Investment in Excellence

Hi bloggers! The past 2 days I attended all day seminars for work. They were FASCINATING! The two seminars were put on by The Pacific Institute . One was about success strategies that corresponds with a class our students are required to take. The other was called Investment in Excellence. I want to highlight some of the main things I learned throughout the past 2 days!

The focus was on using both positive self talk and affirmations to slowly change you subconscious and achieve your goals.

Essentially human beings are programmed to be negative people. If you simply float through life you will gradually pull towards the negative since it is practically 11x more powerful than the positive!! Example: When people are constantly thinking 'why does this always happen to me?' or always say they have the worst luck. Why is this? Because they are always thinking about it! They have trained their subconscious to behave in the way that always results in bad luck!
It takes 11 positive people to overpower 1 negative person in a group!!

"You don't get what you want or deserve in life, you only get what you expect" -Bandura

This quote was powerful to me. If I expect that I won't get a better job or I won't achieve my goal then IT WON'T HAPPEN! Some people are taught to not have high expectations since they may lead to disappointments. However, if you don't have expectations then you are essentially telling your subconscious over time to sabotage opportunities that are better than your expectations!

Yesterday at the seminar we made a list of goals we want to achieve throughout 2009. We then made these goals into affirmations to read daily to slowly tell our subconscious that we can achieve them. Example: You regularly don't work out and currently tell yourself it is hard and you don't like it. Your goal is to begin working out. You then write an affirmation that says "I thrive on daily exercise because I feel healthy, strong and energetic". You read this affirmation 3 times in the morning and 3 times in the evening daily. Over time you are changing your subconscious to believe that this is your new normal. After this change if you don't workout you will create a dissonance in your mind since your subconscious now thinks you thrive on working out. Make sense??

Some of this was a little hard to get at first. I'm trying to explain it the best I can! At first I thought it was kind of strange and a little out there. But after they really explained how your mind works, discussed studies and had several of our Vice Presidents who have attended previously tell stories of how it actually works I was SO INTRIGUED BY IT! I am def. going to start using some of these principles in my life! Do any of you use affirmations already?

We also discussed proper goal setting, positive self talk, coaching and so much more!

The company that I work for has been sending every employee through these seminars for the past 10 years! I feel blessed to work for an organization that wants to give their employees this information. My company believe that your personal, professional and organizational lives all affect each other so it is essential to be satisfied in each of those areas to excel!

I promise to be back to regular blogging soon I just wanted to share a little bit of this with you all!

Bars to the rescue

Winter is in full force today! Freezing temps with snow flurries all morning. Yuck! At least the sun is trying to peak out!!

It was hard to get going yesterday morning. I felt like the weekend flew by and I barely got to relax!! I made myself a nice filling breakfast when I woke up. 2 whole wheat waffles topped with pecans and light syrup. I had a sliced apple on the side and a cup of coffee.

My work schedule this semester is going to be all crazy like because of my classes. Luckily my boss is super flexible with my schedule, but it still stinks! I have one class thursday evening so I can only work until 4:30 and on friday I have a class in the afternoon so I can only work like 4 hrs! Thus I have to cram the rest of my 40 hrs. into mon-weds. Yesterday and Today I am scheduled to work from 10:30-9 only getting one actual meal break around 3:30! ICK! Thus you will probably be seeing alot of these guys to keep me fueled all day during the next few months:

This is only my second larabar to ever try and I have to say I really enjoyed this flavor. Although, I'm not sure if I like larabars or clif bars more. Obviously they have different textures and flavors both of which I enjoy, but I think I need to try more larabar flavors to really decide! What are your favorite bar flavors??

For lunch at work I ate my leftover pesto tortellini pasta from Bravo with a blueberry yogurt. (sorry no pic!)

When I got home from work I warmed up the remaining fried rice from this weekend and mixed it with some romaine lettuce. Quick and filling!

