Love Your Spuds

Here is a nice attention-grabber:

When I walked inside of my apartment after work, it smelled like a potent fart. I figured that something in our kitchen garbage bin had spoiled, and I was right. This happens almost every time that Al makes chicken. He throws the raw scraps in the bin, and he forgets to take it outside. Then, it sits there for a day and gives off a ridiculously rank odor by the time we get home. I go straight to the bin, gag a few times as I tie the garbage bag up, take it outside, open up all the doors and windows and spray air freshener. Given time, the smell eventually goes away. 

Was that a nice opener? Did you learn anything from that?

Moving on, I'll tell you all about taking off my no-chip manicure. If you are sick of hearing about it or just plain old don't care, then feel free to scroll down to the food stuff. Nobody is watching you. 

Last night, it was time to kill the manicure for good. It was starting to look funny after four weeks. That's funny, because most people remove it after two weeks. Anyway, I used non-acetone polish remover to take off my regular coat and acetone remover to get off the no-chip polish. 

Regular polish is removed.

That was the easy part. 

I needed to soak a cotton pad in acetone polish remover and put it on my nail. The challenging part was that I couldn't just rub it on my nails the way that you can with normal polish. It had no effect on this hard-as-a-rock manicure. No, I needed a new technique. 

I needed some Glad Wrap fingers! 

I'm serious.

I had to wrap every finger individually in Glad Wrap to hold the acetone-soaked cotton pad on my finger. It was a lot of work. I may or may not have spilled the remover all over my pants and the carpet.... 

After a good while, the polish softens. You can gently scrape it off with your finger. Here's an important tip: soak it for a good 10-15 minutes on each finger. If the polish isn't soft enough, it will take off layers of your real nail with it. 

Mostly clean!

My bare nails look very scratched up, don't they?

They looked a little better once I filed them down. Finally, I can take out my contact lenses without nearly removing my eyeballs. It's a great feeling. 

That thought aside, my nails look much better today. I put on a coat of nail strengthener for "severe problem nails". They don't feel any weaker than they normally would, either. I would definitely do this manicure again, although I might wait a few weeks in between them. It was wonderful to have a perfect manicure for so many weeks!

Now, let's move away from nails and talk about my body. It is paying for Mt Lofty today. I have two shin splints, and my gluteus maximus is on fire with every step that I take! I decided to give my lower body a break today. After disposing of the fart-smelling garbage after work, I went grocery shopping with Al and then did a quick at-home upper body workout. 

I did three sets of twelve repetitions of:

• military shoulder presses
• bicep curls
• triceps dips
• standing rows
• combination chest press/flies 

I didn't break a sweat, but I'm glad that I at least did something. 

Next, I made dinner. I was craving a delicious baked potato (but not something bathed in fatty cheese, sour cream and butter), so I whipped up a recipe while I made my shopping list during the day. 

French Onion Soup Baked Potato

Ingredients: 
One large potato (I got a bintje potato)
1 tablespoon vegetable stock
1 garlic clove
1 brown onion
Low fat cheese- use as much as you want

Optional:
 Non-fat Greek yogurt
Paprika

I didn't use the garlic powder, so you can pretend it's not there. 

I washed off my bintje potato, pricked it all over with a fork and then stuck it in the microwave for 20 minutes on high. 

While the potato was cooking, I chopped up my onions and garlic and sauteed it in a pan with a little olive oil spray. When the potato was ready, I cut in half and poured on the vegetable stock (I actually used a concentrate stock and didn't mix it with water, but you won't make the same mistake). I then poured the garlic and onions from the pan into the potato. I topped it with the cheese and a few sprinkles of paprika and put in the microwave again for 1.5 minutes. 

It was a success! Look at all of the cheese spillage over the side. 

I planned on making a salad on the side with baby spinach and grape tomatoes, but then I found a chicken breast in the fridge that needed to be used by tonight. I cut the breast into small pieces and cooked it on the pan. I added it to the salad. Everything went wonderfully with the potato. 

It really did remind me of French onion soup. The sauteed onions were key!

I love all of that ooey gooey cheese. 

I put my raw chicken scraps in another bag and will take it out tonight or in the morning. That's one thing that I do right!