Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas Eve!! Right now I am nice and safe, blogging from my parent's house!! Last night we ended up just staying in Indianapolis since the weather was so ICKY! It took me about an hour to get home when it normally only takes about 25! Traffic was crawling and it was pretty icy. I ended up sliding into a curve while pulling into fiance's apt. complex. EEK! Luckily my little Toyota was fine, but it was kind of scary! We ended up leaving this morning around 9. The weather was much better today, but it was still raining the whole time!

Now onto the eats:

Yesterday for lunch I was just trying to use up any leftover food so I ate an orange

and a whole wheat bagel with some honey nut cream cheese.....YUM!Since we ended up staying in Indy I started my evening with a beer.Since we had used up almost all of the food in both of our places we ended up making a frozen pizza. The only one fiance had was a sicilian one. It had 3 kinds of meat! UGH! I also made some frozen broccoli on the side. This pizza was really filling and I didn't end up eating the whole second piece. After a while I was craving some dessert so I enjoyed 2 candy cane joe joe's with a glass of milk. 

This morning I woke up and made an AWESOME b-fast of Apple pecan waffles.

I toasted 2 whole wheat waffles and topped them with chopped apple and pecans and some lite syrup. These were so easy, but SO delish!

When I got home my dad had already prepared lunch. Minnesota minestrone! This is one of my favorite meals because my fam. makes it chock full of goodies! I'm not sure of the exact amounts, but it included:

whole wheat pasta

lean ground beef

sliced zucchini

corn

cabbage

celery

beans

canned tomatoes
I topped mine with a bit of parm and had 1 slice of loraine swiss on the side. I LOVE THIS CHEESE! I also had a dessert of 1/2 a cheesecake brownie, but I don't know what happened to the picture!

Well now I am off to relax around the house, watch some christmas movies and have some celebrations tonight! :)

Wintry mix!

I am SO excited! Today is my last day of work until next Monday and tomorrow is Christmas eve! I don't know what it is, but I honestly feel like time is flyin' these days! Wasn't it JUST T-giving?? Oh well I love Christmas :) I am religiously checking weather.com and seriously doubt we will be able to go home this evening. If we can't make it home fiance and I will just enjoy a nice relaxing evening in with some wine to celebrate out mini vacation! We HAVE to enjoy this since neither of us can use ANY vacation days until the wedding/honeymoon in August. Ugh, it seem like forever away!

Yesterday after work I jetted home to finish my packing just in case we were able to leave right after work today. I snacked on 1/2 of a whole wheat wrap with some salsa and mozz cheese which I zapped in the micro for about 20 sec.

I used Newman's own chunky roasted garlic salsa. Love this flavor!Dinner was leftovers: Kasespaetzle. (trying to use up food!) I also had some roasted asparagus on the side topped with a tiny bit o' salt and black pepper.For dessert I had 2 candy cane joe-joe's from TJ's. UMMMM...wowza! These are SO delish. The minty center goes perfect with the choc. cookie. And as fiance said "wow, those are more like double stuff then regular oreos!"

Breakfast this AM was a bowl of cinnamon puffins with 1 banana. I got to work early at around 7:10 (there was like NO traffic...everyone must already be on vacation!) I am planning to take a shorter lunch so hopefully I can be outta here by 3:45 at the latest to avoid the horrible wintry mix conditions coming later this afternoon. We have a freezing rain advisory in Indianapolis. ICK!

Happy Tuesday, which actually is like FRIDAY for those of us still working :)

Fingers crossed.

Afternoon! I hope everyone is having a good Monday. Today I am working from 7:30-4:30. So far the day has flown by, but now I am finished with most of my projects and feel like time is CRAWLING! AT least I just have work tomorrow and then it's Christmas Vacation for 5 days! :) I am a little bummed since I was planning on heading home tomorrow night, but the weather looks like it is going to be miserable for the whole day! :( I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it won't be as bad as they are forecasting!!

