The Christmas season is upon us…kind of…

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I noticed they played Christmas music all day at work today (we don’t control the music in the stores), thought that was a little odd.  I don’t have anything against Christmas music, I actually like it, but I like it interspersed among other songs.  If they start playing only Christmas music this early, I’ll be sick of it by Christmas.  Oh well…that’s retail for you.

We went in at 5 this morning to try to get  a little done before we opened.  I think we accomplished a lot, but once we opened, things went crazy.  Of course customers were outside the doors waiting to get in.  Then the guy running the front end ran into the office and told me that the registers were frozen.  I tried to work my magic, but I must have used up all of my magical powers with that audit yesterday.  So (as much as I hated to), I had to call the help desk in India…good times there.  So I spent an hour on the phone…the work phone, my cell phone, just about any phone you could think of…trying to get the system up and running.  The registers would run for a little while, then freeze up again.  Meanwhile, I’m following instructions from a guy I could hardly understand.  He was telling me to unplug this, plug this in, move this, go here, go there…I really, really liked this aspect of my job a lot more when the help desk was in Texas.

Anyhow, finally got the registers running.  While I was doing all of that, the district manager came in.  He’s a pretty good guy, so I don’t really get all that stressed when he visits. We talked for a while, then he had a conference call he had to take part in.  I figured that was the perfect time to make my exit and start doing the deposit. 

I finally went to the bank and then over to Kroger to get some of that soda they have on sale.  We have a certain amount of money that our corporate offices gave us to spend for our store’s Thanksgiving buffet.  We stretch that money by also having a pitch-in where people bring a dish or two from home to share with everyone else.  I think I’ll do the bulk of the shopping for the buffet on Monday.  Then I’ll bake the ham and turkey on my day off (Wednesday) and take that in with me when I go in on Thursday (yes, I have to work on Thanksgiving, thank you very much).

We were busy all day at the store.  I hear about how terrible the economy is, but that doesn’t seem to prevent people from spending a lot of money.  We’re already out of some of the big outdoor decor items. It seems like people are going all out with the decorating this season.  Fine by me, the more we sell, the less we have left over to deal with at the end of the season.  Makes my job easier (and my bonus bigger).

Now to get my chores done here at home so I can go to bed and get up and do it all again…without the register malfunction, I hope.

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The long and winding road to fitness, day 129

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Funny start to my day today.  I got to work  a few minutes before 5 this morning.  Waiting in the parking lot for my boss to show up (we can’t go in the building by ourselves), about 5:08 my phone rings.  He said he just woke up and would be there as soon as he could.  I told him I’d go across the street to Kroger to pick up some things for lunch and breakfast for myself for the next few days (I was planning to do that tomorrow morning anyhow, so it wasn’t that big a deal).  I talked with the lady working there for a few minutes (hmm…maybe about our bosses…I’m not saying that’s what the conversation was about, but could be) and still made it back about ten minutes before he showed up.  But it all turned out okay, now I don’t have to stop at the store on my way in to work in the morning and can sleep for a few minutes longer.

You know, I made a mistake when I went to Kroger this morning, I didn’t buy any produce.  How crazy is that?  I only bought frozen things to keep in the freezer at work.  Okay, I know, those things aren’t absolutely the healthiest choices (really, I did not intentionally write that as a play on words), but they are convenient and they keep me from going out to a fast food place on the days I don’t bring my lunch.

I ended the day with four fruits and veggies.  Not that great.  I did have a good idea though for the next time I go to the store.  I’m going to buy some cottage cheese and fruit and have that for dinner for a few days.  It’s light and generally healthy…maybe a little more sodium than I need (who knew cottage cheese had so much sodium?), but it’s quick and easy and good for me.

I did core exercises and stretching before I left the house this morning.  Then I walked for 20 minutes, plus up and down a ladder with heavy boxes quite a few times before we opened.  So an okay amount of exercise. 

Now to tackle the sleep issue.  I need sleep, desperately.  When do we change time anyhow?  Next weekend?

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The long and winding road to fitness, day 90

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I had the day off work today, well except for the conference call I had to be on this afternoon…but still…to be able to sit in bed and take part in a conference call is not a bad thing.  And it was a very informative call, I heard some useful info, so I’m not complaining.

I did finally manage to get my hair cut and styled today after cancelling two appointments.  My stylist is the best…she totally understands that my schedule is hectic and can change at a moment’s notice.  Before we started, I told her I didn’t care what she did with my hair, that I wanted it to be wash and wear so it would be quick to style in the morning before work.  Fortunately for me, I have thick, curly hair that does well with just some mousse after washing, then some fluffing while it air dries.  She kind of textured it a little more than we usually do, gave my some wispy bangs…it looks so darn cute.  I couldn’t believe how much hair there was on the floor when she was finished.  But I like it, I like it a lot!

