Random Mishmash of Stuff

It's been a few days because of the computer issues and life in general getting in the way.  Because of that, I have a whole host of random things to talk about.  Get excited!

First, a friend of mine sent me an article today about how Vienna has the highest quality of life (for the third year running, according to Mercer).  I've only been there twice and for a grand total of about 11 days, but I could have told you that from my experiences.  The city is clean and safe, the public transportation is absolutely fantastic (they have a clock letting you know when every train/tram/bus, etc. will be there and I've never seen one run late), and there is so much culture and history there.  The only problem I have with Vienna (or Austria in general) is that it is way too complicated for an American national to move there.  Apparently Matt and I just need to win the lottery, form a corporation, and pay ourselves each €4200 per month, and then they'll let us move there.  Simple enough, right? :P  Also, because I feel like posting all sorts of pictures, I'm going to put one relevant to this up:

Me on my first visit to Vienna in front of the Hofburg.  It's one of my favorite buildings there.  It's also right next to the ruins from the Holy Roman Empire, which is pretty sweet.  Have I mentioned that I want to move there tomorrow?

Second, I have a few pictures from our Friday-after-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving dinner.  If you recall, we were too lazy to make turkey and all the fixings on Thanksgiving, so we just waited a day.  I had to work at an ungodly hour (6:30 am, which isn't even bad for the Friday after Thanksgiving) so Matt put the turkey in the crock pot and let it go all day.  You can judge us if you want, but we saved so much money in electricity for not using the oven that I don't care.  It ended up being so delicious.  And then, of course, we had mashed potatoes, stuffing, and canned cranberry.  I know that canned cranberry is exactly the processed American crap that I'm trying to eliminate from my diet, but I'm just going to not count it.  Who doesn't love gelatinous, can-shaped cranberry goodness?  People with no soul, that's who.  I also made homemade gravy from the drippings (again, so freaking good).  Matt had one taste and then declared that he wanted me to be the mother of his children, so I'm going to go ahead and assume that I'm  not the only one that thought it was pretty fantastic.  (Although I am pretty sure that he figured out the mother of his children thing before he married me. xD)  I have some pictures of the dinner, so I will post them, too!

Everything all served up!  (Not pictured: the kitchen, looking like something exploded.)

Delicious, delicious gelatinous can-shaped cranberry.  Favorite Thanksgiving food.

Aaaand...I'm not really sure what's going on here, but it's always fun to embarrass Mr. Leick by posting ridiculous pictures of him on the interwebs.

Third, I've figured out that working out and stress don't generally get along.  I have not been as good as I should be about keeping up with this.  I'm losing weight because I'm generally eating much healthier and have given up soda and going out to eat, but I'm not losing it as fast as I'd like.  Work has gotten a lot more stressful with Christmas on the horizon.  Plus, I'm really tired most days and just don't feel like it.  I'm still very motivated with the food portion of the lifestyle change, but finding the time/motivation/energy to get a great (or even decent) workout has been escaping me lately.  Hopefully I can hunker down and get back into it.  It's not easy but it'll be totally worth it in the end.  Fortunately, I have a new work-out buddy (sort of).  I know her from our high school and she and I are both doing the 30 Day Shred.  We're trying to check in with each other frequently to keep each other motivated.  This will be really good for me, too, because I have an over-active conscience and if I don't do something I should, I start feeling very, very, very guilty.  I imagine I'll find the strength to keep going - if I haven't given up on any of my goals yet, I won't any time in the near future.

Fourth, CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  If you can't tell by the bolded caps, I LOVE Christmas.  I love everything about it.  The music, the decorations, the food, the family, the shopping, the presents, Santa, EVERYTHING.  It is, far and away, my favorite time of year.  Matt and I were going to put the tree up on Sunday but it ended up being a pretty crappy day for me and I just wasn't in the mood, so the decorating got put off until tonight.  

The Christmas tree, all lit up but without any ornaments.

