January 21, 2010
Same day. A year later.
Today marks the 3rd anniversary of the day we lost our Dad. But, you know what? We don’t like that word. Lost. He’s not lost. What do you say? Passed? Passed away? Died? We don’t like any of those words.
There really isn’t one word to describe what it is that happened on this day three years ago. It’s just the day our Dad went to Heaven.
So, today, we’re quiet, in his honor.
~LilSisJanuary 20, 2010
Even though I’m not a big football fan any more, I still think it would’ve been fun for the Chargers to end up in the Super Bowl. Unfortunately after last week’s loss, it’s just not going to happen for San Diego this year. It would have been a blast for all for our friends who are “die hard” Charger fans and, since I’ll use any excuse to get friends together, we probably would have thrown a big ol’ Super Bowl Party.
Super Bowl
I saw this edible snack bowl, “Super Bowl”, in the January/February issue of Food Network Magazine and I thought HayHay might get a kick out of it. So, just to try it out and see if it would really work, I made it on Sunday since the guys were watching football all day, and chips and dip are a must on “football watching days”.
And even though the article says that the bowl is sturdy enough for dip, I just served their tortillas chips in it.
HayHay was quite intrigued over the fact that the bowl was edible, so as soon as I told him that it was okay to dig in, he took a big chomp!
And, guess what? He quickly found out that Chex mix baked with a couple of egg whites pressed into the shape of a bowl isn’t so tasty after all. So, I ended up breaking the bowl apart into small pieces, spreading it out on a cookie sheet, sprinkling with salt and garlic powder, baking in the oven at 350 for about 30 minutes and presto, the Chex mix was crisp again and was devoured in minutes.
I like how the bowl turned out and I think it might be a fun way to serve chips and dip occasionally for a party, but since this recipe requires 8 cups of Chex mix, it almost seems like a waste of two good bags of Chex Mix. If I made this again, I would probably do smaller bowls and just serve nuts or some of the same snack mix in them.
Super Bowl
Food Network Magazine
2 large egg whites
8 cups snack mix (Chex Mix or Asian rice cracker mix)
Cooking spray
Preheat the oven to 325. Beat the egg whites and 2 T. water in a large bowl with a mixer until slightly stiff peaks form. Add the snack mix and toss until evenly coated.
Generously coat a 3-quart ovenproof bowl with cooking spray and place the snack mix in it. Crumple a large sheet of foil and mold into a bowl shape about one-third the size of the 3-quart bowl. Coat the outside of the foil bowl with cooking spray and press into the snack mix to make a well in the middle, forming the snack mix into a bowl shape.
Place the bowl with the foil into the oven and bake until the snack mix sets, 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool slightly, 5 minutes. Carefully remove the foil. Cool 30 more minutes, invert the edible bowl onto a plate and cool completely.
~LilSisJanuary 18, 2010
Have you been really disciplined with your New Year’s resolutions and want to reward yourself? Maybe you’ve already lost a couple of pounds and need a non-food treat? How about getting yourself a Clarisonic Skin Cleansing System!
I’ve mentioned before that I’m not an early-adopter. I’ve only had an iPod for a year, an iPhone for a few months, a Wii for a couple of weeks, and I’ve yet to buy a blu-ray player. My television is over 20 years old and weighs as much as I do. Oh yeah, and my car will be 10 years old in a couple of months. With all that in mind, I’m sure it doesn’t surprise you that I’ve been hearing about the Clarisonic for over a year and just now got one.
Why did I wait so long! My skin is already dramatically different in only two weeks of using the Clarisonic:
I noticed some of these benefits immediately, and I continue to be pleased with the cumulative improvement I see in my skin, which is a pretty big deal for me. I’ve never had pretty skin in my life. I started making weekly trips to the dermatologist when my skin started breaking out at age 12. In my early 20s, I was one of the first people to use Accutane, but by then I had scarring that really bothered me. In late 2007, I had 6 Fraxel laser treatments at a cost of well over $5000. By the way, I have a high tolerance to pain, but that was the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced. Thankfully, I did see substantial improvement in my skin’s texture and scarring was reduced somewhat.