Then I had to make a grocery store run to my favorite little neighborhood Kroger store.  I bought bananas, blueberries, apples (okay… to be completely honest, they were caramel apples…three of them…but they’re still apples, right?), grapes (really, there’s nothing easier to take to work than grapes and they make a healthy snack or dessert), carrots,  a few new potatoes, and an acorn squash…I love squash and fall is the perfect time to bake squash…yum!  I also bought Greek yogurt, some low-fat granola to mix with the yogurt and blueberries, some rye bread, some Fuze and diet Pepsi (I admit, I caved on that one…but I just really, really like it)..so anyhow, some really good things to take to work…looking forward to eating a little healthier at work…this will make it a lot easier.

I didn’t do a lot of exercising today, walked for 35 minutes and that’s really it.  I woke up with a headache and my body hurting all over.  Had I not had that hair appointment, I probably would have taken some Advil and gone back to bed.  But I forced myself to get up and get moving, took care of what I needed to get done today and didn’t do much of anything else…well, except for that conference call…and dishes…and laundry….and cat litter cleaning duties…and working on my book…and watching Days of Our Lives (does that count as doing something?).  So okay, not a wasted day.

What did you do today?

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The long and winding road to fitness, day 63

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Oh, I was in a much better mood today…I got in an adequate amount of sleep last night…and I didn’t let myself get overly hungry either…plus I only had to work part of the day since I went in and worked on my Sunday off.  Combine all of those elements and you’ve got a happy girl on your hands!!

When I left work today, I stopped at Kroger for a few groceries.  You will not believe this (I can hardly believe it myself), but I bought diet Pepsi today.  What?  I’d gone how long without it only to cave and buy it today? But I did, and you know what?  It still tastes just as good as it ever did.  Do they put something in those things that make them addictive?  Don’t say it’s the caffeine…there’s plenty of caffeine in coffee and tea, but coffee and tea don’t call out to me like a diet Pepsi does.  One of these days…I swear, one of these days I will succeed in giving it up for good.  Someday but not today.

I rode the exercise bike this evening…the nice thing about an exercise bike is I can read from my stack of magazines while I get in a cardio workout.  I’ve got to do something to reduce that pile of magazines, guess I better put in a lot of miles on that bike, huh? 

My eating was so so today…I know I didn’t have enough veggies once again.  But I made up my cucumber, tomato and onion salad to take to work tomorrow…so I’ll be sure to get in a couple more servings tomorrow.  I bought an Asian pear at the grocery store today.  I don’t think I’ve ever had one of these, not being the biggest of pear fans.  But they looked interesting, so I said, “why not?”.  I’ll let you know if that goes on my like list of freggies.

It looks kind of like an apple, doesn’t it?

I also bought a box of the Fiber One brownies…this time I thought I’d try the peanut butter ones.

If these can keep me from buying  something sweet from the vending machine at work, it’ll save me about 250 calories a day…I can go for that!

Now I’m ready to make some salsa…I’ve got a few tomatoes that will be ripe in another day or two…then watch out!  Salsa!!  Was it on the Seinfeld show where they kept saying “salsa” over and over again?  I can’t help myself…there are just some words that I enjoy saying repeatedly, and salsa is one of them…along with origami…okay, now you’re getting a clue into how crazy I really am…not serial killer crazy, just crazy in a weird way…

Do you have any quirky little mannerisms you’d like to share with the rest of us?  Come on, don’t leave me hanging here by myself.

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The long and winding road to fitness, day 12

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Oh my, I’m so tired right now, I’m not sure how much sense this will make.  What a wild day this was at work…we got there at 5 am, but the darn truck didn’t show up until an hour later….hate it when that happens!! Then we had so much to do…and it was the last day for one of our dear young men, he’s moving back home…sob, sob…

I ate well at work and got in a lot of exercise walking around, lifting boxes and putting out a ton of freight…that’s the extent of my exercise for the day though.  I’m just too darn tired to do anything else tonight…and that’s okay…I’ll be going to bed early again tonight and hopefully sleeping well.  I stopped at Kroger after work, bought some really nice looking strawberries.  Unfortunately, I bought some BBQ chicken nuggets and ice cream and ended up having some of each for dinner tonight.  Never, ever go to the grocery store when I’m exhausted and hungry.  So I ended up eating about 2,000 calories for the day, the most I’ve had in a single day in almost two weeks.  But tomorrow will be a good day, those strawberries will be good in a smoothie tomorrow night…yum!

