Little Miss Sunshine!!!

This is me today :)

Ahhh...finally, after all these months, the sun is shining, it is beautiful out today, Spring is here!  I have the windows open and I am taking in all of the fresh air that is out there today.  It's 76 here in central Iowa and I'm loving it!  L.O.V.I.N.G. IT! 

It feels so good to finally take a walk outside for the first time since November and not freeze my tail off!  It's nice to take the dogs outside and sit and watch them play instead of telling them to hurry up because the wind is blowing and the snow is flying. 

The grill is getting fired up tonight for some hamburgers and veggies and my mom is making her famous potato salad.  I found some fresh green beans (as fresh as they can be in Iowa in April) and I'm going to try to make some sort of green beans tonight, hopefully. 

So, to embrace this wonderful day, this awesome season and of course the new me, I'm going to order this shirt and I can't wait to add it to my collection of new SMALLER shirts.  Along with this wonderful season comes of course, Spring cleaning.  I have been doing that since about February, but hey, who's keeping track.  I have actually switched rooms in my house, like a big switch.  I moved my craft room downstairs on the main floor in my old bedroom and moved my bedroom upstairs.  Yep, I opted to climb stairs daily to go to bed, get dressed, ect.  Can you believe it?!  The room up there used to be an old attic, but the previous home owners made it into one big room for their girls.  The room goes across the whole front of the house and is huge.  I'll have to post a pic of it later as it's still in the works.  I'm hoping to finish it up tonight after dinner though.  I have to run to Dollar General and get a few storage containers for my jeans and sweatshirts and then my clothes will be put away. 

I hope you are all having a great day and if you're having weather like we are here, get out and enjoy it!  Suck up all that fresh air!  

Comfort Food For Dinner

Easy Crockpot Chicken and Stuffing

You all know how I've been searching and searching and searching for recipes online and in magazines and I stumbled upon this one on Food.com and thought it would not only be the perfect dinner for tonight, but also the perfect comfort food I've been looking forward to all winter.

It wasn't until about a month ago or so that I could even have bread items or stuffing, so all winter long I had been wanting something like this.  I ended up eating just about 1/2 of a chicken breast and a spoonful of the stuffing mixture and I was stuffed!  This recipe is so easy, it's ridiculous and it makes your house smell like Thanksgiving...Yummy!  So, without further ado, here's the recipe and as always, I'm open to suggestions.  Enjoy!

 Easy Crockpot Chicken and Stuffing

• 4-6 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
• 1 (10 oz) can cream of chicken soup (I used the Campbell's 98% Fat-Free)
• 1/3 cup skim milk
• 1 (6 oz) package chicken flavored stuffing mix (I used Lower Sodium Stove Top)
• 1 2/3 cups water

Place chicken in a greased 4 1/2 qt slow cooker.  In a separate bowl, combine soup and milk, pour over chicken.  Combine stuffing mix and water, spoon over chicken and soup mixture.  Cover and cook on low for 3-4 hours or until chicken is cooked.  I used chicken that was partially frozen so I cooked mine for 6 hours on low.  If I had to change one thing, I would have made sure my chicken was completely thawed because the extra liquid made the stuffing kind of mushy.  Other than that, it was wonderful and hit the spot.  I'm not sure how well this is going to freeze, but I'm going to try it and see. 

All ingredients before cooking.

Finished product...Yummy! 

My Journey In Pictures...The First 6 Months

October 4, 2010...day before surgery

Okay, I have no idea why my pictures ended up so staggered this way, but at least I have them up here, right?  LOL  So, just a quick rundown of my sizes/stats and I'm outta here so you can scroll thru the pics.  I started out at 302 pounds and am currently down to 222.4, which is about 79 pounds gone in 6 months.  I was wearing size 26/28 pants and am into an 18 (buying non Lane Bryant stuff ROCKS) and my shirts were a 26/28 also down to an 18 (Old Navy and I are becoming really good friends).  My bras were a 48DD (holy sh!t) and I'm now into a 42C.  So, those are my stats...I love my RNY!!!!!  I'm having more and more cravings, but I'm working thru them better than I thought I would.  Right now I'm in hot pursuit of Sugar Free Root beer barrels and wouldn't you know it, Amazon has them!  They have everything!  I'm back to drinking diet soda, not my proudest moment, but I refuse to go back to my Diet Mt. Dew, so that's a major victory in itself for me.

One Month Post-Op

2 Months Post-Op

3 Months Post-Op

4 Months Post-Op

5 Months Post-Op

6 Months Post-Op

Meatloaf...Fail

NOT my meatloaf

For the past couple of days, I have been craving meatloaf.  And not just any meatloaf, but my mom's meatloaf with the sweet, yummy, red sauce on top.

So, instead of using her recipe (a no fail one, I might add) I decided I would make up my own and it would be just as good as hers, because after all, she's the one that taught me how to cook, right?  WRONG!  

See if you can figure out where I went wrong...

• 2 lbs extra lean ground beef
• 1/2 cup breadcrumbs
• 1/4 cup ketchup
• 2 eggs

I mixed all of that together, which was so cold, I almost peed my pants!  I thought I would bake it in muffin tins so that way they are the perfect size and would freeze well.  I also made a "glaze" for the top:

• 1/2 cup ketchup
• 1/2 cup Splenda brown sugar
• 2 Tbsp mustard

I went ahead and mixed that all together and put about 1 teaspoon on the top of each muffin meatloaf and popped them in the oven at 350 for 45 mins.  Set them on a paper towel to drain off the grease and cool a bit and YUMMO....wait!  WTF?!  What is this bland piece of meat with a rockin' glaze on top?  Oh yeah, did you figure it out?  I FORGOT TO ADD SEASONINGS!!!!  Duh! 

So, other than forgetting the main ingredients...seasonings, they were pretty good.  I think next time I might try to spice it up a bit LOL  Let me know if you can think of anything to add, I would gladly take suggestions!

Rag Rug From My Old HUGE Shirts

If you're like me, you have a bunch of old, huge...HUGE t-shirts filling up your closets but you're having a hard time getting rid of all of them.  Some of them have a special meaning, some of them are your favorites and for me, it's just hard to throw them out.  I have t-shirts from when I was in college that I just can't seem to get rid of, but would never wear again, not to mention t-shirts from my weight loss.   

I spent the weekend looking at this blog and I couldn't pull myself away from it.  Good thing I've been off all week, huh?  LOL  As I was looking thru the posts, I found one on rag rugs.  At first I just went right by it and kept reading onto the next post.  And then it hit me!  All of those t-shirts I have "collected" over the years would be perfect for this project!  You can find the instructions here and it looks like a very easy project, which is right up my alley!  

Tomorrow I'm going to dig all of those shirts out and get started cutting them up.  This would be something that would be easy to do in the car or at work.  And since I go back to work on Wednesday (booooo) it would be fun to get this started and take this with me.  So, what do you think?  I have enough shirts to probably make a couple of rugs, easy.