Chicago

On Friday night after work Sean and I headed to Detroit so that we could stay at a park n’ fly before we caught our flight to Chicago.

The line up to get into the states was a bit long, an hour and 20 minute wait, but we had a good time joking and laughing so it went by quickly. We went to the Golden Corral in Port Huron for dinner where I had two plates of salad (with dressing on the side) and a small amount of roast beef (very, very good there). After that we headed to Detroit. On the way to Detroit we were in bumper to bumper traffic, in what seemed like construction.

Sean was getting really annoyed but it didn’t really bug me so I thought it was funny how upset he was getting. After we were bumper to bumper for almost an hour and got almost no where the traffic started getting a bit light (keep in mind this was about 10pm at night, not rush hour traffic!) Once we were out of the bumper to bumper we were annoyed because two of the three lanes on the interstate were closed for NO REASON! There was no construction going on, no holes in the road, NOTHING. So they wasted our time for nothing. But in the end we arrived safely and went to bed.

Saturday morning we woke up early and ate breakfast before catching our flight to Chicago. Our flight was good, we were in the front row of the plane and had big seats. When we touched down my dad met us and we went to the hotel to change to the OBS conference.

Let me tell you this – I did NOT want to be there. I was miserable. I didn’t want to hear what they had to say, because to be honest I didn’t want anything to do with the business at all. There was a product training with one of the Presidents team member that taught me a lot more about Herbalife products and started to plant a little seed of excitement. It is reassuring to know what high quality materials they are made from. I know I have been taking them regularly for about 3 weeks now and haven’t noticed a big difference, but they do take time to work, especially when I had some of my symptoms to the extreme. It  will still take a bit of time, but I am going to stick it out and I am going to get rocking results!

I was still very uncomfortable sitting so long and so I kept getting up and walking around at the back of the room while they were talking. Slowly, little bit by little bit I started to think more and more about keeping doing my business. Our chairman gave a really good message about stretching yourself and not giving up. The people in our lives who think we are going to fail are what drive us to keep going.

The Sunday morning training started at 9am but I was just SO exhausted and tired and miserable I decided to sleep for a while and then go to the training for the 1pm break out sessions. At this point I was still wishy washy about starting again because of everything I have been through the past year. Then listening to Tanya I started to get really motivated and excited and I knew at that point that this business will be a big part of my life for ever. I was understanding concepts that hadn’t clicked before and things started making sense and I wanted to jump in with two feet and just go for it!

There was a voice in my head though that was telling me just to wait a bit though. I ned to still give myself some time to get better and focus on me before I jump back in and go for it. I have given myself the deadline of the August training which is in Georgia. I am going to keep working on myself and put all of my effort into my product result and personal health. After the August training I am going to jump into this full and give it everything I have. I will use the August training as my pump up and really give er.

After we left the training yesterday we went to dinner and of course we got deep dish pizza. I knew that we were going to be having this and was so looking forward to it. I ordered a salad because I knew that I only wanted one piece of pizza. It took about 40 minutes to cook, which was fine, and when it got there I was salivating.

We just got a regular and this was ONE PIECE! I ate it very slowly and savoured every single bite. I stopped and ate my salad in between bites and of course I was talking a lot too. I can honestly say that when I was done my 1 piece, and ½ of my salad I was stuffed. It was SO good and worth every single calorie. I tracked honestly and tried to over estimate a bit so hopefully I was able to get it right. I had planned for this for a long time and felt very good about my choice to have 1 piece, my salad, and water.

We also knew that we were going to a donut shop too that had a very large selection of fresh donuts. When we got there we decided to order ½ dozen and I got a knife so I could take a small bite of each one. I LOVED all of them but 1 (I tried 5). The one I didn’t care for I only took a small bite then left the rest, and the others I took pieces of and really really enjoyed them. Again, this was something we planned for and I tracked them as accurately as possible.

This morning we went to breakfast at Cracker Barrel and I had a really healthy selection that has left me quite satisfied.

I know that most of this post is about the food I ate this weekend, but I am really really proud of myself for planning and tracking, and sticking to it. Given that we were sitting so much and in the car a lot, I didn’t have a chance to get my exercise but I am going to kick that up this week for sure.

Since our hotel was 30 minutes away from downtown Chicago we didn’t get a chance to see anything there. After pizza we were going to do a drive through downtown howeverpolice had everything blocked off for the NATO summit that was happening.

Now we are on our way home and I have made myself some new goals, that I will share with you over the next few posts.

Tomorrow is Sean and my two year anniversary so be ready for a bit of a sappy post J

Talk to you all soon!

