Clean Eating Challenge - Day 4

Breakfast: 1 cup vanilla greek yogurt with raspberries. I didn't feel well this morning.

Snack: Clemtenine.

Lunch: Chicken breast. Bunch of celery sticks and 2 tablespoons of Crazy Richard's all natural peanut butter.

Snack: Clementine.

Dinner:

Checkin 1: 7:30 am. Terrible. Sleepy and nauseous. Blah.

Checkin 2: 1:30 pm. Fine. Chicken was okay. Actually a little hyper 'cause I'm going to NY Comic Con!

Checkin 3: 7:30 pm: ]

Clean Eating Challenge - Day 3

Breakfast: Half cup of whole oatmeal with a little sugar and cocoa powder (it was not good), 1 cup vanilla greek yogurt with blueberries., 1 clementine.

Snack: Handful of peanuts.

Lunch: Chicken breast and leftover veggie stir fry.

Snack: Clementine. Om nom.

Dinner: This is my weekly CHEAT MEAL. I've had a ramen dinner planned with friends for months, so I couldn't back out. Mmmm.. Ramen. <3

Checkin 1: 7:30 am. Groggy, but okay. Annoyed at my inability to make oatmeal tasty.

Checkin 2: 1:30 pm. Hunger wasn't a huge issue today, which was nice. Actually, was pretty energized - didn't even have a morning tea.

Checkin 3: 7:30 pm: Felt totally wrecked after eating that ramen. Ugh. Exhausted.

Clean Eating Challenge - Day 2

Breakfast: Two eggs (sunny), 1 cup vanilla greek yogurt with blueberries, 1 clementine.

Lunch: Piece of grilled steak, 1 cup vanilla greek yogurt with raspberries, 1 clementine.

Dinner: Pork rib tips (way more trouble than they were worth) and vegetable "sorta stir fry".

Checkin 1: 7:00 am. For a morning, I'm feeling pretty awake. Full, though. Usually don't eat this much in the morning. Much tastier than cereal, though.

Checkin 2: 1:00 pm. Feeling good. Little tired, but that's not unusual at this time. Noticed I was full much longer than I usually am and didn't really need to get a snack.

Checkin 3: 7:00 pm: Started to get a little tired in the afternoon around my usual time, but it passed. Didn't have dinner til later, but wasn't too hungry considering.

Clean Eating Challenge - Day 1

Snack: 1 clementine

Brunch: Two eggs (over easy), 8 oz ham, fresh fruit. English breakfast tea with sugar.

Dinner: Baked chicken and sweet potatoes with steamed mixed vegetables.

Snack: Mixed berries with some honey.

Checkin 1: 12:30pm. Slept in really late, so I'm moving in slow motion. Energy is okay, considering I had people over until 3 this morning.

Checkin 2: 4:30pm. I'm playing with the time just because waking up so late screwed up my schedule, so this is a little short than the challenge dictates. But I'm feeling pretty good today. 

Checkin 3: 10:30pm: I was super light on my calories today, but I've been feeling really full. Wasn't awake too many hours. Tired, but not exhausted. Game of Thrones had a pretty good episode.

Clean Eating 2015 - Kickoff

I need a place to store my Clean Eating challenge results, and hey - guess what! I remembered I once tried the whole "blogging" thing. D'oh! But now I've got a place to store my challenge results as I go through.

The rules:

1. No processed foods - breads, pastas, junk food, anything that comes in a box
2. Everything eaten must be a fruit, vegetable, lean protein, or unprocessed grain
3. Things that are ok: non-instant oatmeal, brown rice, quinoa, lentils/beans, sweet potatoes, real sugar (for tea)
4. Eat 121 grams of protein every day
5. One cheat meal each week (not day, MEAL)

During this challenge, I'll also be recording my mood/energy 1 hour after waking up, 6 hours after that, and then 6 hours after that.

Ready...

Set...

Go!

Happy Autumn, y'all!

As far as I'm concerned, October 1st is officially Halloween. But it's already Autumn and I am so very much in the spirit that it hurts. Tonight I'm making baked cinnamon apples using apples that I got from an orchard last weekend. I got the recipe here, and I'll let you know how it turns out.

If nothing else, it looked damn tasty when it went into the oven, and the house smells heavenly.

Now, I'm trying to hold back on going full on spooky Halloween house until at least Tuesday. But I had to do SOMETHING. So I put up some "candy corn" lights in the front window. It's not much, but it's enough to let the neighbors know that my crazy Halloween-obsessed self hasn't gone anywhere yet.

Halloween Party Prep

Halloween is by far my favorite time of the year. I love it. For me, Halloween isn't a single day about getting candy. It's a whole season of creating and creativity! Every year, my husband and I host a Halloween party and I can't wait for it to get here this year (only 39 days left!)

Whenever I see websites like this with adorable tablescapes like that over to the right... I really really want to emulate them. Does that make me a middle aged housewife? I hope not. I'm not ready for that.

But really, how cute does that look?! I'm going to try to make something like that this year. I'm going to go ahead and brain-dump here so I remember what I'm thinking for my Halloween party setup this year.

Dining room:
This is going to be the main area for food. I'm thinking I'd like to keep it black and orange, kind of like that picture up there. Hot foods, appetizers, snacks. No desserts.

Kitchen:
This is the drink station. I'm sort of thinking a Halloween-glam, New Orleans voodoo, type of theme to the area. Sort of like what you see to the left, from this blog. Lots of glitter, glam, feathers, chandeliers.

What's nice is that these two stations won't totally clash with each other. We have an open floor plan in the house, so the kitchen and dining room pretty much open up into each other.

Last but not least...

The Basement:
I want to do the whole basement like a zombie apocalypse safe room. Quarantine signs. Biohazard tape. Yellow and black.

Oddly, I'm not seeing anyone that has done any sort of quarantine, zombie, or biohazard tablescapes for Halloween yet. Come on, bloggers! Zombies are SO 2013!!! Let's do this! I guess I'm on my own planning this area out. That's okay, I can do it. I know it. I'll be sure to post pictures as I craft and try out recipes.

Cheers, lovely monsters!