I know the importance of good shoes. Really, I do. Rob, on the other hand? Not so much. I’m blaming him and my own stupidity for the pain I’m in today.
Anyone who knows me knows I’m a sucker for a bargain. My favorite stores are ones with big signs proclaiming exciting things like “70 percent off department store prices,” i.e. Ross, T.J. Maxx, etc. I’ll throw Kohl’s in there for good measure, since they have some kick-ass sales on a regular basis.
That attraction to low prices is what led me to buy a pair of $25 tennis shoes. I knew the brand – Avia – and they looked like a decent pair of shoes. They were comfy in the store and were especially cushiony. So I went for it. You can’t beat $25 for tennis shoes, right?
Apparently, you can.
Now that we have cooler weather, I’ve found myself jonesing for a nice, hot cup of coffee. I’m not quite a grownup yet, though, so my coffee should only taste kind of like coffee, if you get what I’m saying.
However, my newfound motivation to avoid things that aren’t good for me has kept me away from the heavenly smelling lattes and such from Starbucks. I’ve been looking for a creamer I might like, but I’ve come up empty handed.
But it hit me yesterday – a discovery I made last spring, just as the cool weather was turning warm (and thus ending my hot-coffee season). You can mix a package of instant hot chocolate with a regular ol’ cup of joe and get a pretty nice mocha substitute – and for a fraction of the calories and fat.
I made sure to pick up a box of diet Swiss Miss last night. With only 25 calories and zero fat, this keeps a cup of coffee at a completely do-able ZERO points on the WW scale.
Yum.
Spending 90 minutes at SuperTarget, scrutinizing over every item you pick up, put back, pick up and put back again, carefully planning your purchases (and making plans for future ones) and waiting in line to check out only to discover you, like a dumbass, left your wallet at home. Then it sucks even more to shamefully tell the kid ringing up your stuff that you don’t have your wallet and then walk away from your cart full of carefully picked-out items.
The only thing that made me feel a little better was the ugly hairstyle the kid was trying to sport. Seriously ugly. Remember the guy selling plane tickets to Adam Sandler in “Wedding Singer”? Yeah, that’s what this guy’s hair looked like.
Lucky for me, I have an amazing husband who offered to meet me at Target so I didn’t have to go through all the motions all over again. And double lucky for me that A) the kid didn’t have my cart toted away in record time and B) he wasn’t paying attention when I hijacked my abandoned cart and all my stuff.
On a related note, I don’t need to do any Target browsing for a while now. My extra 45-minute wait there for Rob gave me all the time I needed to look at everything I didn’t already see. I actually was on my second trip around the store when he got there. And it’s a big store.
I got this recipe off the WW message boards and tweaked it to add some chocolate chips to mimic a fattier recipe I’ve been dying to try.
Guilt-free chocolate chip pumpkin muffins
1 box spice cake mix (I used Betty Crocker’s Super Moist)
1 15-oz. can pure pumpkin puree (not pie filling)
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Combine cake mix, pumpkin and water, mix until smooth. Stir in chocolate chips. Divide batter between 20 muffin papers. Bake for 20-22 minutes.
Makes 20 servings
130 calories
3.3g fat
1g fiber
My (birth) mom’s birthday was yesterday. If she were still alive, she would now be 48 years old. The strange part that I’m having some trouble wrapping my mind around is that she died when she was 24.
So with yesterday being her would-be 48th birthday, she has been gone now (unofficially, since she didn’t die on her 24th birthday) for as long as she was alive.
It’s a hard thing for me to grasp, but it does seem significant in my mind. She’s been gone for as long as she was here. Pretty soon, she will have been gone longer than she was here.
This has been a weird year for me. In February, I reached a milestone age, living longer than my mom ever did. I’m still trying to grasp that idea.
Yet I still continue to live my life planning and putting off things for the future. What future? How do I know there will be one? I don’t.
Thinking so much about how there are no guarantees for a next year, next month or even a tomorrow has been what’s finally given me the motivation to be a more healthy me. I’ve started moving more and eating better. I’m hopeful the motivation sticks and eventually pays off.
I’m trying really hard to live for today and only for today, but it seems our society thrives on future plans. Think about it. How much of your life depends on there being a tomorrow? It spans anywhere from TiVo to house decisions based on resale potential to savings accounts.
This probably why I love the RENT song “No Day But Today” and also why I’m so drawn to getting a tattoo that reads “carpe diem.” The irony, though, is that I’m not seizing the day and getting it done. I’m waiting for “the right time.”
When, though, is the right time for all these future plans? Like how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, the world may never know.
