Freebie - April 19th, Walmart

On April 19th at 8am, you can pick up a free Nickelodeon's The Big Green Help seed card. You can plant it and watch it grow into a beautiful wildflower.

Also, pick up your free custom-made reusable bag that they will be giving away at the same time.

*Both are while supplies last.

Could I walk a little more?

The answer to that question is “YES!” Even though I have been walking or trying to walk at least 3 miles a day on my treadmill, I could still use a little more walking. Here are a few things that I have been doing…

Parking further out in the parking lot – whether it’s at work (which I normally park probably 15 steps from the door) or at the store

Take small walks around the office throughout the day – we try to walk on your two breaks that we are allowed but I also get up at least once an hour to walk about for a couple minutes. I also send all my print jobs to the other side of the building so I get more walking in.

Walk during your lunch hour – this kind of goes with the last one but this would probably be a longer walk. I plan to start doing this when the weather is nice. I hate to walk by myself but I put the weight on by myself so I’ll have to work to get it off by myself.

Take the stairs instead of the elevator or escalator – I’ll let everyone else take the elevator or escalator and Ill take the longer approach to getting upstairs.

Make several trips to unload that car – It seems like every morning we load the van up with everything from the house to go to work and daycare. Then I have to take it all back into the house when we get home. So I do it in several trips.

I walk when I am on the phone at home – nothing major, just up and down the hallway, in and out of bedrooms…

I can’t wait to mow the lawn – it will be all walking since we have such a small yard. We’re looking for some land and I told my fiancé I would push mow the yard even if we had 10 acres. (If we ever get any acreage, I’ll let you where my last statement still stands or not.)

Walk to the store when you are only going after a few small items – I’ve done this with the kids when I wanted an extra Sunday paper or they want ice cream. We walk to UDF.

Other ways to get more walking in that I don’t do are:

Walk your dog – don’t have a dog to walk

Walk your children to school instead of driving – I’m at work when my kid’s go to school otherwise, I would do this one (at least in when the weather permitted)

Take laundry (or other items) upstairs in small trips versus everything at once – we don’t have stairs in our house otherwise, I would consider it.

Do you have any other ideas? What do you do to get more walking in?

Menu Plan Monday 4/7/2008

It's Menu Plan Mondays over at "I'm an Organizing Junkie". I wanted to add in some Weight Watcher recipes but my fiance is out of town so I'll be cooking for the kids this week. My fiance should be home on Friday so it will be back to real dinners on Saturday.

Monday - Chicken Strips, mashed potatoes, corn

Tuesday - Cheeseburgers, French fries, pineapples

Wednesday - Meatball sandwiches

Thursday - Spaghetti w/meatballs, garlic bread

Friday - Pizza (didn't have it last week)

Saturday - Honey Mustard Grilled Chicken, pasta salad, fruit

Sunday - Tangy Slow Cooker Pork Roast, sweet potato fries

Day 57, Food and Exercise Log

After a nice day yesterday, I didn't want to get up and come to work. But I did. As a matter of fact, I even walked this morning. I need to really concentrate on getting my workouts in and eating better than I did this weekend.

Daily Allowance Points: 24
Weekly Allowance Points: 12

Breakfast:
Tim Horton's Iced Cappucino (made with white milk) (4 points)
- They had a new supreme Iced cappucino this morning and they tried to talk me into it...it was a chocolate brownie!
Banana (2 points)

Lunch:
Progresso Zesty Light Southwest-Style Vegetable Soup (0 points!) - I really liked this!
Toasted Cheese Sandwich (3 points)
Hunt's Snack Pack Fat Free Chocolate Pudding (2 points)

Snack:
1 cup grapes (1 point)

Dinner:
Chicken Strips (9 points)

Exercise:
1 mile walking on my treadmill
Walked outside @ lunch: 4 laps/35 minutes - not sure of the distance...it was probably over a mile
2.35 miles/27 minutes/350 calories on the elliptical


Daily Points Used: 21
Weekly Points Used: 0

Overall thought: If it wasn't for me wanting to clear some things out of the freezer, I would have definitely had a better dinner. The lettuce I had was a little on the shady side so I didn't add a salad like I had wanted to do. I passed on the 2 mile walk last night. I was too tired!