This morning I woke up not too hungry. I had 1 piece of cinnamon raisin toast and a cup of coffee. I know this is a pretty small brekkie, but I just didn't really have a huge appetite.

I snacked on a banana on my way into work and have a cinnamon roll larabar on standby to eat as soon as my hunger strikes!

HAVE A GOOD TUESDAY!

New Kicks

First off I want to say THANKS for the ladies who gave me some advice on my foot/ankle pain! I REALLY appreciate it since I basically have no idea being a beginning runner and all.

 Yesterday was a super busy day! After work I rushed home and had lunch:

Turkey and cheese sammy with a blueberry chobani on the side. (SO GOOD!)

After lunch fiance and I went to look at another possible townhouse (it was no good!) It is frustrating looking for a place when you have such specific location restrictions. I think I mentioned earlier that we work about an hour from each other. My office is downtown and his office will be moving like 2 suburbs outside of actual Indianapolis. Basically because of the traffic in those areas we have a fairly small location (with limited apt. options!) that would be ideal. At least we still have plenty of time to try and find something fab!

We then headed to Edinburgh with a friend to SHOP at the outlet mall!! I def. got some good finds!!!! We had dinner at Bravo.

It is a delicious Italian rest. I split a chopped salad with fiance and ordered pesto tortellini for my entree. I also had a glass of pino grigio.

We spent the evening having a few drinks and watching TV at our friends place downtown before heading home way past my bedtime!

This morning I woke up feeling slightly sick. Stuffy with a bit of a sore throat! I feel like I have been on the verge of getting sick on and off for a few weeks! It never seems to really progress, but it is annoying always having a slight sniffle!!

Fiance and I went to run a bunch more errands and stopped at Panera for lunch. I got a u pick 2 combo:

Chicken noodle soup and Turkey artichoke panini (DELISH!!)

We also bought a fresh loaf of cinnamon raisin bread there to enjoy this week! (pictures to come later!)

One of our errands was getting my NEW SHOES! Thanks to your advice along with some research I did about my foot type I bought a pair of Asics. As soon as I tried them on IT WAS AMAZING! I felt 1,000,000% more support for my arches than with my nikes I have been wearing. Plus I thought they were so cute!

I am also going to get some gel inserts for my higher arches and hope to tackle running again this week. THANKS AGAIN!  

When we got home I instantly had a piece of the raisin bread for a snack...SO YUMMY!For dinner I made a simple Frozen Veggie Quiche. 

I mainly just needed to use up the eggs before the expired. 

5 eggs

1/4 onion

1 cup frozen veggies (used broccoli, carrots and a hashbrown/pepper mixture)

1/2 cup grated cheese (I used parm. and gouda)

I put it all in a 9x9 casserole dish and cooked for 30 mins. at 350 degrees.

Here is it before going in the oven.

I had one piece along with another slice of bread :)

This was really tasty. I intentionally kept dinner a little light because I wanted to enjoy a cup of my somoa ice cream! :)

Now I am just watching the Golden Globes and will be heading to bed early before another super busy week starts. My graduate classes start again this week and I am def. NOT looking forward to it!!!

Hope you all have fab. Mondays!!

long time no talk!

Hi again! I don't know what is up with this week!! My work schedule is a little bit different now that the students are back in the building for classes and it just seems like time flew by! Hopefully next week I will be back to my regular daily posting and commenting! :)

The weather here is incredibly blah! It is a bit rainy, overcast and barely above freezing. Supposedly it is going to get colder and then just be freezing rain later on today. Sounds miserable, huh? I'm keeping my fingers crossed it doesn't get too icy since fiance and I were planning on going to the outlet mall in Edinburgh which is about 40 mins. south of Indianapolis. I was really looking forward to doing some shopping!!

