking about that right now.  It's just hard not to compare our "family status" to others my age and wonder when we will have that.  Right now is not the time, but I'm sure it's normal feeling this way, right?

There is one thing on this list that I can control and do something about it right now and that is my weight and health.  When I was thinking about my struggle with weight I was sitting at work and I decided that this is probably something that I will struggle with for my whole life.  Right then and there I decided that since it will be a struggle I should figure it out now while I'm young how to manage it and change my lifestyle.  So after I had this thought I decided that I would turn again to Weight Watchers.  It seems like the only times in my life where I could get back to a good weight in college was when I went to the meetings with my mom in the summers.  So I went to Weight Watchers by my work at lunch and signed up.  It was very scary for me to do this alone.  I had tried just doing the online tracking stuff but it didn't work for me.  I need accountability, which is why going to the meetings works. 

I am all signed up and am embarrassed to be posting this on our blog.  So why am I posting about this very personal stuff?  I'm posting because this is going to be accountability too.  I'm hoping to be able to share my progress and feelings along the way to keep me going.  My goal is to make a lifestyle change.  I'm only a few days into it but I'm feeling motivated.  I know I don't have a lot of weight to lose but it's more for me to learn to drop the weight I need to and then maintain.  The thing I like about Weight Watchers is that you don't feel like you are depriving yourself.  If you want a treat you can have it, you just have to budget your points for it.  This is why it's something that works for me.  I can't be one of those people with a lot of restrictions.

I'm probably going to be blogging more about other goals I have set for myself.  I hope you don't mind but this is mostly for me, but I hope that others can benefit as I know that all of us struggle with something.  Here's to goals and improving ourselves!

24th Birthday!

Thanks for the birthday wishes yesterday!  It was a great day, other than the fact that I had to work:)  I felt very loved as I read messages on facebook, email, and our blog!  Here is a recap of the day: 

Scott woke me up by singing Happy Birthday and playing a song for me on a kazoo!  Then I opened the door to go out into the hallway and I saw all of this!  Scotty was so sweet to decorate the apartment for me.  It's our tradition, and he always finds ways to bring the birthday decorating up a notch. 

 Scott had to go to his Psych rotation and of course I had to go to work (I didn't want to waste a vacation day to be alone at home). I got to work and there were little cheesecakes from a friend at work on my desk.  Then my work friends took me to lunch.  The day got a little busy after lunch, but not too bad.  Then toward the end of the day an attorney of mine brought out cupcakes and got people to sing to me.   Then when I got home Scott ordered Indian food for us that tasted so good.  We opted to do my traditional "strawberry shortcake" this weekend.  I had way too many desserts on my birthday.  To end the night Scott even watched American Idol with me-see I told you he was super nice to me.  It was a great birthday! Secret:  he's always really nice to me I'm lucky.

Happy Birth Moment, Ash!!!!

Happy Birthday Ashley!!!! Thanks for all you do! Love you, Scotty

My Bank is Here!

I was walking down the street during lunch to go to Chase to use the ATM and I just about walked into this bank...

I caught myself and thought Wells Fargo isn't in New York... and then I realized... it is now!  Some of you might be thinking okay she's weird for being so excited about a bank.  It just brought back good memories of going to the bank in Kaysville, UT  (cue music) "where everybody knows your name...." 

I know that it won't be quite like that in NYC, but at least I can withdraw money from my Well's Fargo account now.  I took this picture on my walk, I saw the taxi and thought it was perfect.  We have to appreciate the little things in life:)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

So remember last year how I said I was going to do St. Patrick's Day better this year?  My mom makes green jello cake every year and it's one of my favorite traditions of St. Patrick's day. 

Last year I posted that I didn't make the jello cake and this year I am sad to say I didn't make it either.  I had really good intentions as I bought the cake mix and the jello last weekend. 

Last night after I got back from organ lessons I was just exhausted from the day that I didn't make it!