Matt and I have decided to build our ornament collection by getting one Hallmark ornament a year.  My family did this and we have a pretty awesome collection of ornaments.  This is my ornament for the year.  It says "The Bell Still Rings For Me 2011"

The tag says "The Polar Express Round Trip".  Every year, my mom read that book to my sisters and I.  I love the book which is why I got the ornament.  It was a no brainer when I saw it. :)

Matt picked out this one.  It says "Joe to the world".  I bet you can't tell that he's obsessed with coffee. :P

Trying to decide where to put the ornament.

And we have a spot!

Final product!

And some pictures of us for fun.

Aw, cute. :)

The set-up.  Not too fancy, but we've only been married for two years.  Once we've been married for longer, have a house, and more room to decorate I will go absolutely crazy with the decorations.  I can't wait. :)

And finally, another apple update!  I haven't been taking pictures, but the apple now has two definite bruises and is definitely to the point where I wouldn't eat it.  It's still relatively firm, but the two big bruises thing is more than I can handle.  It's been about two and a half weeks, but it's still not melting on my counter, so I'll keep it out and see how it ends up.

I think that's about it for now.  Hopefully I'll keep updating regularly so I don't have giant posts with all sorts of ridiculous things thrown in.  As usual, comments/suggestions/whatever are welcome and invited!

Until next time...

Tschüss!

Computer troubles :(

I was going to put up a pretty awesome post today, but my computer decided that it should stop charging so that's not happening. I'm going to get that taken care of, and in the meantime I have my trusty old iMac, but I haven't booted that one up yet and I don't feel like it yet tonight. So know that I'll have some posts coming, but it'll probably be a couple of days before I get to it. Typing a blog on my iPad takes longer than I have time for and is a bit more frustrating.

Till then...

Tschüss!

I don't feel like coming up with a title, so this will have to do

Today was an excellent day.

I didn't stick to my diet and I didn't exercise (which I am going to feel overwhelmingly guilty about tomorrow) but sometimes, you just need a break.  I've felt a little stuck in a rut lately because other aspects of my life have been mass chaos to put it lightly, but today was exactly what I needed.  I did what I wanted to do, not what I needed to do (okay, I did a little bit of what I needed to do, but I wanted to do those things as well).

I woke up at about 7:30 and did nothing until Matt woke up at about 8.  We lazed around for awhile, discussed what we were going to do (we've decided that it's important to start our own holiday traditions, so we elected to spend today by ourselves and not with family), and then got a call from his dad's girlfriend letting us know that she had made some bread for us.  We got showered and dressed and went over there to get the bread, and then just sat and talked for awhile.  When everyone else started showing up, we left.

As much as we love our families, we've come to the conclusion that we need to focus on our little family. It might only be the two of us, but we have yet to establish how we're going to combine our separate families' traditions for the holidays.  We do know that eventually just doing what his family did for Thanksgiving and what my family did for Christmas is not going to work for the long run.

In any event, we got back to the apartment and I turned on the Packers-Lions game (still depressed with how that one ended...) and he was reading.  Eventually we got hungry and we went to the store.  We had a turkey breast in the fridge for both of us, and the mixings for stuffing, cranberry, and mashed potatoes, but neither of us felt like cooking.  So we went to Hy-Vee and got a pizza, some ravioli, and a chicken pasta meal thing.  Nothing healthy or relevant to my diet, but that was never the point of today.  We decided to crockpot the turkey for tomorrow and do the whole Thanksgiving dinner thing after I get off work.

So we got back, I watched the rest of the game and talked to some friends online while Matt read and paid no attention to the game whatsoever.  After that, we did the dishes and got the kitchen cleaned up so I could make a big mess of it again.

I promised a coworker that I'd make Red Velvet cupcakes for the potluck we're having tomorrow.  I have a few pictures of this...

Awesome cupcake papers!

My baby, the KitchenAid Mixer

Creamed shortening/sugar

With the eggs...

Cocoa powder!

Mix the red food coloring with the cocoa powder to form a paste

Add the paste to the shortening/sugar/egg mixture.  Now it starts to look like Red Velvet cake...

Finished batter!

Cupcakes hanging out in the fridge!

And the finished product!

The icing kind of looks like a Christmas tree!

From the top

And just another cool looking angle.