I'm not quite sure where I left off, but I'm going to start with Thursday evening. After work I went to the gym and did my first day or running on my 5K training schedule. It was awful! I did walk/run intervals for about 15 minutes b/c I was having shooting pains in my right ankle and on the top of my foot. I really think I need new shoes b/c of my knock knees I tend to put more of my weight on the inside of my foot. I also have pretty high arches. I think it is a weird combo! I have no pain in my left one....just the right. It was so bad I was practically limping around all day yesterday! I'm thinking on going to a running store and trying to get fitted for shoes that will give me the proper support I need. Anyone have any advice??

Anyways after the gym/running fiasco I went over to fiance's for dinner. Fiance really wanted to make Nathan's hotdogs. I guess they are used for hot dog eating contests or something and he claims they are the best. (very bad for you, but they tasted amazing!!) I had 1 on a whole wheat bun topped with a bit of mustard and ketchup, diced onions and pickles and some lettuce. Side dishes were green beans and some baked beans. It was all delicious!


Friday morning I had to go into work for a faculty meeting. (I don't teach any classes, but since we give LOTS of library presentations we are kind of considered faculty and staff) I was running a bit late (surprise, surprise!) so I needed a b-fast for on the go! I toasted 2 waffles and put 1/2 of a smashed banana and 1 tbsp. of creamy pb in the middle. I have seen some other bloggers eat these kind of waffle sammys before and I always kind of thought they were strange, but let me tell you.....IT WAS SO DELISH! I will def. be eating these kind of combos when I want something quick, warm and filling!

After work I was finally able to run some more errands. I made it to whole foods...the closest one to me is about 15 mins. away, but in a VERY high traffic area so I try to only go when it hopefully won't be as crowded! By the time I got there I was famished since a long meeting meant no morning snack for me. I ended up loading up on their salad bar. I was a bad blogger and forgot my camera at home, but was too hungry to wait. I ate a large mixed green salad and had some couscous mixture and pasta salad on the side. This was actually my first time actually eating at whole foods and I was very impressed!

While shopping there I found CHOBANI!!! (they were on sale too!) I was so excited because previously I had only been able to find the peach flavor (which was the only one they didn't have!) I also stocked up on bars. [I ate a choc. brownie z-bar as my lunch snack on the drive home :)]

I spent the afternoon lounging around resting my ankle/foot napping and reading. It felt so good to just relax after having a busy week.Later, I snacked on a dented blueberry yogurt topped with some granola. Weird lighting...sorry!For dinner I used this:I got it in the frozen section at Wal-mart and thought it looked like a good veggie combo!

I sprayed a pan with some olive oil and then heated about a cup of this mixture up. I added a tiny bit of soy sauce for a bit more flavor. I served some 'fried rice' on the side. I think this was a rice a roni mix? Amyway I cooked it up and then added a scrambled egg to it.

This morning I had to come into work for a few hrs. again. (told you it has been a crazy schedule week!)

For breakfast I made an egg and cheese sammy on a whole wheat bagel with apple slices on the side. And of course coffee x 2!

Fiance and I are having some trouble trying to figure out honeymoon plans! My parents own timeshare points that can be used at any Wyndham vacation resort. They have graciously offered to let us use a week of points for our honeymoon! We had originally wanted to stay at the resort in Windsor, CA in Sonoma County however it was all booked. We are now looking at other places! We debated on going to Hawaii, but It would be quite a lot of traveling time since we will be flying in and out of Chicago. We have also debated on Las Vegas (the resort is BEAUTIFUL there and a little bit off the strip...I stayed there with some girlfriends for spring break my sr. year of college) or Edisto Island which is by Charleston in South Carolina. I'm not too concerned with where we go since I have been fortunate enough to travel quite a bit. My fiance hasn't really done much vacationing here in the U.S. so he's up for almost anywhere. Do you guys have any good ideas??

Have a good Saturday!

Use your imagination.

Hi lovelies! I was all set to update my blog this AM at work, but couldn't seem to locate my camera! I must have left it at home! Well since my eats have def. not been all that exciting I will just update sans photos....use your imagination ladies :)

Yesterday for breakfast I had a delicious bowl of my regular oatmeal. Lunch was a tuna wrap with an apple on the side. At work I popped some popcorn for a snack and also ate a choc. chip z-bar later. Dinner was leftover chicken corn chowder. See I told you! BORING!