But even so, I’m still not happy with my skin and I’ll always be looking for ways to improve it. The Clarisonic is an excellent tool, and it cost much less than $5000! I got mine for $225 through QVC because their deal came with some extra goodies like cleansers and additional brush heads. The model I got comes with a brush for your body, as well as 3 facial brushes. You can also buy the Clarisonic through Amazon, Ulta, Sephora, and probably lots of other retailers.
I highly recommend the Clarisonic…don’t wait forever like I did!
~BigSisJanuary 16, 2010
I hope everyone had a great week! It just flew by for me. I feel like I had a healthy, productive week even if I did slip up a couple of times. We went out on Tuesday for a friend’s birthday and enjoyed a few cocktails, then on Wednesday we had friends pop over to say a belated Happy Birthday to SirHoney which led to me staying up way too late that night.
On a positive note, I was able to accomplish almost everything that I had on my list.
I received my fitbook in the mail this week so I was able to start recording all my goals, workouts, and food all in one place. I have never had any desire to follow any kind of diet program where I had to count calories or points. I just know myself well enough to know that I won’t stick to it.
But, after these past two weeks of recording what I ate, I’ve discovered that it has helped me be more accountable to myself and my commitment to cut down on my snacking and mindless eating. Here’s my food log from yesterday. I love how you can rate each meal with the happy face or sad face. 🙂
I only did crunches once last week and was sore for DAYS, but this week, they’re on the calendar for three days. Here’s my workout plan for next week.
My goals for next week are:
This Challenge isn’t just about losing weight; it’s about feeling healthier and happier with myself, making better choices in all aspects of my life and keeping a positive attitude about 2010 being a great year! Have you ever heard that a home is said to be lucky and will have a prosperous year if a plant blooms on New Years Day? Look what I found on my Jade plant on New Years Day.
When we first moved to our home almost eight years ago, I moved this sad little Jade plant to my front courtyard because I heard that a Jade plant symbolizes prosperity and good luck. I’ve nursed this Jade ever since and it’s grown to be quite large but has never bloomed until now.
If the Chinese superstition proves to be true then we should be looking forward to a prosperous year! (Believe me when I say that we need for that to happen.)
Have a great week everyone!
~LilSisJanuary 15, 2010
Do this. To your hair. Now!
I’m not kidding, you’ll thank me! You may already have this product in your pantry, but if not, you can easily pick up a jar. You don’t need to go to the beauty supply or the salon though. And you don’t need to take out a loan to buy it!
What is it? Coconut oil! You can get it at Whole Foods, Sprouts, or any health food/natural foods store. You can order it online from Swanson Vitamins or Vitacost and probably tons of other sites. You may even be able to find it at a well-stocked grocery store. I get mine at my favorite hippie health food store called Natural Grocers/Vitamin Cottage. For a 16 ounce jar, you can expect to pay only around $10.
I have coconut oil in my pantry because I put it in my smoothie each morning. I never thought about smearing it on my hair though until I was reading on Beauty Brains about an expensive hair treatment called Ojon ($55). Ojon is made of palm oil from the rainforest, plus fragrance and some extracts. The Beauty Brains said that coconut oil and palm oil are essentially the same thing, and each will actually penetrate the hair’s cortex. Most conditioners only coat the surface of the hair shaft, and don’t get into the hair itself.
Penetrating the hair’s cortex can help replace the natural oil that we lose simply by washing our hair. When you replace that oil, you’re “refatting” the hair. The Beauty Brains suggested that using a coconut oil based conditioner could be as effective as Ojon. I’ve since seen online that lots of girls are just using plain ol’ coconut oil, and getting good results so I had to try it.
Coconut oil is solid in my house right now since it’s 60-something degrees, but it will be liquid when the inside temp is in the 70s. Since it’s solid I took a blob and warmed it in my hands a bit til it softened. Then I just started rubbing it into my hair. My hair’s almost shoulder length and is a little thin now (dang hormones), and I used three walnut-sized blobs of coconut oil. I combed it through, and let it sit for about an hour. Ojon recommends leaving their treatment on overnight when possible, so I may try that with the coconut oil when I can.
After an hour, I rinsed really well with pretty warm water, and then had to shampoo twice before the oil was out of my hair. I did use my regular dab of Pureology conditioner afterward, since the coconut oil is supposed to work inside the hair and not outside.
What were the results? My hair was softer, shinier, fuller and had more body. It even had less frizz before flat-ironing. After the next shampoo two days later, the results are still there.
