Facelift, Week's worth of updates

So what do you think? Do you like the new look?

Honestly, I was trying to make some bigger changes, but it turned out that I'd bit off more than I could chew- this was enough of a facelift for now; but I AM still going to be typing out recipes.

I have been really busy and really wiped out all week- haven't had any desire at all to sit down at night and write about my day. I'm very sorry, because I've not been doing anything towards my goal of blogging my daily food journal... let's see...

Sunday night we went out for dinner with my family, after a stressful afternoon at the assisted living center with my grandma. I did not stick to Core, but I did limit my portion size and split a lettuce/chicken wrap with my mom. (I did eat the onion rings that came with it, and drank a hard English cider- totally not OP!)

Monday night I made a recipe that hubby had copied down at a WW mtg- pasta with broccoli, cauliflower, and lemon. It's Core if you sub FF cheese for the regular cheese... but I've never seen FF parmesan in the store, have you?!? So it was almost Core. Hubby liked it, but I was really not impressed... I'm not even going to give out that recipe. :(

Tuesday the kids and I went grocery shopping, hoping to get back in time to make dinner early enough that hubby could join us before he had to leave for a meeting. He'd asked that we pick something up for him to eat if we didn't think we'd be home in time... so I got Hy-Vee Chinese (really great Chinese food, right there and made fresh in the store!) and caved, buying Chinese for all of us (instead of the low-point-but-not-Core soup I'd planned).

Later that evening, I realized that the Prince had a nasty case of pinkeye, and I freaked out about it. I know that this is very contagious and I went a bit nuts, washing my hands after even touching him- trying NOT to get it myself. The pinkeye really grossed me out and I knew that I didn't want it to spread through our whole house... can you imagine giving putting eye drops into the eyes of a 21-month-old?!? We went to the Dr. Wednesday morning and got him on the prescription, but that meant no school for him.

I decided that since I'd be at home all day Wednesday, not having to worry about taking 3 kids to and from preschool (and waking 2 of them from their naps to do it), I'd do some prep work and some cooking. I made about 12 quarts of marinara sauce, added browned ground turkey (and beef bullion cubes to make it "beefier"), and pre-made 3 baked spaghettis and 2 lasagnas- all Core except for the cheese on top. My busy season is fast approaching, and it will be nice to be able to pull these out of the freezer without having to put in the time of putting them together.

For dinner last night (still Wednesday), I made the soup that I'd planned on for the night before (until I caved for Chinese!). I will edit this post (hopefully 1/25) with that recipe... The recipe is not mine, but came from a friend of my mom- she says that it is 1 point per cup, but I've never done the math. I've made it as written, but I think it's too time consuming, so I usually tweak it a bit. I use all frozen vegetables, the whole pound of cheese, and about 4 ounces of extra chicken broth. I usually skip the potatoes, but yesterday I remembered that I had about a half of a bag of hashbrown potatoes in the freezer- I dumped in about half of that. I also usually skip the Butter Buds, but I'd recently bought a shaker, so instead of an envelope of BBs, I gave it a few shakes. Really, anything to follow the "gist" of this recipe, but to make it easier. Still tastes great, and is fine to freeze and reheat! Unfortunately, neither of the kids liked this soup (just means more for me!)

Tonight I made a pot roast with a top round cut, cooked it all day in the crockpot with carrots, chopped potatoes, onions, and green beans. My dad and brother joined us for dinner, and the adults all gave this two thumbs up. The kids did not.

I did not do well on my 35 WPAs for the upcoming week... today I went overboard on them... an ice cream cone at home (I'm counting it as 8 pts), a medium-sized chocolate shake and roughly a medium order of fries from McDonald's (the fries were in the bottom of the bag, they'd all dumped out... I DID buy them for the three kiddos that NEEDED snacks while we were out running today... and the shake just sounded SOOO good...) I really don't want to know how many points I consumed in the car today, because of that little McD's stop. Thank goodness it was on the starting end of my week and I can work to compensate for that the rest of the week!

Now, to wrap up this ridiculously long post, I weighed in today: down 1.2 from Saturday! (only 5 days between WI instead of the usual week!) That puts me 12.6 over my WW goal, and 10.6 over where I won't have to keep paying!!! Five weeks left in my personal challenge period (through the end of February) and I am on track to surpass my goal of losing 2 lbs per week, which would bring me to 3.8 over my WW goal. IF I can continue this good run, 2.5 lbs/week would get me all the way down to goal- this is exciting stuff!

I WILL get back here and post the soup recipe, as well as some of the others I've mentioned. And pictures from my day in the kitchen yesterday. Dinner tomorrow is lasagna, ready and waiting to go into the oven... this one has a twist, and I'll show that off tomorrow, too.