[Mekong] Try is the First Step to Failure

[Mekong]

Oh, look at this! The next challenge is up and I was actually paying attention! This is very exciting and unprecedented.

Right in the middle of this challenge, I'll be closing on our house and one step closer to moving to Colorado. So my big sweeping goals for the month are something like this:

Pre-close: Continue to camp out in my mostly packed house, packing, doing the billion things involved in selling a house, trying to eat the random stuff left in my pantry and keep my dog company.

[/img]

She only really needs whipped cream.

Post-move: Dog goes with the husband in CO, I move into a family member's winter home (with wi-fi again, thank god), and really buckle down on a CO job search and what my next move is.

And through it all, some constants in the form of my semi-regular goals:

Eating- Continue to track on MFP (if anyone wants to be friends there, I'd really like to spy on people's menus), try harder to hit macro goals, and eat at least one serving of vegetables for every fruit serving (0 for 0 doesn't count). I'm finding my carbs are mostly coming from starches and sugar and I aim to adjust.

Sleep- Set a bedtime, phone off, for 10pm or 11pm if I got a nap, every night. Reading a paper book is okay while I transition.

Sweat- Not actually because I don't really sweat, I just pass out and that's a problem, but I digress. Activity, daily. I think mostly walking at the dog park pre-move and sprinting in the pool post-move, with bodyweight or gym days sprinkled in. This is going to be my downfall, but I have to do it.

For fun, practice German more consistently. Pre-move use my some language software I have, Post-move get back to DuoLingo with extra web resources.

Okay, that's the gist. This is still week 0 so it's a dabble week. I.e. I've eaten well today but I'm about to destroy some ice cream.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

[LadyWitch]

I love your dog! So cute!!!

 

That's a good set of goals. Good luck with the move! It's generally far more stressful than it should be, but such a relief when its done!

[Mekong]

2 hours ago, LadyWitch said:

I love your dog! So cute!!!

 

That's a good set of goals. Good luck with the move! It's generally far more stressful than it should be, but such a relief when its done!

 

Thanks, and what an honor to be complimented by someone with such obviously good taste in dogs.

[Sylvaa]

So much going on this challenge! Glad to hear the house selling is almost over. It's gotta be crazy trying to get ready for that. 

[Mekong]

Chicken and carrot fries. Longer update forthcoming.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

[Mekong]

So much going on this challenge! Glad to hear the house selling is almost over. It's gotta be crazy trying to get ready for that. 

Yes, and I know I'm not doing nearly as much as I should- I should really organize as I pack, I just can't devote the time to it. And once this leg is done, I need to spend all my time working and looking for a job up there, and then there won't be the excuse of being too busy with the house. But I have visions of a white Christmas, all settled finally in FoCo, and that'll have to be my motivation for now.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

[deftona]

Your dog is so lovely!

 

Good luck with closing on the house, moving to a new area and finding a new job - you really have a ton going on! 

 

How were the carrot fries? I have been meaning to try them in my quest for new healthy side dishes.

[Mekong]

5 hours ago, deftona said:

Your dog is so lovely!

 

Good luck with closing on the house, moving to a new area and finding a new job - you really have a ton going on!

 

How were the carrot fries? I have been meaning to try them in my quest for new healthy side dishes.

 

Thanks!

 

Carrot fries were good, and thank goodness because I bought a ridiculously huge bag at Costo and now need to power through it as best I can this week.  They only get about as crispy as sweet potato fries, but I like the flavor a bit more.  My normal recipe is to cut them into 1/4 to 1/8 inch juliennes, coat with little oil, then add a teaspoon or two of cornstarch ( I used 2 tsp for 3 giant carrots) and shake to coat, spread out on a parchment-lined sheet and bake at 400 F for about 15 minutes or so.  I do the same thing with sweet potatoes with the added step of soaking the juliennes in cold water for 30 minutes because Pinterest says so.

This time, since I'm in Spartan mode, I cooked my chicken thighs on a cast iron grill pan, pulled them out, drained off some of the chicken fat, and threw the fries into the hot pan, leaving the oven temp at 425 F. They turned out at least as well as my normal recipe, with the added goodness of garlicky chicken flavor, and they didn't stick like I was concerned they might.  I think I may start doing the hotter temperature from now on.

If you don't want to use cornstarch or cutting the carrots so thinly is too fiddly, roasted carrots are just as nice without the bit of crispness.