Now, my girl K asked what kind of waffles I eat! Currently I am enjoying Kellogg's Eggo Nutri-Grain Low Fat Whole Wheat waffles...mainly since they were on sale at the grocery store! I'm all about a bargain :) I also got these, but haven't tried them yet. I have pretty much always eaten eggo's since I was young so I really like the flavor!


It has been snowing here in Indy ALL morning. Luckily it isn't too heavy and I'm sure it won't stick since it isn't too cold, but jeez! I'm ready for it to be spring already! I really only like snow until Christmastime and then I just find it annoying... Do any of you like winter weather?


One bit of exciting wedding news is that I have decided on my bridesmaid dresses! Ihad decided on the dress I liked a while ago, but have been debating on which color to get for like a month! I finally decided on black! And here is the dress:

It is a Morilee dress and you can see more photos of it here. I don't want to bore you all with my wedding details I was just excited to have FINALLY made a decision on this! :)

Next time I post expect more photos and hopefully some more exciting eats. Happy Humpday!

A BIG one.

I'm Back!! Sorry for being MIA over the weekend. I was a little busy, but also just feeling lazy! :)I'm just going to do a MAJOR recap of my eats...try and stick with me!

Saturday morning I made buckwheat pancakes with chopped pecans in them topped with some light syrup.

Coffee on the side of course :)After b-fast fiance and I went and looked at bunches of apts. and townhomes. I didn't really like any of them! We are looking for something affordable in a very specific area because our jobs are so far from each other. (they are like an hour from each other!) I am kinda picky about kitchens and bathrooms. A lot of the ones we looked at had super old appliances (like circa 1990!) and old looking counters and floors. It just creeps me out!! After searching around for hours I was STARVING! We picked up chinese from one of my fav. places :) This place offers brown rice as an option instead of white or fried!! I got the shrimp with broc. and an egg roll. I ate about 1/2 of everything. For dinner we went to one of our friends places! He lives downtown and has a SUPER FABULOUS apt. They are brand new and everything is so swanky. I am totally jealous! While we were prepping dinner I had a glass of red wine I also snacked on a few wheat thins and this roasted tomato dip he had made. (this is fiance's hand. He is always trying to dive into the pictures with a thumbs up and I told him he could only be in this one if he held a cracker!)

Dinner was saltine crusted steak! I'm not really sure what the actual name was for this, but it was pretty tasty. You take a certain cut of steak (once again I have no idea what it was!) coat it in an egg was and then dip it in smashed saltines. You first pan fry it for a few minutes and then finish cooking in the oven. I'm sure it was horrible for me, but it tasted good! On the side was some saffron risotto.

After dinner we watched some of the colts/chargers game and then headed out to a bar. I only had 1 bud light to drink while we were out! It took me forever to finish it, I just didn't really feel like drinking!

Sunday morning I woke up and made a light breakfast of a whole wheat bagel with mixed berry cream cheese.

On the side I had 1/2 of a pear and a cup of coffee. Afterwards to did some laundry and a little cleaning. I snacked on a few pistachios while fiance put some meat in the dehydrator to make beef jerky.
Here he is flipping some of the pieces.

We then set out to look at more apts. I was determined to find something good! We went to a handful of places and found something amazing!! The outsides of the buildings look a little shady, but I am so happy we went inside!! The townhomes all have stainless steel appliances, hardwood floors in the kitchen/dining area, new counter tops and an accent brick wall for UBER cheap! The woman said they don't become available too often, but hopefully since it is pretty early we will have a good shot!

After that we came home and made sammys for lunch.

Mine had turkey, cheese and pickles on it. I had 1/2 a pear and some chips on the side.

During the afternoon I snacked on a few pieces of fiance's home-made jerky. It was DELISH!