This weekend was extremely busy and productive! I got all of my Christmas shopping and wrapping done! I watched 2 of my favorite Christmas movies and made some festive treats to take home(see below)! I also had to work Sat. morning, went out to celebrate a friends birthday on Fri. and went to dinner on sat. at a SUPER nice steak place Morton's! Fiance and I used a $100 gift card that I got when I purchased my new car back in Sept. It was SO yummy! I got a chopped salad and ordered the bacon wrapped scallop appetizer as my dinner.

This morning was FREEZING! The wind chill was minus multiple degrees. I thought my hands were going to freeze off. I made a nice yummy bowl of oatmeal to get me going. I made the reg. oats with 1 banana in them and topped it with:
brown sugar
pecans
TJ's pumpkin spice granola
4 blackberries
Luckily there is a thermostat in the Lib. I can control so when I got there I cranked it up to get nice and toasty. At around 10 I ate some cinnamon puffins for a snack. These are SO good. I picked them up at the store on Friday and have snacked on them everyday over the weekend! For lunch I made a toasty sandwich. It had turkey lunch meat a piece of swiss cheese and some mustard on it all warmed up in the toaster oven @ work! It is one of the toaster/toaster oven combos and I feel it heats up and burns extra fast. I think I have finally got the hang of it!I had an apple on the side and a choc. chip z-bar as dessert!

Now I am just counting down the hrs. until 4:30 when I will head home to pack, then go to the gym and relax the rest of the evening :)

All about me.

Hi all! I thought I would FINALLY give you all a little background about me so you know where I am coming from :) I have been meaning to do this pretty much since I have started this blog so here ya go!

My name is Jill and I am a 23yrs. old. I am currently working full time as a librarian for a career college. I work at their downtown Indianapolis location and love it! Being a smaller school I get to do a bit of everything so it keeps things interesting. I am also going to graduate school part time and working on earning my masters in library science (MLS) from IUPUI. I will be done in December of 2009 and CAN'T wait! Another thing I may mention at times is my upcoming wedding! My fiance and I have been together for about 4 years and just got engaged this past August. We will be tying the knot on August 8, 2009!! I am planning my wedding where I am originally from (about 3 hrs. away) in northern IN. Life can seem SUPER busy at times with work, school and wedding stuff but I couldn't be happier :)

Another aspect of my life that has lead to happiness is a fairly recent weight loss and revamp to a healthier lifestyle! I wouldn't say I was ever really overweight, but I have had a fluctuating weight since high school and it hasn't always been healthy. When I started college I was at my smallest weight I can remember, 105 lbs. Throughout college I steadily put on weight through bad eating habits and drinking. I felt that it was under control until my senior year. I hit my highest weight of about 145/150 ish. I felt uncomfortable with my body and just knew that I was NOT healthy at this point.

This is during homecoming my sr. year at a sorority event:

Here I am during spring break sr. year:

After graduation I felt I would be able to get rid of the weight quickly since it had fluctuated in the past. However, this proved harder than I thought it would be, changes weren't happening.

Sometime during the fall/winter I remember having to get some blood work done at the request of my dad's dr. My dad has very low HDL (this is your good cholesterol) and his doctor feared it might be hereditary. And it was for me.... My overall cholesterol numbers were fine. My bad cholesterol(LDL) wasn't too high, but my HDL was very low for a young female. My dr. recommended I work on exercising, alter my diet some and will most likely have to be put on medication when I am older. This kind of scared me. As a 22 yr. old I didn't think I needed to be worrying about my health to that point. I began altering things in my life. I swapped refined for whole grains, watched my portion sizes, ate more fruits and veggies and worked out regularly. My weight slowly came off.


Here I am in early March 2008 on vacation in FL at about 135:

After a few months I got tested again and my numbers had improved. After this improvement, my health was slowly becoming less of a focus for me. While I wasn't gaining my weight back I realized I wasn't doing myself any favors.


