Uh oh! New hobby!

So I have taken a 'break' from my new hobby... Crochet! 

My colleague at work crocheted hats for her babies months ago and I keep meaning to go to hobby craft and get some wool and some needles. I finally had 'an excuse' to got there (all will be revealed next week) and so I grabbed some crochet essentials. 

I did pop next door and met these cute little friends. The one at the front looked evil! 

I started it last night (I'm like a big kid) and I have to start there and then! My Dad always used to get really annoyed with that - sorry Daddy! This was my first attempt:

And then this is tonight's attempt:

My plan is to make lots of squares to make a blanket for our spare room. I got colours to match the colour theme of brown, cream and pink. May the fun begin!

Tea tonight was scummy. And I decided to eat it off a side plate to help me feel more full. - it worked!

Still eating on some questions people.....

Love 

Mrs O xxx

I'm back!

So where have I been or what have I been so busy with that has stopped me blogging I hear you say?...

To be honest, I've just been busy with 'life'. I know, i know, awful excuse but i have been up to quite a bit. However, after spending some time on youtube At the weekend and getting some encouragement and food for thought I decided to get back to writing on here again.

So, to keep it easier and more appealing to the eyes I thought I would picture it all for you a little bit with a mini catch up on what I have been up to. 

Firstly, its all been a bit baby-fied as my friend has given birth to two gorgeous little girls AND I've become an Aunty again and so I now have a niece! So as you can see I have been wrapping lots of lovely girly baby pressies :)

For my niece I made an extra special pressie - I made her a playmat. I had been slowly making it for ages and when I was finally able to post a picture of it on Facebook I couldn't hold my excitement!

As well as gaining lots of time at the gym, my hubby also gained some funny sun burn marks! His latest is on his legs where he had them crossed with sock marks!

I've gone blonde!

I got seriously conned by this company. It wasn't really the company but more the sales woman. The items all went back the next day!

We have kept up the healthy eating! :)

I sang on duty at the Albert hall with the Salvation Army and I was glad to walk in and see a massed youth band practice. 

I've been spoilt by my hubby and one of the things I have received is this lovely box of macaroons from Fortnum and Mason (where the queen shops). Yummmmmmmmm!

I got greeted one night when returning from work to this MASSIVE big spider by the front door

Work has been going well. I've been receiving some lovely comments from patients and I have been sorting out and re-organising some of my roles which has all been fun. 

When we went to meet our new niece, we spent some quality time with our nephew making this work of art! 

Ivebeen trying new baking recipes! Some of the things I've tried are these low calorie banana muffins and some red velvet cake. 

Jeremy celebrated his 25th birthday. Jeremy and his best friend have very close birthdays and they have had many joint parties since they have been little so his partner and i decided to organise a big surprise party for them. It kept a secret and it all went to plan. Phew!

I've been to Norway with the International StaffSongsters we sang in some amazing places and we saw some amazing views. 

Whilst there we tried moose or reindeer. We're not too quite sure on what it was!

We spent the other Friday with friends and Jeremy's mum and dad at Henley and we had a lovely sunny day. Great fun and great food. 

And finally we, along like many other Britts, have spent some fun times in the sun this last week and a bit. This is us on the way to our church last Sunday. 

I now leave to you a new option or idea of what to hold on my blog. As well as healthy food recipes etc i was thinking of opening it up to you all. Maybe ask me questions you want to ask me (sensible or funny, but don't be stupid!) or ask to see tutorials or what is in my make up bag etc. the usual stuff that bloggers get asked and post up about. 

Have fun and hope you've enjoyed this 'easy' catch up. 

Mrs O x

Spiiiiiiining

OH MY WORD!!!

Well although today is Tuesday, I am still suffering....

Jeremy decided to join up with the gym whilst I was away at the weekend and I have to be very proud of him as so far he has been up every morning at 5:45 and has gone to the gym to go swimming.

He decided to take me along with him on Monday night so I could see what the gym was like. We decided to do a spinning class - I do regret saying yes now! It didn't hurt at all, although I sweated lots, but the pain I did get wasn't to do with the exercise, but from the seat! OH MY WORD DOES MY BUM HURT STILL 2 DAYS AFTER!!! We also didn't realise that we had actually walked into an hours class. The instructor was brilliant, she came up to me as she didn't recognise me and helped me set the bike up and everything and also checked on me several times throughout the session.