I didn't think it would matter all that much to me but my family has all been posting on Facebook how good the cake has been today and now I feel a little left out.  It's not so much the cake it's just the thought of us doing the same thing as my family across the country and it has made me a little homesick today.

I think I'm going to make it when I get home tonight, and it will be ready maybe by the time I go to bed:(

Sidenote:  Scott was so nice this morning to make me feel better and more festive he put green food coloring in his scrambled eggs. Isn't he so sweet? I have to say it did make me feel a little better.  So at least someone ate something green today.  At least we both wore green, right?

I sure hope I'm better with this holiday stuff once we have kids!

So good news so far this St. Patrick's day I haven't seen anyone passed out, any throw up on the sidewalk or subway platform, or had to avoid the glass from broken bottles.  The bad news, it's early and I still have the commute home tonight.  I'll hurry home to avoid the crazies.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

My Predictions

I told a few people that once the top 12, 13 or whatever number it was going to be was announced on American Idol I would predict my top 3.  There ended up being 13 of the 24 people chosen last night.  I have chosen who I think will be in the top 3, my favorites.  My predictions are...

James Durban

Lauren Alaina

Casey Abrams

If you don't like American Idol I'm sorry, but if you haven't ever really watched it---do, so I can have more people to talk about it with.  If you watch, let me know your predictions too!  We'll see how I do this year:)

No Hot Water

We woke up this morning to no hot water.  I'm still not over it.  We had to do the toilet flushing trick to get any sort of warm water in the shower.  I sure hope we have better luck tomorrow! 

I Cooked Bacon...

For any of you that know me very well you know that I hate bacon.  The way it tastes, smells, texture, grease, all of it.  I refuse to cook it, but I made on exception last night.  So if you know all of this you know how much of a big deal and out of character it is for me to cook it. 

Here's the story: 

Scott has been starting to get sick and when I asked him what  he wanted for dinner he said he wanted soup, potato soup (see recipe posted below).  I told him I would make the soup if he would cook his own bacon.  The thought of cooking it made me feel sick as I have always refused.  The agreement in our marriage from the beginning was that he would cook his own bacon, preferably when I wasn't around.  So I go home from work pick up a few things from the store that I need and head home. 

I get there and start getting the potatoes ready for the soup since that's the longest part.  Once I get them in the pressure cooker I ask Scott when he was going to cook his bacon.  He was working on an assignment he had to do that night and said he would do it when he got to a good stopping point.  I felt bad because he was working hard on school stuff and was sick at the same time so I didn't want to bother him.  So... I pulled the bacon out of the fridge, got out my pan and started to separate the pieces.  I thought to myself, how do you even cook bacon?  You can tell I haven't done this in a very long time.  I turn on the stove, wait for the pan to heat up and put the bacon on.  It started getting all sizzly and greasy and making the weird noises that bacon does and I thought, okay I can do this. 

I decided to make Scott aware of how good of a wife I was.  I said, "I deserve an award, I'm such a nice wife.  Just listen..."  Scott was too busy paying attention to his schoolwork that he completely ignored me so I stormed out of the room since I didn't get the attention I was hoping for.  I went back to cooking the bacon and Scott runs in and tells me thank you so much (he was very grateful!), and he does me a favor and pulls the bacon out of all that nasty grease so I didn't have to.  Anyways, I am making a big deal about a little thing but I was proud of myself for kind of getting over that fear of cooking bacon.  Now I'm not saying that will happen anytime again soon...  Also for the record, I did not eat it just cooked it.

P.S. Here is the recipe of the soup.  My older sister Amber found this recipe a while ago.  It's our go to potato soup recipe now.  Thanks Am!

*Things I do differently: 
-We have the bacon on the side so Scott can add it to his soup.
-I cook the potatoes in the pressure cooker, it's faster.
-For us I cut the recipe in half so we have leftovers but not too much.