I wanted dinner to be light and easy. I microwaved a sweet potato and topped it with some mozz. cheese and a bit of TJ's plain greek yogurt.
I had a small side salad with it.

And for dessert I had to have some of this:

I have been craving ice cream and when I saw this on sale I just HAD to buy it! At first I was confused as to what it was because when I was in Girl Scouts they were called CARMEL DELIGHTS! What happened?!?!

Anyways it was SO good! Perfect flavor combo :)And that finally brings us to today! For b-fast I had a bowl of cinnamon puffins.Lunch was a quick pasta with diced green peppers.Topped with a little parm.


AT work ate snacks consisting of: a small blueberry yogurt, an apple and an almond crunch granola bar. It is CLEARLY not enough food to last me to 9 as it is only like 6 and my yummy is going crazy. I guess I will just have to raid the vending machines. It is hard adjusting my eating schedule when I work my crazy nights!

Sorry this was a GIGANTIC post! I hope I didn't loose you all ;)

WEEKEND!

Hi all! I am SO excited that it is finally the weekend! As nice as the holidays have been I am kind of excited to get back into a routine. This whole being super busy and having days on and off of work all the time is starting to wear me out! I'm loosing track of what day it is at times....OOPS! I hope everyone else is ready to enjoy the weekend too! :)

For b-fast this morning I made 2 whole wheat frozen waffles topped with chopped pecans and lite syrup.

On the side I had 1/2 of a pear and a cup o' coffee!And then UGH! My camera battery DIED! I have a rechargeable one so I wasn't able to bring my camera with to snap pics of lunch! I guess I should pay more attention to the 'battery meter' that tells me how charged it is. OOPS!  

My breakfast stayed with me for a good amount of time. I had a small snack mid morning of my remaining pear 1/2 and then ended up going out to lunch with 2 of my bosses for a working lunch. We went to Milano Inn. I ordered a cobb salad that had chicken, egg, cheese, bacon and tomatoes on it. I got this AMAZING pesto dressing. It was SO good and really made the salad! I ate a good portion of my salad along with a fresh roll. Lunch actually kept me satisfied for a long time! 

I was able to leave work early (YAY!) since we basically had a meeting during all of lunch. After work I went over to fiances and we headed to the gym! It felt great to get in an awesome workout after so much indulging recently. I did a mini cardio circuit: 15 mins. on the elliptical, 10 mins. on the stairmaster, and 15 mins. biking. I was def. sweating by the end! I feel like I get reenergized when I switch machines and really push myself more than just staying on one machine! Afterwards I did a few weight machines and lifted some free-weights. Trying to tone up my arms for that strapless wedding dress! ;)

Tonight for dinner I made Chicken Corn Chowder!

This recipe was really good and extremely easy!!

The recipe I found was originally intended for a crock pot, but I made some alterations to it and ended up simply preparing it on the stove. This included:

2 medium sized chicken breasts

1 tbsp. butter (I used part of a smart balance stick)

1/2 c. onion

2 celrey stalks

1 can sliced carrots (drained)

2 c. frozen corn

2 cans cream of potato soup

1 14oz. can of low sodium chicken broth

1/2 cup of half and half

Start by cooking the chicken breasts. Fiance cooked them on the grill seasoned with a bit of salt and pepper.
While the chicken is cooking simmer the onion and celery in the butter over medium heat.

Add the chopped chicken and all other ingredients except the 1/2 and 1/2. I let it simmer on the stove for about 40 mins. or so.

Add the 1/2 and 1/2 cook for about 10 more mins. then ENJOY!

I had a full bowl!!

And 1 piece of toast with some melted gouda cheese on it

This was SUCH a yummy dinner! :)

I did also just go back for a little bit of seconds and am now enjoying a little bit of white wine. :)

Tonight I will just be lounging around reading and possibly watching a movie with fiance and one of his friends. Tomorrow will be a full day! Fiance and I are going to look at apts and townhomes for when we will move in together this summer. (I can't wait!) We decided to start looking early to make sure we can find an awesome place that we can stay for a few years. I HATE MOVING! haha.  Hopefully we will hit the gym in the afternoon and tomorrow night we will be hanging out with some friends and probably going to a bar downtown. 