A few months ago I started reading food blogs and seeing that there was a supportive community out there of other young women dedicated to leading a healthy life. I researched ways that I can naturally try and raise my HDL to avoid having to take medication. I joined a gym and made a transition to eating healthier, more natural foods. I don't like to deny myself things, I just try to keep it in moderation. I am not always perfect and will sometimes splurge on pizza, beer and sweets, but isn't that part of life??
Here I am currently at about 123 lbs. I am not looking to loose more weight I just want to focus on living healthier and feeling comfortable in my skin :)

GERMAN :)

I'm happy to report that dinner was a SUCCESS!! I was attempting to recreate one of my fav. meals I ate while I was studying abroad in Germany. Introducing....... 

KaseSpaetzle!!!!!

This is made using spaetzle noodles, a variety of cheeses and caramelized onions!L to R: Gouda, Parmigiana and Brie 
My simple recipe was adapted from several different I found online. I had previously tried it using only emmentaler cheese and the taste was completely off! I remember reading somewhere that combining different cheeses gave a similar taste to the actual dish. (We don't have the actual kind of cheese in America that Germans use to make the dish)

17.6 oz. bag of spaetzle noodles (I used a little less than 3/4 of the bag)

1 lrg. onion

1 c. gouda grated (you can also use emmentaler or gruyere)

1/2 c. parmigiana grated

1/4 c. brie diced (since it is kind of gooey I just ended up ripping it apart!)

Cook spaetzle noodles in boiling, salted water for about 13 mins.

While noodles are cooking carmelize onions.

Mix noodles 3/4 of gouda and parm, all of brie and 1/2 of onions together in a 9x9 casserole dish. Stir.

Top with remaining ingredients. Cook for 25 mins. in 350 degree oven.

ENJOY!!

This was VERY good and much closer to the original dish!

I also had a side salad with light ranch and some roasted asparagus!Along with my Kasespaetzle I wanted to make Gluhwein. This is also a German treat and is really just red mulled wine! Here it is cooking:To make Gluhwein I used:

1 bottle red wine

mulling spices (I filled 1 spice ball about 1/2 way)

1 1/2 tbsp. honey (or other sweetener of your choice)

1/2 orange sliced

Combine all in a pot and heat over medium low heat for 30 mins. to 1 hr. 

This recipe can be altered however you want! Normally it is made with a ton of sugar so I decided to sub honey and it worked well! You can obviously adjust the amount of mulling spices and sweetener to your taste. The sweetness level can also be altered by the wine you choose. Dryer red wines might need more sweetener.

I made mine with a cheap bottle of merlot and used these williams-sonoma mulling spices. 

After work I came home and had a quick snack of TJ's greek yogurt, some pumpkin spice granola and 2 blackberries. 

After my snack, fiance and I headed to the gym, where I biked. 

Now I am just relaxing! I am planning to read and head to bed early...today just wore me out! NIGHT! 

Busy day!

Afternoon bloggies! This has been a busy day. Today is the last day of student finals so the library has been full all morning! I can't wait to be off tomorrow:) [I have to work on Sat. for my manager because he will be out of town] I am planning on finishing all of my Christmas preparations. CAN YOU BELIEVE CHRISTMAS IS ONLY 1 WEEK AWAY?!?!? Where did all of the time go?

Yesterday for lunch I had soup and a piece of toast.

This soup was ok. There were def. not enough veggies in it for me and it tasted a bit too salty.For dessert I had a choc. chip z-bar which I zapped in the micro for 20 seconds. YUM!At around 7:30 hunger struck....BAD! I ended up having to raid the vending machines and settled on a bag of pretzels. I ate the whole bag! By the time I got home at 9:30 I wasn't too hungry so I made a 1/2 bowl of creamy wheat cereal and topped it with some pecans. This morning when I woke up bright and early I was STARVING!! Not eating a full dinner last night really did me in. I needed to eat something filling to stick with me throughout the morning. I had 2 whole wheat waffles with 1 sliced banana and lite syrup.

