...My Fitness Pal...

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/

I thought I'd share my one of my favorite finds...  My Fitness Pal. ( http://www.myfitnesspal.com/ )

I have used a couple online calorie trackers in the past, but this one is Da Bomb!

It is fast and easy.  And the best thing...  you will find almost any food you enter, almost any brand, from almost any store.  It makes it so fast and easy, instead of spending so much time re-entering foods or trying to figure out the calories yourself.  It also tracks your calorie-per-day goal, and how exercising impacts that, which gives you a fast easy glimpse at your day.  Its also REALLY motivates me to work out because it shows you how many calories you burned hence how much more you get to eat!!

Also fun - you can "add" your friends who are using it.  You can't see each others specifics (like they can't see I ate 25 Cadbury Mini Eggs today) but it posts high level info on a main wall.  Kinda like Facebook but less details.  So its a fun way to encourage each other as well.

Well, thats my thought for today!  Along with the thought that I do not like to watch movies that are not funny and/or entertaining.  We just tried to watch The Big Year.  Didn't do it for me.  Had to turn it off.  So many other things I could do with 2+ hours of time!!

All right - until tomorrow!!!!

...Friday High 5...

I love to find blogs I love to read.  People whom I feel like we'd be friends if we ever met (kinda feel like we are anyway!) 

I feel that way about Lauren, and her blog From My Grey Desk.  She is fun!  And one fun thing she does is a Friday High 5 - five things from the week that she's thankful for or were fun or whatever. 

Fun idea, yes??!!  And good way to keep my heart thankful. 

So with no further adu (how do you spell adu?) here are my High 5s from this week......

1.  My husband.  I am just thankful for him.  He really is my best friend. He is silly.  He works hard.  And my favorite thing is seeing the guy wrestling my 3 sons when he gets home.  Boy do they get wild!!

This is my handsome hubby, right after he won the Sumo Wrestling competition at his work!  Ha!

2.  Cadbury eggs.  I'm thankful I had willpower to stop eating them for a couple days, and I am thankful my hubby surprised me with another bag of them!!  Even though that means I am eating way too many of them again!!!

These are heaven!

3.  Dinners!  I am not a cook.  And I was pretty anti-cooking most of my life.  But with my 3 little guys I have decided to try to cook.  Healthy, organic, and low-carb when possible!  And this week I made something every night.  Yay!



Quick and easy combined with healthy!  That's my goal for dinners!



4.  RUNNING!  I love to run.  And running keeps me sain.  For real.  When I am tense and grumpy my husband will say....  ummm, should you go for a run, honey?  Ha!  He knows me!  Due to the boys, a friend of mine and I usually run EARLY (way too early) in the mornings so I can get home before my husband has to go to work.  She's been injured so I have only been able to run weekends lately...  but I am thankful for the weekend runs!!!!!!

I love to run!!

5.  I am thankful for this blog!  And for trying something new, have a creative outlet, and seeing whats this like!  (And thankful for Lauren and this idea for High 5s.  I like it!!!!)

All right - have a super weekend all!!!!!! 

...coffee is my love language...

Coffee.  I love it.  I know the baristas all over town.  Nine out of 10 times if I pull up, they make my drink without me asking.  Its so nice - like I have friends everywhere.  My hubby and I even drove up to a coffee shop about an hour away, and yep - they knew me!  (That was kind of a set up, because I have a friend up there and I always stop by that drive-thru DB on the way home, but it caused a good laugh for my hubby!)

For 18 years I have drank a 20 oz chai with skim milk and a shot of espresso.  Delish.  Oregon Chai.  Not Starbucks.  I love Starbucks, but not their chai.  I just get a latte when I go there.  But anywhere else, its a 20 oz chai with skim milk and a shot of espresso. 

About 5 years ago, Dutch Bros started calling this a Dirty Chai.  Apparently other people like this drink too, as it has a name!  But my sweet hubby would often bring one home for me (he knows that coffee is my love language!) and when he would order a 20 oz chai with skim milk and a shot of espresso, the barista would usually say, "O, a Dirty Chai!"  So one day he got brave.  He pulled up, ordered me a Dirty Chai.  As soon as he said it, he knew he'd made a terrible mistake.  The barista was a cute young girl, and she looked shocked and then mad.  If you knew my poor husband, you would be cracking up!  He is the kindest man, who never offends anyone.  Well, she was offended!!  Of course he explained and it probably wasn't that bad, but it mortified that poor guy.  He's staying away from saying "Dirty Chais" from now on!

