Are You Up for Holiday Bootie Buster Challenge 2013?

For the third year in a row I'm participating in the Holiday Bootie Buster Challenge at Run to the Finish. This year is going to be tough. Last year I contended with a combination of Indian and American holidays between October and January. This year I'm back in the United States after five holiday seasons overseas and I fully intend to indulge in all the treats I've missed. I signed up early, before Halloween, to get me thinking about staying on track through the eating extravaganza. It's cold here and I'll need the motivation for getting outside for a run. Also it will be too easy to eat comfort food on cold winter nights. Adding veggies to those foods will help keep me healthy.

I've already started preparing. I've unpacked and/or replaced all the parts of my blender for smoothies and purées. I'm freezing a lot of foods for healthy convenience dinners on those nights when I'm too tired or when it's been more important to be outside playing with Muffin rather than inside chopping veggies. I started freezing summertime blueberries and tomatoes months ago. I'm making double batches of snacks and meals when I have the time so I can put the extra in the freezer. When I made lasagna last week I made two and put one in the freezer. I used a mixture of half ricotta cheese and half tofu. To jazz up jarred tomato sauce and sneak in extra veggies, I sautéed red peppers and garlic to mix into the sauce and on top of the middle sauce layer I added a layer of sliced tomatoes. 

Mike leaves today for Washington, D.C., before heading overseas and we don't know when we'll see him again. It could be this weekend. It could be Thanksgiving. It could be in January or February. It's going to be stressful and I'd be prone to hibernating if I didn't have to take Muffin to school every day. But, since she is in school, I have several hours a day to myself and I plan on making the most of them. I want to stay happy and healthy so I can care for Muffin and take care of myself.

The Challenge is more fun with friends! If you decide to join please refer to my blog or to my Twitter handle, @StephanieSD. Then tell your friends about the Challenge, too! I'm not in training for anything. I don't plan on running a marathon ever; I'm quite happy with the half marathon. But the Challenge is fun. There's an online community of support. You earn points for any amount of working out and bonus points for other activities such as cleaning the house or playing outside. You also earn points for eating enough fruits and veggies. I wasn't expecting to win anything last year but I ended up winning a nice Asics long-sleeved zip-up shirt that I've already worn several times over the last few days of chilly weather. So, just by putting forth a little effort, you could win a fabulous prize, too!

The Challenge starts on November 17, so get a move on!

Unpacking All Those Books

We are slowly but surely getting our household effects unpacked. We are down to half a dozen boxes of books that we do not have enough shelf space for. So we have to decide which go on shelves, which stay in boxes in hopes that our next home has more space, and which books we really have to get rid of now because we are unlikely to read them again. It hurts to get rid of books but I realized that books are meant to be read, not sit in boxes gathering dust.

So I dusted off my PaperBackSwap account. At PaperBackSwap, you list books that you want to get rid of. Someone says they want your book. You pack it up and pay for media mail shipping. When they receive your book you get a credit. With that credit you can request a book from someone else and they pay the shipping to send it to you. 

While we were overseas, I ordered a few books through the site because we had an American mailing address that our mail was forwarded through. I couldn't swap any books back from overseas, though, because the shipping takes too long. I got in the habit of bringing a few books back to the United States with me to post and send so I could have credits for requesting books once I was back overseas. 

Over the last few days I've listed fifty books and twenty of them have been requested so far. I have a big trip to the post office planned for Friday. (You can print postage from home and drop the package in any mailbox if it weighs less than thirteen ounces.) I updated my wish list and am waiting for a few books once my credits are approved, but mostly I'll be using the service to send cheap paperbacks to Mike while he's overseas. He can trade them or leave them behind for others to read. Fresh reading material for almost free is always a good thing, especially in a place where there's very little local entertainment.

To see my books and request them from me, click here. I think you can request from me as a friend without signing up for the site. If you do decide to join, please use the referral button:

If you're ordering through the pouch, they ask you to include an apartment number with the address. I used Apt. #1 and never had a problem. I have not tried sending to DPO/APO addresses yet. If someone else has, please let me know if it works.

Sure, sometimes you need the convenience of dropping off a box of books at the recycling center or library. But sometimes it's nice to get those books directly into the hands of someone who wants them, then get a few reward books for yourself.

How to R2-D2

This year for Halloween we had a three year old who wanted to be R2-D2, accompanied by a Princess Leia mommy and a Han Solo daddy. Leia and Han seemed easy. Buy, borrow, or steal appropriate clothing and get a fairly popular wig. R2 was going to be more of a challenge because I wanted something more charming than store bought. I searched Google Images and pinned to Pinterest. I came up with a plan:

We spent an afternoon at a craft store trying to find just the right materials: foam, felt, glue, and something to craft the headpiece from. For the headpiece we ended up with a plastic army helmet glued to the inside of a salad bowl, both from a dollar store.

We crafted.

I bought a full Princess Leia costume, complete with hair-buns wig and ended up hating everything about it. So I Freecycled it and started from scratch, changing my concept to Hoth Leia. White yoga pants on sale for $5 and a beautiful white vest and snow boots that I'll wear this winter anyway paired with a long-hair wig that my mom helped braid. Han had to buy a henley shirt and black vest, supplying his own pants and boots. We bought $5 blasters and decided to keep them fake looking by not painting them black.

Star Wars family complete!

This was Muffin's first Halloween in the United States so we had to go the extra mile for her. Although, she's only three so the extra mile didn't have to be too far. We drove to a nearby neighborhood where a friend of ours was having a small party. We trick-or-treated at about five houses then went to our friend's for pizza and "grown-up" treats. Muffin ate too much candy but she didn't have school the next day so we could have a later night than usual and manage her the next day without too much difficulty. (Friday night she slept for twelve hours.)

I'm going to skip over Thanksgiving this year -- dinner is at my aunt's house and Mike most likely won't be home for it anyway -- and jump right into Muffin's First U.S. Christmas.