Chalene Johnson's 30-Day Challenge: Day 4

Assignment 4: Clarifying your push goal.


And here is the worksheet.


Recapping the 10 goals from yesterday:

1. be a calmer, more dedicated parent
2. reduce the amount of processed food my family eats
3. squat my bodyweight
4. dead lift 1.5 times my bodyweight
5. explore additional career options
6. read at least 2 books per month
7. run an 8K
8. adopt a home cleaning and organization system
9. complete NaNoWriMo
10. spend time more time outside

Put a star next to the two goals that make all the others easier to achieve, and two stars next to the push goal. I'm supposed to write down what it's going to feel like when I achieve this goal, and be really specific about it.  I picked some shitty goals because there are a few distinct categories, but nothing that really relates to anything else overall. My fitness goals aren't going to jack for my parenting, or vice versa. My leisure goals, well, okay, I guess that's it. My fitness and leisure goals affect my overall well-being, which influences my home life. Okay, so. I don't know. I'm not really in the right frame of mind to think about this right now. I may have to come back to it tomorrow, after I've had time to think. Maybe this would a good pre-bed meditation.

Chalene Johnson's 30-Day Challenge: Day 3

Assignment 3: Select your top 10 goals for the year.

Here is today's worksheet.

List your top 10 goals for the next 12 months. Choose your number one push goal.


Hmmm, interesting. Chalene wants us to set tough goals - financial, personal, relationships, happiness, etc - as in not things that we'll be doing anyway. Nothing related to things I can't control.

1. be a calmer, more dedicated parent
2. reduce the amount of processed food my family eats
3. squat my bodyweight
4. dead lift 1.5 times my bodyweight
5. explore additional career options
6. read at least 2 books per month
7. run an 8K
8. adopt a home cleaning and organization system
9. complete NaNoWriMo
10. spend time more time outside

I guess, out of all of these, number 1 would be, well, number 1 - be a calmer, more dedicated parent. I'm pretty involved in Sebastian's school and activities but I'd like to do more things with him, one-on-one. I'm also a screamer, discipline impulsively and while angry, and hover. I want to change those things.

Chalene Johnson's 30-Day Challenge: Day 2

Assignment 2: How to determine your priorities.

There's a great worksheet for this assignment.

First, make a list of all the areas of importance in my life. Okay, let's do that! In no particular order (because brainstorming is just about getting your thoughts out there, refining comes later):

providing for my family, making memories rather than accumulating things, providing learning opportunities, trying things once, being a positive influence on others, making life easier for everyone, being healthy and encouraging healthy behaviors in others, learning, being organized

Next, identify the 5 most important areas.

providing for my family, providing learning opportunities, making life easier for others, being healthy and encouraging healthy behaviors in others, learning

Then, identify the top 3 priorities.
providing for my family, providing learning opportunities, being healthy and encouraging healthy behaviors in others

Put the top 3 in order.
providing for my family, being healthy and encouraging healthy behaviors in others, providing learning opportunities

Now, take priority number one and complete the  following statements:

The reason why I have placed the greatest importance on this area of my life is because: there are many things I can do to ensure my husband and son are taken care of, and that my son grows up to be a well-rounded, caring, and helpful member of society.

I will honor my number one priority by vowing to do my best to always: think about what is best for my family in the long term, treat my son and husband with respect, and taking care of myself so that I'm the best "me" I can be for them

The following action(s) would be inconsistent with my commitment to my number one priority: being selfish, ignoring my family members, not taking the time to be with them

To honor my number on priority I will limit: frivolous spending, impulsivity on decision making and negative behaviors,

To live my life according to my number one priority I need to make the following changes: spend less time on the computer, seek out opportunities for growth (for them and myself)

Now make a clear Priority Statement:


My number one priority is to be a good role model and provide my family, my son in particular, opportunities to experience life and learning, with the confidence to try new things and pursue their own goals.

Chalene Johnson's 30-Day Challenge: Day 1

Chalene Johnson is my favorite, favorite, favorite fitness person. She does Turbo Kick, Turbo Jam, Hip Hop Hustle, PiYo, ChaLEAN Extreme, and Turbo Fire. She's also a motivational speaker and has her fingers in all sorts of fitness-related pots. I follow her on Facebook and she's always posted about using To Do lists to stay organized. I started doing that and it helped me get through all the PTA fundraising business last fall. So when she posted about a 30 day challenge for organization and achieving goals, I was all over it. I signed up and we get assignments each day. Here is where you read all about it!

Assignment 1: Think about what is important to you.


