I Was Ready for Spring

Earlier this week, the sun was shining, and I was comfortable walking around outside without my coat.  I was ready for spring.  I even changed from my winter to spring bedding and got my car washed.

Today it is snowing.  Bummer.

New Kitchen Toys

My new kitchen toys might not sound that exciting, but I love them and use them all the time!

I got an electronic food scale for Christmas.  The thing that I love about it is that it has a tare feature... I turn on the scale, put a plate or bowl on the scale, and then tare it so that the scale evens back out to zero.  Then I know exactly how many ounces my food is without having to subtract out the weight of the dish.  It has kind of been an eye opener to see how much 4 oz. of meat is.  Four ounces of chicken seems to be plenty for me, but I could easily eat 8 or more ounces of salmon if I wasn't paying attention! :-)

My other fun new toy is my Magic Bullet.  My trainer wants me to have a protein shake every night, so I've been making smoothies with protein my protein powder.  They are completely delicious and it's like I get an ice cream dessert each night.  So here's where the Magic Bullet comes in handy.  I take one of the many Magic Bullet cups, put in my ingredients, attach the blade, and then blend everything on the Magic Bullet.  It's so nice because then the smoothie is in the cup I will drink it out of, and I don't have to wash my blender every night.  Here's my current favorite "recipe":

• 1 scoop vanilla ice cream protein powder (24 grams of protein!)
• 1/2 cup fat free milk
• handful of frozen fruit - the kind I'm using right now has peaches, mangoes, strawberries, and pineapple - yummy!

Broken Spring

Last night at approximately 10:02 pm, I heard a loud noise in my garage.  At least I was pretty certain it came from my garage.  I sat quietly for a minute, listening for more sounds.  I contemplated what I should do, including the possibility of grabbing one of my large kitchen knives and going out into the garage to see who or what was there.  I quickly decided that wasn't a valid option, since someone who broke into my garage could probably overtake me with my knife.  Instead, I texted Jen that I was kind of creeped out.  I locked the door between my house and garage, and then locked myself in my bedroom for the rest of the night.

This morning, I got ready as normal... but as I went to open my garage door, the door wouldn't open more than 8 inches and there was a horribly loud clicking noise.  This is what I found:

The garage door spring broke!  The door was too heavy for me to lift, so I couldn't get my Blazer out of the garage.  I called Jen to tell her about the source of the noise, and it was just my luck that she hadn't left for work yet and offered to drop me off at work on her way in.  The garage door company wasn't able to fit me in until tomorrow, so my brother gave me a ride home from work.  Thanks Jen and BJ for your help!

Steelheads Game

I think I've only ever been to two Steelheads games... I'm not sure why I haven't been to more, because every time I go, I really enjoy myself.  I think the last time I went was back in 2007 and at that time I thought I should buy season tickets!  Anyway, back in October at the BYP annual gala, I won 4 Steelheads tickets at the silent auction... and I finally used the tickets on Friday night.  Jen, Andrea, Tyler and I had a great time watching the Idaho Steelheads take on the Las Vegas Wranglers.  It was really nice having Tyler there because he was able to explain some of the rules to us (which made some of the player's actions make SO much more sense!)  I've got two passes to go to another game this season (that I got for free for filling out a survey!), and am already excited to watch the Steelheads again.

Bracelet #2

Remember this post?  Well today I get to put on my 2nd bracelet... 1/5 of the way toward reaching my goal!  The best part is that it only took me 17 days to get to this point.  I hope that's indicative of how long it will take me to reach my final goal!

I Graduated From the Bunny Hill!

I went night skiing with a group of people tonight... and I finally graduated from the bunny hill!  I'm definitely still a beginner skier, and could still spend hours on the bunny hill and enjoy myself, but it was fun to finally try out a harder, longer run.  I am a really slow skier (because I like to feel in control) so I'm thinking about taking a couple private lessons so I can learn to be a little more confident.  It's definitely getting easier each time I go though, so that's good.  I'm considering purchasing my own skis and boots so I don't have to rent every time, because that really adds up!  Anyway, above is a picture of Stephanie and me chilling in the Bogus Basin lodge :-)

I Kinda Wish I Didn't Know...

So I started with a personal trainer this month.  We're only meeting together three times a month, but I think it will be nice to have some personalized training.  Well, my trainer Brandee is making me keep a food journal.  Let me tell you, keeping a food journal sure makes you aware of every little thing that goes into your mouth!  She asked me to try and track calories too, just for a couple weeks to see where I was at.  Of course Costa Vida is a given as part of my weekly diet, so I tried to calculate how many calories my salad is.  Wouldn't you think a salad would be healthy???  I found a nutritional information calculator on the Costa website.  Here are my two biggest shockers:

• One flour tortilla is 507 calories!!!  I always get a small salad, but still, I'm sure a small tortilla has 300 calories!  No wonder they are so delicious.
•  The key lime pie dessert is 846 calories.  Yes 846!  Have you seen how small these are?  What the heck are they made of?  I used to frequently splurge and split a key lime dessert with a friend.  No longer!  Seriously?  Half of a key lime pie dessert is 423 calories?

So according to my best guess, the small sweet pork salad I order is about 900 calories.  That means a large salad has to be pretty close to how many calories someone should consume in an entire day.  Needless to say, tonight I ordered my salad without a tortilla.  If you want to check out more nutritional info, check out this calculator!  I kinda wish I could still blissfully eat my salad in calorie ignorance.