I’m planning to give my hair this little tropical treat once a week. It’s easy, it smells fabulous, I can do it myself, and it makes my hair happy. What more could I want? Give it a try and let me know how you like it!
~BigSisJanuary 13, 2010
Are you an Urban Decay fan? If you’ve been reading BigSisLilSis for any time at all, then you already know that we’re both crazy about our Urban Decay products!
I thought that I’d take a break today from all the talking I’ve been doing about my 2010 goals to share with you my latest Urban Decay purchase. I’ve only been using the Urban Decay Ink for Eyes for a few days now, but I’m already in love with this product.
Here’s how Urban Decay describes the Ink for Eyes: It’s everything you want in a cream eyeliner! More precise than a pencil, more forgiving than a liquid, this super-smooth formula offers more control, play time, and buildable coverage than your average liner.
Urban Decay Ink for Eyes
Honestly, what’s not to love? First of all, I’m crazy about this case! It’s long and slender and comes with a mirror and a double ended applicator that has an angled brush on one end and a smudger on the other end. Before I started using the Urban Decay 24/7 Eye Pencils, I always used my angled MAC brush to apply my eyeshadow as a liner, so that may have something to do with why I like this applicator so much.
The color that I bought is Demolition, which is the chocolate brown color shown in the photo. I really love this color!
Now, let’s talk about what’s in this pretty, shiny little case. This creamy liner just glides on with such ease that it’s really quite surprising. No skips or smears! Really. Urban Decay does have a secret ingredient, though, it’s Nylon 12, a high-tech polymer that decreases drag for flawless application while softening and absorbing any excess oil. Urban Decay doesn’t claim this is waterproof eyeliner, but when I remove my makeup, this liner is just the same as it was when I applied it, just like the 24/7 pencils.
The liner comes in several other beautiful colors, so now that I know how much I love this product, I’ll have to try some other colors.
Luckily, we don’t have a Sephora nearby, but anytime I go into Ulta these days, I have to browse the Urban Decay counter. BigSis is ultimately responsible for my new-found Urban Decay addition. She is the one that originally turned me on to the Primer Potion and 24/7 pencils.
In case you missed my Urban Decay Hacker Tutorial, I mentioned that Urban Decay was changing the wand on the Primer Potion. When I finally broke down and bought my new tube, I noticed that it does have a new wand. We’ll see if it cuts down on the wasted product at all.
I just bought a friend of mine the cute little case of Urban Decay nail polishes for her birthday. I’ve never tried any of their nail polishes but I’m hoping that she’s happy with them since I’ve never been disappointed with any Urban Decay product. (And, no, I’m not getting paid to say that.)
Do you have any favorite Urban Decay products that you’d like to share with us?
~LilSisJanuary 11, 2010
It may be beautiful and sunny in LilSis’ neck o’ the woods, but it’s colder than a well-digger’s butt here in Texas. I guess that’s pretty darn cold, right? Our last few nights have been close to 10 degrees, and our daytime highs have been well below freezing. It’s definitely soup season here!
I’ve been trying my new vegan diet on for size this week, and so far, it’s been pretty easy. I’ve been disappointed to see how many of my favorite products have unexpected animal products in them, but I’ll adjust and it really motivates me more. It’ll just take a little getting used to, and my palate will need to happily adapt to a dairy and egg-free world. I did lose 3 pounds this week, but I think it’s because it was kind of a detox from the semi-bad eating I’ve been doing for the last month or so, and some of that weight was bloaty water weight from too much salt, sugar, etc. It’s the “etc” that gets you every time!
So dinner the other night needed to be 1) soup, 2) vegan, and 3) quick and easy. Voila! Here’s what I came up with: Creamy Tomato Soup with no added salt, no butter, no cream, no guilt AND lots of flavor! It’s vegan, but I wanted to share it with you because it’s so delicious, but isn’t loaded with bad fats like the tomato basil soups you usually find.
You can use any seasonings you like. I used the salt-free Italian seasoning and Mural of Flavor, and surprisingly didn’t have to add any salt at all. I think it may have something to do with the citrus peel in the Mural of Flavor, since lemon reduces our perceived need for salt. I’m super-sensitive to salt and get big “salt bags” under my eyes from a small amount of it, so being able to skip the salt is huge for me.
