Hrm.

I've been eating tomatoes like they are going out of style.

I had a hospital stay this week. More on that later, maybe....

Favorite Breakfast

As you could have guessed, I have started to lose weight. I started working nights at the hospital and started to gain a few more pounds. Not only am I losing my "night shift weight," (I have almost lost those pounds completely!) I am going to lose what I need to lose to be awesomely healthy.

Anyway, I think I am going to start to blog about my weight loss journey and see where is gets me.

Goal:  -42 lbs (yeah. 42!!!! wow. i know.)
Where I'm at now:    -7.6 lbs.

So. I shall tell you about my 2 favorite breakfasts.
1) Oatmeal+berries+3/4 Truvia packet, along side 1 egg+ 1 egg white
2) Whole wheat toast (or whole wheat waffle) + reduced fat peanut butter + banana + honey,
     all stacked together like this:

and that's what I'm talking about.

PIZZA!

I am dedicating this post to pizza. I admit pizza is fabulously delicious in practically all its forms. (I find that the crazy-person's grease-lovers pizza is not so nice!) Pizza an excellent food. It deserves its own blog post. You can get a good dose of carbs, veggies, fruit (tomatoes! duh!), and protein all in one punch. These nutrients can be drowned in a lot of fat (especially the saturated kind!!) and unneeded calories. So as much as I LOVE my homemade pizza dough-homemade pizza sauce creations doused with all sorts of cheese and all other goodness, I wanted to provide you (and myself) with easy, healthy, yummy alternatives for when you don't want to go all-out on your calorie and saturated fat intake.

So. I have two favorite low cal pizza recipes so far, and this is one of them:

Friends, meet the ultra-healthy, ultra low-calorie delicious pizza knock-off. Its a variation of an English Muffin Mini-Pizza, except it kicks all the other ones in the butt.
Here is your ingredient/calorie/directions breakdown:

• 4 sprays canola oil: 8 cals
• 100 Calorie English Muffin: 100 cals. duh.
• 2 big ol' tomato slices: 8 cals
• Italian-type seasonings: garlic powder, basil, oregano black pepper: zero cals
• low-fat cheddar cheese
• low-fat mozzarella cheese
• I only used 1/8 cup of shredded cheese combined: 17 cals
• onion slice: 3 cals
• green pepper slice: 3 cals
• 3 slices turkey pepperoni, chopped into tiny bits: 12 cals

Spray the front and back of each muffin half with canola oil cooking spray. Then pile your tomatoes, seasonings, cheese, veggies, and pepperoni. Cook in a 500 degree oven for 6 minutes. I like to give any mini pizzas a 30 second blast of BROIL tacked on to the end of the cooking time. Enjoy!

The nutritive qualities this creation possesses, according to dailyburn.com, where I entered in all the ingredients appropriately:

151 calories. 2.7 grams of fat. 28.2 grams of carbohydrates. 9 grams of protein. 5.2 grams of fiber. 100% yummy.

**add 1 tablespoon of Ragu pizza sauce (not that it needs it, really!) to each half and get:

     176 calories. 3.2 grams of fat. 30.5 grams of carbohydrates 9.5 grams protein. 5.7 grams of fiber.

Nigh Shift Noshing

"I will not steal my coworkers's reese pieces," is the mantra I recite in my head as she goes down to smoke, leaving a rather large, multiple-serving reese pieces bag merely a snatch away.


"Lynn will forget her honey bun exists if i... just..." ::SLAM!!:: bun down the gullet. Chewing may or may not have been involved.... I couldn't possibly remember; it all happened so quickly.

delicous or detestable?

        Who am I? I am the night shift nurse attempting to defy everything my body is telling me to do. By day, I abhor prepackaged "baked goods" and candy bars and anything like unto it. By night, I might swipe the donut as you raise it to your awaiting jaws. Nevermind the raging and/or bottoming-out grehlin and leptin hormones begging my body to consume such filth!
        I have resolved to defy the odds, spurn my inner desires, and meet eyeball-to-eyeball with the brute called night-shift nourishment. Thereby, my body will not amount to epic proportions as my career does. I question the non-existence of snack time! I propose that consuming more than a day's worth of calories during one break is less than optimal! I admonish those who believe caffeine and real food are created equal!
Maybe I'll start the healthiest, most-popular night shift fad lifestyle change my hospital has ever seen!

