Things I'm Loving Thursday

1. My nail polish, Barefoot in Barcelona by OPI. I chose this color on Saturday when I got a quick manicure and it goes with EVERYTHING in my fall wardrobe, plus I have no chips 6 days later, I repeat none!! I have cooked, cleaned, worked, etc. and its still great! It's amazing.

2. Weight Watchers Points Plus. I joined weight watchers officially on January 3, going to meetings each week and all. As of this morning I have lost 5 pounds! The new program is a totally new points system that ignores calories and looks instead at carbs, protein, fat, and fiber. It is based on science and the way our bodies process each. Therefore, you really get more food for your points! I can explain more if you'd like, but basically I NEVER feel deprived, eat what I want, and bottom line is, its working!

3. Weight Watchers etools. I have the etools kit where you have access to all the weight watchers things online, like recipes, and tracking your points online/phone. The recipes are amazing! Jonathan and I picked out one for each day pretty much since I started and he is loving it too! I will have to share some here!

On his ipad, there is the coolest free app called Weight Watchers Kitchen Companion. You do have to subscribe to the weight watchers monthly pass to access it though. When you pick out all your weekly recipes you can add all the ingredients to your grocery list automatically. We literally took the ipad to the grocery store on Sunday and checked off the items as we bought them as it even has them categorized by part of the grocery store. We bought a whole weeks worth of food and were in and out in less than 45 minutes on the near busiest day I've ever seen the grocery!

Plus when you are cooking, you use the ipad like a cookbook basically and when it says an amount of time to do a step, you click on the time and it pops up with a timer!! You can have multiple ones going at the same time. Ah its made life/cooking a little more fun!

Dinner tonight

Dinner tonight.

Only picture I took because I barely thought about pictures because I just wanted to eat.

Spinach, Garlic, and Onion stuffed Pork Tenderloin.

(this picture was taken with my new Blackberry Torch phone camera! oooo I love that phone. Wish they'd pay me to say that!)

Dinner tonight was on accident and was the most wonderful pork tenderloin I've ever had (although I haven't had that many).

It is not my normal dinner to make pork tenderloin (or pork of any type unless its bacon or turkey bacon, and yes I know that's not pork). I just haven't had it much and my only experiences cooking it were pork chops so far, or rump roast which didn't turn out so great.

This week I set out to make healthy affordable dinners for 3 nights. When I looking through my weight watchers cookbooks, I found a beef stroganoff recipe that I made (quite decent, but nothing to write home about), and a 1 lb. pork tenderloin teriyaki/ginger recipe. I figured day 3 we'd eat leftovers, or Taco Bell across the street. (don't judge, it can be healthy, but its definitely cheap)

Well, when I went to the grocery, much to my dismay, I only found pre marinated pork tenderloins or a huge 2+ pound value size portion. Considering the entire 2+ pound package was only about $7, I went with that and figured I'd cut it in half and make something else with the other half.

Well, when we went to make the first night of asian inspired pork, we discovered the pork tenderloin was already in two pieces! Yay, so I knew I could make another meal out of it.

The weight watcher recipe for teriyaki/ginger pork was decent, but again like the Stroganoff, nothing to write home about. Then...........I discovered this recipe while searching for things to do with my remaining pork tonight.

Now, I pride myself these days of having pretty much every spice/sauce/ingredient needed to season/flavor and create a meal as long as you have the basics. Well these two pork recipes are prime examples of that. I had absolutely every ingredient for them besides the pork.

Hence the reason I'm even more excited about pork tenderloin right now...its sooooo CHEAP, and you more than likely have enough spices to flavor it great!

So without further ado, here is the link to the recipe I used....

http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/pork-loin-stuffed-with-spinach/Detail.aspx

Only differences are that we only had a 1 pound pork tenderloin, so we made the filling with the prescribed measurements for ease, I added some salt and pepper to the filling and then used about half of it for stuffing the tenderloin. Instead of 2 hours cook time, we did 1 hour: 30 minutes with uncovered, and 30 minutes covered.

It was sooooooooo wonderful, so tender, so juicy, so flavorful, and so cheap!