Creamy Tomato Soup
(recipe by me)
28 oz can Fire Roasted Crushed Tomatoes
Water (I filled the tomato can about halfway full, but make your soup as thick or thin as you like)
2 tblsp Italian seasoning (I used Pampered Chef salt-free)
Penzeys Mural of Flavor, optional but really tasty
3/4 cup cashew cream (see note below)
Simmer the tomatoes and water in a medium saucepan with the Italian seasoning and Mural of Flavor for about 20 minutes to let flavors develop a bit. With an immersion blender, puree the soup until it is smooth, or leave it chunky if you prefer. Stir in cashew cream and heat through.
Note: Cashew cream is my new favorite discovery. It’s from Tal Ronnen’s book “The Conscious Cook“. You might have seen Tal on Oprah recently. Cashew cream can be used in place of milk or cream in lots of recipes. All you do is soak some raw cashews for 12 to 24 hours, and when whiz them around in a blender with just enough water to cover them. That’s it! Just cashews and water. Sure, nuts do have fat, but it’s good fat and you aren’t guzzling a gallon of this stuff. You’re just using 3/4 cup in this whole recipe.
~BigSisJanuary 9, 2010
As I mentioned before, I’m going to do a weekly post on my Ten in 10 Challenge progress. Our team leader and creator of the Ten in 10 challenge, Lori of The Recipe Girl is posting her progress on Saturdays so I thought it made sense for me to do the same. I know some of the other participants are posting on Saturdays as well. At last count, there are 317 people participating in this challenge. 🙂
I feel good about this first week. In looking back at my specific goals, I was able to achieve most of them. Since I want to keep on a positive note, I’ll start off with what I was able to accomplish.
I also joined the ten-in-ten-challenge team on Spark People and am excited about making more time to get that all set up. There are some amazing features on this site, including tracking the nutritional information of everything you eat each day. This is a good article that I just received from them yesterday called; “The Four-Letter word that can end mindless eating forever.”
Just a couple of things that I couldn’t squeeze in this week were the ‘after dinner’ walks, The 30 Day Shred, and the hula hoop on the Wii. We got a new t.v. recently and HayHay has been too busy to teach me how to set up the WiiFit and turn everything on by myself. I’m hoping to have time to do that this weekend. Just 15 minutes of that Hula Hoop is a real workout!
Here’s something that I stumbled upon that I thought I’d pass on to anyone that might be interested. Have you heard about or seen the fitbook from fitlosophy?
What I really love about this little book is that there is a place to record your workouts, log your daily food intake, and list your stats and your goals each week. I think having just one place to log everything for each day is going to be really helpful for me. You can take a virtual peek at the Fitbook to get an idea of how the planning pages are designed. You can order the book directly from fitlosophy, but I found fitbook on Amazon, so it’s sitting in my shopping cart now just waiting for me to finish my order. Thanks for the Amazon gift certificate, SisMama!
Have a great weekend everyone! I ran across this quote recently and I think I’m going to post it in my bathroom so I can read it every morning.
“If I find 10,000 ways something won’t work, I haven’t failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.”
– Thomas Edison
~LilSisJanuary 7, 2010
Seven days into the new year and all is good! I’ve been able to stay focused this week, have been getting almost 7 hours sleep each night, and have been writing down all my workouts and everything that goes into my mouth. I’m pretty happy because I’ve already obtained my weight loss goal for the week.
Am I still talking about the Ten in 10 Challenge? Yes. Am I going to talk about it every day? Probably.
Just kidding. Once I get through this initial week of organizing my schedule and getting myself on track in all aspects of this challenge, I’ll get back to talking about other jibber jabber. I’ll try to post at least one healthy recipe a week and I’ll also post about my progress once a week. I’ll probably do that on Saturdays since my official weigh in day is going to be on Fridays and a lot of the other participants have mentioned posting their progress on Saturdays.
I think that to get past a plateau, which is what I’m trying to do, you’ve got to change things up a bit. I’ve found a great new bike at the Y that really kicks my fanny, but I don’t want to be in the gym every day. I want to be outside on cardio days when I don’t also have weight training scheduled.
