Pasta Meggilizz

Question: What do you make with all these ingredients?

Answer: Pasta Meggilizz!! Basically it's my own version of Bolognese sauce with lots of beef and healthy veggies. :) I made a nice appetizer of fresh mozzarella...mmmmmm so gooood!!

Drizzled with balsamic, olive oil, salt & pepper and that's pretty close to heaven folks!

For my pasta sauce, I used 90/10 ground beef, a chopped onion, celery, carrots, GARLIC (of course!) tomatoes, tomato paste & spices.

Don't you wish you could come over and have dinner with me? I've got plenty to share!!

I had a great time at my box-kicking class, the room was so hot and there were no fans!! I was a sweaty motha by the end of the hour and couldn't get into the shower fast enough!! Now I'm just vegging in front on the tv about to dig in to my dinner. Hope you have a great night!!

Where did November go?

Seriously!! This month flew by like no other! And it's so warm outside today that it feels like Spring instead of the day before December!! I've had a semi-productive, semi-irritating morning so far. It's hard getting back to work after being off for two days, I feel like I wasted the entire morning doing busy work and now I can finally get down to business!!

For breakfast I had some oatmeal with applesauce, almond butter & raisins. At lunch I rushed over to the grocery store for some produce, I feel like I haven't had a salade in F-O-R-E-V-A-H!!!! After all the heavy dishes from Turkey Day it was nice to have a crisp & fresh little lunch. I made a spinach salade with tomatoes, cucumber, celery, carrot, tuna & balsamic vinaigrette.

I brought some almonds and an apple to nom on later in case I get hungry. I'm going to kickboxing class tonight, which I'm really excited about!

Also this morning I had a nice g-chat with my good friend Christie! We talked about food, relationships and how to deal with problems. Both of us tend to bottle things up inside and then we don't really know how to deal with them when they come out. I'm dealing with many things right now and I'm not sure it's time for me to address them yet, but here goes!

It's scary to make changes in your life, but if you feel like you want or need a different outcome, then you must make those changes in order to obtain that outcome. After all, if you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always got!! I've heard this idea before, but only applied it to healthy eating and the physical outcomes. Now I'm seeing that this can apply to ALL areas of your life!! If you don't change your behaviors, you can't expect to have a new and different outcome. Where I'm at right now is that I need to learn exactly WHAT changes I need to make. I know the outcome that I want, so I've got to figure out how exactly to obtain it. This is usually where I hit a dead end. In the past, I've repeated unhealthy behaviors and never learned a new healthy behavior. I'm going to have to research different healthy ways of thinking so I can stop the unhealthy cycle. I'm thinking a lot of time to myself, reflection & meditation are in order!!!!

Thanksgiving 2.0

Hey everybody!! How's it going? I've had a super weekend and think I've got my batteries fully recharged :) After getting my whole house cleaned yesterday (yaaay!) I heated up my last plate of leftovers (booo!). Turkey, ham, stuffing & gravy, squash casserole & sweet potato casserole (not pictured somehow).

It was just what the doctor ordered! I was pleasantly stuffed for the rest of the evening. This morning I woke up with a nasty headache, so I didn't get a photo of my coffee. That didn't really work in getting rid of my headache so I just went back to bed. After a few hours I got up and made some roasted sweet potatoes with onions. These are 'old timey betas' that I found at the Farmer's Market last week. They are supposed to be the oldest sweet potato and aren't orange like regular SP's, they aren't as sweet either, but have a similar texture. I roasted these with olive oil & salt and pepper.

For dinner I heated up some turkey breast, leftover butternut squash along with my beta-potatoes.
I had a humongoid craving for apple crisp and since I didn't have any leftovers I decided to make a new pan. I followed my old family recipe & used 3-4 different kinds of apples, also from the Raleigh Farmer's Market.

So I'm going to dig in here and bid you goodnite!! :)

Happy weekend!

Hi everyone!! Hope y'all are doing well, I know I've been absolutely horrible about updating the blog here lately and I only have so many excuses about being busy. But hey, who's NOT busy???

I hope y'all had a super Thanksgiving!! I stayed here in NC and had dinner with my friend Stella at her mother's house. I was sad not being with my own family this year, but I had a nice long talk with my mom so that was nice! :)

One other thing I guess I may as well put out there--my husband and I are getting divorced. It's a long story, but basically the 15 month deployment to Afghanistan ruined our relationship and he wasn't interested in fixing it when he got back. I'm as good as can be expected spending the holidays by myself, but honestly I'm way ahead of the curve since he basically shut me out of his life back in March while he was still deployed. It's really unfortunate that it had to happen, but we are both better off apart. I'm planning on staying in North Carolina (for now anyways) since I have a job and great friends down here.