[Sylvaa]

That sounds delicious!

 

We make green bean fries and the kids love them, but have never tried carrots. Thanks for the idea!

[Mekong]

My week was meh.  I survived.  Good thing it's Week Zero, or else I'd be feeling quite demoralized.

Sunday- With the hubs in CO all loving son duties fall on me, so I took his parents out for a birthday dinner (their birthdays are one day apart).  They exceeded all senior citizen expectations by wanting to go to a seafood buffet for an early afternoon dinner, so that's what we did.  Because I'm healthy, and totally not just because I'm cheap and wanted my money's worth, I loaded up on the protein.  I filled my plate(s) with crab legs, grilled calamari, sashimi, seaweed salad, and then shrimp dishes with the least amount of gloppy sauces.  Still, the temptation to just taste other stuff got the better of me and by my best food tracking efforts I still blasted way past my calorie and carb targets.  I did get very close to my lofty protein goal though, so I'll take the win where I can.  Also, later in the evening I wanted a little something but my stomach was still grumpy, so I had a big bowl of lettuce with a sprinkling of vinegar and oil.  Chewed slowly over an hour or so while talking on the phone, it settled my stomach quite well.

 

Monday through today- work continues to be way too busy and stressful primarily because there's just too much to do in the time I have.  And our company is really big into work-life balance, so working more than a normal week is really discouraged, which is nice, but also stressful because I feel like I have to make every second as productive as possible and if I can't do it in a normal timeframe I'm messing up, but there's just way too much.  And the fact that I have a touch of short-timer's syndrome, but that's a secret still, and I am also thus trying to get ahead on stuff I know I won't be here for later, and also since I'm the only one taking care of the dog right now and 90% of her day is sleeping while I'm at work or sleeping while I'm sleeping, I'm loath to leave her alone anymore than I have to... it's all just compounding into a stressful ball of crap.  I think I've decided to come in a bit on the weekend to see what I can get done without subjecting the pup to an 18 hour day by herself like if I tried to stay late during the week.  I'll miss her in a week when she goes up to CO, but it'll be a relief to not have to worry about her feeling neglected.

 

On a food front, I've been tracking but not planning ahead of time, to poor results.  I tell myself I'm doing it because I'm just trying to eat everything left in the house, but I could be doing better.  I baked some cod last night (and more carrot fries), but did I really need to cover it in a mixture of breadcrumbs, walnuts, and butter? Probably not, and it's probably not so necessary to finish shelf-stable stuff like breadcrumbs, anyway. The main freezer/fridge stuff I need to get rid of by next Friday are: 2 pork roasts, ~6 homemade formed burgers, raclette cheese (which is disgusting and which I'll be needing to give away or just toss), 4 salmon filets, several pounds of chicken tenders, some steamer bags of vegetables, a tub of ricotta cheese, 2 lbs of bacon, some delicious but very pungent dill-garlic raw sauerkraut, milk, kielbasa, and random fruits like kiwi, apple, peaches, and cherries .  So we'll see what I can manage.

 

I've also decided to cut milk back out of my diet.  The calorie and carb hit just isn't worth the amount of protein, and I think it's causing me some acne issues.  My skin isn't great, but I don't have a lot of pimples, but right now I have two prominent angry ones on my face and my whole back is bumpy.  Ugh.  I wonder how much just cutting out milk versus cutting out all dairy (noooooo!) would be.

 

Sleep has been good.  The switch to reading versus being on my phone seems to help.  Activity is good only because I've been going to the dog park a lot more often and walking laps with dog park friends.  The German hasn't been happening at all.  Next week- no milk, more German, more food planning.  Okay, ready, break!

[Mekong]

22 minutes ago, Sylvaa said:

That sounds delicious!

 

We make green bean fries and the kids love them, but have never tried carrots. Thanks for the idea!

 

Just a little oil or do you add anything to help them crisp?  What temperature do you do?  I've seen them battered and fried before, but definitely that sounds like a fun thing to do at home.

[Sylvaa]

Just now, Mekong said:

 

Just a little oil or do you add anything to help them crisp?  What temperature do you do?  I've seen them battered and fried before, but definitely that sounds like a fun thing to do at home.

 

Oil, season salt, garlic powder, and some pepper. Mix it all together, then throw in the oven and roast (the temp / time depends on if there is anything else in the oven). I only use fresh - I tried frozen, but they shriveled up really badly. I don't really use a recipe, so I'm kind of bad with any more detail. Sorry!