Potato Soup

16 strips Bacon
5 large Potatoes
2 cups Chicken Broth
2 cans Cream of Chicken Soup
16 ounce Sour Cream
3 ½ cups Milk
½ large yellow/white Onion
2 cans of Corn, drained

Cook bacon and crumble into small pieces, set aside in small bowl. Simmer onion in small frying pan until tender; add to bacon. Peel and chop potatoes into bite-sized chunks. Boil in large pot until soft (not too soft). Drain potatoes and set aside. In large pot, add bacon, chicken broth, cream of chicken soup, sour cream, milk, onion and corn. Bring to a low boil, stirring often, until thickened. Add potatoes and reduce heat to medium. Salt and pepper to taste; let simmer until desired consistency. Sprinkle cheese on top and serve with rolls.

Yield: 1 large pot of Soup

A Long Weekend Calls For a Long Blog Post:)

So I keep wanting Scott to make a blog post, but life as a medical student in rotations is very busy. I will just have to include a recap of his birthday for him. So here is a look at our holiday weekend, and sorry the blog post is really long!  I guess it makes up for me not blogging very well lately.

Friday, the day before Scott's birthday the weather was amazing, mid 60's! We decided to go out for Korean food down by Columbia's main campus. It was so nice, no coat was needed, I wore a sweater and flats (no boots necessary). It was the perfect night to go out, afterwards we walked around the campus.

So Scott and I have a tradition that on birthdays we decorate the apartment for the other person. This started right when we got married. These are homemade decorations which is fun and you can use creativity. Scott set the bar really high last year with a funny idea to make signs that had pictures of celebrities and a birthday wish from them to me. I decided to follow along with that idea and do that for Scott this year. So when Scott was sleeping Friday night I woke up and hung these up around the apartment. Most of these are people that Scott likes, but I threw in a wildcard because I couldn't resist.

On Saturday, it was Scott's 25th Birthday and Scott woke up to all of his signs. I was still asleep but I could hear him laughing so I went to see him find all of them. Scott opened up his present from me which was The Price is Right game for the Wii. We agreed to only do a small gift for our birthdays, like $25.00 or less. I found the game and I was like, oh perfect, it's on sale and everything. I was so excited to give it to him, he opened it up and we played it. Sad to say, it was not a fun game, it was a huge disappointment. I felt so bad because my only gift I had for him was a flop. I'm working on a replacement gift...

We got ready for the day and headed out the door. When we were getting ready to leave we were determining the outerwear that we needed. It was going to be colder than Friday by 20 degrees, but still didn't sound that bad. Too bad Friday couldn't have been his birthday... So we each put on a coat, and decided we didn't need a scarf or gloves. We were planning on going to lunch on the east side so we decided that on the way we were going to try to win lottery tickets for Wicked. I didn't want Scott to be disappointed if we didn't win since it was his birthday. We headed to the theater to put our names in and it was freezing cold! The wind was so strong and sooo cold! This was our 5th attempt to win cheap tickets for this show, so we weren't holding our breath. Waiting for the drawing it was still really cold! They waited longer to draw the names so we had to wait outside for a while. They drew the names and.... no we didn't win! I thought maybe we'd have a birthday miracle or something, but no.

We decided to walk into a store to warm up and figure out what we were going to do. We decided to head straight to where we were planning on going for lunch. We had to walk a bit longer, but luckily the wind had slowed down. We arrived at our location, Baluchi's. It's really good Indian food right by my work and for lunch everything is 50% off. We love going on Saturdays because it's super cheap for lunch and really good! We are also always the only people in the restaurant---weekends are their slow days because during the week it's filled with people working in the area. We ate our food and of course it did not disappoint. Mmmm I love Indian food. I'm getting hungry thinking about it--and it's only like a block from my work... While we were at lunch, we were talking about an alternative plan for the remainder of the day because it was just too cold to be out and about. The original plan was to go to Standburger to try their famous toasted marshmallow shakes, but because of the cold we were not wanting to eat something cold. We decided to head back home and I would make "Chocolate Lava Cake" for dessert.

On our way home we went down into the subway station, paid and walked through the turnstile only to find out that the "E" train was not running that weekend. We ended up having to take an alternate route that ended up taking a long time waiting for the trains.