I was very impressed with the gym. I am currently a member of my local swimming pool but due to all the gynae stuff that I am having done, I haven't been able to go along and if I was able to go the pool wouldn't be free or open. They do alot of classes and lessons at that pool. However, if I was to join the gym and I couldn't go swimming, I could always go to the gym instead. The pool seems to be open earlier than the local pool and doesn't seem to be as busy either.

Jeremy and I promised eachother that if I did join the gym then we would go together and work out together at least 3 times a week.

However, thanks to sweating myself out of all the water in my body I think that has helped me come out in this lovely cold / flu thing which is now making me sweat more and have under-age hot flushes!!!!

I'm looking forward to my lovely chicken tikha salad for lunch again - I had it yesterday but forgot to take a photo and it hit the spot to help fill me up!!

... Another catch up! ...

Sorry for the delay in writing this post. Just so you know, I'm currently sat here at the computer with a box of tissues within a hands reach - I've caught the lurgy from a fellow colleague! Thank hun! I thought I had prevented it all week with the amount of alcohol wipes and alcohol gel that I used!! Oh well... my eyes will just bulge out any minute and my head will explode!! I feel more sorry for my patients as I look a state!!! SOOO not professional.

Anyway, I have had an up and down week with my cooking ... all will be explained

On Thursday I made the lovely mince and bean pie ( http://www.goodtoknow.co.uk/recipes/534023/mince-bean-and-mash-pie ) It was easy to make, just took a lot of time. However, it was scrummy and only 352 calories per portion. This recipe makes 6 and so it lasted us for both Thursday and Friday. On the Thursday I gave Jeremy 2 portions and on the Friday we both had slightly bigger portions - in effect we had 1 1/2 portions each. I had plenty of calories left over for the day luckily so I was able to.

 

All this week I have had for my dessert these AMAZING little finds......

Milky bar icelollys!! They are only 98 Calories per bar and they are sweet enough to keep me going and give me some sugar!!! They were expensive but so worth it!

Sadly, Saturday is where it all went down hill.....

As you know, I am part of the Salvation Army and within that I am part of their Elite choir called 'The International Staff Songsters'. We go around to different churches across the United Kingdom one weekend every month and unfortunately this is where being on a healthy diet is hard to do! You are given gorgeous unhealthy food constantly!!

For our 'welcome meal' we were given a three course dinner. I started off healthy and went for the fruit rather than the pate and mini toast and then I went for the pulled pork and rice for the main. However, the desserts ....... my weakest point EVER in the world.... And look what they gave us.....

SOOOO not healthy and I shouldn't have eaten it but the Devil persuaded me to have it!

I did however, go for the more healthier option and instead of having pizza I went for the packed tea option as I also needed to do some cutting out of little bookmarks that I had made for my prayer meeting and in my packed tea was this yummy little cup cake - it didn't taste like a normal cup cake either, it was more like a cream cheese topping.

A quick catch up

Hi all

Sorry I have not been able to catch up on these week's food diary, so this is going to have short but sweet food diary days.

Monday

Tonight I experimented with a recipe that I found online while sorting out my food plan last week. It was an easy recipe to follow but, again, it was an American website. Luckily my Mum bought me for christmas some little measuring cups which are all in American measurements of 1/2 cup etc.

This was kind of a fake pizza, but when it was hot it tasted like an omelette / hot quiche.  It was full of cheese so I was suprised that it was only 321 Calories! I didn't feel the need to use all the ingredients they used and I didn't use all the cheese that they suggested.

You can find the recipe here: http://www.fatsecret.com/recipes/ham-and-pepperoni-pizza/Default.aspx

This is what it looked like just when I put the tomato puree on:

Before and after I put the final stage in the oven.  As you can see it easily did 6 portions

It looked a bit 'sloshy' when I served it up, so it doesn't look appealing, but it was lovely! Jeremy whooooooshed it down AND complimented me on it - that takes a lot to do!

It was soo yummy and as it served 6 I managed to split it up and have it for lunch over Tuesday and Wednesday. I even gave some to a collegue who said it was yummy!!  Each time I just served it with salad as that was all it needed.

I do have to admit though that I did slip and have a few ferro rochers!! :( But I have SUCH a sweet tooth!! Need to find something to replace that bad habit!!