Day 56, Food and Exercise Log

Let's see how well today goes...

Daily Allowance Points: 24
Weekly Allowance Points: 32

Breakfast:
Blueberry Muffin (3 points)

Lunch:
Blueberry Muffin (3 points)

My dinner choice was really bad. However, it was our first night out without kids since October and my fiance is leaving to go out of town for a week. It was good and we saved money since my brother was a manager at Outback and had given us some coupons!

Dinner:
Outback House Salad & Blooming Onion w/Wallaby Darn (36 points)

Dessert:
Cheesecake (plain - small) (3 points)

Exercise:
30 minute bike ride
- I thought this was going to be "easy" exercise. NO WAY! My legs were so sore! I think we found every hill to go up. Funny that we went up hills on our way to the school and hills on the way home...I thought the ride back home was going to be all down hill.

Daily Points Used: 24
Weekly Points Used: 21

Overall thought: Even though I didn't do too well at dinner. I had the "extra" weekly allowance to cover for it. I usually save my weekly points for the weekend just in case something comes up. I really didn't have too much of the Blooming Onion since I was trying to guzzle water to avoid overeating. I could have gotten a little more exercise in but I decided to work in the yard a little while the weather was nice. The bike was quite a workout for me. I'm still feeling it in my legs this morning.

Super Saturday Savings - 4/5/2008

It's Super Saturday Savings over at Money Saving Mom. This was my off week from grocery shopping so I hit CVS and Target. I picked up items at both stores that will either be used my family, the extended family, or donated to the local woman's shelter. I didn't go overboard being that I have a big plastic tub of freebies that is ready to be donated to the woman's shelter.

Here's what I got...$3.06 OOP ($1.06 was put on a CVS gift card that I got from my prescription). I earned $94.89 in ECB ($42.99 of them remaining). Since this was done in 6 transactions, I used some of the ECBs in some of the transactions.

We had to run to Target on Sunday to purchase a birthday present for the twins next door. We ended up picking up 4 Brat dolls for $18.50. They were priced wrong for starters. We used the $5 off toy purchase coupons as well. While we were there, I decided to check out the Easter clearance since it was 90% off. I ended up finding my nieces some t-shirts for their birthdays that are coming up.

6 t-shirts for $2.40!



I might stop by Kroger in the morning for their mega sale. I don't really need anything but there are a few things on sale that I would like to stock up on.

We also hit Home Depot for their free children's workshop. Not only was it free, it was fun.

Day 55, Food and Exercise Log

Thank goodness it's the weekend! I have an open house to go to this afternoon for Tastefully Simple. I love the stuff and the sampling will be hard. However, I think I have my mind set on what I want to order so I won't do too much sampling. The most I will sample is some of the new items. I think over the past year or so I have sampled most of the other products, if it's something I thought I might purchase. I plan on eating before I go so I will probably go off my mother's and sister's reaction when they taste it. Probably more my sister's since we seem to like the same things. I'll report back how the challenge goes...

Daily Points Allowance: 24
Weekly Points Allowance: 32

Breakfast:
Fiber One Peanut Butter bar (3 points)

Snack:
Tastefully Simple tasting...(5 points)
- I used celery to do most of the tasting. A lot of it was stuff that I had already tasted or just wasn't interested in.

Lunch:
PB Sandwich (6 points)

Dinner:
Steak (5 points)
Salad (4 points)

Exercise:
2 miles walking on my treadmill

Daily Allowance Used: 23
Weekly Allowance Used: 0

Overall thought: It really wasn't a bad day. I got some cardio in today and normally don't on a Saturday. Things weren't as busy as they had been.