Back to Basics

By 10am this morning, I had been to Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart Market, the bank, Whole Foods, and Michaels. I have one or two more things to pick up later, but I can pretty much say that I have all of my errands done. I have a load of dishes going in the dishwasher, all of my groceries put away, and am feeling like I got a lot accomplished. Of course, all of this is a product of the fact that I couldn’t sleep and have been up since 3am. I sense a nap in my near future.

My mom gets home this afternoon sometime from her trip to Florida, so my dad and I made it through the week!  Hallelujah!  And my mom just actually called me as I was writing this to say that they made it back and that she’s at the airport.  It should just be a couple of hours then until she gets home.

Today is also my brother’s birthday, so happy birthday to him – wherever he may be (I personally prefer to believe heaven).  He would have been 29 today.

Lately, I’ve been sensing a need to go back to basics on a variety of fronts.  I’ve been in a “simplify” mode lately and am going to start going through stuff and getting rid of it.  My first non-product related step was in cleaning out my personal (non-web related) email inbox the other night  (I went from 1400 emails down to 2.)  I’m promising myself to deal with them as they come in from now on and I’m not going to allow myself to feel guilty for not reading every single forward that my aunts send me.  Next up is my worldly possessions.  Which I’ll get to….sometime.

On my last go ’round , when I was losing so well, rewards were one of the things that kept me going.  I kept a clear glass jar in which I put a quarter for every full pound I lost and a five dollar bill for every five pounds lost.  There’s quite a stash in there now.  Of course, I’m going to take out what I’ve regained so that it’s accurate.  I’m going to continue with this, but I thought of another idea the other day.  Think back to kindergarten and first grade.  How did you get rewarded?  Stickers!!!  You can’t get more basic than that!

It’s silly, but I’ve always loved stickers.  Seeing as how I’m now 32 years old, I sadly don’t have much use for them anymore.  But my mom got a page of smiley face stickers in the mail a few weeks ago from one of those nonprofit organizations trying to get money and asked me if I wanted them.  I said sure, but had no idea what I’d use them for.  They sat on the kitchen table for at least a week.  The other night, as I was walking by them, I had a thought.  So here it is:

I’m going to give myself a sticker for every day that I track and stay within my points!  At least for a while.  This pic was taken early Friday morning, so I need to add one for Friday.  Anyway, it gives a nice visual reminder of a good job done.  For some reason, the pink face on the right reminds me of some cartoon character that I can’t put my finger on….

The other area where I’m heading back to basics is in some of the foods I eat.  For example, I actually cooked a spaghetti squash last night.  I’ve bought a couple of them over the past several months, but ended up never making them (I know, I know).  I’ve loved spaghetti squash ever since I first tried it!  So amazingly low in points!  The one I made last night had 24 ounces of cooked squash.  I was hungry, so had half of it (a lot of squash) and it was only one point.  I separated my 12 oz in half and put I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter Spray and a little parmesan on one half and a little bit of spaghetti sauce on the other.  For variety.  But when I was making it, and going through the grocery store today, I started thinking of all of the things that I used to love that I no longer eat and want to try again.  And it made me start thinking about why I stopped.

I really think the thing that tipped me off of the cliff of just eating crazy was when my doctor tried me on birth control a little over a year ago.  To say I had a bad reaction would be mild since I was god-awful nauseous for the entire week I took it.  I just couldn’t take it anymore after that – I would rather have had my eyeballs boiled in acid while they were still in my head.  Okay, maybe not, but pretty darn close.  I was so incredibly nauseous that I could barely eat anything and I would get seasick just by sitting and breathing.  Let’s not even talk about how I felt when I actually moved.  Surprisingly during this time, the only things I could somewhat keep down were crappy things that I shouldn’t have been eating.  And now, I still get nauseous thinking of some of the things I ate leading up to that time period.  For example, I used to love Amy’s Shepherd Pies (only 3pts) and I saw them at Whole Foods today and almost gagged.  There are other things, too, from that time period that I just can’t bear to think about.  Luckily, my love of spaghetti squash seems to have survived.

I did buy a couple of things to try out.  I got some beans and chili seasoning to try to make chili – probably next weekend – and I also got kale!  I’ve never ever had kale before, but this post by Roni caught my eye (I adore her!  Make sure and watch the video if you have time – it was cute) and I decided that I just HAD to try to make kale chips today.  I’ll let you know how they turn out.  I even bought a salad spinner!  I should have bought one long before now, because I hate wet lettuce.

So that’s where I’m at right now.  I think I actually hear my bed calling my name for a nap.  I’m going to do my best to stay on track through the rest of the weekend, but like I said, today’s my brother’s birthday and I know we’re getting pizza tonight.  I’m still going to try to track everything though!

I hope you all are having a beautiful weekend!

PS – my heart goes out to the people of Chile this morning because of their earthquake, and am thankful that the one in Japan seems to have been much milder.