Our long weekend...a few days late

Well that was good long weekend! Saturday night we took our very long
grocery list and went to the states to do some shopping. It did take a
bit longer than expected because we were not familiar with where
everything was, and didn’t know what some of the items looked like,
but we made it out alive and without spending too much money.

The following is $88 worth of groceries:

And a few things we couldn’t find we picked up at No Frills on Sunday
for about $20:

On Sunday I decided to get started on the baking part and made 4 banana
bread loaves, 50 muffins, and 80 cookies. Sean had to do the banana part
of the banana bread for me to prevent a migraine – but once it was
poured into the tins and baking it was fine. I also made a large pot of
vegetable soup to get that out of the way as well. 

We turned in early Sunday night in preparation for a long day on
Monday. I had planned to get up around 8:30 , but managed to drag my
butt out of bed at 10 and got started right away. I made a large crock
pot of risotto, a crock pot of sloppy joe mix, 60 meatballs, and 4
meatloaves. 

It doesn’t sound like much but it amounted to this:

I had also planned to make homemade tortilla shells, but I was tired
from standing all day, so I plan on making them later this week.
Hopefully, this will last us a while. I say hopefully because my husband
likes to eat, and when he sees that there is a lot of food he just eats
more.  

Yesterday I had pancakes for breakfast and for dinner because it was
just that kind of day! I like putting a thin layer of peanut butter and
jam on top of them, almost like toast but fluffier. We took Levi to the
dog park for some exercise, came home and bathed him since he was SO
muddy, and then watched a movie in the evening and went to bed early
again.

We had no internet all weekend, and it almost killed us! Sean wasn’t
able to watch TV and I had to check e-mail on my phone (which makes it
very tough to respond).  Hopefully that will be back up and running
sometime today. I can’t believe how much we rely on technology for
everything! What did people do before TV, internet, and cell phones? 
 

Last night we had our last dog class. Of course, at PetSmart, they understand that pets are like family
and they go all out on graduation night. Levi doesn’t like anything on
his head which is perfect for us because he sits so still and we can get
a really great picture! That is it for his training; he has completed
all of the levels! 

Such a good little boy he is, and I can’t say enough nice things
about PetSmart. Their training program is excellent and they are ALWAYS
there if you have any questions. Our trainer spent so much time with us
outside of lessons when we were going through a 5 month rough patch with
Levi, and we have a very well behaved little dog because of it. She was
a wealth of knowledge and had many ideas for us to try when something
didn’t work for us. They were great with the dogs too; you could
really tell how much they loved each and every one of them. 
 
Now that Levi is well behaved we are going to start working on some
tricks with him. He can do a few, but we spent so much time on his
behaviour, that we didn’t have much time to teach him tricks. 

A long weekend

Since the last post was from the past few days, luck you, get a second post!

It's a long weekend here in Canada and both Sean and I get Monday off. I decided that the best way to spend that extra day would be to cook ahead a bunch of meals to stock up our freezer, that and do my taxes.

I worked on my taxes last night and this morning, and they are mostly done (just have to go over them and double check my numbers.

The rest of the day today I have spent figuring out what I am going to make to stock the freezer and put together a grocery list. I am going to make the following:

- 2 loaves of banana bread
- 2 loaves of meatloaf
- cranberry oat muffins
- veggie soup
- hamburger patties
- sloppy joe mix
- hamburger surprise
- meatballs
- zucchini risotto (I'm going to try this in the slow cooker since it does take a long time to make normally).
- homemade tortilla shells
- burritos
- ginger cookies

I was only planning on using Monday to cook, but I am making more than I thought I was going to, so I am going to start on Sunday afternoon.

This morning we had our usual weekend breakfast of pancakes. Sean went to mix the batter and realized that we didn't have enough pancake mix, so we got dressed and went to the grocery store. While we were there we decided to get some bacon too. When at my parents house earlier in the week I had tried bacon that had been cooked in the oven, and it was so good, so naturally I wanted to try it.

It was an epic fail, but at the same time a great success...

This part was the fail - it was on the top rack:

This part was the tasty part - it was on the bottom rack:

I think next time I will switch the top and bottom rack cookie sheets half way through to make it a little more even. But I still consider breakfast a big success. * Side tip - if you have left over pancakes put them in the fridge, then when you are ready to eat them put them in the toaster to heat them up, and they won't be soggy!

Tonight we are going to be going to the states since we need a bunch of items that we can only get there, so we might as well do all of our groceries at the same time. The list is quite long since I'm going to be doing all of the extra baking but it will cut down on cost and time over the next little bit.

Anyways, my laundry is done, so it's time to fold it and then take a short rest with Levi who is sound asleep and Patches who is snoring away (we are watching her this weekend while my parents are away - and of course using their washing machine!)

Until next time...