On the way home because it had taken a while we were hungry and decided that a donut from the street cart sounded good. To try to be festive I decided to put candles in Scott's donut. I had bought birthday candles, but I could not find them. We decided to use a regular sized candle which was pretty funny. I sang and took these pictures of Scott:

We just chilled the rest of the day, played a few wii games, Scott was able to watch basketball games. I think Scott enjoyed taking his mind off of school for one day. I made the cakes and they turned out really well! I'll post the recipe another day, super easy.

Parts of the day were good, parts were not so good... I can't speak for Scott but it was good to just be able to spend a whole day together, we haven't had much time together lately so it was nice. We are happy now that Scott will be able to rent a car for us and being 25 sounds so much cooler than 24:)

Since we weren't able to do anything amazing for Scott's birthday because of not so pleasant NYC weather pleasant... we are going to do something when it warms up to make up for it. Here's to another year!

P.S. Thanks to everyone who sent their birthday wishes! Scott felt very loved on his birthday. We especially laughed really hard when we read the comments from my sister's kids.
Sunday, I found out it was my last week to teach the 12-13 year old youth sunday school class... I am sad about this. I have really loved teaching them since I don't get to teach for a profession, and I'm going to miss it. I learned so much teaching them.

Monday, I decided it was a day to catch up on the apartment since it was a holiday and I didn't have to work. It also helped that it snowed overnight so I knew it would be a staying indoors kind of day. I feel like I never have enough time to get it really clean. Since I always leave our bedroom for last I decided to start with that first. I worked a long time doing laundry and cleaning, but our apartment looks great! Well our bedroom, living room and kitchen. I still need to finish the extra room and bathroom. How do those of you with houses keep it all clean?  I can barely keep our 2 bedroom apartment in good shape!  It felt good to have a day to get a lot accomplished. We also played Michael Jackson - The Experience, on the Wii. So fun! Scott did a few songs with me, but he was mad I kept beating him!

It was a well needed long weekend!

It's a Special Day!

It is Scotty's 25th Birthday! 

It's a big birthday year...he can finally rent a car for us:)  Feel free to leave a message for the birthday boy!  We'll post later about the festivities...and a picture of the birthday boy. 

Excited for Broadway this Year!

I'm signed up to get emails about shows on Broadway, and I was so excited to see this show opening in March!  I remember watching "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" with my older brother David.  He introduced me to so many musicals, and I give him credit that I am cultured in that regard.  Anyways, this show opening in March---anyone want to go?

I also want to see this show-Wonderland!  It's opening sometime in March too.  This one is a new musical, based on Alice and Wonderland with a New York twist.

American Idol is Back!

This is Scott's least favorite time of the year... when American Idol starts up.  It's my favorite though!

I am a little behind in posting about American Idol this year because I wanted to watch a few episodes before.  So I've watched a few weeks of it, and I love it!  I have decided that I really like all the judges.  For those of you out of the American Idol loop there are 2 new judges this year to replace the old.  Randy Jackson is still a judge, and Steven Tyler (from Aerosmith) and Jennifer Lopez are the new judges.  So I may be a little biased because I am a Steven Tyler fan.  Just ask my family about my Steven Tyler impression:)  I think the judges work well together, and I am not missing the judges that left.  I don't even miss Simon Cowell.  So if you decided not to watch this season because of the new judges, start watching!  I need more people to talk about the show with.

I like this season how they seem to be focusing more on the good singers than the bad.  I used to get so sick of hearing all of the bad people so I think that is better.  There have been a few people that have been really good!  Once they get to the Hollywood episodes I'll start listing my predictions.  I like to pick my favorites early on and see how far they go.  I also like to "judge" the contestants myself, so I hope I don't bore you with my reviews as it goes further.

If you can't stand American Idol, I'm sorry just don't read these kinds of posts:)

1 Year Work Anniversary

I have made it 1 year working at my law firm!  Hurray! 

Other good news... Scotty is home!