Week 6

Another crazy school week has come and gone. What went with this week is my voice! On Tuesday my throat was a tad scratchy, then that night and Wednesday I was down and out with what I would call, the head cold from hell. Doing better, but not completely 100%. That is why I decided to not really push myself this week with exercising. I continued to drink a lot of water, and worked on getting as much sleep as possible. In my opinion that is definitily vital to a healthier lifestyle!

Ok, so above you can see my cooking adventure for the week, Poppyseed Chicken. I discovered it one day at work, when the girl next to me was eating lunch. It smelled incredible! I asked her what it was and before I knew it she emailed me the recipie. Luckily I had a lot of the ingredients already, which is extremely nice I have found (its nice to just grab stuff and make it I have come to determine, shopping is not so nice). What I learned was to cook chicken you have to boil it, and man can that take a long time! Oh and if it starts to foam and have weird things all over...that is ok...its just all the weird stuff (marral told me the term but it doesn't come to mind now) coming off the chicken. I believe it was another success, and my roommates seem to agree.

See ya next week!

Week 5

This week I made Marral's chicken. Marral is my roommate and long time friend. She always likes to cook and I always benefit from her cooking adventures. She knows about my BHAG and knows that I am very particular in being the one to cook (not to let any one necessarily help me). Well when Saturday came and I couldn't really think of what to make she suggested that I make chicken, and that she would teach me how to season it. Now here is how I made the chicken (with Marrals help): defrost the chicken breasts, and then season them on both sides with Paprika, Cumen, Salt, Olive Oil and Garlic Powder. The whole process definitily gets your hands dirty, and I really enjoyed it. Oh and I made mash potatoes with the use of potato pearls (quick and easy). Enjoy the pictures, and as you can tell this week I had a lot of fun. I didn't really know cooking could be this fun.

As for exercising, I went to the gym for an hour with Tazya. However that was all I was able to do last week. Trying to find time, with midterms crazyness was pretty hectic. I have been good about not drinking pop, and have tried to drink more water. I am going to try and do a lot better this week. Maybe go to the gym/exercise more then three times this week. I think this is a continuoues process, of never giving up.

Week 4

What a crazy week! Again I didn't really reach my exercise goals. I did get a workout buddy however and think that will help. Plus my brother got engaged and will be getting married in December. Another driving factor to watch what I eat and to exercise out more. My workout buddy, Tazya and I went to the fieldhouse this week. Instead of working out for just a half an hour we did an hour. Half of the time we spent doing cardio the other doing weights. Then on friday I worked at our ropes course for four hours. I definitily could do more, and will continue to look for ways. Especially since I didn't workout that much this past week I tried to watch what I ate. My focus is to try and not eat after nine. As well as drink a lot more water.

I also improvised on the cooking part of my goal this week. Going to the grocery story at nine oclock on a Saturday night after a mentally exhausting week can do that to you. I decided to go with a trusty crock pot dish, barbequed little smokies, and as a side I made baked potatoes. Yes, those two things together are probably breaking some kind of cooking rule. But to me it was a pretty good meal, that didn't add any stress to my week. I think that is the goal to have when it comes to cooking. When implementing it into your life you want to still keep your style/taste/personality. Oh well enough blabbering for now. Since next week is a longer weekend. I am going to look into doing more of a meal. Cutting, dicing, multiple ingredients...hmmm now this should be interesting.

Week 3

This week I tried to redeem my goal, and put more energy towards making this change. I still am trying to figure out how and when to work out. I pulled out an exercise video that I bought about 5 years ago, and actually really enjoyed it. Then I just did some other exercises in my room for another night of working out. I think for now I am going to stick to the workout video. Oh and when I went home for this past weekend I worked out for an hour on Saturday by doing yard work. My mom asked if I would run the weed wacker while she mowed. I was actually happy to be doing it again. I mean growing up and doing the yard was never one of my favorite things to do. But living away from home and coming back to do yard work was kind of...nice. I think it was the whole taking the weed wacker and just "wacking" things. Luckily no sprinklers, or fence posts suffered any damages. I did get some rocks to the shin and forhead. I consider it a success since no bleeding or wounds happened.

Now food for this week was what my family likes to call spanish rice. Its ground beef, tomato sauce, and rice. I have been wanting to have it for a long time and founding the timing of this weekend perfect for the meal. My mom and I were able to go shopping for the ingredients. Then she was able to walk me through it step by step. I learned that to cook rice you have to do certain things. Like if you cook 1 cup of rice then you need to use two cups of water (double the water to as much rice.) Oh and "simmering" is the boiling but only with little bubbles. Oh and getting the meat from the pan into the casserole dish was very messy. As you can tell from the pictures the meal turned out great, another success to add onto my cooking resume.