I don't know quite what this means. Family is important to me. Learning is important to me. Being able to provide people with information (I guess that would be "teaching" huh?) is important to me. I sure do like telling people how it is! LOL

But in all seriousness, I do think it's important to share, whether it's knowledge, opinions, experience, time, things. I've spent so long keeping to myself, like I've been in a cocoon for 35 years and I've just now completed my metamorphosis and am ready to emerge and show the world what I have to offer. Being the best me I can be for others is what's important to me.

It's a long, boring drive to Raleigh.

On the 24 I'm going to Rolley. I don't know what I'm doing there! My mom kept it a secrite. 




Sebastian wrote that in his writing journal at school a few weeks ago. I told him at the beginning of the month that we were going somewhere fun when Thanksgiving vacation started. I wouldn't give him any hints at first. Then I told him we were going to the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences to see the Grossology Exhibit. Once I explained that "grossology" was farts and burps and poop, he was excited.

I also planned to take him somewhere else, but I didn't plan on telling him until we arrived - the Lego Store at the Crabtree Valley Mall. Sam and I decided that we'd take all of Sebastian's change to the bank and let him spend it at the Lego store.

There are pennies in that pumpkin bucket. When we took it to the credit union and dumped it into the change machine, Sebastian walked away $533 richer. He was allowed to spend all but $100, which he is going to spend on a toy drive or angel tree.

So the day finally came and we made the 3.5 hour drive west. Sebastian was so good the whole way. He only asked if we were there yet twenty times. We never stopped, until we got to the parking lot near the museum. Sebastian's behavior was stellar! I was so proud of him. And he had a good time. He showed lots of interest in the exhibits, he told me 50 million times that this or that was awesome, and it was a wonderful 2 hours with him.

I, of course, loved the place. It wasn't as good as the Science Museum of Minnesota, which I went to in 2002, but it was pretty darn good. I'm more of a space & anatomy kind of "scientist" rather than naturalist but there were dinosaurs

and gross things

and I'm kicking myself that I didn't get a picture of the walking sticks because those things creep me out. And now they are going to creep you out, too, because I Googled an image just for you!

The ones at the museum were "leafier" and way more disgusting!

Speaking of disgusting, I bought my step-daughter Brandy a chocolate bar. I hope she doesn't mind the giant moth larvae in it!! I'll post a picture next month, after she opens it.

After gross things (including the Grossology Exhibit), we went to lunch in the museum cafe. It was surprisingly affordable and I was a good girl and just got garden vegetable soup instead of food I really wanted to eat. Being good is so boring!

Finally, it was time to go to the "special" place. It was just down the road from the museum, fortunately. Parking was a nightmare but I finally managed. Then we walked in the wrong end of the mall and I had to hunt down a directory, walk all the way to the very end and go down the escalator. While we were stepping on to the escalator, I saw the store. Sebastian did not. I tried to keep him distracted long enough to get down there and closer to it. That worked great and we were practically right in front of the entrance when he saw it.

"Oh, a Lego store. Can we go in there?" he asked in the calmest of voices.

Not what I was expecting! I told him that the plan was to go there all along and he showed some mild excitement. When we actually got into the incredibly packed with rowdy kids, teeny-tiny store and he saw that it was wall-to-wall Lego sets, he did his cheer/jump/woohoo, then raced around looking at everything. He immediately picked out a big set. I told him he still had money and could pick out another. So he did. And he was shocked that he still had money. So he kept picking. In less than 20 minutes, we walked out of there with 10 Lego sets and $417 less than we'd gone in with.

No, he did not carry those bags. Remember how we entered the mall at the wrong end? Mommy got strength training and cardio that day.

Poor kid fell asleep on the way home, holding one of his sets. Look at that improper car seat restraint!

This picture reminds me a lot of the time the bread man let Sam have the close-to-expiration bread from his truck.

Needless to say, he is not getting Legos for Christmas. He put the little sets together, and has the biggest Lego City set in his sorting box and partially built. He has the Power Miner set in another sorting box and partially built. The rest are in the spare room, waiting for him to finish his first two. He has to have every set he owns built before we go back to the Lego store, to see if we are missing any pieces, because he spent so much money, he got 4 free boxes to fill with random pieces from the wall when he goes back.

I don't know what else to say about the trip. It was awesome. We were home in time for dinner and iCarly. It was just...awesome. Next year, I will take him to the Science Museum of Virginia. I've been dying to go there for years and I think he will be old enough to have fun. They have IMAX. Nothing beats IMAX.

More Halloween Fun!!

