Day 26

Buffalo Chicken Meatloaf.  Another fantastic recipe from Living a Changed Life!  I made my meatloaf with extra lean ground turkey instead of ground chicken or beef.  The Hubs gives this dinner 2 thumbs and 2 toes up :-)

Ingredients
2/3 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup fat-free milk
1/4 cup Frank's wing sauce
1 lb. ground chicken breast or ground turkey
1/2 cup finely chopped celery
1/4 cup shredded carrot
1/3 cup chopped sweet onion
2 large egg whites, lightly beaten
1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese

Instructions
1.Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a 9x5x3 loaf pan with non-stick cooking spray.

2.Combine the oats and milk in a mixing bowl and let stand 3 minutes, or until the oats begin to soften. Stir in the wing sauce. Add the ground chicken, celery, carrot, onion, egg whites and salt to taste.

3.Using a large spoon or with your hands, gently combine the mixture. Add the blue cheese and gently combine.

4.Transfer mixture to loaf pan, smooth the top flat, and spread the remaining wing sauce on top. Sprinkle the reserved onion slices over the sauce.

5.Bake 35-45 minutes, or until the center of the meatloaf is no longer pink. Serve immediately.

Serves 12; PointsPlus+ 2

day 25

The South Beach lifestyle was not working with my lifestyle.  It was way too constricting for my hectic life schedule.  I was cheating way to much and thus not getting the results I desperately needed.  For the month I have basically gained and lost the same 3 pounds over and over again.  I had success last year with Weight watchers and lost 30 pounds.  I use a lot of excuses and I think the reason why I stopped losing was because they switched the program just as I was getting into my groove.  Is it an excuse...of course it is...but I find it very valid.  The switching of the points and what you can and can't have was confusing and frustrating and I got lost.
Finding Jennifer's blog has inspired me to go back to weight watchers.  I had success before, I know it will fit better into my life style and I feel confident I will have success again.

Day 24

Gooey Pork Chops!!!  This was amazing!!!!!  I made this for dinner last night and the Hubs and I are still thinking about it.  I stumbled across a new blog Living a Changed Life, and Jennifer's journey and my journey sound very similar.  I will be posting several recipes from her page because I love them so much!

Ingredients
6 trimmed Bone-In Pork Chops (can substitute boneless)
1 tsp Ground black pepper
1 tsp Garlic powder
1 tsp Onion powder
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
2 10 oz. cans Campbell's Healthy Request Cream Mushroom Soup
1 packet Lipton dry onion soup mix

Instructions
Bake at 350 for 1 hour.Line 9x13 baking dish with heavy duty foil leaving 3 inches overhang on each end of dish.

Combine garlic powder, onion powder and black pepper together. Use as rub to one side of each chop.

Place chops in baking dish (may be a tight fit).

Coat chops with Worcestershire sauce.

Cover chops with Cream of Mushroom soup.

Sprinkle Dry onion soup mix over dish.

Cover with another piece of heavy duty foil, rolling edges of both pieces of foil together to seal chops totally.

Serves: 6; 5 pointsplus+

Day 23

Giuliana and Bill announced on the Today show this morning that they are expecting their first bundle of joy!!!!  I am beyond thrilled for them...as if they were my friends :-)  Although their journey is nothing like my journey the end goal is the same for both us...to have a baby.  Knowing they are finally expecting and the baby is healthy gives me a little more hope for my own situation. Congratulations Giuliana and Bill you deserve all of the joy life has to offer!!!

Day 22

When it rains it pours!  Our two cars are both 2003.  My car is a hyundai accent, we call it the golf cart, and it as 110,000 miles on it.  My Husband's car is a Nissan Murano and has 171,000 miles on it.  Having a car payment is not an option for us right now!  I'm in denial that soon one day one of our cars will die and we will need a new car.  Well that time may have come.  Last weekend the check engine light came on in the murano.  That last time this happened it was just in need of an oil change.  We took it to get the oil changed late last week and they couldn't find anything wrong with it.  They flushed the fuel line but that was it.  We figured we need need to take it back to the deal to get it checked out but neither of us has time to be without a car for a few days.  Well the car has made the decision for us and has decided to crap out.

While driving the youth group to lunch today it started to sputter and shake when I pushed the gas or it was idling at a stop light.  It wasn't able to drive faster than 45mph without feeling like it was going to fall apart.  So tomorrow morning, bright and early, we are going to take the car to the shop.  I feel like this time it is going to be something major and I'm nervous about it.

The car plans might but a hold on our house plans if we end up needing to buy a car.  The stalled house plans will put a hold on our adoption plans...ugh.  I'm looking for the silver lining...

Day 21

Does anyone remember Dance work out with Barbie? haha  I had this video when I was younger and did it with my friends :-)

I forced myself to work out yesterday.  I saw this workout plan on Pinterest and thought it was easy and didn't need any equipment and I could do it while watching TV.  

1 Set

15 jumping Jacks

15 push ups

15 crunches

15 squats

I did 5 sets.  The hardest thing to do for me was push ups....15 pushups the first set wasn't too bad but by the last couple of sets my arms were shot and I could only do a couple each set.

Day 16