Tuesday

As today I had last night's left overs for lunch and as I had come in from work late, I just wanted something light and easy on my tummy to have for tea. So Jeremy grilled some chicken breast stripps and made a simple creamy sauce and I served it with some salad leaves and salad-y bits. Scrummy! And I worked it out to be about 270 calories.

Again, I had some naughty ferro rochers at home after dinner!

Wednesday

Well, with all the madness of this week so far at work (which I wont go into, but it has been worse than it normally is) and not being able to see Jeremy much this week today went to pots!! I didn't even get to see him at all - apart from a quick hello when I walked in the door, went to the kitchen to make my lunch and then a night see you in the morning as I'm going to bed as i've got to be up early - which I think didn't allow me to grab decent food. Instead I grabbed a bar of chocolate! I know now for next wednesday that I need to make something on the Tuesday for me to take and eat on the way to my choir practice.

Any one got any ideas on any easy to grab and eat sweet snack that wont kill the calories?!.....

Thursday - TODAY!!

Tonight I have plans to make a yummy Mince pie, which apparently is only 352 Calories ... I shall let you know how I get on! But I thought I would just leave you with a picture of my yummy lunch!

My Fitness Pal

Hi All

Just a few things for you to keep in mind:

• You can add me on My Fitness Pal! My username is Mrsowen2012
• If you want me to try out any recipes feel free to comment and I will try them out as best as I can and I can write up a little blogg about it too if you wish?
• If you are on MFP, I have just started a new topic up, comment and follow it!
  It's called: UK Girl starting out... Blogg in symmetry

Have a good evening and I shall write back tomorrow....

Mrs Owen x

Sunday - A day of rest?!

Sundays for us are usually pretty busy days as both Jeremy and I belong to The Salvation Army. So our Sunday mornings are always pretty packed up. So I do my usual trick of having my cereal (which I enjoyed a nice bowl of Curiously Cinnamon) whilst I get myself ready.

This Sunday we had our adult choir practise (known in The Salvation Army 'world' as Songsters) after our morning worship meeting so we didn't get home until about 2:45pm. On our way home I need to stop to get some petrol so I grabbed a bag of Special K Crisp things. For the amount of calories that were in the bag I was surprised by the little amount of food in the bag. I don't think I will be getting them again - although they were yummy - as I know that a bag of Skips has 76 Calories and these had 95 Calories in them! However, thanks to having MFP (My Fitness Pal) on my phone I was able to scan in the barcode and it came up automatically with what it was and all it's details etc.

I did forget to mention that whilst I was at the choir practise, my husband along with some other men, decided to go to Krispy Creme...... You can obviously see how annoyed I was with that as he decided that instead of buying a few doughnuts for them it would just be cheaper to buy a whole box. So I decided to help my waist line (to save me from eating them) that I would give them away to people at our church!! Jeremy didn't seem too fussed! Although I wasn't saved too much as you will read....

So as soon as we got in we decided to put our roast straight in the oven. We had lamb which we knew would take at least 3 hours to cook. Jeremy then put it all in the oven and put the potatoes in too and then headed out to watch the football - there was some big thing going on about Man U? (!!)

However, in the mean time, I was getting rather peckish.... so I decided that I could treat myself to half of one of the plain doughnuts which came to 80 Calories.

He came back just in time and I quickly put some veg on and before we knew it, it was all ready. We were sooo full afterwards we definitely just had to sit and watch TV! We ended up watching a programme about Guinea Pigs (A film called G-Force) so I decided to get one of our Guinea Pigs out and watch it with them - and clip his nails! However, I wasn't able to do his front paws as he seems to have been digging around in his own poo! So if any of you know how to sort or help me with that, please give me some hints or tips!!

Sorry, but I don't have any photos of food today, but I did have a mini drama last night with Jeremy and his toe! It's very swollen and has been put on two courses of antibiotics now from the GP. And then last night I looked at it and the nail is now coming off. I didn't know what to do so thanks to the great world of Facebook I managed to put the question out there. I took the advice and wrapped it up. I can deal with things like this at work but why couldn't I last night? Probably because I suddenly gained a fear of finding his nail in the bed sheets somewhere! Ughhh!!

But here's a picture of his lovely bandaged up toe!

I am sooo looking forward to Monday night's food - homemade pizza with that Salami that I have been hiding from Jeremy!!