Along with my spooky dinners, I had scary plans for the weekend. On Friday night, Sam was gone, so Sebastian and I made popcorn and watched It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and Scared Shrekless. On Saturday,

Saturday night, the three of us went to Manteo to the haunted house at The Lost Colony, Quarantine Island. In years past, we've gone to Trick or Treat Under the Sea at the aquarium, and we've done the Haunted Hayride in Corolla at the Whalehead Club (which they don't seem to be doing this year). This year we went to First Flight Elementary School's main fundraiser, Trick or Treat Night. It was really great! Admission was a $2 (or more) donation per person, plus a canned good. Brilliant idea - NHES should do a food drive. We bought tickets to the haunted house, to sort of test out how Sebastian would handle it. I screamed. He did great, so I stopped worrying about how he would do at The Lost Colony. And he was fantastic! The production put on by the Lost Colony was amazing! I absolutely loved Quarantine Island and we are definitely going again next year. The only "bad" part was when I cut my tongue on a prop. About halfway through, we were in a section that had large rubber things hanging from the ceiling. They were blowing around as part of the production and I opened my mouth for some reason, and it hit me just right. It hurt my teeth a bit and left a good cut on my tongue. It was bleeding enough that I could see blood on my fingers in the semi-dark, and I could really taste it. There are also spots of blood on my sweater where I tried to blot it. But even with that, I loved it, and it was well worth the $30 we paid. Even Sebastian loved it.

Sunday morning, I got up very early to hide Halloween candy & trinkets around the house. When Sebastian woke up, I gave him his plastic pumpkin bucket and told him to start his treasure hunt. He found his loot then we took him to buy a new bike - exercise to burn off all those candy calories. His old bike was too small and it still had the training wheels. He couldn't ride it very well, so we upgraded and got him riding a bit. He did very well for his first sink or swim.

We ended the night in a very bad parent kind of way. We watched Paranormal Entity (Netflix Watch Instantly) and Paranormal Activity (Netflix Watch Instantly). I'm a bit of a ghost hunter freak. I would love to do some real paranormal investigating, not that stuff you see on television. Anyway, Paranormal Entity was stupid, stupid, stupid. Paranormal Activity was much better - the end even creeped me out a bit.

Other Netflix Watch Instantly to get in the mood:
Paranormal: Haunts and Horrors
Paranormal State: Season 1 -- Season 2 -- Season 3 -- Season 4
Psychic Kids: Children of the Paranormal: Season 1 -- Season 2

Halloween Week Menu

I know I've been a-slacking on my bloggy here, but I've been busy and sick, and lately busy and sick at the same time. I wanted to throw this post up so I could reference it during the week. Last year during the week of Halloween, I did a theme for dinner and it was a huge hit. I'm doing a few of the same recipes & ideas but there are some new things, too. 


Lunches for Sebastian this week - just spooky sandwiches. Those are just sandwiches cut with Halloween cookie cutters. He's so weird about his lunch. He doesn't want to take anything "new" so we stick with peanut butter & jelly/honey/nutella sandwiches, sometimes some mini pizzas on Sandwich Thins or light English muffins. He won't take leftovers. Turd. 


Speaking of turds, I am still on the lookout for a good cookie recipe that can be made to look like dog shit. Sam said he'd eat it.


Monday's dinner is vegetarian chill-ee with blue moon corn muffins. I'm just using my favorite easy vegetarian chili recipe.

1/2 c dried black beans

1/2 c dried pinto beans

1 14-oz can diced tomatoes

1 8-oz can tomato sauce

1/2 onion, diced

3 cloves roasted garlic, minced

1 bell pepper, diced 

2 tbsp olive oil

1/4 cup vegetable broth

2 tbsp chili powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

dash cayenne pepper

dash red pepper flakes 

1/2 cup TVP + 1/2 cup water

1. Cook the dried beans according to the directions on the package.

2. In a medium to large soup pot, sautee the onion, bell pepper and garlic in the olive oil. Add tomatoes, vegetable broth and chili powder and stir.

3. Reduce heat to medium low and add beans. Stir occasionally and cook for at least 20 minutes. Add TVP and water 10 minutes before done cooking. Of course, the longer you cook chili the better, but if you're pressed for time, 20 minutes is fine.

4. For a spicier chili, add extra cayenne and red pepper flakes. Makes 6 servings.

Blue Moon Corn Muffins - Okay, I cheated here. There is a recipe for this in 13 Halloween Recipes but it's not Weight Watchers Core friendly. So I made Core'N bread with a little blue food coloring.

Core'N Bread

1 cup cornmeal

1/2 cup Cream of Wheat, uncooked

1 cup ff sour cream

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/3 cup splenda

2 tsp olive oil

2 eggs

1/2 cup ff milk.

The cornbread bakes in a sprayed 8x8" pan at 400 for 35 minutes. 

