STRESSED | DESSERTS

So why doesn't that make me feel any better? 

I've been feeling incredibly stressed lately, about most things it feels. Being this stressed resulted in restlessness and a lack of good sleep at night. Now I'm fighting the beginnings of a cold because of it. I've haven't been truly sick in almost a year! Since I quit my last job. Working my old job I was working 10-12 hours a day, constantly stressed, unhappy, and consistently toughing cash and credit cards (read: germs). So when I quit most those stressors went away. 

But when I quit I didn't have another job lined up (oops). I just needed out. I had signed up to do the Seattle Tough Mudder months in advance, and suddenly they were requiring me to work the entire weekend, they wouldn't compromise, just a flat "no" so I put in my notice. When I took the job I currently have I took a MAJOR pay cut! Major. So while I no longer stress about my job, I'm constantly stressing about money. I've gone back to living paycheck to paycheck. No, not even paycheck to paycheck, paycheck to three days before paycheck. People at work ask why don't I just take a day off if I'm sick, and when I answer that I can't afford to be sick they chuckle at me. Like how could that possibly be a thing? But I can't, I have almost no vacation left, which needs to last till the end of the year, I make very little money, and have no savings. So believe me when I say, "I can't afford to be sick."

This is turned into quite the pitty-party hasn't it. I've been looking for other jobs, some pay the same but are closer to home. Some pay more. Some less. I keep turning in applications but haven't heard anything. Some jobs I'm putting off applying for because you don't get vacation or holiday pay for 3+ months, and I already did that last year, I just recently got out of that financial hole. 

I've been feeling like Alexander today. Today has just not been grand, enter this post. I know, I know, things will get better. But right now I want to just wallow in my self pity. I've felt on the verge of tears and just cannot wait for the work day to be over. I need to go home, I need to get a good sweat session in. I need to just put this terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, behind me.

Freezer Crockpot Verde Chicken

We just had our first freezer crockpot meal and it was a TOTAL success!
I decided to go with one I was fairly certain would turn out well, or could at least be salvaged if not.

Verde Chicken

It's seriously one of the easiest crockpot meals and could be made day of without freezing. This was for two people and didn't result in any left overs - next time I think I'll do a 1.5 recipe for leftovers! 

Chicken | I did one breast, one thigh. Pick which ever chicken bits you like most

Black Beans | Half a can

Frozen Corn | About one cup

Verde Salsa | About 8oz

8-10 Hours Low
Serve over white rice, or in a tortilla, or with chips, or however!

Fresh not frozen may need less time. I plug mine in when I leave for work at 7:00. When I got home around 4:30 I shredded the chicken and let it sit till Dinner at 6:00.

September 2016 Goals

So its been September for about a week now and I've been thinking about my goals and thought maybe if I write them down, put them out there, I'll be more likely to meet them. These are longer term goals than just September so here they are...

Lose 20 pounds by Thanksgiving.

So this may be a bit lofty, in reality I'm thinking roughly 20 pounds - because to be honest I don't even remember what I looked like at 165. What I do know is that in recent months I've started to dislike what I see in the mirror. Going from a job where I walked an average of 6-8 miles a day to walking maybe 2 has really taken its toll. My mom visited back in July, and while she didn't mention anything (she never would to my face) I could tell she noticed too. I'm not willing to go home at Thanksgiving and have my whole family notice. To help I made a rough 20 week workout plan. I know Thanksgiving is 11 weeks away, but I also signed up for a half marathon in January.

Run a 3:00 Half Marathon

On a whim I decided to sign up for the Rock & Roll half marathon in Phoenix with my mom and aunt. Both run a lot more than me and will be faster. While I don't mind them finishing ahead of me, my mom usually does, I would like to finish roughly around the same time as them. So that where my 20 week training plan comes in. Its really no where near the plans I see online, that's because I wanted it to really reflect how I'll actually workout and the activities I like to do. For example, Ben, the greatest zumba instructor ever, comes back next week, meaning my zumba days will increase. I know I'll need to get my millage up, but I still want to do bbg.

