willpower is a muscle. the more you use it, the stronger it gets.

This quote has been floating around on Pinterest for awhile, and it really resonates with me. (Though, the one I’ve seen there has a skinny, scantily clad female as the image, which doesn’t inspire me to anything, so I made this one myself!) It doesn’t just sound good–the concept is beginning to be backed up by research as well.

I’ve often felt like I had particularly poor willpower. I can stop myself short of eating, say, an entire cake (because I also have a strong sense of consequences and know that would make me feel awful), but when it comes to things with less clear consequences I am less able to persist. For example, lately I’ve been trying to get up and go to the gym before work. I go into work at 10:00, so I don’t even have to get up particularly early….but so many mornings it’s easier to loll around in bed for just long enough to miss my window of available time, or to convince myself that I have things to do around the apartment instead.

Another place where I really struggle with willpower is at our team trivia games on Tuesday nights. We play at a local Mexican restaurant, so there are endless amounts of chips and salsa, and someone at the table usually orders cheese dip as well. We don’t play until 8:00 pm, so A. and I have usually already eaten dinner. I don’t love the chips, salsa, OR cheese dip there, and I theoretically am full. Yet I find myself almost every week chowing down on them as if there were no tomorrow. And I always feel guilty about it.

One week recently I ate a LOT of chips at trivia and was just disgusted with myself. (Well, perhaps that’s a bit strong. Disappointed in myself would be better to say, I guess.) But the next morning I managed to get up and go to the gym. I thought, “I might not have resisted the chips, but at least I can go to the gym today!” I know it’s not a 1 for 1 trade. It’s not like I specifically burned off the calories from the chips on the elliptical. It’s not even so much the calories that I’m worried about; I’m more worried about the fact that I can’t seem to control myself sometimes. I don’t like that feeling at all, and I find it heartening to think that I can improve and strengthen that ability!

I’ve gotten a lot better lately when the alarm goes off at reminding myself that I never regret going to the gym; rather, I only ever regret NOT going! And I think to myself that willpower is a muscle, and I can strengthen it by using it.

A. and I have been watching the Jeopardy Tournament of Champions. It’s from about a month ago, but we have Jeopardy set to record and watch it when we get a whim, or while eating lunch on the weekends. It’s been fun because we watched the bulk of this “season” (did you know Jeopardy had season just like other shows??), so we remember the returning champs! Three of them in particular just seem like the happiest people alive. They are a physics professor, an oncologist, and a urologist–not professions that I would expect to make people inordinately happy! So I’ve hypothesized that it must have something to do with Jeopardy. Your success on Jeopardy is proportionally related to the size of your smile while on camera.

Here they are in action. (WARNING: SPOILER ALERT. The first video tells you who wins the tournament, so if you don’t care to know, don’t click the link!)

Justin, Jay, and Joon are the particular ones I was talking about, but the rest of them look pretty happy, too! When Alex asked some of them what they did with their winnings from their run as champion, Joon said he and his wife had donated a large portion of it to charity. Someone else had saved a lot of it and used the rest to take his girlfriend to Hawaii, buy an engagement ring, and propose. These revelations led me to another hypothesis: I bet the winners on Jeopardy do some of the most reasonable things with the money they’ve won (when compared with winners of other game shows and/or the lottery).

Whaddya think? Have I got something here? I’m contemplating going back to grad school in whatever discipline that would be in order to spend my life studying data on Jeopardy champions. …Not really. But it’s fun to think about.

I finally sewed our Christmas stockings! They are definitely not perfect, but I like them because I made them.

I subscribed awhile ago to a magazine called All You and just recently got my first issue. I subscribed for the coupons (it often has upwards of $50 worth in each issue) and because I found a good enough deal to make me willing to try it out, but I think I will actually enjoy reading the magazine as well! It’s geared toward normal people, with normal budgets for clothes and a normal amount of time to cook dinner. I haven’t finished reading the issue yet, but I’ve already clipped a couple of recipes, including last night’s attempt: mushroom-quinoa burgers.

The first stumbling block on the road to this recipe was finding quinoa. I thought I had seen it at Kroger, but it wasn’t near the rice and other grains. Instead, it was in the health-food/organic section, and it was rather expensive. But given how little of it one needs to cook, I figured the bag was a worthwhile investment because it would stretch a long way.