[Mekong]

2 minutes ago, Sylvaa said:

 

Oil, season salt, garlic powder, and some pepper. Mix it all together, then throw in the oven and roast (the temp / time depends on if there is anything else in the oven). I only use fresh - I tried frozen, but they shriveled up really badly. I don't really use a recipe, so I'm kind of bad with any more detail. Sorry!

 

Good enough, I'll try it.  How annoying, you cook like I do.  Whenever my husband really likes something I make, I feel a little bad because I probably didn't follow a recipe and it'll never be recreated exactly the same.

[Sylvaa]

2 minutes ago, Mekong said:

 

Good enough, I'll try it.  How annoying, you cook like I do.  Whenever my husband really likes something I make, I feel a little bad because I probably didn't follow a recipe and it'll never be recreated exactly the same.

 

Yeah, sorry, that is totally how I roll! Glad to know I'm not the only one who goes, "yeah, sure, that sounds good - let's do that".

[Mekong]

Really good weekend but now I'm grumpy at work, irrationally irritated at being here when there's so much other stuff I need to be doing.  And rationally irritated at work stuff.  I finally finished the last of my carrots yesterday, after more than a week straight of carrot fries, carrot sticks, and roasted carrots.  As the Age of Carrots comes to a close, the Epoch of Chicken Tenders rises.  Today is day 3 in a row of chicken tenders- so far I've had them wrapped in bacon, jerk, and with wing sauce.  Today is book club (get-drunk at-a-bar-and-get-too-loud-talking-about-books-club) and before that I need to go sign all the house selling docs, so probably will eat at the bar tonight.  We'll see how that goes.

Down to half a pork roast wrapped in bacon and roasted, a pot of goulash from the other pork roast, 2 salmon filets, 8 chicken tenders, and some frozen vegetables.  The end is nigh.

[Mekong]

My update success is currently a perfect inverse relation to my real world accomplishment success, so bright side and all that.  The house closes today.  I didn't hear anything about the final walk-through last night so I guess it went okay.  Everyone's signed everything and by the weekend the equity approximate to a year's salary for us will be dropped into our account.  So that'll be cool.  Husband comes into town tonight, we'll come "home," pack, and be on the road to CO tomorrow.  14 hour drive, not counting gas, sleep, and/or dog walk stops, unpack the truck, put me on a plane Monday morning and I'll be coming straight from the airport back to work to start another week.

I'm tired just thinking about it, so I'll stop.

This has thus far been my most successful attempt at daily fitness.  Unfortunately, it's mostly come in the form of packing (lugging around boxes for an hour or so totally counts in my book) or walking laps at the dog park, neither of which will make sense as fitness activities next week when the dog is in CO and I don't have stuff to pack anymore.  Upshot is that I'll have a pool, so fingers crossed that Future Mekong is way less lazy than Present Mekong.  I'm sure that's the case.

Eating has been really good but now my fridge is empty and I'll be relying on take away until at least Monday.  I still intend on tracking, though.

Ummm that's it.  I hope everyone is doing well in their challenges.

[DrFeelgood]

You're doing better than I did during our family move.   Keep it up!

[LadyWitch]

Wow you have a lot on! Well done for keeping your momentum! You're doing better than I have been I may try those carrot chips at the weekend, they sound yummy!

[Mekong]

Tiny update.  Everything is moved, house is sold.  Last weekend was a very long weekend- worked Friday, packed until past midnight, up and out at 6am Saturday, got in to Fort Collins around midnight, unpacked most of Sunday, on a flight back to Arizona at 5am Monday, straight from the airport to work, and now I've just been breathing work all week.  Twice I've left work and realized I have less than 8 hours until my alarm goes off to come back to work.  I'm coming in tomorrow too, but only for a few hours, and then I'll just sleep the weekend away and try to recover.

On the plus side, I have wifi again, so I'm all caught up on Game of Thrones.  So the important things aren't falling through the cracks, at least.

[Bookish Badger]

On ‎6‎/‎14‎/‎2016 at 8:08 AM, Mekong said:

Today is book club (get-drunk at-a-bar-and-get-too-loud-talking-about-books-club)

 

I so need to find a club like that!

 

Congratulations on getting the house sold and your stuff moved. You're in the final stretch! Hang in there!

