Thanksgiving Day Foods

Here is what's on the menu for Thanksgiving Dinner. It's just Shawn and myself for dinner, so hopefully everything goes smoothly. Click on the links to see ingredients/supplies/how to

Turkey (credit to A Year of Slow Cooking)

**I played around with various ways of cooking turkey, and they mostly come up at 2 points per serving. This version sounds yummy and easy!**

Au Gratin Potatoes (credit to WW online recipes)

***I'll be making regular mashed potatoes as well for Shawn to enjoy-since I'll be peeling and cutting them anyway, but I'll be staying AWAY from them***

Stuffing with Sage and Chives (credit to WW online recipes)

**Stuffing has always been my one true weekness. YUM!**

Gravy of Doom

**For Gravy there isn't much option. I don't know how to make the legit bad-for-you gravy that I love so much, so we're opting for the Heinz Turkey Gravy. It's a healthy alternative and easy to prepare! (don't worry I won't eat the whole jar myself)

Turtle Pumpkin Pie (credit to KraftFoods.com)

**I'm using Keebler reduced fat pie crusts, Free Whipped Cream, Skim Milk, Sugar free caramel sauce, and the SF/FF vanilla pudding mix to make what I'm thinking looks and sounds like a tasty treat!**

WW Weigh In 11/23

Today I was down 1.6lbs for a total of 16.4 lost with WW! Here are a few goals for the week:

1) Journal every day-I'm pretty good during the day but all hell breaks loose once I get home from work for the evening.
2) No more snooze-I need to get my butt out of bed on time so I have a chance to eat breakfast before work and pack my lunch/healthy snacks.
3) Thanksgiving Day-I'm all stocked up on tasty veggies. Like our leader Jaime suggested, I'm going to fill half my plate with tasty steamed veggies and thoroughly enjoy (within moderation) my favorite Thanksgiving Dinner dishes.

I'll be posting my recipe ideas here in a bit, and I'm excited to give my report of how everything goes!

Choo Choo Choooo

This weekend Shawn and I touristed it up and decided to climb aboard the Bertram Flyer. It's a 3 hour train ride from Cedar Park to Bertram Texas on a super old train or something. It was my first train ride ever, but Shawn had been on a similar ride back home in Kentucky. We sat in first class station car (ooooo ahhhhh) which meant we were right behind the engine and we got free soda, a plate of treats, and a bag of chips.

(Enjoy these stock photos from the website. I totally didn't
jump out of the train to take them)

The ride each way was a little over an hour and it was kinda sorta boring. We were only going around 30 mph, and it was basically just a train ride through the back of people's yards with very little scenery. We saw a lot of fixer-uppers, a few Longhorn (hook 'em) and some horses and dogs. The train stopped in Bertram and we were able to get off for 15 minutes and walk around. Before leaving again, the engineers moved the engine to the back (now front) of the train for the ride home. That was kinda cool cuz then we could see straight out the back at the path behind us. Here are a few pictures of us being silly and passing the time:

Yep-this is what I get when I say "smile!" If you're wondering, he threw
the body off the back of the train to hide the evidence.

Here's Shawn proving he can do a happy face

Clearly my angry face is complete failure :)

And a few happy pictures of us in a station room and on the ride home in the caboose. It's fun getting out and seeing new things, and just spending time together in general. Luckily the weather is still nice and warm too! Tune in next time for the latest and greatest!

Yay!

This week at Weight Watchers I had good news-I finally lost the last little bit of weight I'd put on in the last few months during my surgery recovery/slack off time. That puts me down 14.8lbs since joining in July. It's not nearly what I'd like for myself but it is honestly what I earned. You remember that old saying "You are what you eat?" :p

I'm finishing this post a few days after I started it (It's Saturday now), but I'm happy to say I have my Thanksgiving shopping all done. I have my healthy menu mostly planned out, and a house full of good-for-me-food. I've been pretty irresponsible with eating this week, and haven't journaled like I should. My "mental notes" aren't nearly as accurate as pen and paper, but I am always striving to improve :)

That's all (for now) folks!

Weekend of Win

So yesterday Shawn and I ventured out to the Austin Celtic Festival. It had been a toss up between a quick trip down to San Antonio/Sea World or the Festival. We opted for the festival since it's only here once a year. If we'd gone to Sea World, we may have spent the whole time feeling emo and wondering how the Festival was, since we couldn't find out for another year...so we chose to go to the Festival.

We had the misfortune of getting stuck in UT Football traffic on the way down, but still got down there around noon. We brought the camera, but sadly there wasn't really anything worth photographing. Lots of cute dogs...but not so much in the way of authentic Celtic activities. I did learn that the Celtic's are way into Tye Dye shirts. Ok maybe not, but there was a huge shop display :)

We're glad either way that we ventured out and tried something new in the city we both know hardly anything about. I work next Saturday, but the weekend after that I think we're going to try a ride on the Bertram Flyer . Yes we are doing touristy things, but technically we both haven't done or seen very much here. Any native/long term Austinites have any good suggestions of fun things to do??