Thankful Year

Hey Babies! 

I was combing back on my past articles and I realized this years Thanksgiving was significantly different than last years. Last year I felt alone for the better part of the first morning, but once I was up I went and saw my friends and family. I traveled to JPs and spent time with him and his family, and then I ventured to my family’s home where I played games and ate a lot of food! The games were so much fun with the large amount of people we had, I mean large for my standards, so like 8 people. This year I worked the night before thanksgiving, I didn’t go out drinking. I stayed in and spent time with my man. The morning of Thanksgiving we slept in and then I went to work on my first ever Thanksgiving. Ok more like I cooked breakfast, watched the parade and did some online shopping… Then I got to work cooking around noon. It felt like a pretty productive morning and I felt no desire to actually buy anything, which in my book that is a huge win!  I’m not going to lie cooking my first Thanksgiving meal had me a nervous wreck. I had my iPad out and was laying out all of my ingredients for each of the recipes I was planning on making. I had one for the turkey breast, yes I cheated and totally bought a frozen butterball one, but it’s just me and Trouble, we didn’t need a whole turkey! Then I worked on deviled eggs, more on those later. I worked on cheesy green beans with bacon and cauliflower mashed potatoes with cheese and bacon. I was worried I wouldn’t get everything done with the right amount of time and something would be cold. I was also making a pumpkin pie! So I had to figure out how to maintain two different types of food with different temp requirements in the oven. I learned a lot that day. That when a recipe calls for paprika in the deviled eggs they really mean on top, needless to say those weren’t really eaten, yuck! The pumpkin pie I cooked first since it needed the longest to set and the turkey actually came out pretty well. So I know you’re reading this and going what on earth is cauliflower mashed potatoes and why are you subjecting yourself to that? Well it was a pretty low carb thanksgiving, I mean don’t get me wrong I was still sleepy after cooking for 3 hours only to have the food eaten and gone within 20 minutes.

Trouble and I are working on a diet. We have been since the beginning of October. It’s really challenging for us, especially with our schedules it makes it particularly tricky to get meals made for the day. We started the Keto diet. For those who do not know what this is, it’s a low carb high fat diet, as my super smart best friend puts it a doctors dream and job security. Your body burns fat when you eat low carb, this isn’t a diet you can sustain for more than 3-4 months or it has negative effects on your body. But when you eat low carb you body starts to eat the stored fat, thus helping you lose weight, without hitting the gym. It also teaches you a lot about reading labels and portion control. It helps shrink your stomach as well, so when we are done with this diet we will continue to work on portion control as well as what we are putting in our bodies. We’ve lost a nice portion of lbs over these last 2.5 months. So let me put it this way for those who think they can do it. It’s a really doable diet, the downside? All of that sugar you’re eating, the pasta you love, and that breadstick you dip in your sauce? Yea those are all carbs. Our daily carb intake is 20 or less, how you do the math is take total carbs- dietary fibers= net carbs. Our net carbs are 20, so we generally eat a lot of meat and cheese. Thankfully Atkins offers snack bars that have chocolate that are low carb that help with my sweet tooth, because my sweet tooth is ginormous! So with thanksgiving I had to learn how to cook low carb food. Crustless pumpkin pie, no crazy gravy on the turkey and cauliflower mashed potatoes! In order for use to have food every day for lunches I will get up early in the morning and cook the meal for that night. It makes it so there’s always food and we never have to resort to take away. 

This was the first Thanksgiving I wasn’t able to drive down the street to see JP or visit my family. I’m not going to lie, it was beyond hard. I love having the place filled with people and laughter. So I facetimed my mom and sister to talk while I cooked. It was nice being able to catch up with them while I worked on cooking. It almost felt like they were with me, almost. Trouble helped a lot that day. He was around while I cooked and talked about how great the food was. I couldn’t have appreciated him more that day with how he handled my sadness and made sure I was okay. Overall it was a really good day that next day I was off, well I was able to be off Black Friday. I had the opportunity to have my first Black Friday off… But did I? Nope, absolutely not. I picked up 10 hours of overtime… I need to get presents of course! So any overtime I could have picked up that day I did. It was a really solid day, crazy, but definitely better than working retail. I went home at the end kicked off my shoes and just smiled that it was over but that I also made bonus money that day. 

Looking back on the Holiday weekend I realize a lot had changed in a year. I had grown and found myself again, I was living in a new state with a new career and with a man who I don’t think I could love anymore than I do right now. There was so much I was thankful for this year, most of it resembled my last year thankful list, the only exception was for the amazing opportunities I was given and for my troublemaker. 

I know it’s December 8th so this post was way past due, but hey it’s almost Christmas your girls been busy! 

I’ll talk later

xoxo

Kait