Jumping On the Bandwagon

Every time I turn on the TV, I see some talk show doing a segment on couponing. I got really inspired by it once before but was too overwhelmed by all the lingo and stacking that I quit before I even started. I'm giving it another go. I haven't totally committed yet - no binder or baseball card pages yet but I have a feeling I'll make the leap this weekend. Last night I went to CVS and Walgreens to pick up a few items I needed. I spent $5.96 on what normally would have cost me $17.09 (that's a savings of $11.13!). Pretty awesome if I do say so myself. The Krazy Coupon Lady website is going to be my lifeline in all this. The only thing that I can see being a problem is that it makes me want to buy stuff that I wouldn't normally purchase so I'll have to be careful about that. The goal is to save money, not spend more!!

The other bandwagon that I have jumped on is using Pinterest and I really wish there was an Android app for this. I know there's one for iPhone already. If you haven't checked it out yet, it's basically a virtual bulletin board. Anytime you're browsing the internet and see a picture of something you want to save or remember you can "pin it" to one of your Pinterest bulletin boards instead of saving the whole page as a favorite. I'm pretty bummed that I didn't know about it the last couple years. It would have been very handy for wedding planning and finding ideas for my classroom......next time, right?? 

So those two things are going to be much like Fantasy Football and eat up more and more of my free time. At least they're all completely harmless!

Fitness and Fantasy Football

This year I decided to join a Fantasy Football League with seven other girls (can you spot the trainwreck? Ha!). None of us really knew what we were doing when we started. Some, who shall remain nameless, probably still don't have a clue.....but it's making for some interesting match-ups. With the first week behind us, I can proudly say that I won my first match-up and am 3rd overall in the league. Not where I had hoped considering I got the medal for best overall draft in the league........I'm blaming Adrian Peterson for this. He was supposed to be my guy! Oh well, Janikowski more than made up for it last night with a 63-yard field goal. Where are the extra points for this!?!?!? Such athleticism should be rewarded in the world of Fantasy Football.....tell it to the commissioner, right? I think things will pick up going into Week 2 and I've got some pending waivers out there that will hopefully beef up my starting line and my bench when I'm ready to use them. I have to say, being in a fantasy league adds a whole new dimension to watching football........and I'm totally diggin' it!

About a week ago, I made a decision to "up the ante" in my quest for total body fitness (I'm such a drama queen, I know).  I started running a year ago and went from a size 10/12 to a 4 which, don't get me wrong, is fantastic and amazes me every day, but I was still feeling flabby. My new term is 'skinny fat.' Obviously fat fat is worse than skinny fat but attention needed to be paid. My basic goal for this next phase is just to tone up and get some muscle definition, NOT to lose anymore weight! I decided to incorporate a system that has worked for me in the past - The Firm. I broke out my stack of DVDs and found some that I didn't know I even had (jackpot!!!) and made a workout calendar on my handy-dandy GoogleDocs spreadsheet program. Basically, I'll be working out five days a week - 3 days of running and 3 days of Firm DVDs (yes, I double-up once a week). After 10 workouts, The Firm guarantees visible results so I'll take measurements in another week or so to see if I've made any progress. I'm optimistic that I'll see results of some kind - and hopefully they are all in the lower body region as my upper body has nothing else to lose or I'll look like a pre-teen......and that's just not sexy!

To close this out, I just want to share my new favorite dinner that's so simple even I can't screw it up. You really can't even call this cooking:

Thaw a 4 oz. frozen chicken breast and place in a pie plate lined with foil. Cover dish with a second piece of foil and bake for 20 minutes at 375 degrees. Top with one slice of cheese (your choice, I use a 3 cheese blend but I think pepperjack would be delish!) and 2 tbsp of mild salsa and place back in oven just until cheese is melted. Serve with rice and fresh steamed veggies.

Bon appetit!

Hello, new blog!

Initially when I decided to start a (new) blog, I wanted it to be a fitness diary that would chronicle my experiences in running, working out, and navigating the vast world of nutrition. I mean, it consumes a large portion of my day (especially the nutrition part because I'm constantly trying to figure out what I'm "allowed" to eat at each meal or for a snack - sick, I know). This is all well and good, of course, because research shows that writing things down can be extremely beneficial. But then I realized that that's what www.myfitnesspal.com and www.dailymile.com are for. Those are my food and fitness diaries. I'll include all that stuff but I feel like there's definitely more to my life than running, working out, and arguing with myself about whether I should eat that Ben & Jerry's that is rudely shouting my name from the freezer. I do other things.......I have thoughts. There are many, many things that happen during any given day that add spice and humor to my life so I might as well share them and brighten someone else's day as well.

That's where the name of my blog comes in. If I remember correctly, it comes from one of my favorite Ramona books (Judy Blume).  In the book, the mom would sometimes make "MishMash Surprise" for dinner on the nights she didn't know what else to cook. She would just throw in whatever she could find from the fridge or pantry and........Voila!! Family dinner. I feel like that's how my life is and how this blog should be. A little bit of this, a little bit of that.....every day is a MishMash Surprise :)