Gearing up for 2014! Goal #2

The one about cooking.

Let me take you back. Back a year and a half ago, before I got my current job. Back to a time when I worked 7 hours a day, but it was broken up into two shifts. Back when my commute was a 20 minute walk. 

I loved to cook. I'd come home and try new recipes all the time! Bake a whole chicken? Heck yeah! Spend three hours slaving over a pot of homemade chili? No problem! You give me the recipe, I'll cook it. There's nothing I love more than successfully making a meal that I utterly enjoy eating.

Then I got a new job. 

Now I am gone for over 12 hours a day. By the time I get home, all I want to do is crawl under a blanket and have someone feed me. Do I want to cook? Nope. Do I want to order pizza, or Thai food, or burgers? YUP! I've been busy all day. Let someone else do the cooking for me.

I've slowly been working on pulling myself out of this, but the hubby and I still eat out way too much. I cringe thinking of how much money we spend on fast food, when we could be spending it on food to fill our fridge. So, here comes goal #2!

Make a weekly meal plan, and stick to it!

I've gotten really good at actually making the meal plans....it's the following them that's not so easy ;). The hubby is helping me with this because we've decided to restrict our meals out to either Friday or Saturday only (because, you know, time out with friends!) and shop a week at a time. It's funny really. We went from shopping for a month at a time, down to two weeks, down to one. It's so much easier to keep fresh food when you buy it weekly! We'll also be prepping all the veggies we need on weekends, so that way weekdays are just pour and cook! Less prep = less reason for Jessica to be lazy.

I can DO this! I've already stuck to it for two days, which I know is a drop in the bucket, but I'm trying to form the habit so it follows me into the new year. This goes hand in hand with loosing weight because, as we all know, I love fast food but it doesn't love my love handles!

So there you go. Two goals down. *breathes deeply* Let's do this.

Gearing up for 2014! Goal #1

It's that time of year again! Time for friends, family and WAY too much good food. It's the time where I always look forward, and right now the one thing on my mind is:

Right now is usually about the time I start thinking about what my goals are for the new year. I hardly ever set actual resolutions. They're more like "Things I aspire to do". It gives me a little more wiggle room to change them up if things call for it. After all, a year is actually a pretty long time. You never know what could happen!

Anyway I've figured out my first goal for 2014. Get back into journal writing, and I mean seriously. It used to be that I'd write at least three times a week, if not every day. I can go back right now and read all the things that happened to me in 2002, my last year of high school. Or take a trip down memory lane back to 1998 when I first stepped foot as a Freshman onto campus. I miss that. I miss having a record. Lord knows I don't have the best memory ;).

So my first goal of 2014 is:

Create a yearly journal, and write in it at least 3 times a week.

I'm going to do it on here. I type so much faster than I write, and quite honestly get less frustrated :). There's nothing worse than writing a sentence and then having my grammatically obsessed mind realize I missed a letter. DOH. So yes. To help me achieve this goal, I bought a spiffy book!

Click the picture to go to the book on Amazon!

It has ideas, prompts, quotes, and a whole bunch of other awesome stuff to help you get started off on a writing tangent every day. Maybe I won't make it all 365 days, but I sure aim to try!

I thought it'd be fun to invite some of the rest of you out there to join me! Blogger blogs (like this one) are free, and the book only costs $2.99 on Kindle. I'm starting officially on January 1st, so if you're in let me know! We can link up, and see what question we each answer every day. Trust me, journal writing is tons more fun when you have other people to comment and share with :).

So goal #1 down! Let's see what other ones I come up with before January starts.

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The animated truth.

Or at least I totally am.

You say there's a huge, mega-million, action, blockbuster film out this weekend? With explosions and car chases? You enjoy that.

I'll be the girl sitting in the theater, surrounded by kids, watching Monsters University.

Look at that face! So yes, this weekend the hubby was sweet enough to take me to see this adorable little guy, and his older counterpart, prance around on screen and get up to all sorts of shenanigans. I will fully admit that I was laughing right along with the kids between the ages of 5 and 10 in the audience. No matter how old I am, no matter how much responsibility I have, I'll always be a big kid at heart.