  .....or maybe I'll continue to do what I am about to do:
                              sneak off to eat a banana by myself.

~cooking~

Little do you know, but I like to cook/bake, and this is why:

1) I'm naturally good at it, if I do say so myself. (P.S. I find that I am minimally talented at a lots and lots of things, as opposed to being ultra-great at any one particular thing. So yeah.)

2) I like making stuff in general, so why wouldn't I like making some food now and again?

3) I like compiling the recipes of the things I make and say how I adapt them.

So yeah-- I have a cookbook that I am writing/adapting. I've been working on it on and off for a year, and I am considering starting a blog with it, but I know you guys want pics of the ultra awesome things I make, which would mean that I need to acquire a camera first. 

Eventually, I will need a name for this book/blog, so please start brainstorming and add your comments.

Note: Pioneer Woman (that title=bleck.) is already taken, along with For The Love of Cooking, Bitten, This Week for Dinner, and Steamy Kitchen.

Shoes, Ships, Sealing Wax, Cabbages, and Kings

I love my XBox Kinect, but it creeps me out because it looks for me when I turn it on.

I have new ideas for my life EVERY day, but for some reason I am slow at making decisions right now, so I don't know what I want!!  (main topic of interest: grad school-- where and in what? i dunno!) All of them are pretty exciting ideas.

I bought a new book to read today.

I have ordered some transcripts to be sent out and began a graduate school application today.

I'm about to sign up for the GRE. Maybe the GMAT too.

THIS SUMMER WILL BE EPIC. 
         texas road trip, beach trip, etc.


Maybe I will continue the "12 New Things" blogging this year. I have some catching up to do.

A Shout Out to Carl and Mrs. V.

I don't feel I'm particularly unique or smart or all too talented but I'm not too dumb, I'm good at some things, and you didn't pass 20 of me on the way to work this morning. Furthermore, I DO have a combination of experiences that are definitely unique to me. This being the case, I feel I have some sort of perspective that I can lend to society (in one form or another) and not only does it have a voice-- it has undeniable value. Therefore, presenting what I have learned from my set of experiences is a worthwhile endeavor.


I have had the opportunity to volunteer concerning the tornado disaster in my area with three different organizations. I gave out tetanus shots with one organization, provided general medical assistance with another, and general laboring with another. After the tornado hit, I was anxious to use my semi newly-acquired nursing skills to help the victims. After all, I did not become a nurse to get a paycheck. I threw on my scrubs and stethoscope and got to it in Cordova, Alabama. Later, I donned scrubs once again to go to Shoals Creek, Alabama with a hospital crew. [I got hit in the head twice!! OK. One was my own fault.... darn fence wire!! I'll fight back!] This brings me to the third organization: Mormon Helping Hands.


I have participated in Mormon Helping Hands in Louisiana when Hurricane Katrina hit. This time the disaster was much closer to home and affected me much more directly. On Highway 22, where I have focused the majority of my relief efforts, 22 people died. Such detrimental losses have been experienced, BUT their hearts are not broken. I met Carl and Mrs. V who lost their home and friends, but somehow survived the storm in a rickety old storage unit as they watched their trailer be wrung out like a rag and dumped upside down before their very eyes. How grateful am I that I met Carl and Mrs. V! I have learned so much from their compassion, attitudes, and their testimony. Their strength in the face of this horrific event is simply inspirational. When I met Carl and Mrs. V, they were sleeping with no roof over their heads on a mattress they salvaged by a fire in a place called "the backyard." (Its not the back of anything now.)  Providing service to them has been such a pleasure and such an overwhelmingly positive experience that I could not imagine a better way to spend my Saturdays. 


By providing aid, I have learned how to receive help when I need it. (In my mind I deem myself as "independent" and "not needing help... ever.") I have seen how to face any and every day with hope and gratitude and humility. Accepting help doesn't mean you're a weak human being. It doesn't mean you've failed, and it doesn't mean you're not good enough. It DOES mean you are human. It means you can let go of your pride and that part of yourself that promotes 100% independence 100% of the time. These concepts are what I have learned from volunteering with Mormon Helping Hands and I would trade 1 MILLION Six Flags trips for it. ;)




                                   .........you know how much I like Seis Banderas, don't you?