Of course, in between making the cupcakes and making the icing, we watched The Holiday which rounded out the list of movies I wanted to watch for Thanksgiving (Love Actually, Joyeux Noel, and The Holiday).  We were going to put our Christmas tree up, but we didn't get that far,  I imagine we'll do that Sunday evening.

So, all in all it was a wonderful day with Matt.  Unfortunately, I'm back at work at 6:30 tomorrow morning.  Hopefully it won't be overwhelmingly crazy.  I am not ready for the Christmas season to start.  I'm just glad that I'm still capable of keeping Christmas at work separate from Christmas at home.

And on that note, I need to go.  I should definitely get some sleep - tomorrow is not going to be tolerable if I don't.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving (or just a good day, if you live outside the US)!

Tschüss!

Thanksgiving-y things

This post is a really random collection of things, just FYI.

First, I wanted to list a few things that I'm thankful for in the spirit of the day:

- Wonderful friends and family who support me and are there for me whenever I need them

- A husband who loves me

- The fact that I have the opportunity to better myself

- Having a place to live, food on the table, warm clothes, etc.

There are many, many more things that I could list, but I feel like those are the big ones and the things I'm most thankful for.

A little bit on German:

I just wanted to express my pleasure/excitement about the fact that I got the correct book for German grammar.  I am really, really excited to read it!  Hopefully it will help me make big strides in the German-learning process.

A little bit on food:

I work with two moms of toddlers, and they gave me a really interesting idea today.  They suggested that for a low calorie, but delicious snack I look into baby food.  Not like, pureed vegetables in a jar, but more along the Gerber graduates line.  One of my co-workers even brought me what essentially amounts to a baby sized, much healthier strawberry fruit roll-up.  It was really good, too!  I wasn't crazy about the texture, but it did taste fantastic.  Apparently the food is very inexpensive as well.

So I'm going to go grocery shopping sometime this weekend and check it out.  It seems a little crazy at first, but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense.  I mean, obviously they don't give babies all the processed crap that they make for adults, so everything has a lower calorie count and better nutrition.  Even if it's just for snacks, it'll be worth it I think.  I'll keep you all posted.

A little bit on the working out thing:

I've been doing Jillian Michaels' 30 Day Shred in combination with Wii Fit and Just Dance lately.  I'm a little surprised, because the last two times I did 30 Day Shred, I only had DOMS in my abs and not even that much.  I'm pretty excited about it, but I think I need to step it up, because like I said, the post-workout pain is my body's way of telling me it's getting stronger.  I don't feel like I did anything if I'm not even sore the next day.  So I'm going to either up the weights that I use or move up to the next level on 30 Day Shred, because I really want to feel like I'm giving it my all.  Hopefully the pounds will keep coming off!

I think that's everything for tonight.  You can expect a post sometime later this week about Thanksgiving. Matt and I don't have much planned so I'm not sure how much I'll have to write, but I'm pretty sure there will be lots of pictures!  Till then...

Tschüss!

On Austria and Homemade Tomato Sauce

I was going to write a really rambly post on Austria (before getting into the tomato sauce bit) but I've decided to be concise.

I love Austria a lot.  (Please don't confuse Austria with Australia, btw.  It makes me want to bang my head against the wall.  If you ever get confused: Australia is a big island in the middle of the ocean with lots of kangaroos.  Austria is a landlocked country in the middle of Europe with mountains and Liederhosen.)

(A visual aid! Bahahahahahahaha...okay, moving on.)

It's been on my mind a lot lately, and all I want to do is go back.  I seriously wouldn't mind moving there and I have no idea how to deal with the fact that I miss it as much as I do.  Anyone have any tips on getting over Europe-withdrawal?

Aaaand...homemade tomato sauce!

Let (1) onion, (4 cloves) garlic, and (2-3) carrots cook in (2 T) butter and (2 T) olive oil

Boil tomatoes to loosen the skin

Put the tomatoes in cold water (or an ice bath) to cool before removing skins

Squeeze the seeds out of the tomatoes

Put all the tomatoes in a blender and puree

Put all of this in a pot with (1/4 c) fresh basil, (1/4 c) burgundy wine, (2 stalks) celery, and a bay leaf.  Simmer for 2 hours, add (2 T) tomato paste, and simmer for 2 more hours.  When done, remove the celery and bay leaf.