Enjoy your Friday nights!!

2009!

Hi bloggies! I hope you all had a fabulous new year! My party went extremely well! We ended up having a bunch of people come...our tiny little house was packed! (my roommate and I rent a house) After work on wednesday I went home to prepare my veggie tray for the party! I knew there would be a good amount of not so healthy choices at the party so I wanted some veggies available to snack on! I had a good amount while prepping. The tray had: mini carrots, celery, broccoli and green pepper.  I also set out some lite ranch to use for dipping. 

Here is the whole spread!

Roasted asparagus, brownies, veggie pizza, veggie tray, hummus with pitas, bruschetta, cheese tray, crackers and pretzels. The yellow dish in the back eventually had mini ham and cheese sammys on it!
Swedish meatballs and reuben dip with some rye bread. 

I ended up snacking on a bunch of everything throughout the night! I tried to focus on the veggies, but had a few meatballs and some cheese. I started the night with some vodka and pink lemonade and mainly sipped on champagne for the remainder of the night. We didn't end up going to bed until after 2am and I was EXHAUSTED! ! 

This morning I slept in a bit and immediately made some pumpkin coffee to get me going. I also had a slice of a giant apple-cinnamon muffin. 

My roommate and I then cleaned up the chaos that was out house! There were bottles, cups and plates all over. Our kitchen floor was SO sticky from having drinks split all over it. After cleaning for a bit I realized I needed some more food. I made a mini bagel with light cream cheese and had a small orange on the side.
I also had a glass of cranberry juice. 
I actually spent most of the morning/early afternoon laying in my bed watching DVRd episodes of The real housewives of orange county. I think that show is so entertaining! I really just love most all reality TV! I eventually whipped up some lunch consisting of couscous with some roasted broccoli and shredded cheddar cheese. 
I finally got my lazy butt moving after my reality TV mini-marathon and headed to my fiances! He had a group of his fraternity brothers from college over to watch the rose bowl. When I got there they had ordered some pizzas and I had 2 small slices (1 pepperoni and 1 sausage) It was fun to relax and enjoy my paid vacation day! To bad I have to go back to work tomorrow :( at least it is a little bit of a short day. 

I just got a little hungry a bit ago so I made an open faced egg sammy with 1 piece bread, 2 pieces ham lunch meat, 1 egg and 1 piece of cheese. I also had a glass of milk on the side. 

Today I started thinking about my goals for the new year. I don't normally make 'resolutions' since I feel I always break them right away! So here are my main goals for 2009:

- Finish graduate school (Attempt to get A's in my remaining classes!)

- Get married and have a fabulous wedding and honeymoon :)

- Focus on better time management (i.e. stop procrastinating doing my homework!)

- Build my savings monthly by transferring funds immediately from a paycheck

- Cut down my diet coke intake!!

- Try at least 2 new recipes a month

AND

- run a 5K

This last one is probably the biggest deal for me. I pretty much NEVER run for exercise. I have really bad knock-knees:

When I was younger (about 6th grade...when we first had to run a full mile in gym class) my dr. told me that running long distances would probably cause me pain since they tend to actually 'knock' together. He said I could do several special stretches and exercises to help with it, but at the time I didn't really care. Because of this I never really got into running. I feel like if I focused on training I could probably complete a 5K with minimal pain since the distance isn't too long. This would be a BIG deal for me since I always say I hate running, primarily due to the fact that I never do it!!  However, I have pretty much always wanted to run a race and I figure now is as good a time as any to at least try it! If the pain is too much I simply won't do it, but if I don't try I will never know what I'm capable of. I'm not quite sure when I will run one, but I will keep you all posted!

I hope everyone else enjoyed their start of 2009! Have a wonderful night :)