Showing posts with label exercise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label exercise. Show all posts

Monday, January 26, 2009

Sunday report...a day late

I only worked out once last week. Shame on me. No good excuse, I was just lazy. But I have every intention of hitting 3 this week.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Sunday report

Another week of not breaking my New Year's resolution! I exercised 3 times. Twice at the gym at work, and once at home. This morning I got on the Nordic track. It wasn't as bad as I was dreading, due in large part to watching Game Show in My Head while I worked out. That show is unbelievable!!

I know, I know, I have broken my other resolution several times by missing a few days of posting here. But you have to admit I'm doing better! Yesterday I was out all day, first at bagels, then looking at houses with my friend Kim from work, and then at my parents' house. Today I exercised, had breakfast, took down the Christmas tree (finally!) and had my massage. There were many other things I had hoped to get done this weekend--one of these days, my loyal California reader (you know who you are) you will get your belated delivery from Santa!

I am very much looking forward to the inauguration next week, and I wish I could see every moment live. It turns out that my heater needs to be worked on (it is running in the "emergency" mode too often) so we'll see if I can schedule an appointment for Tuesday so I conveniently have to be home.

In other homefront news, my pipes froze Friday night! It has been bitterly cold here the past few days, and when I tried to take a shower Saturday morning, I had all the cold water I could want, but zero hot. Boo. So that evening I went to Lowes with my parents and bought a hot water insulation wrapper (that's just for energy efficiency) and some foam tube insulation for the exposed pipes. As we were leaving Lowes, we saw this beautiful sunset:


Oh and in case you were wondering, the hot water was functional when I got home Saturday night, and I left the faucet running ever so slightly so as to prevent the pipes from refreezing, and everything was kosher this morning. Good thing, because me after two days of not showering isn't very pleasant.

I will leave you with a picture of Comet sitting in the box I use to collect recyclable paper.


I saw him in it this morning, and he's sitting in it right now as I type this. Cats are funny.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Weekly Exercise Report, 1/11/09

I worked out three times this week. Tuesday and Thursday at the gym at work, and on Saturday I walked in laps around my backyard. It was a beautiful day and I totally rocked out to the music on my mp3 player. It was a blast!

Sunday, January 04, 2009

Sunday report, with bonus recipe!

Update: I forgot an ingredient for the casserole. See below for correction.

I exercised a total of one time this past week. Not to start the year with excuses, but I did just make the resolution on Thursday. I use the gym at work. It is tiny, but it has two ellipticals, two treadmills, and two recumbent bikes, along with some free weights and one of those weight machine thingies where you can do lateral pull downs and such. I suppose I could have gone into the office Saturday or today to get in another workout, but nah. I did walk for several hours at the mall yesterday. Although it was not vigorous, it is much better than my typical Saturday of sitting in front of the TV and/or computer.

My plan is to work out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday after work. Exactly which days may have to be adjusted based on things like what day everyone wants to go out to sushi and the like. This coming week, Thursday and Friday are going to be atypical. We are having our annual Kick-Off, which is supposed to be a kind of look back, look forward event. I'm not quite sure what we're doing Thursday. It's departmental meetings, I think. So I think I can work out that evening. But Friday we are not going in to the office. We are meeting in a conference room at the RBC Center (it is like 1 mile from our building), and then going out for a big dinner. I have no idea where yet. Communication in my company leaves a lot to be desired, but I'm told that's the number one topic at Kick-Off, so hopefully it will improve in the future. I have often thought of proposing that I add to my current position the duties of internal communication. But that would mean I have to know everything that's going on and decide who needs to be informed. And although we've been told in the past that this is a "transparent" company, the current administration comes across as more secret cabal than populist collaboration.

But I digress. Moving on to a more pleasant topic, let's talk casseroles. As in, the one I made for dinner tonight. It is to die for, but the ingredients are so simple. I found it in one of those recipe books they have at the grocery store checkout line. I love those. They're always good for a few winners. This is a breakfast casserole, but honestly, it is good any time of day.

20 oz. fresh shredded potatoes
1/3 cup butter
1 cube bouillon

Melt butter, combine with potatoes. Mash up bouillon cube and sprinkle over potatoes; mix. Press potatoes into bottom and up along sides of 2qt baking dish. I've found that the taller ones result in a moister finished product than the long flat ones. Bake that at 350 for 30 min.

1 lb turkey sausage
1/3 cup onion

Meanwhile, brown the turkey sausage with the onion and drain fat, if any.

1 cup cottage cheese (original recipe calls for 4%--tonight I used 2% and it was just as good, but not as firm after cooking)
3 eggs lightly beaten (I usually use real ones, but tonight I tried southwestern Egg Beaters and it worked fine)
4 pieces of American cheese (please do not get 2% or god forbid, fat-free)

Combine the cottage cheese and eggs. Tear the American cheese into small pieces and drop into egg mixture, then stir. Pour sausage into egg mixture and stir. (You may wish to add some chopped roasted garlic at this point--the recipe does not call for it but I do!) Then pour everything into the potato crust and bake at 375 for 45 min, or until knife inserted at center comes out clean. Allow 10-15 min for casserole to set before eating. You can get 6 servings out of it if necessary, but it is so good you'll probably only get 4.

My only complaint about this recipe is that you have to bake it twice. I may try eliminating the potato baking one day to see if it still comes out okay. Or maybe only baking it until I'm done preparing the filling.

And yes, I realize it may seem ironic starting this post with talk of exercise, and ending it with talk of cheesy comfort food. But the comfort food is the reason and reward for the exercise!