It's a pretty easy process, it just takes time.  I also learned the hard way not to use cherry or grape tomatoes.  Large ones are much, much, much easier to use.  Also, cut a slit in the tomatoes before you boil them.  It makes the skin come off much faster!

It is absolutely fantastic when it's done!

And I should probably mention that I didn't make the recipe up or anything.  I found it when I googled "homemade tomato sauce".  I don't want people to think I'm taking credit for creating it.

Das ist alles für heute.

Tschüss!

Apple update!

I know you're all dying to find out how the apple experiment is going.  Let me tell you.

I haven't taken a picture every day, but on most days.  There really isn't much change in the look of the apple (save for one bruise), but it sure does feel a lot different than it did when I first purchased it.

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 3 - bruised already (right above the n)

Day 6

Day 8 - The bruise is more prominent, even if you can't really tell in the picture.

So that's the progress on the apple.  You can't tell by the pictures, but it definitely feels very, very different than it did when I first purchased it.  It's a lot softer and the bruise is getting bigger/darker.  It'll be interesting to see how long it lasts before I have to throw it out.

Change of pace

I decided today to take a break from talking about the dieting and the German (and the absolutely incompetent government representatives in Congress) and really introduce the topic of why I want to move - and why I want to move to Omaha.

I want to move because Peoria is seriously lacking in opportunities.  Unless you want to work for Caterpillar or a Cat contractor, there aren't many job opportunities.  There also aren't many options for getting more education.  Unless you want to attend ICC (also known as "I Can't Spell"), or Bradley (and pay as much as my entire undergraduate degree cost to take approximately seven classes), there are no options in Peoria proper.  If I wanted to drive 40 minutes both ways to go to ISU I could, but I just don't have time. These things are both a problem for me, since my degree in Justice Systems isn't very useful and there aren't really any opportunities for that here.  I have a minor in Statistics, but it hasn't been enough to get a job outside of my current one.

I realize that Matt and I are incredibly fortunate to both have jobs and we're not going to just give them up to move.  I know that my situation in particular (working retail) is never going to get better without a) more companies providing wider variety job opportunities or b) getting more education.  I know that if I can't find a job with normal working hours using the skill sets and knowledge I have, I want to go back to school to do more with Statistics.  It is truly what I love to do and it's what I want to do on a daily basis.

Obviously, there are countless options for places that Matt and I could move and where we could find jobs and good universities, but there are several good reasons Omaha is at the top of our list.

1. Cost of living
• This one is huge.  Yes, we would probably have more opportunities in a bigger city than Omaha, but it is much more expensive to do so.  We would rather play it safe now and live somewhere we know we can afford.  This gives us the opportunity to build our savings so that we can move to a bigger city (preferably in Europe, and by Europe I mean Austria, and by all of that I really mean Vienna) when we're a bit older and more established.
2. Work opportunities
• There are several Fortune 500 companies based in Omaha and plenty outside the realm of the Fortune 500s.  There are ample job opportunities (especially compared to Peoria) and Omaha has one of the better unemployment rates in the country.   And like I said before - there may not be as many opportunities as other, bigger cities but there are enough jobs there that both Matt and I should be able to find something we love to do with the potential for growth.
3. Education opportunities
• Odds are, I (and potentially Matt too) will end up going back to school.  Both Omaha and Lincoln have great universities for a great price.  Fortunately, I never moved anywhere for the purpose of getting in-state residency for school and as such I'm still considered a Nebraska resident for tuition purposes.  And since Matt married me, he counts as a resident too.  Plus, UNL has a great graduate Statistics program that works closely with Gallup.  I would love to be in that program.
4. Social Life
• Being a young couple, being social is important.  There aren't many opportunities here that we've found.  Peoria is kind of boring in that regard.  We don't really drink at all and we're not big movie people.  Beyond that, there's not much to do.  We've had a lot of problems finding ways to meet people without spending a lot of money.  We know a lot more people in Omaha than we do in Peoria, and there are a lot more things to do there than here.  A big part of it is the size of Omaha - there are simply more events there.
• This sort of counts as social life too (and much more!), but I think our church life will be much better in Omaha as well.  There are far, far more churches there than here and there are several I know that I'm comfortable with.  Plus, the Knights of Columbus in the Omaha Archdiocese has many younger members, and I think it really would be great for Matt to join.

