Sunday we had Christmas with my sister and her family at my Mom’s house.  I always look forward to seeing my niece and nephews.  Even though we only live an hour away from each other, it’s crazy how the days, weeks, and months go by without me seeing them. 

Of course, my Mom was just happy to have her favorite child with her!

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Oh wait, her second favorite daughter was there too!

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Her tree is so cute – we both went with pre-lit trees a long time ago and have never looked back.

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We had a great time catching up and wouldn’t you know it, I didn’t take a single picture of my niece or nephews!  WTF?!  We had gifts to open not only from each other, but my Aunt and brother sent their gifts to my Mom’s house since we’d all be there.  My niece Rachel asked what I wanted for Christmas and I told her that all I wanted was her love and a sign that said I was her favorite Aunt!

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My Mom had Rachel’s picture on the fridge, and I sent this layout to her thanking her for her gift!  Until I looked up and saw that my twin sister opened the same gift!

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So not fair!  But then Rachel texted me that she’s going to make me a one of a kind t-shirt next year.

Now I think this is from my Aunt – my niece Claire was playing Santa and some of the gifts came out of the bags or boxes they were in – I’ll have to figure it out, but I fucking love it.

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That literally made me laugh out loud seeing that picture again!  We had a lovely dinner.  Hannah and I tweaked our recipes so that my nephew Mark could partake – he’s a vegetarian.  We made sure not to use chicken broth, or bacon.  Turns out all he ate was the two boca burgers he brought with him!

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We brought the dogs with and they behaved amazingly well.  We were all a bit worried that they would get worked up with all the new people, but they did amazing.  And for their first time at my Mom’s house, Rummy especially made herself comfy on my Mom’s couch!  We had a lovely time, we laughed a lot like we normally do when we are together and it was the perfect ending to a holiday week.

Speaking of the dogs, Hannah had yesterday afternoon off and was experimenting with her camera she got for Christmas.  I just want to make each and everyone my screen saver!

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So I decided yesterday I would get back to tracking food.  I actually didn’t do too bad over the holiday week, but let’s be honest, since I didn’t track anything, it was all up for grabs.  A cookie here, some Chex mix there.  You know the drill.   I switched to myfitnesspal to track my food because it syncs with a new scale I bought – I’ll talk more about that on another post. 

Breakfast:  corn tortilla, 1/4 cup refried beans, with scrambled eggs, cheese, shredded spinach and radish and hot sauce with tangerine:

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Lunch was a steak chopped salad.  I cooked the steak at home before work for 2 minutes a side then pulled it off the heat and let it rest while I finished getting ready for work.  Put it in a container and when it was time to put my lunch together, I ended up heating it in the container for 1 minute – perfect medium rare/rare!

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Hannah and I decided to use what food we had in the pantry/fridge/freezer for our meal plan this week.  A couple weeks back I bought a huge pork shoulder and decided to cook it in the crock pot to have the meat for tacos, etc.  Hannah told me she was going to make dinner last night – Posole!  I had plans to go to the gym after work, but our weather was horrible yesterday.  Rain, turned to sleet, which pelted your face and stung when you walked to your car.  We had a new attorney start yesterday.  I left a bit before 5 to make a bank deposit for work, and the plows finally made it to our parking lot, only to plow into the back of the new attorneys car, and she couldn’t drive it home.  And the car is less than six months old!  Luckily the plow driver had the decency to ring our doorbell and let them know what happened.

It was a slow drive home, but it only took me about 15 minutes longer than normal.  I walked in close to 6 to see Hannah looking over her recipe.  I checked it out and the first thing we noticed was that the recipe she picked out was a crock pot recipe – doh!  But since the pork was already cooked, we decided to wing it and make it a quick 30 minute meal.

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Jacob’s Mom ended up sleeping over last night because she’s got a long commute and our house is half way to her house.  She hates driving in shitty weather as much as I do!  We each had a bowl, Jacob had seconds and there is enough for my lunch today – so this made six generous servings.  My guess is that with all the extras, each bowl is about 300 calories – not bad!   It was nice cooking in the kitchen with Hannah too – each of us saying “what if we do this?!”  She was a bit skeptical about the tortilla chips, but said it turned out to be a great idea.

So with just my lunch time workout which was mostly strength and only a mile walk, I came close to my 10k goal.

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Yeah, I am going to have to change the weight on that – but that’s for another post Open-mouthed smile

Time to get this show on the road, but it’s like a Thursday instead of a Tuesday – woop!  Stay warm and safe and make it a great day!