Animated movies delight me. They speak to my inner child who actually sincerely misses hanging out with a bunch of kindergartners every day. Lucky for me, I have a husband who doesn't mind being there with me while I giggle like mad. 

I was talking to a friend today who said "Well I just feel like I'm too old to see movies like that."

Thus my random profession of love :). You'll never see this girl use the words "too old". Heck no. I think C.S. Lewis said it best...

I'm already there.

Bento Box Research!

I thought I'd post again today to share the rambling thoughts going through my head. As I dive further and further into wanting to spice up my work lunches, I'm finding more things to love!

If there's one thing momma always taught me, it's do your research.

So today I headed off to the library to see what I could find. Ah, the library. I happen to work across the street from the Los Angeles Central Library. It's like....a fantastical land of knowledge. The bookworm in me can't help but wander a bit, but I eventually did make it to the cookbooks.

I found this gem hanging among the cookie manuals and swordfish recipes. What caught my eye most of all was that everything on the cover is easily accessible. Then I opened the cover and....wow. Just wow.

Makiko Itoh did all the work for me. There are preparation timelines, a meal planner to fill out, and even gorgeous full cover photos of all the food that I can make. Am I the only one who drools over food photos?

I'm going to keep doing my research before I buy anything, but this is looking more and more like something I can totally tackle! There are random questions floating through my head like "What size thermos should I buy for soup?" but all of it will come in due time. I'll try to keep updating you while I explore the beauty that is bento!

The Uphill Battle

It's always a battle for me to try to remember to post in here. I'll stare at how long its been since the last time I sat down to write, and sigh. My book blog takes up a lot of my evenings. Honestly though? I wouldn't have it any other way. Still, I'm going to try to at least post in here once a week. It seems Sunday evenings are a good time. So here we go!

Let's see, what have you missed?

Well, I turned another year older! I'm not certain about the "another year wiser" part but I now get to write a new age on any forms I fill out :). My hubby was sweet enough to spirit me off to Vegas for the weekend, and I may or may not have had some drinks...

Please pardon the squinting eyes. It was...bright in there? You know what, it was my birthday. No shame!

I've also been working on setting up a meal plan for our family of two that will:

1) Help us save money on food (less waste)

2) Incorporate more fruits and veggies into what we eat

3) Use our crock pot at least 3 times a week, so we aren't tempted to eat fast food

It's been an uphill battle acclimating to working so much. I went from working 5-6 hour days, to working 8 hours a day with a 2 1/2 hour commute round trip. Yeah...there's just not as much time anymore.

I'm currently looking at getting a Bento Box for my lunches. It seems silly I know, but I'm an organizer. If I can see all the things I should be eating laid out, I'll eat them. Plus it creates a need to make my lunches ahead of time. It's so much easier to just say "Oh I'll buy a cheeseburger at work". Dangerous really. Here's the one I'm looking at.

Pretty spiffy right? There are also a TON of cookbooks with bento friendly recipes, so I'm going to do my research. My goal is to have a plan ready to go by the beginning of August :).

Well that's about it for now! If I don't post in here at least once a week you feel completely okay with yelling at me. Motivation takes work, and it helps if others are keeping you honest.

Crispy Carnitas!

I'm on a current quest to wrestle the hubby and I out of our dinner slump. You know the one: where you eat the same things night after night? Where dinner becomes a bore? Well you know what, I wasn't okay with that. No sir! Food would be fun again and it would be healthy too!

So I turned to the mother of all recipe goodness (and yummy photos) Pinterest.

If there was ever any place to find good recipes, with easy to follow steps, it's Pinterest. No lying! I've made many a fantastic recipe off of here, and I'm hooked. So I thought I'd share one of my success stories.

I wanted to make carnitas. Pork shoulder is constantly on sale around here, and I felt like we were missing out. So I went out, found a crock pot recipe (because seriously how much easier can you get) and tried it out. Lo and behold, amazing!

So amazing in fact, that we ate our leftovers the very next day as nachos. We don't mess around in this house. Food is made to be devoured.

Three easy steps, marinade the meat, chop the veggies (I throw in more than what the recipe calls for) and then put it all together in a crock pot to cook until your whole house smells like pork deliciousness.

Here's the recipe! Go forth and cook:

http://www.simplyscratch.com/2013/04/crock-pot-pork-carnitas.html