In addition to all of these things, Omaha has multiple Chipotles.  And Runza.  And a hundred other restaurants/places that I absolutely adore that I can't get here.  Granted, with my new diet I can't really eat at most of those restaurants, but just knowing they're there makes me happy.  And I can go to my mothership (the Apple store) whenever I like.  And let's not forget that my other mothership (Memorial Stadium) is a mere 45 minute drive!

And as silly as it sounds, I'll be closer to Duchesne.  So much of who I am is because of my four years there (I feel like I'm more defined by those four years than by any other time in my life).  I've grown and changed since then, but I wear my class ring proudly every day because I want to represent well everything that Duchesne stands for.  I don't always succeed, but I always try.

On that note, I think I'll end this.  It's almost one in the morning and I should probably do something reasonable like sleep, aber ich bin nicht müde.  Instead, I think I'll work on my German more, so I can say more than five words at a time auf Deutsch.

Tschüss!

I have a lot of words, but really...I have no words

I guess it doesn't matter if people comment and offer suggestions for posts or not, because the United States Congress sure did provide me with one hell of a topic today.

Apparently, the federal government of the United States thinks that pizza should qualify as a vegetable.

Yep.

In a new spending bill, congress continues to effectively define anything with two or more tablespoons of tomato paste as a vegetable for school lunches.  Ignoring for a moment the fact that a tomato is a fruit, allow me to address the absolute ridiculousness of this.

I understand that the American government is hugely in debt.  However, choosing to continue to serve the same food to our schoolchildren (one-third of whom are overweight or obese) that has been served for the last fifteen years because it's too expensive to serve them healthy food is mind-blowingly absurd.

Let's just ignore the fact that approximately forty percent of the calories schoolchildren consume are consumed while at school and the food they eat there is a large part of their diet.  Let's also ignore the fact that diabetes rates in schoolchildren are increasing at alarming speeds.

Supposedly, if Congress had not earmarked a single dollar for the entirety of 2011, the government could have saved sixteen billion dollars.  I'm pretty sure that would cover the cost of healthier foods for our students.  Additionally, should the United States government serve healthy food to our students, it would likely minimize the effects of childhood obesity and the medical conditions that are related to it, such as diabetes.  This would actually end up saving the government money, because Medicare and/or Medicaid would almost inevitably have to end up paying at least some of the costs for treatment of these conditions.

Between this and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), I am absolutely disgusted with the government.  Completely honestly - if I had the capability and the opportunity to move to another country right now, I would jump on it.  If this isn't proof that the government does not care for their constituents but only for the money from lobbyists, I don't know what is.

Anyway, I'm going to move on before I get too political because that really isn't my intent and it's definitely not where I want this blog to go.

Remember the book I talked about in my other post?  This book:

Book that I am super excited to read and was supposed to get in the mail today.

Yeah, that didn't happen.  Instead, I got this book:

Book that I am not super excited to read and I did get in the mail today. :(

Naturally, I drove (read as: sped, because it was 20 minutes to closing) over to Barnes and Noble and made them fix the problem for me.  Normally I would have been much nicer about it, and maybe even laughed it off and dealt with it myself.  But normally, I'm also not this stressed out.  It ended up okay; they ordered me the correct book and are having it shipped to me and I didn't have to pay extra or do anything, really.  It was handled well.  I was just really, really excited (and still am) to get the German book and opening it and seeing the wrong one was just one more thing than I could handle.

In any event, hopefully I get the correct one soon so that I can focus on the aspect of German that is going to cause me the most trouble.

Anyway, that's it for today.  I'm going to go watch The Big Bang Theory and get some sleep.