Since I was in the gym Monday and Tuesday mornings and since yesterday was so gorgeous, I decided to do my walk from the Harbor down to the beach to walk the pier and do some stair climbing. This is one of my favorite routes. I do this particular walk when I can manage to squeeze in an extra half hour that day.
I don’t normally take my camera with me, but I thought it might be fun to snap some shots along the way. Let’s go for a walk.
This is where I start. This is also where we spend most of our spare time when not working or doing chores at home.
When the water is not quite so cold, this is where I like to kayak.
I know it’s hard to make out what this is in the water, but they’re seals sun bathing. These are just their fins sticking up out of the water while they’re floating on their backs.
This is HayHay’s favorite spot to surf. On any given day at 6:30 in the morning, this spot is full of local surfers.
When we first moved here, this is where I always dropped the kids off with their boogie boards. I still love the view from this spot.
Now, on my way to the Historic Oceanside Pier.
Next, I do a couple of jaunts up and down the ramp to the Pier. A lot of local firemen are normally here doing their workouts. Bummer, no eye candy today!
This big guy is rumored to be the infamous “Charlie the Pelican”. Charlie just made our local news a few days ago because he apparently just returned to Oceanside Pier after being missing since February.
It doesn’t look like Charlie is real crazy about having his picture taken. The bait shop owner on the Pier put up the old sign next to Charlie that says “We bite stupid people”! I’ll think I’ll take a step back now!
A view of the shore from the end of the Pier. Oceanside Pier is one of the longest wooden piers on the entire West Coast. It’s over 1950 feet long.
After coming down the ramp from the Pier, this is the first set of stairs that I attack.
And then, I go up and down these a few times.
But, these wooden stairs are my favorite. Once at the top of these, I’m done with stairs for the day.
Now that I’m over 3 miles away from where I started, I normally turn around here and head back towards the Harbor. This is the “Top Gun” house. Don’t you just love the old VW Van on the side of the road? Classic!
Last year there was talk that Tom Cruise was buying this house and moving it somewhere else. I don’t know what ever happened to that or what’s planned for the house but they’ve cleared this entire lot and left the house standing.
Almost back to the Harbor, this Pink Hibiscus caught my eye as I walked past it so I turned back around to snap a quick shot of it.
After over seven miles round trip, I’m back to the Harbor. I always feel so good when I finish this walk. I don’t have the opportunity to do this that often, but when I need to clear my head, this is where I go. I hope your 2010 is off to a great start!
~LilSisJanuary 6, 2010
Are you watching Dr. Oz’s TV show? If not, you’re missing out on some great health tidbits 5 times a week, but you’re also cheating yourself out of excellent motivational diet and exercise info right now. Like lots of shows this week, the Dr. Oz show is focusing on helping viewers with their weight loss and fitness goals.
I accidentally caught one of Dr. Oz’s shows in an evening re-run, and now I try to have it on when I’m home even if I can’t sit in front of the TV. You might think that an entire show devoted to health every day would be a bore and a drag, but it’s not. It’s interesting and usually important, and sometimes a tad embarrassing or even gross! But I’ve already learned some things I never heard before.
I loved the show this week that gave us a 14-Day Plan to reboot our body. It’s from the book “You On a Diet” that Dr. Oz co-authored with Dr. Michael Roizen. To make it super easy for us, they’ve given us this PDF file that you can print out and refer to.
To get you started, Day 1 of the plan includes a 30-minute walk, 3 to 5 minutes of stretching, and a kitchen purge that eliminates all traces of simple sugars and syrups, trans fats, saturated fats, and all flours except for whole grain or whole wheat. After that, we’re to restock our kitchen with the healthy staples we’ll need going forward. I’d call that a pretty full and productive Day 1!
I’m also fascinated with Dr Oz’s 28-Day Raw Food Challenge, since I just committed to a vegan diet for 2010. According to the web site, the health benefits of this challenge are:
I’m absolutely going to include some raw meals in my vegan diet, but don’t think I’m quite up for this challenge just yet. Maybe soon though! Who knows what would happen to my poor ol’ bod if I went from vegetarian straight to 100% raw vegan. I’m guessing I’d have a few adjustment issues, but would ultimately feel awesome. 🙂 There could be a few tough days in there though!
If you check out Dr. Oz, let me know if you pick up any great tips. I’m a fan and think you might be too!
~BigSis
