A couple weeks ago I posted about how I was trying to save money and get some generic items and cheaper brands of kids items. 

The first thing I bought different was baby formula.  I was buying the Enfamil brand and at Sam’s Club I was paying $32 for a 38 oz can of formula.  I decided to try the Sam’s Club brand, Member’s Mark, it was 52 oz for $19.  I found no difference, Isabel took the change well.  It has all the same ingredients so that is why I didn’t see a problem.  One can lasts 2 weeks so for a month of formula I spend $40 on 2 cans of Member’s Mark brand as opposed to having to buy 3 cans of Enfamil for around $100, that is a huge monthly savings…..$60 a month. 

The next change I made was on diapers.  I was buying Huggies brand diapers and I loved them but I was spending $39 a month for a box of diapers at Sam’s.  So I tried the Member’s Mark brand for $32 a box.  Now it only saved me $7 a month but it was worth trying.  For Isabel the diapers work pretty good, I can actually get a box and it will last 2 or so months.  However, for Lil Tony, the Member’s Mark brand sucks.  Maybe it’s because he drinks like a fish and pee’s A LOT and he has good bowels, LOL, but for like a week straight I had to give him baths because when his diaper was full with pee and poop it would leak all over him.  It was nasty, it got on my carpet and if it happened at nap it would get all over his crib. 

I will go back to buying the Huggies brand for Lil Tony and until something changes I will buy the Member’s Mark brand for Isabel. 

Another change I tried was on baby cereal.  I was buying the Gerber brand and was spending pocket change more for that brand over the Beechnut brand.  I will take any savings I can get.  Well I like the packaging of the Beechnut brand, it has like a pour spout but has a finer texture (kinda like flour)and when I would mix it in a bottle  it would clump up and plug the nipple which would frustrate Isabel.  So I recently went back to the Gerber brand.  Since it is only about $0.50 more it is not a big deal. 

Last change I made was wipes.  I was using Huggies brand and changed to generic brands, whether it be Publix brand or Sam’s Club brand, I like all of them.  I will continue to buy generics just because it will save me more money on a monthly basis.  Not to mention with the wipes, I signed up for a baby club at Publix and they sent me a lot of coupons for baby products, mostly Publix brand.  I think the wipes coupon was buy1get1 free.  So for $2.79 I get 2 packages of wipes.  That’s pretty good. 

I was watching Biggest Loser last night and they were showing how to make your Thanksgiving dinner a little healthier and since I am all about low fat/calorie recipes I logged on to the website to check it out.  I went to the Biggest Loser website and checked out Rocco’s recipe’s. 

I LOVE Apple Pie but after seeing how much fat and calories was in a serving, I think I love it a little less.  LOL!  A slice of Apple Pie has 500 calories and 24 grams of fat.  That equals about 2 meals for me and I would eat that just for dessert. 

So I would like to share this recipe,  I am going to try it for my dessert tomorrow.  I am already making a homemade Pecan Pie for Tony, I am not sure I like that kind of pie.  I know it will also be a lot of calories and fat. 

So here is the recipe:

Apples:
10 Granny Smith Apples
2 pints fresh Raspberries
1 tbls Brown Sugar
1/4 tsp Vanilla Extract
1/4 tsp Cinnamon
4 oz Apple Juice
1/2 a Lemon, Juiced

Crumble Topping:
3 cups Low Fat Granola
2 tbls Canola Oil
1/2 cup Whipped Egg White

Pam
Mint
Fat Free Greek yogurt

DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly coat an 11 inch baking dish with cooking oil spray. Set aside.
2. In a nonstick sauté pan, cook apples and spices in apple juice until tender add raspberries and sauté for 2 minutes.
3. Place cooked seasoned apples/raspberry mixture in prepared baking dish.
4. In a medium mixing bowl, combine crumble ingredients.
5. Put crumble on top of apples.
6. Place in preheated oven for 15 minutes or until golden brown and bubbly. Garnish with a dollop of Greek yogurt and mint sprig.
 
Some of the things I will leave out like the yogurt and mint sprig because, well, I don’t like yogurt and mint sprig is just a garnish. 
I will let all of you know how it tastes. 

I was watching the news this afternoon and saw that a gas station in Hollywood, FL got robbed last night and the clerk was shot and killed. 

When I watched more of the newscast it said it was 3 guys and when I saw the camera shots the men had masks on like when Tony’s restaurant got robbed.  Now Hollywood is about thirty minutes from Tamarac (town where the restaurant is) but it was the next night and a completely different town. 

The clerk was newly married and going to go to Houston to be with his wife for the holiday.  My thoughts are with his family.  That could have been someone I knew or even closer to home, Tony.  I hope those men are caught and spend the rest of their life in jail. 

As some of you may know I have been eating healthier and trying to lose weight.  It took me a couple weeks to figure out my body and what it needs to lose weight and be healthy.  I work out 5 days a week for an hour and burn at least 1000 calories.  When I do that I have decided I need to eat a total of 2700 calories a day.  So that way my net calories after exercise is 1700 and I don’t send my body into starvation mode.  I have consistently lost 2 pounds a week. 