[Mekong]

3 hours ago, Bookish Badger said:

 

I so need to find a club like that!

 

Congratulations on getting the house sold and your stuff moved. You're in the final stretch! Hang in there!

 

Thanks! I will dearly miss this book club.  I've joined a new book club in FoCo but I'm wondering if I'll like it because it has a very different vibe.  I see they have really specific agendas scheduled for their meetings with lists of topics to discuss and the books are much more of an intellectual variety.  My Phoenix book club just voted every month on something that looked interesting, usually a book being made into a movie or scifi/fantasy, and sometimes we talked about the books during the meetings, sometimes we didn't.  One lady never managed to read a single book we chose.  But yeah, it was definitely more of a meetup for people that like books to come together and talk about books than an actual book club, but I loved it all the same.

[Casbin]

Wow, it sounds like you got a whole lot on your plate.

But things start to fall into place, hang in there!

[Mekong]

On 6/28/2016 at 11:26 PM, Casbin said:

Wow, it sounds like you got a whole lot on your plate.

But things start to fall into place, hang in there!

 

Thanks, man.  I think I realized today that I just always am going to have a lot on my plate and can't really continue to use it as an excuse.  And if I don't want to change my goals or how I go about them, I don't really have an excuse anyway. But that's a whole other story, I'm sure. :-)

[Mekong]

Long weekend, and thank our founding fathers for that.  I don't plan on do much except sleep and try to prepare myself for another overwhelmingly busy week.  I feel very stuck in that everything is incredibly stressful at work right now, which makes me all the more ready to just give notice and head to Colorado, which reminds me at how much extra stuff I want to do to at least really leave the role in great shape for my predecessor, which stresses me out.  I'm also intent on doing some job searching this weekend, no excuses.  I can't find anything that really seems like a good fit. My resume isn't ready. I hate writing cover letters. I don't have time to take off and interview anyway. I don't know where to start. I don't even know what I want to do as a career. NO EXCUSES.

I also have plenty of food because I keep feeling hungry for something in particular, going to the store and gathering ingredients for that meal and three others I have in my head I want to make, then being too tired when I get home and not eating. 

Planned meals for this weekend:

Grilled lamb and roasted baby potatoes

Caprese salad- fresh mozzarella, heirloom tomatoes, basil

This thing I have in my head that I'm calling Buffalo Chicken salad- grilled chicken tenders, dipped in wing sauce (Frank's Red Hot and butter), over romaine hearts, julienned carrots and celery, bleu cheese dressing.

This other thing I'm calling Greek Mixed Grill- marinated chicken, bell pepper, zucchini, onion, baby artichokes, all grilled then put over spinach, sprinkled with cucumber, tomatoes, olives, feta, lemon juice, and olive oil.

Breakfast sausage crumbled and cooked with crumbled ground brown turkey and whatever vegetables look good. Then throw this ridiculously pungent garlic raw sauerkraut over the top. Breakfast.

Leftover roasted peppers and onions I have from this week with pulled pork I've been sprinkling with sea salt, lime juice, cilantro, and rolling in lettuce leaves.  The meat is really tender and fatty and unctuous and the lime juice cuts it and it's just OMNOMNOMNOMsogood.

A buttload of fruits and vegetables.  Just so much. Imagine a butt. Load it up.  That much.

Some cod because I read an article last night about how cod's protein is really bio-available and then I saw it at the store and NEEDED it.

I promise myself if I cook and job search this weekend the rest of the time I can spend it how I prefer.

 

My habit tracker has taken a hit so time to right that.

 

Final happy thought: I found a Grunge station on Pandora tonight and it's giving me life.

Final darker thought: Not having a dog or husband or house or bills or other responsibilities to anchor me is really fucking with me in ways I never expected.  I'm also feeling really isolated and it's overwhelming. I also turn 30 very soon so make of that what you will.  I don't think I mind and I intended on celebrating it, but the timing is just bad and the people I'd want to celebrate with aren't around. So. Sad for me.

[deftona]

Yay for the grunge station!

 

Sorry to hear you're feeling isolated but thirty isn't as bad as you think it will be. Trust me on this, I am 31 now and turning 30 was actually kind of freeing, as if not having that hanging over my head meant I could look forward more if that makes sense? I definitely give less fucks now too. Sorry to hear you can't celebrate it how you want and with who you want but try to make the best of it, it will only happen once.