On Tuesday - chicken salad pita monsters.

On Wednesday - jack-o-lantern sloppy joe pie. I'll be using ground venison instead of turkey sausage.

On Thursday - Halloween Soup.

1 pound black beans

1 large onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, diced

2 tablespoon A-1 Sauce

salt and cayenne pepper to taste

1 pound carrots, sliced into rounds

cilantro for garnish (optional)

1. Rinse and soak beans for 6 hours or overnight.

2. Drain beans and empty into a large soup pot.

3. Add enough water to cover the beans by 2 to 3 inches.

4. Bring to a boil and then skim off any foam that rises to the surface.

5. Add garlic and onion.

6. Lower heat and cook until onions are soft, about 15 minutes.

7. Next, add A-1 Sauce and salt and cayenne pepper to taste.

8. Cook for about 1 hour.

9. Add carrots and continue cooking for another 30 minutes.

10. Garnish with cilantro, if desired, before serving.

On Friday - Cannibal Platter. 

Fingers and Ears:
1 lb. medium-large shrimp, divided
1/4 lb. small peeled shrimp
3 tbsp. salted butter
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 head of garlic, cloves peeled and chopped
Pinch of crushed red pepper
2 tsp. chopped fresh rosemary
Salt, to taste
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Toothpicks
Freshly squeezed lemon juice, to taste

Testicles:
10-12 large sea scallops, rinsed and thoroughly dried
2 tbsp. flour
1 tsp. Cajun seasoning
1 tbsp. olive oil
Freshly squeezed lemon juice, to taste

1. To make the fingers and ears, divide your pile of medium-large shrimp in half. Use half for fingers, and half for ears.

2. To create the fingers, peel each shrimp, leaving on the tail and the last segment of shell right before the tail. Devein each shrimp, cutting into the shrimp as little as possible to do so. Using a pair of kitchen scissors, cut the tail off of each shrimp, leaving the small shelled end intact. Keeping the shrimp as straight as possible thread each one onto a toothpick or a length of skewer. This will keep them from curling as they cook. Refrigerate until ready to cook.

3. To create the ears, completely peel and devein the other half of your medium-large shrimp. Butterfly them generously to devein. This helps give them their "ear" shape. Tuck a small peeled and deveined shrimp into curve of each larger shrimp. Skewer them both together with a toothpick. Refrigerate until ready to cook.

4. The sea scallop "testicles" are basically ready to go - they require no preparation.

5. To cook your Cannibal platter, melt the butter and olive oil together in a large saute pan. Add the garlic and red pepper and cook over low heat until garlic is very tender, about 15 minutes. Don't let it burn or brown!

6. Add rosemary. Cook 2-3 minutes more.

7. To cook the finger and ear shrimps, salt and pepper them to taste and add them to the pan. You may need to do this in stages. Cook 2-3 minutes per side, until pink and cooked through. Sprinkle with lemon juice to taste and keep warm (if desired - they're also good cold) until ready to serve.

8. To cook the scallop "testicles," mix the flour and Cajun seasoning in a small bowl. Dredge scallops in flour mixture.

9. In a skillet, heat oil until hot. Cook scallops in oil, turning once, until both sides are brown, about 5-6 minutes. Remove from the heat and sprinkle lemon over.

10. Arrange your "testicles," "fingers," and "ears," creatively on a platter and pour the sauce for each over top. Serve with your choice of dipping sauces, if desired. And don't forget to label each of these gross Halloween foods for maximum gross-out! 

Saturday's dinner is pizza mummies. We're making them with chicken breast & Sandwich Thins instead of pepperoni & English muffins.

Sunday's breakfast will be pumpkin oat pancakes.

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup quick-cooking oats
2 tablespoon wheat germ
2 teaspoon sugar
2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
Pinch ground cinnamon
1 cup milk
1 egg, lightly beaten
3/4 cup canned pumpkin
2 tablespoon vegetable oil
chocolate chips or raisins (optional)

1. In a bowl, combine the flour, oats, wheat germ, sugar, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.



2. Combine milk, egg, pumpkin and oil in separate bowl; stir into dry ingredients just until
moistened.


3. Pour batter by 1/4 cupfuls onto a hot greased griddle; turn when bubbles form on top of
pancakes.


4. Cook until second side is golden brown. Decorate with chocolate chips and raisins if desired.
Yields 10-12 pancakes


And dinner will be vampire-repelling burgers with potato worms. This is just burgers with minced garlic and potatoes cut into worm shapes and baked. 

For beverages, Sebastian loves Blood Juice - a little red Kool Aid mixed with club soda or Sprite/7-Up.