Hard to think

As I tried to gear myself up to get some real work done (clearing's all been done) I just felt huge mental resistance. Like my mind is a huge blob and I have no idea how to tackle it. Mostly because of all the 'stuff' I have to do, like I don't know where to start first.  It probably doesn't help that I woke up last night restless again.      ….

I think the revelation from this discovery is that I am viewing it all my 'to dos' as a big blob, letting them overwhelm me. It may help to slice the overwhelm into pie slices, and deal with them one at a time.

I picked what I'm going to work on next. Here's hoping some music will help with concentration..

Reboot

First thing I noticed is that as I went thru my emails I don't have any 'hot' burning to do's. I'm coming in blank, just thinking to deal with whatever emails I got overnight. So if there's no hot overnight emails, I've no drive to get anything special done.
So - perhaps since nature abhors a vaccum, I just gravitate to the easiest mental filler, the internet. Not so good. Especially when even there I don't have much interesting stuff to browse thru.
Next thing I noticed is that I have trouble calling to mind what should I get done today and what's coming due in the near future. Blank. Its an effort to think of these things. Much easier to think of surfing over to hippymom or scroll thru my junk emails.                                                           
Then I realized its almost 10am and I've done shit nada nothing for work. So I get the overwhelm - like that Dilbert cartoon I have hanging on my wall.
SO.
Let's go back to basics. Clear my space with salt. Clear my mental/ body energy. Clear clutter from my desk. Get a cup of tea (NOT COFFEE!!). Make a list of what I want to get done. Start working on the list.
Off I go now.

Icy Wednesday

Yesterday again went well foodwise. At bedtime I thought - if I have the rice crackers now maybe I wouldn't wake up later to eat them. Logical right? But didn't work. I still woke up, had the crackers, took some hylands tablets then finally was able to get back to sleep.

Today I'm stuck at home due to an ice storm. Bleah. Will be setting up the crockpot in a little while. Other than that plan to stay with in food plan.

Internet wise - I did way too much browsing this morning but that is over as of right now. Will not allow myself to browse until the end of my 'work day'.

Internet Fast

I'm thinking seriously of taking an internet fast. I have noticed how much time I'm spending on the internet and honestly its taking too much of a bite into my work/life balance and not contributing much to my life (except for HM of course :upara). So I'll catch you in a month or so… I can't totally cut the internet off but will seriously limit my browing time, not sure what will make the most sense, perhaps just do internet browsing while at home, perhaps just limit my time per day, not sure… I will start by totally not touching the internet while at work, I'll see how it goes for the rest of the week… I will allow myself to pop in here ONCE a day at most, to put a post.

Tuesday Feb 1

Yesterday's recap: all went well yesterday, I even fell asleep at bedtime, however I woke up around 2:30am and had about a dozen rice crackers.
Good news is - I weighed myself this morning and I'm at 164.4 !!! That's 1.2 lbs in 3 days!! WOOT! Certainly motivating to stick to diet!

TODAY's PLAN -

• Breakfast - mini quiche
• Lunch - cauliflower soup
• Dinner - split pea soup or hummus with cucumbers
• Snacks - tbd but probably cottage cheese, cheese rounds, cashews.

Day 3

Day 2 Recap
Overall the day went very well, all meals were within plan. The problems came up at night!!
At bedtime I felt hungry, so I thought I'd stave it off by eating a few cashews. Nah. I was super restless. After over an hr of tossing in bed I gave up, went to the kitchen and ate about 2 dozen rice crackers. Bleah.
I think I'm struggling with kicking the carbs away - the usual 'addition' thing that I go thru everytime I kick carbs away, except I haven't done accupunture treatments in months so my adrenals are probably all out of whack and making it harder to kick the carbs. Sigh.

Day 3 Plans
I woke up feeling crappy, off. I ended up drinking dandelion tea on the way to work, hopefully that will help with detoxing.

As far as my meal plans today:

• Breakfast is the usual.
• Lunch is an unknown, there's a work activity going on at that time, but I brought alternate food just in case.
• Dinner is TBD but will involve something with leftover roasted chicken. Not sure why I'm hankering for curry but I'll go with the flow, maybe I'll google for chicken curry recipes. Hmmm.
• Snacks - I brought cottage cheese and laughing cow round cheese to work, as well as pecans so I'm all set.

Afternoon Update
Before lunch - Going thru some detoxing right now - no fun :( I can feel myself just CRAVING carbs. Sugar too. Bleah.
After lunch update- had lunch within plan - hotdot, sauerkraut, turkey chili with spoon of cheese, a few veggies with dip
Feeling a bit woozy but that might be due to my lack of sleep last night.
Bleah, I'm THIS THIS THIS close to grabbing a cookie. Then again I am enjoying not having the mental fog I usually have when I'm eating wheat. Gaah!!
I think I'll go have a decaf coffee, with a few cashews.
Just have to keep reminding myself - I'll feel worse if I eat the wheat!!