I got hungry around 11 so I ate 1/2 of a kashi pumpkin spice bar. For lunch I had to order Jimmy Johns. I was running late this am and hadn't planned anything to pack...oops! I got a turkey tom with no mayo and added avocado spread. I also had a small christmas cookie a co-worker had brought in for dessert. I realized I have seemed to be eating lots of dessert lately. Oh well, I guess I just can't resist all of the holiday treats!

This evening I will be heading to the gym and then I have something special planned for dinner! It's a new recipe so cross your fingers that it turns out yummy! :)

Humpday.

We are having disgusting weather here! It had been 'wintry mixing' on and off for most of yesterday and today. ICK! Last night when I left work I had to spend like 10 mins. d-icing my car. It wasn't that normal ice or slush either...it was the kind where you literally have to chisel away little bits at a time!! Scraping does almost nothing. It was actually quite a workout.....I can really feel it in may arms today!!!

On to the eats:

Yesterday when I got to work I had a little chocolate from a package a co-worker brought it. It was dark choc. with milk choc. inside.
My lunch was a roasted veggie pasta. I made it using these noodles I picked up at Trader Joe's! It was only $0.99 for this package. They were very hearty and I really enjoyed the taste. My pasta had roasted asparagus and carrots, chopped and mixed with a tiny bit of marinara sauce and parm. cheese.

I also had an apple.After I ate I had another glass of cran. pom. green tea sweetened with honey.At around 6:30 I ate a blueberry z-bar for a snack.After cataloging TONS of books ( it is slightly like manual labor shifting all of the giant art and reference books around!) I fought with the layer of ice on my car and then went home and ATE! I made another sammy on a cheese roll. This time I roasted 1/2 of a sliced zucchini and added it on the roll with turkey lunchmeat some cheese, mustard and greens. I also had some cheesy chips on the side.

This morning I had to wake up early for a dr.'s appt. I ate a banana and some TJ's pumpkin spice granola on my way there. After the dr. I ran some more errands and then made a bagel egg sammy since I had a TINY b-fast earlier. I cooked 1 egg over easy and melted some mozz. cheese on it before putting it on a toasted whole wheat bagel. I also had a sliced apple on the side.


Ok. I think I have decided that I need to do more posts a day or else they end up being SUPER long!!

Well I have to get back to work and maybe eat some chocolate. I am having MAJOR cravings (what can I say it's just that special time o' the month!) HAPPY HUMPDAY!!

Tuesday

Good afternoon!! I hope everyone had a fab monday. It is FREEZING here with snow flurries. It reminds me that Christmas is just a little over a week away!!! Actually, 1 week from today is when Fiance and I will be heading north to celebrate the holidays with our families :) SO EXCITED!

Now for an update on the eats! Yesterday for lunch I ate another sammy on a cheese roll. This bread is seriously SO yummy!! I also had an apple and a choc. brownie z-bar for dessert.

A co-worker brought in some treats for the holidays so I did eat 2 mini cookies around 6:30. When I got home from work I whipped up another veggie pizza.

This pizza was once again made on a whole wheat tortilla with some pizza sauce, sliced zucchini, diced tomatoes, mozz. cheese and some basil. DELISH! I also enjoyed a glass of red wine. It is finals week for the students at work and thus the library is CRAZY BUSY!!

This morning I woke up and just didn't feel like venturing out in the FREEZING cold to go to the gym. I ended up doing a lower body workout through exercise TV on demand. There were a bunch of awesome available workouts and I def. feel that I will be utilizing them throughout the brisk winter! After my workout I made breakfast consisting of 2 whole grain waffles w/ lite syrup and 1 sliced banana. YUM!

Look what came in the mail: STONYFIELD COUPS! YAY!

When I got to work I made some cranberry pomegranate green tea sweetened with honey. I feel like I kind of have the sniffles and DO NOT want to be sick for christmas! I am using the hand sanitizer like crazy trying to ward off any other germs! Any suggestions to ward off a cold??

I just ate a snack of some dried pineapples and cashews to last me until my break.

Enjoy your Tuesday!