Tschüss!

Not really relevant to my goals, but...

A ton of people have looked at this blog, which is pretty fantastic.  That's the point - to keep me accountable and whatnot.  And the more people that look at this blog, the more I feel like I can actually keep going because I'm being held to my word.

But it would be even more awesome if more of my readers commented.  Eventually I'm going to run out of ideas for things to talk about (shocking as that may be) and it would be really great if I had suggestions/ideas/whatever.  Even angry hate comments.  I mean, I don't really want those, but if that's what you want to leave for me, so be it.  I'm narcissistic (and awesome) enough to handle them.

So I guess what I really want to say is: You're awesome. I love you. Please leave me a comment.  Or seven.  (Even better if it's in German, because then I get to have fun translating!)

Danke schön!/Thanks!

Tschüss!

Everything that is wrong with America in Gummy Bear form

I love gummy bears.  I adore them.  They might even come close to being my favorite food.  I consider myself to be something of a gummy bear connoisseur.  (The best gummy bears, hands down, are Target's generic brand...in case you were wondering.)  Because of my diet, I don't really have the room in my calorie count to eat them...which is fine, honestly.  I can make sacrifices; that's a huge part of what I'm doing here.

Obviously gummy bears aren't the greatest for you, but America isn't the only country that has them.  In fact, Haribo, the first company to make gummy bears, originated near Bonn, Germany. (Oh hey, this is relevant to BOTH parts of my blog and I didn't even try. See? This is why I love gummy bears so much.) And since we're talking about it, I just remembered that I have a picture that is relevant to this post:

Me with actual German Haribo Gummy Bears.  

My older sister got them for me when she was an au pair in Germany.

Also, just FYI: The German word for gummy bear is "das Gummibärchen"

But back to the actual point...

You can eat just about anything, gummy bears included, in a reasonable and (sort of) healthy way.  If you eat ten gummy bears as a snack, you'll be fine.  If you eat an entire one pound package of gummy bears in one sitting?  Well...therein lies the problem.

I think it's very reasonable to say that most Americans (myself included, until recently) don't pay one ounce of attention to what they're putting in their bodies.  For instance, if you asked most Americans how many Pop-Tarts are in one serving, they wouldn't believe you when you told them that it's only one.  ("But they're packaged in twos!  Why would they package them together if it's one per serving?!" Yeah, don't ask me.  I don't get it either.)  That's why this is so disturbing to me:

I used the picture with the hands so that you can have something to compare the size to.

Here are the specs on this bad boy (taken directly from the website):

• Dimensions: 9.5" x 5.5" x 3.5"
• Equivalent to 1400 regular-size gummy bears
• Weighs approximately 5 pounds
• 6,120 calories! (My comment: Because this is definitely something we should be excited about!)
• Hand-made in the USA with domestic ingredients
• Gluten-free
• One year shelf life

That is approximately 183 cubic inches (about 3000 cubic centimeters for the metric system users who are reading this) of gummy-heart-attack-waiting-to-happen.  It's 51 servings.  I can easily see it happening, though - as soon as someone gets one of these, that person just digging in without paying attention to the fact that based on calories for the average person, it's the equivalent of a little more than three days' meals.  Obviously, next to no one is going to finish this thing in one sitting, but I doubt most of the people who are buying it will eat it over a reasonable amount of time.  (I consider reasonable to be a maximum of  one or two servings per day depending on the person - so eating the whole thing over the course of approximately one to two months at a minimum.)

I do have to admit that a lot of this is speaking from experience because before I decided to make these changes to my lifestyle, I would have ordered it and I probably would have finished it a lot more quickly than I would now find reasonable.  It's a little embarrassing to admit, but the important thing is that I wouldn't do it now.

There's this mindset in America that if it's bigger, it has to be better, which is clearly evidenced by this five pound gummy bear.  But it's the same across the board!  Whether it's portions of food or TVs or houses or...well, you get the picture.  But at some point, it has to stop.  Bigger isn't always better and when it comes to food, it almost never is - and everything has a breaking point.  Even water can harm or kill you if you drink too much.

