Six Date Ideas You Haven't Seen Before!!

One of my goals for 2014 is to go on more dates (see previous post!).  So I started doing some research on some ideas.  I swear, all I could find was the same list of "go on a picnic, go to a movie, etc".  I want something different!!    Here is my list of things for those who are tired of picnics.


Food Court Bingo
  print out a bingo board and come up with 24 things (you need a free space!) that you might see.  For example, woman with no bra, 4 or more visible piercings, woman with bags to 5 or more stores, couple with guy carrying all the bags. girl with writing on her booty... you get the picture.  Now fill out your individual boards, get your favorite food court meal and enjoy the show.  First one with bingo WINS!

Architecture Alphabet
Grab your camera.  It doesn't have to be a fancy one.  Just use the camera on your phone if you want to.  Now go to your favorite part of your town.  Pick an area that is architecturally diverse as that will make this challenge much easier.   Your mission is to find the alphabet.  Both of our names start with "M" so I have also done that.  Look in the obvious places like signs but also look in the iron work.  Look at the man hole covers.  Have you ever noticed the weird fence or the scroll work on the gazebo?  Did you see that crack in the sidewalk or the branch of the tree that looks just like a V?  Look at the world differently.

Where will 30 miles take you?
Pick a set amount of mileage depending on how much time you have  and turn on your google maps on your phone.  Now go.  Pick a road that you don't normally travel.  Make turns.  There is no way to make a mistake here.  When you get to mile 30 (or 10 or 100, you choose!), you are there.  Eat at the first restaurant you see.  Go into that art gallery.  Stop at that park and tour their visitor's center.

Mystery Date
Pick 3 or 4 categories.  Dessert, Park, Activity, Dinner, Museum, Place to Walk, Video Game, Movie,  Snack, etc.   Now, make an envelope for each of those categories.  You will each pick two options for each category.  For example,  for "dessert",  I might pick "go to Jeni's Ice Cream" and "Make strawberry shortcake together".  He might pick "go to Pistachia Vera" and "go to Sugardaddies".   All four of these options go into the envelope.  Do the same for your other categories.  Next, decide what order you are going to go in and mark the envelopes 1,2,3,4.   Go to envelope #1 and randomly draw an item.  Now do it.  When you are done with that, draw from the next envelope.  You may end up doing all of his items or you might do all of yours.  Who knows. 

Be the Inspiration
We are fortunate to have an AWESOME river trail here in Columbus, OH.  Find your place like that.  Go to your local store and buy sidewalk chalk.  Now go to that trail and write inspirational quotes for the walkers, runners, and bikers on the cement trail.  As someone who has struggled with her weight her whole life, I can't tell you how many times I needed the message of "No matter how slow you are, you are still lapping everyone at home on the couch." Side note:  the photo above is one that I took when I was on a bike ride along the river.  It made my day! 

As Long As You Can Resist The Urge to be a Cat Hoarder....
Go to your local shelter and play with the kitties.  Cuddle with a puppy.  Show some lovin'.  There is never too much of that. :)

"I dunno. what do YOU want to do?" Changing Your Relationship One Date at a Time

I love goals.  I love starting the year with resolutions.  They give me something to work towards.  I print them out and put them on my fridge so they stare at me every day.  I think this keeps me productive.  One of my resolutions for 2014 is to go on more dates together.  The man and I are pretty easy going.  Sure, we can go do stuff... but we are usually just as happy sitting on the couch watching a marathon of Orange is the New Black (seriously... I love this show!!)