No. 1 in 2010? It's a no-brainer.

Well, the final season polls came out on Friday, and Boise State ended up with a #4 ranking.  That's great, don't get me wrong, but a little disappointing when we're one of two undefeated teams this season - we went 14-0 and won a BCS bowl game.  I would have really loved to see us at #2.  I know people will argue about strength-of-schedule and that we would never win against some of the power-houses of the bigger conferences, but I disagree.  I think Boise State has a great football program and can play with the best.  Many thought that TCU was worthy of playing in this year's national championship game, and would have ranked them #2 if they had beat us in the Fiesta Bowl.

Now the talk had moved onto where Boise State will be ranked in the pre-season polls.  I liked this article by Pat Ford who makes a case to rank Boise State #1 in the pre-season polls based on our recent winning history, returning almost all of our starters, and the fact that we have an amazing coaching staff.  Go Broncos!

Countdown to Chuck

The two-hour season premiere of Chuck is TOMORROW!  I am so excited for this great comedy to start back up again with a third season.  I ordered the box set of season 2 just this week, and am watching season 1 tonight in preparation :-)

Idaho Capitol Building Rededication

Today was the rededication of the Idaho Capitol building.  I had the opportunity to volunteer at the rededication event with BYP.  I handed out programs and maps and answered general questions.  Our capitol has been under construction the last couple years.  The construction not only added much needed space to the cramped chambers, but also restored many of the beautiful features from the original construction.  I find it interesting the details that had, at some point along the way, been covered up in the building.  According to the rededication program, a dozen layers of paint hid exquisite details in plaster work, workers had glued carpets to imported marble, installed drop ceilings that covered artistic flourishes, etc.

The capitol building is so beautiful and grand, and it was so neat to experience this event.  One fun part about volunteering was that we were able to walk around the capitol building before it was open to the general public.  We had fun taking pictures of the rotunda, in senate chambers, etc.

Another Walmart Story

I don't think I have purchased anything from WalMart since last December when I posted about Smelly Shoes.  Well, after talking with some friends at bootcamp this morning, I decided to stop by today to pick up a yoga mat that was on sale (I think I'm going to add yoga to my workout routine each Saturday!)  Should've known I would have another "WalMart experience".  Anyone that knows me knows I love my canvas shopping bags.  I had forgotten to bring one in to the store, so I decided to just carry my couple items out without a bag - besides, a yoga mat wouldn't have fit in a plastic WalMart bag anyway.  As I walked out, a janitor lady came running and yelling after me to stop.  She literally chased me down!  She glared at me and asked to see my receipt.  She thought I was shoplifting!  It took her a while to study my receipt before she finally handed it back to me and let me leave the store.  Seriously?  I think I would have rather paid a couple more dollars to get it at Target.  What was I thinking?

Fiesta Bowl Champions... Again!

I sure do love my Broncos.  They finished up their season last month undefeated and earned a spot in the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl.  We pulled out an amazing win in the Fiesta Bowl as the underdogs back in 2007, so I was excited to see what this year's bowl would bring.  I had fun tonight hanging out with friends, eating yummy Costa Vida, and cheering on my boys.  Boise State won the game 17-10 and I couldn't be prouder to be a Bronco :-)

I'm trying to train my niece and nephew that it's cool to be a Bronco.  Here they are in the Bronco gear I got them for Christmas... they sure do look good in blue and orange!

 

Skiing, Take Two

Wow, what a difference boots can make!  Whereas I enjoyed my time skiing on Tuesday, I couldn't get over how uncomfortable the boots were.  I did think it was weird that it took both me and Beki to put my boots on and take them off.  We literally couldn't get the clasps together, and when we did, I thought the top clasp was going to cut off circulation to the rest of my foot.  The guy at Sports Authority (where I rented my gear) asked if I could wiggle my toes, and when I answered that I could, he decided that the boots fit.  I didn't really have anything to compare it to, so I skied all day with those uncomfortable things on my feet.

Today was a completely different story.  The boots I rented from Bogus felt like slippers compared to the ones I rented earlier this week.  Wow, they sure made skiing that much more enjoyable!  I went up first thing this morning with Mandi, TJ, and Beki.  I just did the bunny hill again, but I really had a great time.  It was fun to be up there early because there were no lines for the lift.  I went down the hill probably close to 20 times in the two hours we were up there.  The snow was great.  The 10 new inches yesterday, and even more this morning, made the skiing smooth, almost like glass.  I felt in control and confident and am starting to think I could really get into this sport.  I even bought a pair of goggles... one step closer!

Goal Patrol

I just ordered a set of bracelets from GoalPatrol.  The idea is that you identify a goal, break it up into five measurable steps, and then start working toward that goal, 1/5th at a time.  When you start working toward the goal, you wear the first bracelet.  Once you have conquered step one, you put on the second bracelet.  You continue to switch out the bracelets until you reach your goal.  I like this idea because it's a visual reminder that you're working toward something, and you work toward that goal in manageable steps so it doesn't seem so difficult.  I'm hoping this will work for me, because once I finish my first goal, I've already got a list in mind of what other goals I might use the bracelets to help me achieve.