Weekly Update: April 20th - 26th — The Wine in the Pines

The Week

I have gotten fat recently. My scary weight is anything over 200lbs and when I stood on the scale this past week the number read back 198. It was then I knew it was time for a change. In the past I’ve started a few attempts on an exercise routine but always drifted back into old habits. To tackle this problem of not following through, both Mr. Mustang and myself made a pinky promise to keep each other in check. A pinky promise that Mr. Mustang broke later that day by eating one too many cookies by himself.

So far I haven’t faltered with my workout routine and new diet restrictions. Probably the biggest change is our wine consumption where in the past we could easily polish off a bottle each night. Now we are limiting ourselves to just one glass a day with any extra drinks be either water or milk. Food consumption has gone down slightly as well with us cutting portion sizes for lunch and dinner with minimal desserts. After consuming an entire carrot cake in less than two weeks earlier this month, we realized that deserts were some of the easiest items to eliminate from our diets.

Other than that, our weekly routine has become the new normal where we are both at our desks by 8am and working until 4pm. Mr. Mustang is hard at work building the newest roundabouts and roads for Washington state where I focus on self-improvement courses online, coding programs and getting certified in project management skills. I know that I probably won’t be able to have this much extra time in my career ever again so I want to use it to its fullest, especially after getting more bad news this past week. My fourth attempt to grow within the company I work for has been denied so I’ve been starting to lose faith that I will ever be able to move up internally. Still I carry on but unfortunately now with less expectations that I will ever be granted an opportunity to move up.

I took a break from cooking recently and Mr. Mustang stepped up to the plate. Granted, he only cooked one meal out of the entire week but it turned out great! He still follows the instructions to the letter listed out on a blue apron recipe card when cooking but he is slowly venturing out and experimenting with new flavors. For instance, the meal he cooked was pork chops over pearl barley but instead of mxing greek yogurt into the barley, he substituted it for sour cream instead. Overall it was a fantastic dinner but I couldn’t help but feel a little territorial every time he steps into my kitchen but I hope to change that attitude over time.

Saturday

Keeping with the new diet restriction, I didn’t cook a giant breakfast like I typically do in the past. Instead I actually measured out 1 cups worth of cereal in a small bowl as well as a tiny glass of milk to keep within my calorie measures for the day. I formed a giant blister on the back of my heel the day before so I haven’t been able to do my daily workout on the treadmill but instead did simple curl ups, push ups and stretches. Later in the afternoon Mr. Mustang played Minecraft with his friends while I wrote letters and blog posts nonstop until 7pm. Once the shelter-in-place order will be lifted, I won’t have much time dedicated to writing so I want to create as many potential posts as possible to keep the blog active in the future. The best part of this day was me rediscovering my old iPod nano from my high school days and shocked it still works. While writing throughout the day, I was jamming to the songs of my teenage years from bands like Citizen King, American Hi-Fi, Harvey Danger and more.

Dinner was a little more extravagant with a splurge purchase I made while at the store earlier this week. I made grilled bison steaks over creamed mash potatoes, roasted carrots and brussel sprouts. Bison steaks are actually quite tiny at about the size of a coaster so I made sure to have the ratio be more vegetables than meat with only a single glass of red wine to wash it down

Sunday

I may be getting fat but the one thing I will not sacrifice is my weekly Sunday ritual of boozy brunch. I’ll have you know that Mr. Mustang and I only drank half a bottle of Brut Rose instead of polishing off the whole thing so we’re still limiting ourselves. For this past Sunday’s brunch menu, I went a little healthier by frying up boar bacon which has less fat than typical pork bacon as well as steaming a few eggs within bell pepper shells. I wanted to have the eggs look like the fancy version you would see on Instagram but instead got a mediocre version. The boar bacon turned out fantastic that took me by surprise - similar flavors to jerky but easier to chew. The eggs had a perfect runny yolk when we cut down the middle and the bell peppers added a nice snap to the meal.

Later that day we had our groceries delivered and my weekly splurge ended up being multiple party-size bags of white cheddar popcorn. Mr. Mustang and I have been eating way too many potato chips during the quarantine so we found an alternative snack source with less calories but without sacrificing flavor. White cheddar popcorn is only about 150 calories for a serving size of nearly 3 cups worth so I decided to double down and order 5 bags - lets just see how long 5 bags lasts us.

Mr. Mustang spent his afternoon working on storyline for a tabletop game he hosts while I spent my time doing online shopping for both spring clothing as well as getting new letter writing paper. I’ve started sending out handwritten letters to my friends and family a few weeks ago but my penmanship is absolutely dreadful so I decided to invest in a new fountain pen (that came without ink). However as I continue to write letters I found that my penmanship is terrible possibly because I haven’t been using lined paper this entire time. Once the lined paper arrives, I can only hope my letters will look more sophisticated to the receiver; if they don’t though I will have to find another scapegoat to blame for my poor handwriting skills.

For dinner, I made stir fry mushrooms over rice with a side of roasted bok choy. I just discovered miso paste after finding hundreds of recipes for it and now have been experimenting with it. I found so many recipes that I’m eager to cook that now the entire month of May has already been planned out and 80% of them will have miso paste incorporated in them. Despite the dinners for the month of May will be leaning heavily on Asian cuisine, luckily a good chunk of the meals won’t involve rice. I tried to order a 10lb bag of rice during my last grocery delivery and my instacart shopper sent me a picture of the aisle where only a 2lb bag of jasmine was all that was left. It’s been a full month since the quarantine order and there are still people acting and shopping like it’s the end of days, I swear.