I guess my point is that moderation is key.  No one needs a five pound gummy bear or a 75" television or a 4000 square foot (~372 square meter) house for two people.  That's not to say you shouldn't splurge every once in awhile.  Like I said in my post about my date night, it's okay if you spoil yourself on occasion.  It just becomes a problem when it happens 3 days a week.

In other news, after this post, even if the apple shrivels up and dies tomorrow I'm pretty sure Johannes never has to apologize to America for being judgmental.  We kind of deserve all the judging we get.  And now I'm off to go work out, because I'm 90% sure I just gained 3 pounds and a clogged artery from looking at the picture of the gummy bear.

Tschüss!

New book!

I know this may come as a shock to my readers (especially after the last post when I actually had to take a minute to be depressed that my apple experiment isn't going to have SPSS analyzed results) but I am kind of a nerd. (I'll pause for you to regain your composure.)

I love numbers and taking giant groups of data sets and turning them into graphs that actually make sense and I love chemistry and physics and generally all of the classes that everyone traditionally hates. But most of all, I LOVE reading. There is no feeling in the world like getting a new book. If I could just take up residence in my local Barnes and Noble, I would be happy as a clam. The thing that I love about Barnes and Noble especially is that they always have every book I need. Except for the book that the title of this post is referring to.

I called the store here in Peoria and the one in the next town over and neither of them had this book. Considering that I've been struggling a bit with German grammar and that this book has only 4 and 5 star ratings on Amazon, I was a little depressed that I couldn't get it rightthissecond. Either way, I am very excited for it and will definitely keep everyone posted on how good it is when it's finally in my hands. They also have it for several other languages and if it's good in German, I'm imagining it will be good in the other languages as well. I'll let you know when I get it.

There's not much else going on in the rest of the German department or the weight loss department, so that's it for this post. It was relatively pointless, but that's okay. I don't mind. :P

Tschüss!

Quesadillas, an Apple, and Lots of Pictures

Work was pretty miserable and very stressful today, so when I got home I didn't feel like doing anything.  I lounged around for awhile and was hungry.  Of course, my darling husband hadn't cooked anything like I'd asked so dinner was on me.  I decided that I wanted chicken quesadillas (one of my favorites), I just had to go to the store to get the ingredients.  Fortunately, we live a 2 minute drive from a grocery store.  (In the spring/summer, it's a 15 minute walk.)  So I ran over there to get the ingredients and came back home.   Here's what happened next:

Picture with Mr. Leick (Okay, that's not actually his name because I didn't change mine when we got married, but I don't want to take away *all* of his privacy, so that'll be his name for now.)

Ingredients! (Except for the salsa, because I forgot.) 

I always get light sour cream because you can't taste the difference and there are 20 fewer calories in each serving.

Extra large picture because I wanted everyone to be able to see the recipe.  It came on the back of the chicken package and sounds completely delicious!

Also, I wanted to point out that I decided to get the hormone free, minimally processed chicken.  A big goal for me is to be more aware of what I'm putting in my body and Matt and I are very fortunate to be able to afford the healthier (read as: more expensive) versions of the foods we frequently eat.

Dicing the chicken. 

Bwahahaha! I have a big knife!  (I commissioned Matt to take these pictures for me.)

Omnomnom! 

 I LOVE carrots, which is really good because they're actually a negative calorie vegetable and are very good for you.  Funny thing though - I do not like them near as much when they're cooked.  Growing up, whenever my mom would cook carrots, she'd always leave some uncooked on my plate.  I just don't think they're very good when they're all mushy.  (The one exception to this is her glazed carrots, but since this blog is about losing weight and not an instruction manual for putting on 30 lbs. in 30 days, I'll stay away from those.)

All chopped up! 

If I had had my way, I probably would have eaten all of them, but apparently Matthew needs to eat too. *pouty face* 

 

I cooked the chicken in a touch of olive oil with salt and pepper while I was chopping up the carrots.  When the pieces are diced this small, it really only takes a couple of minutes to cook them fully.