Update on the mailbox

I just picked up new keys to a new mailbox. Not all the mail in there was ours, so I'm really hoping they didn't assign us someone else's mail box who is still using it and change their locks like they did ours originally. We shall see. The new mailbox is not in order of our condo units so I'm skeptical. At least we are getting mail again right?

I can hardly move today

Last night I did my first day of Jillian Michael's 30 day Shred workout. Oh man, I can barely move today! Between that and the flu shot I got yesterday morning, my left arm especially is useless.

I did this 20 minute exercise in our living room with Jonathan just watching, laughing, and then becoming like a personal trainer, telling me when I wasn't squatting far enough, arms weren't in the right place, or my back wasn't straight, and getting me water. haha. He was so sweet and despite his laughter most of the way through it, it was really encouraging having him do all that. Maybe he'll do it with me sometime!


So between this video, curves, and my shakeweight (yes I have one), hopefully I'll be diligent and continue to get in even better shape maybe a little quicker before the holidays roll around.

Ok now to my tax returns where minimal movement is required.

Ever been locked out of your own mailbox?

Our mailbox lock was changed out when someone new moved in and somehow the post office changed our lock to be his box, and we no longer have access to get mail!!! grrrr this has been a process, and HOPEFULLY tomorrow when the post office is open again they will come get it sorted out. I was able to catch the mail lady (Sandra, she's so nice! and not the one who changed the lock I might add) on Friday and get our mail from the week, but she said she's been so confused and just holding our mail since the new owner of the box left her nasty notes. (He did save our mail from the week the confusion began though and gave it to us) anyway, so we tried every single mailbox with our mail keys and none worked. Then we looked up and on top of the mail boxes, was a lock just sitting there, low and behold it fits our keys! I can't believe this happened or how it happened. I can't believe also that they didn't send someone out on Thursday when I called to fix it immediately. Isn't that illegal? Ok probably not, but still. So I took the lock with me, because we are not paying for a new one with new keys. They'd better call me to use this same lock when they fix this little problem. Ok can you tell I'm frustrated?

Shopping fun

Ah, Friday and I don't have to go to work! Yay!!!

So today will be errand, cleaning, relaxing, mani/pedi day.

Anyway, I frequent all the local Marshalls/TJMaxx etc. because you never know what you will find.

Well this week, I found two things to note.

1. These Steve Madden shoes. I originally passed over them because Camo is not really my thing...but then I had to have them because its my husband's thing, and it will be deer season soon, and how fun would it to be to wear in honor of that? haha Plus honestly they are a really cute neutral once you have them on. I think I might actually wear them kind of often on the weekends this fall.

2. Purse Organizer. Oh my gosh I love this thing. I've been changing purses a lot recently and its getting frustrating forgetting things in one, or having to dig. (I like big purses). So when I saw this, it was mine. I got this same color, and it keeps absolutely everything I carry around soo organized. You just pull it out and put it in a new purse when you change. I mean c'mon. Ladies, we all need this!

Things I'm loving Thurs...I mean Tuesday.

Quick break at the end of my lunch at work to talk about things I'm loving today. And I almost put Thursday in the title because its been such a long week already. Technically I've worked 4 days already this week so its my Thursday. (Sat, Sun, Mon...LONG monday, and today).

So today has been a magnificent day so far, here's the breakdown:

1. Its tax season...that's not the good part....

2. Its tax season, and Sept. 15th is tomorrow....still not the good part....

3. I just sent all of my tax returns to be delivered!!! That's the great part! I'm pretty much wrapping up now, little processing things etc, and barring something major...busy season is coming to a normal season again.

4. I got to sleep a little late.

5. I am wearing a new Ann Taylor Loft shirt and sweater and headband. :)

6. I am eating yummy humus

7. I have pretzel M&Ms

8. The best part about the pretzel M&Ms....the WHOLE bag, whole normal size bag of M&Ms is only 3 weight watcher points. What??? I hope they never stop making these things. Sweet, Crunchy, Salty...yep its that good.

9. The convenience store in my building has started carry Snapple Trop a Rocka!!!! woohoo having it now!

Ah, that's it for now. I'm doing great today, can you tell? Its the little things.