So, how did you do today?  Did you find yourself eating well or did you succumb to temptation (like I did)?  And what about exercise?  Do you get a lot of exercise with you job or household activities?  I guess I should be glad that my job requires us to be so active…

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The long and winding road to fitness, day 10

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Day 10?!  High five to me!!  Ten days of exercising, eating more good-for-me foods, and focusing on living a healthier life!  I really can tell a difference after only ten days and I know it’ll just keep getting better as I continue along on my journey.  I’m so excited about how much better I feel and how much happier I am!

I went in to get my hair cut today (just a trim, my hair grows so fast that I have to get it cut once a month to keep it looking decent), then I walked down the B-line trail (a railway converted to a walking/biking path) to do a little grocery shopping at Kroger.  I’d intended to take a picture of all that I bought, but I didn’t think of it until I had everything put away…and I wasn’t about to pull it all out again!!  I bought grape tomatoes, cucumbers, mushrooms, watermelon, bananas, diet Pepsi (I swear, I am going to give it up eventually), PopChips (which I immediately divided up into individual serving bags…lesson learned from previous experiences with the PopChips), baked tortilla chips, dried pineapple (I use this in my homemade trail mix…mostly dried cereal with some dried fruit and maybe some nuts), black beans, Truvia, popcorn, skim milk, string cheese, Greek yogurt, Babybel cheese, natural peanut butter, whole wheat bagel thins, oj, fish and, as a reward for sticking with it, another book (I’m a voracious reader, always have been).  So a pretty good trip as far as buying healthy goes…spent more than my $50/week goal though…oh well, if I can feel this good, it’s worth a little extra expense, right?

I prepared my version of the summer salad that someone brought to me at work yesterday…tomatoes, cucumbers, onion, peppers, mushrooms and, of course, my Hendrickson’s sweet vinegar and olive oil dressing (I bet you guys think I get paid to mention that product, but I don’t.  I just seriously love it!).  Holy moly, this stuff is the best…and I’m sure it’ll be even better when I can get just picked tomatoes and cucumbers…yum!

Today, I ate 1680 calories, did 15 minutes on the exercise bike, walked for 20 minutes, did upper body strength training, 10 exercises, 2 sets of each, and about 10 minutes of stretching.  I also spent some time outside pulling weeds and watering plants…oh, we had just the nicest day here in Indiana…low humidity, temps in the lower 80s with a nice breeze…gorgeous!  I was so lucky to have today off work.

This is how I feel today…I sincerely hope you do too!!

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The long and winding road to fitness, day 6

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This is going to be a short one tonight.  I didn’t sleep well at all last night, worked today (feel like I accomplished absolutely nothing) and worked late.  On a positive note, I did work out this morning before work…exercise bike for 11 minutes, walked for 25 minutes and did core work, 5 exercises, 2 sets each.  There is also a less positive note for the day…I stopped at the grocery store on my way to work this morning (that’s a good thing, not a bad thing)…bought some spinach, blueberries, bananas, turkey breast, oj, bagel thins, lite Ranch dressing and some PopChips…the bad thing is I ended up eating the entire bag of PopChips over the course of the work day today.  Hmm…I guess I didn’t learn that lesson about measuring (or counting) out my servings…finished the day with a little over 1800 calories and too much sodium…

So, who else can share my crazy eating antics?  Have you ever sat down and eaten an entire bag of anything?  Kind of discouraging, isn’t it?  Oh well, tomorrow truly is another day!

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Kroger 6/7/11…not my best trip

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I stopped at Kroger last night after work.  See, I really do understand that that’s not the best time for me to go shopping if I’m planning to save money.  When I stop after work, I’m tired and half brain-dead, my trip isn’t planned as well as it could be, and I just want to go home.  So why do I do it?  Well, when I have just one day off, I don’t like to have to go out and be among people (because, well, because I’m around people all day, every day at work and I like a little time alone when I can get it).  Knowing all of that, I still made the decision to shop after work.  I guess that says something about what I value more…a day to myself over saving a few extra dollars.  And I’ve decided that’s okay once or twice a month.

So, having made that decision, my shopping trip was just so-so.  I spent $78 ($28 over my $50 goal), and managed to save $35.  When I think about it, I was always spending at least $100 a week at Kroger before couponing, so saving $35 is still pretty darn good.  I had a list, but didn’t really stick with it.  Bought a few extras…like a book…gotta get a Kindle…  I did score a few freebies on this trip…

Got the Cottonelle wipes and the Breakstone cottage cheese with coupons for free product.  I was able to get the Lean Pockets free with 2 B1G1 coupons.  I don’t eat a lot of the Lean Pockets, but they’re nice to have in the freezer for those mornings when nothing’s going right and I need something quick to take for lunch.