The recipe called for 3/4 cup of quinoa, so I blithely cooked up 3/4 cup, using roughly 0.93 cup water, per the proportions recommended on the bag. I got to chopping the onion, mushrooms, and bell peppers, and had them sauteing in some olive oil while the grain simmered away. I mixed my ingredients together and began to form 4 patties…only I had a LOT more of my mixture than 4 patties’ worth. Furthermore, it was NOT forming nicely into patties. That’s when I had my first suspicion that something was wrong. However, I continued along, managing to get my patty-esque lumps into a skillet of hot oil. As per my usual, the oil got too hot and the patties were developing a slightly charred crust, so I decided to flip them early. Well. Flipping did not really happen. I managed to get a couple of them over, but it was clear that they weren’t coalescing into any sort of burger. Given that the recipe is called MUSHROOM-quinoa burgers, I would have expected there to be proportionally more mushroom, but instead I had mostly quinoa. At this point, I decided that the recipe MUST have meant 3/4 cup ALREADY COOKED quinoa. By cooking 3/4 cup, I created far to much quinoa for the sole egg in the recipe to bind together. It must have been an oversight on the magazine’s part.

I was disappointed, to say the least, but I heated the rest of the mixture through in my skillet and ate it for lunch today. A. and I did the best we could with our falling apart “burgers”–or as he politely called them, “sloppy joes.” :-) If we had had pita pockets instead of burger buns it would have been fine! The flavor was delicious, and I would definitely try this again…just with a lot less quinoa! Also, I think I’m going to write to the magazine and inquire as to whether they made an error. I’d hate for someone else to have the same disappointment as I did!

Here’s the recipe, for those who might want to brave it:

• 3/4 cup quinoa
• 3 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• 1/2 red or yellow bell pepper (I used green), seeded, finely chopped
• 1/2 cup old fashioned oats
• 1 large egg
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/8 tsp pepper
• 1/2 tsp dried basil
• 1/2 tsp dried oregano
• 1/8 tsp garlic powder

Prepare quinoa as package label directs. Transfer to a large bowl. Warm 1 tbsp oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Saute onion for 3 minutes. Stir in mushrooms and bell pepper; cook, stirring, until tender, about 2 minutes. Add vegetables to quinoa. Let cool. (I didn’t do very well at this step because I was in a bit of a hurry…not sure if that contributed to the problem.) Mix in oats, egg, Parmesan, salt, pepper, basil, oregano, and garlic powder. Shape into 4 patties. Wipe skillet. Warm remaining 2 tbsp oil in skillet over medium-high heat. Carefully place burgers into skillet and cook for 6 to 8 minutes. Flip and cook until golden, about 5 minutes longer.

Recipe courtesy of All You Magazine reader Veronica Yan

Enjoy! And let me know if you have better luck than I did…if I try them again, I’ll report back, hopefully with pictures of beautifully grilled burgers!

This Friday post is both Fun AND Frugal! On Wednesday, Buckhead Thriftique (a ministry of Buckhead Christian Ministry, where I work) held an after-hours event called Shop ‘Til You Drop. The store stayed open later than usual and had a few good items in a silent auction as well. I volunteered to help, because I miss the time I spent volunteering there over the summer! But of course, I also did some shopping.

I picked up these little Christmas goodies for our apartment:

We have some Christmas stuff, but definitely not a lot, and if we ever move anywhere bigger I think I will want more. Right now it’s all in one box, and I’ve told myself I am allowed to buy things as long as they fit in that box and only until it is full. So these little guys are perfect! Thriftique has a lot of cute Christmas stuff right now, so if you’re looking for some inexpensive decorations it’s the place to go!

I bought this necklace for a mere $1.25 (Gotta love the employee discount, though it would normally only be $2.50):

I love earrings but don’t wear much other jewelry. This is understated and will go with just about anything, so I thought it would be a good addition to my meager collection.

I found a shirt, as usual, which rang in at $2.50.

 It’s t-shirt material (my favorite!), but I liked the detailing, and it’s a color that tends to look really good on me. Robyn, the store manager, said it looked like “me,” which is probably because I have another shirt very similar. Haha. But at thrift stores I never expend too much mental energy talking myself out of things, because you can’t beat the prices. At thrift prices, if it makes me happy, it’s worth buying.

The find of the night was this pea coat, which I almost didn’t find. I was randomly flipping through the rack of coats as we were winding down. It’s a size smaller than I normally wear, but it looked big enough and I tried it on on a whim. It fits perfectly! It’s a Talbots coat, and the closest equivalent I could find right now on their website was almost $300. I’ve been trying to find a pea coat I liked that fit me well since probably high school, but I’m too picky, especially when I’m about to be dropping a big chunk of change on something. So this was a fabulous find, and I wore it to work yesterday! It was $4.50 for me, but all the coats are only $9.00 normally.

(I look really strange in this picture.)

I picked up a few other things, as well, but they’re Christmas gifts, so I won’t show them here. One is another necklace “for me” to go in my stocking….oh, being an adult! But I figured it would be fun to find it again, and the delayed gratification of not wearing it yet would make it exciting all over again on Christmas morning.

On that note, I think I’m pretty much finished with all my Christmas shopping, barring the things that I’m waiting to arrive in the mail! How’s your Christmas shopping going? Have you shopped for gifts in any unconventional places this year?