dogs

Low-key Christmas

My fear was true: I ended up with a cold for Christmas. It made me pretty miserable, so I’m glad I didn’t have to hang out with a bunch of people all weekend long.

Yeah, yeah — you don’t have to tell me Christmas is prime time for friends and family. Believe me, I did spend plenty of quality time with the Boyfriend and his mom. My immediate family is eight hours away in Salt Lake City, and my cousins are back in Indiana — so when I wasn’t with the Boyfriend’s people, I was on my own with the dogs and the manuscript I’m trying to whip into shape for submission.

I managed to get off work relatively early Friday night. But it was after 10 p.m., so I headed to Walmart to pick up a few groceries and cold medicine.

I prefer to hit Walmart after work, because it’s hardly ever crowded that late at night. I say “hardly ever.” I grossly underestimated the retail giant’s popularity at 10 p.m. on Christmas Eve Eve. I stood in the checkout line for what seemed like forever … and still ended up leaving without the Kleenex I so desperately needed.

Friday was the first day I listened to Christmas music, too. I burned my Christmas Comedy Classics CD to my MacBook, uploaded it to the iPhone and sang along to my favorite holiday hilarity.

On Christmas Eve, I ran to the health food store to pick up the ingredients to make the Sugar-Free Coconut-Almond Bark Leanne featured recently at Healthful Pursuit. Since I had to buy both coconut oil and coconut butter, it turned out to be an expensive endeavor — but the end result was so worth it.

I didn’t expect the coconut butter to be so difficult to get out of the jar, though. It was hard as a rock. I think it took longer to measure out the coconut butter than it did to make the entire recipe from beginning to end.

Like I said: The end result was worth it. That bark is the best bark I think I’ve ever eaten. Yes, even better than peppermint bark. My only complaint is that I didn’t press the coconut into the bark as well as I could have — it keeps falling off.

Oh well. Live and learn. I think I still have enough coconut butter to make another batch. I’ll know better next time.

Before driving down to the Boyfriend’s Saturday night, I made myself a Christmas Eve feast.

It’s a family tradition for dinner to be more nibbles — cheese ball and crackers, summer sausage, cold cuts. I upheld tradition with bacon-wrapped steak bites, cheese cubes and a festive avocado/cottage cheese dip (recipe to come) with red bell pepper rings and green snap peas.

Christmas Day was definitely low-key. I watched my favorite holiday movie, “A Christmas Story,” from beginning to end once (and caught the beginning again before the Boyfriend insisted we change the channel). Party pooper. TNT doesn’t call it “24 Hours of A Christmas Story” for nothing!

We had a relatively early (11 a.m.-ish) dinner (turkey and green beans for me!) and then I headed back up to Flagstaff to spend some quality time with Cocoa and Cinnamon. I chatted with my brother (and nephew) on the drive up. Later, I took a nap and drove back to the Boyfriend’s, since his birthday was Monday. Yep — he’s a Dec. 26 baby.

I was a bit disappointed that Starbucks, with its big “Open Christmas Day” banner, wasn’t actually open when I tried to go on Christmas Day. (Apparently I missed the cutoff by about two hours.)

Monday, I tried to return to a more normal routine — as normal as possible for a holiday week, anyway. I caught up on reading tweets and managed to work some writing into my day. On Tuesday, I headed back to work.

Glad it’s a short week!

Feeling left out

It seems to me like everyone else in the world is at the Healthy Living Summit. I exaggerate only a little bit …

Ah, well. Maybe next year. This year, I blew my travel budget— and then some — on my trip to NYC for the RWA National convention. Since romance writing is a bigger dream for me than weight-loss blogging, I’d say I made the right choice.

Still, when everyone else is blogging about the fun they’re having at HLS, it’s hard not to feel just a touch left out.

While everyone else is in Philly, I’m still in Arizona, working away. (I think this is like my fifth straight Saturday at the office …) I did have a pretty great day. Met with my writer’s group for a brainstorming session, then visited a book-signing for one of my other chaptermates.

Lost count of the number of carbs I ate, but I didn’t eat  any bread, pasta, sugar or anything … I even successfully avoided ordering one of my faux Frappuccinos when I stopped at Starbucks on the way to work. Got iced green tea (1 Splenda) instead.

Tomorrow morning, my dog, Cocoa, is taking a trip to the groomer’s for a bath. Then I hope to get in some writing before I head to work a little earlier than usual for a Sunday. As long as it’s not raining, I’ll need to take a dinner break for our softball game.

Moving day

Sunday was moving day for the Boyfriend, and I was drafted to help.

Did I mention the call for assistance came at 7 a.m.? I’m not usually awake at that hour, so I was astounded by the sunrise.

Pretty, isn’t it? I see it so rarely that I’ve forgotten that fact — but that’s what happens when you work until midnight and then stay up until 3 a.m.

The first order of business was to walk Bandit. When we headed out, he wanted to walk faster than I did … as usual. I saw a lot of this:

His hind-end, rushing ahead of me.

Then it was time for breakfast. I fueled up for the work I knew was ahead of me with a fried egg sandwich on sourdough. Cheese, spinach, ham and spicy mustard were in the mix.

That was 26 carbs, since I counted. Unfortunately, the rest of the day was not low-carb at all. I’m finding it’s tough to cut back on carbs without committing completely to Atkins’ Induction.

Finally, I got on the road. When I arrived 45 minutes later, I was greeted by a herd of deer.

It took about an hour to load the truck and another half hour to drive to his new place. Then, we unloaded the small stuff. (He had friends coming to help him carry the heavy stuff up the stairs.) I made so many trips up those stairs that my hind end got a workout. I’m not loving the new built-in Stairmaster!

After that, I had to head back up the mountain and put in a day’s work. I snuck in a second walk with Bandit, and between all the running around and walking the dog, managed to log more than 14,000 steps on the pedometer.

That was a one-day total. Maybe I need to help someone move more often!