Run a 1:10 10K on Thanksgiving

For the past two years my mom and I have run the Clark County Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning. Its something I talked about doing every year on Thanksgiving while I saw all these pictures of others doing it but never did. So when we finally thought about it before turkey day one year I said why not do the 10K over the 5K and thus a tradition was born! The first year I ran it in 1:16, a PR since I had never done that distance before. Seriously, always run new distances, you'll always get a PR! Last year I ran it in 1:19, I contribute part of that to the fact it didn't get above freezing the entire race! So this year the goal is 1:10, a nice round number and works out to about 11 minute miles.

Crockpot Freezer Meals

So while there may still be three weeks of Summer, Mother Nature disagrees. Bellingham has been cooler and grayer lately. While I love Fall I'm not quite ready to give up on Summer yet! I've been spending quite a bit of time on Pinterest lately, after taking quite a few months off, and my Crockpot recipe board as grown substantially! I'm all about prepping a crockpot meal at night before bed, putting the whole pot in the fridge and pulling it out in the morning on my way out the door. I know myself and there is no way I'm going to wake up early to prep for dinner, I won't even open a can! So this method of doing it the night before has worked wonders! But I've wanted to start getting into meal prepping and figured what better way than to start with crockpot meals that we can just pull from the freezer!

I tried to do a bit of research and figure out what meals I would want to make, and what items I would need to buy. I ended up spending around $80 and got 12 meals. That's $6.67/meal for two people. I was pretty happy with that.

That's another struggle I have with all these AMAZING recipes online. They're usually for families. Which is great, but it means I'm cutting all these amounts in half, which will change the cooking time, so I really don't know how they'll turn out in the end. I plan to do some more posts when I actually cook these meals - I would like to make sure they turn out before I set them on the world!

Here's a picture of almost everything I got - no pictured is a family size package of chicken breasts, chicken thighs, and 3 pounds ground beef (my counter just isn't big enough to picture it all)

Items include: 

• Canned beans: black, pinto, kidney, great northern, small red, garbanzo
• Bag o' celery
• Bag o' carrots
• Garlic
• 3 onions" 2 sweet 1 red (just for the sake of variety)
• Canned tomato products: paste, diced, sauce
• Salsa: both red and green
• Peppers: one green, one yellow (peppers are spendy right now!)
• Canned green chilies
• Frozen corn, frozen peas & carrots

Now I'm lucky and my boyfriend has spent the last 16 years working in a kitchen and wanted to help. So I set him to chopping all my onions, it took him all of two minutes. About 27 times faster than it would have taken me. And because he's amazing he also peeled all my garlic. Got myself a winner!

So next step was prepping the bags. Most sites I read talked about using freezer ziplock bags, which is a great choice. We happen to own a vacuum sealer which is what I used. Honestly, I recommend getting one, put it on your Christmas list because its amazing. We got it because the previously mention boyfriend ages his own meats, making is own bacon, all that jazz so it's super helpful for him. I primarily use it to reseal my chip bags - no more stale chips! Its also handy for resealing all bags, not just chips. Rice, pasta, frozen peas & corn, brown sugar, seriously I could go on forever!

I have no idea how much this sealer actually cost. Ours is a FoodSaver - very similar to this one. It has settings for dry and moist which is REALLY helpful when sealing bags with liquid.

 I also stumbled upon these awesome gadgets that hold your bag upright and open while you fill them. Seriously they're amazing and were only a few bucks. They made the process so much faster! My only regret is that I only bought three of them! I had all my recipes written down and with all my ingredients prepped out all I had to do was fill each bag, seal it, label it, throw it in the freezer. Super easy!

Here's what they looked like after they were sealed up. I tried to make them as flat as possible to they're freezer and thaw quickly.

In the end I ended up with twelve meals! Since I plan to only do these on week nights that's a little over two weeks worth of meals. But knowing us we won't want a crockpot meal every night of the week. And since these were just the trial runs, I figure at least one won't turn out right. Below is a list of some of the meals I did. Some bags also ended up just being throw bags - I just took whatever ingredients were left and dumped them in a bag. So who know how they'll turn out!

• Salsa Verde Chicken
• Chicken Beans and Rice
• Mexican Chicken Crockpot Dump
• Sweet BBQ Chicken
• Chicken Soup
• "Lasagna" Soup
• Pasta "Casserole"
• A handful of other meals I can't remember off the top of my head!