Hair cut day! Bye-Bye, Shaggy!

Saturday, April 12, 2014

I got up this morning with a spring in my step, because I knew that I was going to finally get my hair cut today - I am so tired of this shaggy stuff sticking every which way in the mornings, and having to go wet it down to make it look halfway decent.  Hey, Spring has sprung and I need to get me ready for Easter, too, right?  I can't afford new clothes, but I can maintain my 'new' look, by God.  I certainly never dreamed that short hair would be this much work, though.  That part kinda takes me by surprise.

I did my weigh-in first thing after getting up.  I am getting very close to breaking the losing-fifty-pounds mark, and I am anxious to see if I have done it.  But, alas, no.  I have gained a pound and a half.  I'm not sure how - I did get some exercise in during this past week, but that's how it goes, isn't it?  I had also eaten some very nice suppers, so I guess that made the difference.  Phooey.  I guess Ron and I made a good decision to start having the salads now.  I want to break that mark SO bad.  But, I've got to wait one more week.  And then I'm sure Easter is gonna blow it out of the water....sigh.

Ron was outside mowing as I was doing my weigh-in on the Wii, and when I was done, I left to go to my friend Bert's.  She is the one who is going to cut my hair, and I need to get going.  I wave to him - the silly man is mowing the front yard already!
After my friend Bert got done cutting my hair, I went on down to WalMart and picked up the stuff I had forgotten yesterday.  You know there's a reason to write grocery lists and take them with you - never rely on your memory, not when you get to be such-and-such an age, anyway, and, once again, that fact was brought home to me.  I picked those few items up and got back home because Josh and his family are coming up and I had stuff to do before they got there - like clean off the kitchen table, get all the vegetables ready for our salad, and peel the 10 pound bag of potatoes for the casserole - and a short amount of time to do it all in.  Of course, I didn't get it all done, but then again, I didn't expect to.

Let me tell you about this casserole I was making for our supper tonight.  I had two bags - 3 pounds each - of chicken breasts, and a package of bacon, which I cut into thirds and fried up.  I then seared the chicken breasts in the bacon grease, and I kept the bacon warm on a plate, and the chicken warm in the skillet.  Instead of making one huge pan (9x13), I made it in two smaller pans (probably 8x12s), because one pan wouldn't have been big enough.  If we ate like normal people, the one pan would have been fine, but we are hogs, so I make plenty.  Anyway - the food - I peeled the potatoes (russets, if anyone cares), then sliced them.  I chopped up an onion to go in with them, too (I remembered, I remembered!).  I put the potatoes and onions in the bottom of the pan(s) and baked them in a 350 oven for 20 minutes, then I put the chicken breasts on top of the potatoes and cooked them for half an hour (or so - I forgot to set the timer).  We ate our salads as this was cooking.

They like to eat at 6, so that's when I called them in to eat the salads.  By the time they washed up, got drinks and got to the table and all, and we ate our salads, it was after 6:30, so the chicken breasts had cooked at least a half hour.  At this point, I put cheese on top of the chicken.  It should have been cheddar cheese, but I ran out and had to use my Johnny Marzetti cheese to finish up, then topped it with the bacon, then back into the oven for ten more minutes to melt the cheese.  That's it, it's that easy.  A little time-consuming, but easy, nonetheless.

We ate, and ate.  And ate some more.  There were only three chicken breasts left when everyone was full.  Some of the potatoes weren't quite done, but I don't slice them all evenly, so that wasn't a big surprise.  Some of them were really fat slices!  Oh, it was so good!  I'm sure I'll be making that dish again.

After we ate and got the table cleaned off again, we played the game "Loaded Questions" and we let Corgan play with us.  He did a good job, and in the end, Chelle won.  They were getting ready to leave when we realized that we hadn't discussed the very thing they had made the trip up here today to discuss.  So, they all trooped back in the house and got down to business.  We soon got that cleared up and they finally hit the road.

It's been a long day, but so very worthwhile, even though I was sure I blew my diet all to hell.  But when I put all the bits and pieces of the casserole in to MFP - my best guesses, anyway - I was still over 600 calories short for the day.  It was mostly because I hadn't eaten any lunch, but still....I can live with that.  I didn't even put in any exercise for the small trip to WalMart, either.  I had even had a small bowl of potatoes as a snack after they had all left, too, and had put that in, too.  I was very pleased that there was calories left, but am a little worried that so much of it (my meal) was carbs, and how is that going to affect my night?  I guess I'll find out, one way or the other.

Palm Sunday tomorrow.  We are watching The Passion of the Christ on TBN right now.  If you haven't seen this movie, it is a very good, very stirring version of events.  Breaks the heart, but also readies it for the Blessedness of Easter Sunday.