List of recipes to try

Just browsing and found some recipes I just HAVE to try one of these days...

Black bean soup:  http://kalynskitchen.blogspot.com/2006/10/easy-south-beach-recipes-black-beans.html

Crockpot Chicken Curry: http://kalynskitchen.blogspot.com/2007/01/kalyns-kitchen-picks-pataks-biryani.html

White bean and kale soup: http://kalynskitchen.blogspot.com/2010/01/cannellini-bean-and-kale-soup-with-ham.html

Sausage, Peppers, and Cannellini Bean Stew with Parmesan http://kalynskitchen.blogspot.com/2010/02/crockpot-recipe-for-sausage-peppers-and.html

I shall have to keep checking out this website for ideas... http://kalynskitchen.blogspot.com/

Week 1 Tentative Menu

Time to draft my dinner plans for the week...

• Sunday  - salad with chicken from Costco
• Monday - do something with the chicken, perhaps a curry?
• Tuesday- hummus & cucumbers (lazy night since its pizza night for Muffin & Muffindad)
• Wednesday -pulled pork, except I'll be lazy and use a wegmans' bbq sauce instead of making my own, side of veggies http://kalynskitchen.blogspot.com/2009/10/slow-cooker-recipe-for-pulled-pork-with.html
• Thursday- leftover pulled pork
  
• Friday- TBD
  
• Saturday -TBD

Breakfast will be mini quiche, lunch will be soup, either the split pea or frozen cauliflower soup (http://www.wegmans.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10052&catalogId=10002&productId=714129) that I made last weekend.

Mini Quiche Recipe

Here's how I make my mini-quiche:

About 1 1/2 cups cooked veggies -  typically  I'll use spinach or broccoli, sometimes cooked mushrooms
6 eggs
1 cup shredded cheese - usually I'll use cheddar, sometimes feta, or swiss
a dash or two of adobo

mix it all, dump into muffin tins, cook at 375F for 18 minutes and that's it!
I like to freeze the muffin quiche so they keep fresh longer.

Day 1 Recap, Day 2 plans

Day 1 went much better than I'd anticipated!! We went out for dinner, and I had a steak with a side of green beans. The dish came with french fries which my family scarfed down, and I did eat a few of them. But other than those few fries, I pretty much followed South Beach phase 1 - woot!

Day 2 - so far so good. I made spinach mini quiche for breakfasts this week, and I just put in a split pea soup in the crockpot, I did this one:
http://kalynskitchen.blogspot.com/2011/01/recipe-for-spicy-yellow-split-pea-soup.html
except I skipped the herbs, added 2 diced carrots and 2 links of spanish chorizo instead of sausage. Hope it comes out good!
Now I need to figure out dinner....

Of course I just realized I never got to do my morning meditation b/c Muffin woke up before I did, and mornings are my quiet time. Maybe I'll try and sneak it in later today, or even perhaps some yoga...??

And I should start planning my dinners for the week, so I'll stop typing for now.

Goals for the weekend

Go my goals for this weekend are:

FOOD -  plan food for the week

HOME - clean out tv unit, post it in craigslist, get rid of tv

MUFFIN - call friends and see if I can setup a playdate for her this weekend or for next weekend. Also take her shopping for new sheets for her bedroom. Perhaps we'll get a comforter cover too.

HOUSE - start cleaning out  Muffin's closet and drawers, reorganizing with goal of bringing upstairs all her clothes that are still in her changing table.

FUN - do something fun with the whole family - gotta think on this!!!

Off to work I go....

First things first - FOOD

So the first thing I want to work on is FOOD. Starting today I'm committing to following the South Beach Diet. Which means - eeck - no carbs for the next two weeks!

My starting weight is 165.6 lbs. We'll see where it is in a week...

Of course this also means I need to plan my food ASAP. So here goes:

today's plan:
Breakfast - cheese omelette
snack - laughing cow cheese, perhaps some cashews
lunch - white bean and red onion salad with side of swiss chard (if its still good...)
snack - cottage cheese
dinner -  gotta think on this one!

Actually I need to plan out meals for the week... eeeck! More to come...

Day 1

I've got my new computer, and a brand new year  in front of me (ok, so its the end of  January but its still pretty early in 2011!) I view this blog as a journal to documnent my journey to who I want to be this year.

Every year for the  last few I've picked a word for my 'new year's resolution'.

This year's word is TRANSFORMATION.

I will transform my diet, my body, my  health. To feel and BE healthy.
I will transform my home. To reflect who I am. To be place that is welcoming and nourishing.
I will transform my view of time. Of how I use the time given to me.

and that's just the start...

ok so I picked a huge word! It came to me as I was listening to my 'Brother Bear' soundtrack yesterday. The movie shows how a boy transforms into a bear, which teaches him many things and ultimately teaches him who he really is. I'd like to think I'm going on that journey as well.

Hmm. I'm also thinking I am really not liking typing directly on a laptop, I've become spoiled by my work keyboard. Maybe time to get a cordless keyboard? LOL!