But that was my drink.  And I still love it.  But then all this adrenal/thyroid crud kicked in and so I have stopped.  Sigh.  I still drink coffee!  But either make it at home or have an Americano. I just can't do the sugar anymore.  But I still drive by and look wistfully at all my friends, remembering the decades of coffee love.  And I wonder if they miss me?  I miss them!  (I also wonder if their budget misses me, as I am sure I paid their electric bills for many years!)

And even though I have changed drinks, and honestly I have a goal of only cutting back so much that coffee is only a treat now and then, I will always have a love affair with coffee.  The warmth, the smell, the color, the taste, the effect, the environment of a coffee shop, the friendships strengthened over coffee...   the list goes on!!

Thank God for Coffee!!!

...pamper...

So...  these aren't my nails.  But today I painted my nails for the first time in... in.... well, I have no idea how long!  I painted them, and I added a topcoat.  And they are this color! 

The topcoat was supposed to dry them in 30 seconds.   To be safe, I waited a good 10 minutes before I did anything.  And within 11 minutes my thumb on one hand and a finger on the other were wrecked.  So I redid the whole job?  No way.  Just kind of filled in the bumps, tried the topcoat again, and from a distance and if I keep moving my fingers quickly you can't tell there are some mussed ones!

As soon as I realized my paint job was wrecked, I thought:  "Perfect.  Why do I bother?"  Then I remembered what I tell my hubby:  "I just need to expect everything to get broken.  Then if something doesnt break its a bonus!"  With three little boys 5 and under, this is a perspective I need!!  Maybe my nails aren't perfect, but they are bright and cheery!

Overall, I'm the laid back type.  And I feel blessed that I would rather play or snuggle my boys than have a perfect house.  Though in the past few years somehow I passed "laid back" and have landed in CHAOS (can't have anyone over syndrome.)  But that's a blog for another day.

Today I am just being grateful for being reminded of the things that really matter.  For being reminded of the season of life I'm in.  One day, I can do my nails and have white carpet and breakables - but I won't have these 3 little buddies running around. 

So I will choose to ENJOY TODAY!

Hope you do too!!!

Love,
Pam

...sugar, sweet sugar...

Thinking about what to eat....

I am not a breakfast person.  Coffee.  That's all I want.  But things have changed in the last 5 years.  Three babies and a thyroid issue later, my diet has become more important.... 

So last year (proud moment) I cut out sugar.  Almost 100%.  From about the end of April until this last month.  And it helped.  Wasn't the total solution - I am still on a journey there - but it helped.  Less calories, more energy.  And you really do break the addiction.

Get this - I tried to eat a no bake cookie one day.  Didn't even like it.  *gasp*

But this month, I have fallen.  And the reason is - CADBURY MINI EGGS.  I love them.  They are my weakness.  And they only come out at Easter.  Slick marketing.  Yes, I would still be tempted to eat them all year long!!  But it would take away the NEED to eat as many as possible before Easter.... That knowledge that they are only here for a little while so I better eat them.  That excuse that soon they will be gone so I will quit sugar again AFTER the clearance Easter candy aisle at Target is wiped out.

So for now I'm putting it in writing.  I finished off my last bag, and there will be NO MORE CADBURY EGGS THIS YEAR.  Phew.  I feel better. 

Off to herd cats (play with my boys) and tackle the mountain of laundry!  Without the aid of a thin candy shell with delicious milk chocolate inside.  I can do it!

Day 2 of blogging.  Yay.

...40 Days...

A blog! 

Intimidating?  Exciting?  Fun?  

All this is going through my mind... as I think that yes, I will do this.  For so many reasons.  And for no reason!  For 40 days.  And then we'll see.

Forty days?  Yep.  Forty days is a good time frame.  If life is crazy, if you want to change something, if you're thinking of trying something out, if you have to get through something... give yourself 40 days.  It works! 

Its worked for lots of people.  Take a look in the Bible - 40 day chunks of time were a big deal!  Noah, Moses, Jesus - they all had 40 day experiences that were life changing!  And its a time frame God gave me once, during a super hard season... Just hang in there for 40 days.  Hang on for 40 days, and then see...  see whats happening.  See where you are, see whats going on, see how circumstances have changed.  Forty days.  Its long enough to create a new habit, to get a new perspective, to get hope! 

Forty days.  Its also long enough to see what its like to blog.

So... let the blogging journey begin.  Blog #1.  Here it is!  Thirty-nine more days to go...!

Lotsa love,
Pam

(So, what's up with the picture?  I love coffee and my boys love angry birds!  What a good combo!)