Apparently I did not take as many pictures of the process as I thought I did, because I forgot to take one of the chicken with the salsa.  After the chicken was cooked all the way, I drained the liquids (olive oil has a lot of calories in a small serving!) and then added a few tablespoons of salsa.  I've found that adding the salsa to the chicken (as opposed to using it for dipping) makes a HUGE difference in the deliciousness of the dish.  Besides, I think sour cream is much more delicious for dipping the quesadillas in.

My dear friend Paul got us this pan for our wedding and we LOVE it.  It's perfect for quesadillas!  Anyway, I always put the cheese on first and then add the chicken and then (pre-diet, I would) add more cheese on top.  However, when I realized just how many calories are in cheese, I used significantly less.

With the salsa chicken.  

I paid close attention to the serving sizes (again, something I almost never did before) and made sure only to cook enough chicken so that Matt and I would each get one serving.

The finished product!

I've been on something of an orange juice kick, so I've been drinking a lot of it with meals.  I think it might have to do with the fact that I'm feeling a little under the weather, so I'm hoping the extra Vitamin C will help.  

The entire meal came out to about 550 calories - just about 1/3rd of my daily value.  I was really surprised  to find that the food with the highest caloric value was the tortilla. (190 calories for one!)  Regardless, it was a delicious and reasonably healthy meal.  Plus, I was surprised to find that I actually enjoyed the quesadilla more without as much cheese as I usually use.  

And, as an added bonus, a picture of my darling husband looking at me thinking, "Dear God, my wife is crazy." xD

 And lest I forgot... The Apple!:

When I was talking to one of my Austrian friends (Johannes) awhile ago, he told me a story that I find incredibly difficult to believe.  Of course, given his opinion of American food (that it's crap - and he's kind of right), he insists that it's true.  Anyway, Johannes' brother was studying at a University here in the states and at the beginning of the six week program he bought several apples.  Apparently, he ate all but one of them and the last one disappeared until the end of the six weeks when he was packing everything up.  Supposedly he found the missing apple and it was in perfectly good condition, exactly as it had been six weeks before.

I maintain that he must have eaten the original apple and forgotten about it, and then found an apple that he actually bought at a much later date.  Johannes disagrees and insists that it was the same apple and American food is absolutely terrifying.

Since, as I mentioned earlier, my goal is to be more informed about what I'm putting in my body (and also, I'm a Statistician at heart and a total sucker for experiments) I decided to put this little Granny Smith Apple to the test.  My experiment is as follows:

Step 1: Buy a Granny Smith Apple (the same type that supposedly stayed perfect for six weeks)

Step 2: Write "Experiment Apple - Don't Eat Me" on the apple

Step 3: Put it in the corner of my kitchen for six weeks

Step 4: Take a picture daily (or weekly, if I forget or get lazy) to track the progress of said apple

Step 5: Determine after six weeks (or when the apple goes bad - I promised Matt I'd throw it out if it did) how afraid of American food I really should be

Unfortunately, there are a lot of problems with this experiment that make it not exactly scientific.  For instance: it's a different time of year than when the original apple allegedly didn't go bad for six weeks, I'm several states away from where the original apple was purchased, I probably didn't buy it at the same grocery chain, I can't get an apple from a different country to compare the results, etc.

BUT since I'm not actually running a legitimate scientific experiment complete with SPSS-analysed results (excuse me for a minute, I need to sulk and be depressed about this...okay, slightly better now) I'm willing to overlook all of this.  I just really want to know if this particular apple, which is probably very similar to all of the other apples I have eaten or will eat, will last for 6 weeks without going bad.  If it does, I'm going to freak the eff out.  If not, I'll pretend that it was an incredibly scientific experiment and conclude that there's no way that an apple lasted six weeks without going bad and demand that Johannes apologize to America for being so judgmental.  (I never said I was mature... :P)

But honestly, I want to make myself better and I'm never going to get there if I don't question the things I've believed without questioning for so long.  You can never find an answer if you don't ask the question, so that's what I'm doing.  We'll see what happens.

Also...sorry for the total lack of German in this post.  I'll try to talk about that more next time!  

Tschüss!