So…what do you think?  Are there times when you make the decision to spend a little extra in exchange for some free time?  Do you feel guilty when you know you didn’t do as good a job as you know you could have?  I guess these are all things we have to decide for ourselves, no real right or wrong..just what’s right for you today…happy shopping!!

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Shopping trips 5/15-21

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I have to admit, I didn’t do a lot of shopping this week.  There wasn’t much that I needed and the sales weren’t particularly appealing to me.  I did run in to PetSmart yesterday because I needed cat food and litter.  I had very few coupons (one for the Tasty Treasures Friskies canned food…my cats really, really like this food).  I ended up spending about $26 for two weeks worth of food and litter.  I swear, those cats don’t have a clue as to how good they actually have it!  I’m going to have to search to come up with a bunch of coupons for my next trip to PetSmart…..maybe they’ll have one of those $5 off your entire purchase coupons soon…keeping my fingers crossed on that one!

I didn’t go to CVS at all this week.  I really didn’t see anything in the ad that I needed and I was so tired after work each day that I just wanted to go home.  I’m pretty well stocked up on health and beauty supplies as well as cleaning supplies, so unless a great bargain presents itself, I’ll likely just skip the trip…well, unless I have expiring ECBs…I’m sure I can always come up with something to use them on…saw a couple of deals that I’m interested in for the ad that starts tomorrow, so I’ll just have to check out those ECBS.

I did drag myself to Kroger this morning.  I didn’t buy groceries at all last week, so I was in dire need of bread (I made waffles the other day so I’d have something to spread my peanut butter on before work for the latter part of the week), milk and produce.  I did buy one transaction of the frozen foods mega-deal (fish, veggies, veggie burgers, a free box of the Stouffers farmstyle meal for one, a free box of Magnum ice cream bars as well as another box that I had a $2 coupon for).  My freezer is fully stocked, so I won’t be doing that transaction again any time soon. 

I bought a lot of fresh produce…had intended to go to the farmers market, but was in quite a bit of pain this morning, so settled for getting everything at Kroger.  Mmm…fresh cherries, strawberries, blackberries…I love fresh fruit when you can find something that tastes good other than apples, oranges and bananas. 

I also bought another heirloom tomato plant and a Cubanelle pepper plant…hope to get both of those planted tomorrow.  This little Kroger store in my neighborhood has a lot of locally grown heirloom plants for sale.  It seems like they do a much better job with that than the other, larger stores in town.

I ended up spending $77 today, saving $54.  Not my best trip, but not too bad considering this was two weeks worth of groceries along with the plants, a book (I know, I know…I just couldn’t resist the new paperback by one of my favorite authors), and 2 packages of Angel Soft TP…oh, and the 4 6-packs of diet Pepsi.  One of these days I’m going to kick that habit for good, just not today.  But at least I got the shopping done for the next week or so, and bought a lot of healthy food to last me a while.  Now to figure out what to cook to take to work next week.  Oh well, I’ll worry about that tomorrow!

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Today’s Kroger shopping trip, 5/7

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My early morning shopping trip at Kroger turned out to be another good one.  I had my list, my coupons, my plan for the mega sale, and what to substitute if they were out of stock on my first choices.  I was fortunate to find everything on my list in stock, so didn’t have to change my plans.  It’s always nice when it works out that way.

I was able to take advantage of the mega sale savings (buy 10 of certain items, get $5 off) twice.  In doing so, I was able to purchase several items to donate to the Stamp Out Hunger food drive next Saturday.  I’m really excited that I already have 40 items to donate.  My goal is to donate 50 items, so I’m getting closer.

I was able to snag a few freebies today too.  Notice the 8 boxes of pasta that will go to the food drive.  I still need to buy some pasta sauce and/or some condensed soup for pasta dishes.  The Suave mousse was from a free facebook coupon.  I think I’m probably set on mousse for a while now.  The Boulder chips were also all free with coupons.  The raisin bran cereal wasn’t quite free, but it was only 24 cents which I thought was a pretty good deal.

I also bought an Amish paste tomato plant this morning.  They really had some nice looking plants, but I was able to exercise a little control and only bought the one plant.  I’ve already got several tomato and pepper plants growing that I started from seed.  My neighbor is giving me a few as well, so I can probably get by with what I have…well, unless I come across something that sounds too interesting to resist.

I ended up spending $58, $8 over my budget.  Still not too bad considering I ended up buying powdered milk at right around $10.  I use it in my cooking and sometimes in my tea or coffee.  I imagine I won’t have to buy it again for the rest of the year tho, so I’m okay with that.  My savings ended up being exactly 50%…not bad, not bad at all.  It sure beats the $100-$120 a week that I was spending!

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