Well yesterday I got a little caught up in “life” just things going on around the house and before I knew it was 7pm, I hadn’t made dinner and I hadn’t eaten my afternoon snack.  I have been trying to eat 6 small meals a day.  I use a website to help me count calories.  It is called My Food Diary.  It has a huge database of food items and all the nutritional facts.  I can track my calories and exercise for each day and it keeps me in line.  It has helped me lose 15 pounds in the last 8 weeks and gain an incredible amount of muscle.  It does cost $9 a month but for me it has been worth it. 

Ok back on my story, so last night since it got late I ended up eating a healthy choice meal, which wasn’t very filling, at then went to work out.  At that point in the evening I had only eaten 1800 calories.  For the last couple weeks I have been working out at a higher intensity so I can burn more calories in the same amount of time.  I was working out on the elliptical on level 15 and I started to get light headed and my vision was blurry.  I immediately turned down the intensity and did the rest of my work out at a lower intensity. 

I went home and I was really hungry so I ate a healthy bag of popcorn.   Then later I ate my usual Smart Ones dessert and I felt ok. 

I went to bed at 1:30am and at 4am Isabel started to make some noise like she was going to want to eat so I got up to make a bottle.  My eyes felt like they were glued shut (they didn’t want to open), I had a headache and I felt light headed.  I thought maybe I was just tired so when I got back to my bedroom Isabel had fallen back asleep so I climbed in bed and passed out.  About an hour later she was finally ready to eat, when I got out of bed I felt the same way.  Glued eyes, headache and light headed.  I changed Isabel’s diaper and laid her in bed with me and I fell asleep while feeding her.  I woke up when she finished, put her back in bed and I passed back out.  When I tried to get up at 8:30am I again felt the same way, it took everything in me to roll out of bed.  I just don’t feel right.  It is 10:45 and just getting around to eating breakfast.  Hopefully it will make me feel better.  I am not sure if the way I feel today had anything to do with not eating enough yesterday.  I think that was the first time I did that, maybe my body didn’t know how to handle it.  

When the kids take their nap today I will most certainly be taking a nap.  Maybe I am just over exhausted.  I just don’t know.  What I do know is I don’t like feeling this way.  I never thought I would hear myself say ”you didn’t eat ENOUGH”.  Usually it’s, “damn you ate way too much today.”  LOL! 

……but I miss my family.  I haven’t been home in almost 6 yrs.  Christmas was the one time a year that everyone tried to get together.  I haven’t been able to go home in previous years because I was a single mom and I just couldn’t afford it, now it’s because Tony doesn’t get holidays off and I won’t leave him. 

Well last night I was decorating the house with Christmas stuff and I decided to put on some Christmas music.  It was great.  I still haven’t put up the tree, I am a little hesitant because Lil Tony will be getting in to everything.  We actually found a gate in the garbage that looked brand new (in the store that style gate costs $60+) so we took it.  It is a pretty long gate, like 12 feet.  I think I will put it up around the tree so he can’t touch it.  I can’t wait for Christmas morning so the kids can open their gifts and so we can all have a homemade breakfast together.  I will probably make pancakes.  YUMMY!!! 

I just wish we could spend time with my family too.

As the Thanksgiving holiday approaches, I am excited to make a big dinner for my family.  Tony will be able to get off early that day so we can spend some family time together. 

However, I am a little worried because I know I will be making a lot of good food.  I have been doing really well losing weight and eating healthy.  I will be making the traditional items, green bean casserole, stuffing, sweet potatoes and mashed potatoes, turkey (of course), rolls, cranberry sauce and a homemade pecan pie. 

In order to eat and not feel guilty I will be eating my usual oatmeal breakfast with coffee and then eat fruits and veggies for my other meals that day and save all my calories for dinner.  I think that will work good for me. 

On an unrelated note, oatmeal…….I never liked oatmeal, I didn’t like the texture.  However I was told and read many places how good oatmeal was for you so one day I decided to give it a try again ( last time I tried it I was a kid) and I absolutely love it.  EVERY MORNING I have a bowl of oatmeal. 

So anyways, I hope everyone enjoys their holiday!

Today is supposed to be Tony’s one day off this week.  Back stepping a few, about a month or so ago he promoted a woman to be an associate manager (she had to ask her husband first if it was ok).  Well she found out this morning that the restaurant was robbed last night and her husband told her she had to quit. 

So the manager that worked last night asked to have today off so he could recuperate from the drama last night….understandable, but then that left one manager.  So now Tony is going to have to go in tonight to close.  I really hope those a**holes don’t come back. 

They have 2 other restaurants down here in South Florida and he called the GM’s at those locations and asked for help, maybe one of their managers could come work at his restaurant for the day(they only have to work 5 day work weeks and since Tony only has 3 managers they work 5 1/2 day work weeks…usually 12-14 hr days) and pretty much those GM’s said “sorry for your luck”. 

We didn’t sign up for this crap coming back, the ex-district manager told him he was coming in to a properly running restaurant.  Boy was he wrong.  I just feel bad, he works so much and doesn’t get to spend much time with the family.  His restaurant NEVER closes…..He will be working Thanksgiving and Christmas.  We need to win the lotto so he can quit his job!!!!!!!!!!!