Because we get stuck in the loop of "I dunno.  what do YOU wanna do?",  I decided that this year would be different.  Thus I present the "45 weeks of dates" experiment.   I bought index cards and put specific things to do on them.  Some are more extravagant than others.  Some are free.  Some are things I want and then there are things that I would never willingly submit myself to.  I will get more into that list later.  After I had all of the index cards marked with the date, I sealed them up into envelopes.  The envelope just has minor details on it.  $ if it is a cheap date.  $$ means you should plan about $50.  I listed if it is a weekend only event or summer only,  good weather, night, 4-6 hours needed, etc.  Then there are blank envelopes.  These can be done pretty much for free and at any time of the year.  This is what he has to go by. His responsibility in this is to pick the date by the highlights alone.  There are tons of lists on Pinterest.  go look for them and write what you like.  Try something new... it may become your new favorite activity together! 

Thai Enchiladas
Nutritional Facts:  (AN ESTIMATE)  260 cal.  18 gr protein, 19  carbs

in a non-stick pan, add bag of cabbage and carrot, garlic, onions.  saute.  when cooked, add 2 cooked, shredded chicken breast.  set aside and let cool. 

In a large bowl, mix soy sauce and red chili paste.  combine the cabbage mix to the bowl.  set aside

in another bowl, mix 1 12 oz can of light coconut milk, 2 tbsp peanut butter, 2 tbsp soy sauce, tbsp red chili paste, can of chopped green chillies.  Spread some of the sauce at the bottom of the pan, about 1/2 cup.  Set rest of the sauce aside. 

begin assembling the enchiladas.  I used the lowest carb, smallest ones I could find.  Take the tortilla and dip it in the sauce in the pan on both sides.  stuff  and roll.  Be generous with the filling.  You want more filling and less tortilla. 

cover with the remaining sauce.  Cover in foil and bake for about 20 minutes until they are nice and bubbly. 

Two years?

Two Years, Missy.... How could you not post for two years?    That is not "healthful"  at all. 

I guess the question that I ask myself is... where do you start now?  What has changed in those two years?  What should I do first? 

I want to be a runner...

really, I do.  My heart wants to be that girl that go spend her Saturday morning running a 5K.  I want random useless medals draped across other dust covered items on mantel.  Hell, I want things to be dusty because I am too busy outside running and hiking and biking and all of those kinds of things.  Here's the rub... I just can't.

For as long as I can remember, my intentions have been good.  I would strap on my walkman (yeah, I remember my old walkman) and I would take off walking around the neighborhood.  About 10 minutes into it, I would start itching.  "Ignore it" I would think to myself and that usually worked for a bit. Then the burning would come on so I would just touch my legs and not scratch.  Hopefully it would stop and I could continue on with my walk.  Eventually, it would get the better of me and I would start to scratch it and I would turn bright red and get big welts on my legs in the shape of the lines that I had been scratching.  Off to the house I went and usually took a bath and wrapped myself up in a blanket and waited for it to go away. 

Outside is always worse especially if it is the least bit chilly.  Elliptical machines don't do it but treadmills do.  It happened when I was 340 pounds and it has happened at just about every stage of this whole "getting smaller" process. 

I am at my wit's end.  It didn't happen when I was doing Zumba.  This is probably one of the reasons that I loved it so much but now that I can't find a kick ass Zumba class without breaking the bank, I just feel screwed.  I have googled all of this and I think it might be something called Cholinergic Urticaria.  The best treatment from what I can tell is some sort of antihistamine.  I'd sell my soul for a big bottle of Allegra right now.  I have a doctor's appointment in a few weeks.  This will definitely be brought up.

Anyone else have this issue?   I just want to be healthy is all. 

This week's Menu

This Week's Menu

A few notes....
     I bought a rotisserie chicken.  It got used for the chicken caesar salad because quite frankly, I'd worked all day and I was TIRED.  It also got used for chicken salad sandwiches. Oh, and I saved the broth from the container and used that in the dirty rice.

Pork Chops -  I sauteed chopped up onions and apples and the put the pork loin chops in with the nummy bits for a minute just to sear.  I added some broth and let that sit in the  oven for about 40 minutes.  When i was all done, I took out the pork and went at it with the immersion blender.  I bought that at surgery time.  I swear it's the best $20 I have ever spent in the kitchen.