Anyway, enough about all that--HOW BOUT THOSE BUCKEYES?!?!?!

We beat Michigan again this year, got the Big Ten Championship title AND are headed to the Rose Bowl!!!!! Of course the final BCS rankings aren't out yet and anything can happen, but I'm pretty sure that's where we're headed. We haven't been to the Rose Bowl since 1997--I was in high school then and my parents went out to Pasadena for the game. I remember how they were so excited about the whole trip--the Rose Parade, hanging out with all the alumni and of course the game!!! We won that game 20-17, it was awesome.

Anyhoooo--this morning I went to Crossfit and had a great workout. We did 3 Rounds for Time of 800 m run, 25 KB swings, 25 hollow rocks, 25 back extensions (on the GHD machine). I finished in under 28 minutes, for some reason I was having a hard time running this morning and was getting light-headed pretty easily.

For brunch I made some eggs

and oatmeal cooked with skim milk, apple pie spice, cloves, applesauce, raisins & almond butter.

I'm spending the rest of the day in the house doing a deep thorough cleaning!! The sun is shining and it's a gorgeous day, so I've got my curtains open and am enjoying my coffee while doing laundry. If I'm feeling ambitious, I'm going to finish painting my living room!!

It only takes one

Hey y'all!

Howzit goin' bitchez?? I've been busy as usual, but doing pretty well overall! My food choices are getting pretty much back on track but I need to overhaul my exercise routine. More on that later. I've had lots of yummy green monsters for breakfast this week--this one doesn't look all that great though does it?? :P It's such a gross color thanks to a bunch of blueberries!

For lunch--or dinner? no it was lunch--I made some eggs with zucchini and some salsa on top. I wasn't sure how it would taste, but it was great and I'll do this again! :)

Last night I went and got a new tattoo, it took way longer than expected, so I only had Diet Coke for dinner. :) Here's my new ink

It's a snake wrapped around a red lotus. The snake symbolizes inner strength and the lotus

"...symbolizes the original nature of the heart (hrdaya). It is the lotus of love, compassion, passion, activity and all the qualities of the heart. It is the lotus of Avalokitesvara."

Lotus flowers also symbolize rebirth and beauty, since they start out as a seed in the bottom of a nasty mucky pond then rise up through all that ugly pond water to become a beautiful flower! I really love it and think Jason did an awesome job! He did the lotus in an old-school style, he's never done that before or even seen it anywhere, so I've got a unique piece of art on my back!! :)

Today I had a green monster for breakfast, I was running late so I didn't take a picture. For lunch, I met up with my friends at Bdubs, one of which is leaving very soon for Afghanistan :( I got six traditional spicy garlic wings--my favorite!! After work I came home to tidy up the apartment before I made dinner of salmon with zucchini & onions.

Cute huh? :) I've got all my candles lit and the Yankees game on tv. It only takes one, one game, one win to decide this year's World Series!!

This little soundbite got me thinking in the past 10 minutes about how that can have meaning & extend into other parts of life. IT ONLY TAKES ONE. One kind word, one good deed, one healthy decision can send your moment, hour, day, week, month, year, or life into one after another of positive things. Think about it!!! If you just look at things one at a time, they really are not as intimidating as previously thought. So tomorrow let's all just take things one at a time and see if we can't have a more positive day!

Okay then, the Yanks are at bat so I'm going to get off the computer and pay attention to the game!! Hope y'all have a good night! :)

Happy (sore) Monday..ow ow ow

Howdy!! Hope y'all had a good weekend! :) I know that I did, we headed over to Wilmington for the Battleship Half Marathon and had a blast!!! Here we are pre-race




Meggilizz, Michele & Jo

We started at the USS North Carolina

Went across a bridge and ran/walked through the historic downtown area of Wilmington and saw some gorgeous homes.

Then we went around Greenfield Lake and found a clearing with tons of herons. It was amazing to see so many in one spot!


We then looped back around to cross the other bridge and finished back at the battleship. I have a couple of blisters and a sore ankle, but I did it!!!

Thank goodness for the time change or else I'd be super late to work today!! I have enough time to make a good breakfast of eggs and a green (brown?) monster and to post a quick update here!

I've got a super busy day at work and an optometrist appointment this morning, so I'd better get moving!! Bye!