The Best Tuna Fish Recipe Ever

If you are looking for a great way to liven up your same old bland tuna sandwiches, this recipe is definitely a Godsend. Tuna is a great snack to have when you're on a low carb/low fat diet. This tuna recipe delivers a sensational taste to an old favorite.

1 can albacore tuna

1/2 cup of mayo or Miracle Whip

1/2 cup finely chopped onions

1/2 tablespoon of garlic pepper

2 tablespoons of raisins (better if sauteed in I Can't Believe It's Not Butter Spray)

2 tablespoons of dried cranberries

Combine all in a bowl and mix. Enjoy.

*This is also really great on buttered raisin bread*

Letting Go

There comes a point in all of our lives when we have to let go of someone. It may be because the person has passed away or because the person has simply passed us on, but we all go through the painful experience of letting go.

I have had my share of the experience. Last year, I had to let go of my father. And while I don't think that I will ever completely let him go, I have moved past his death. Now, I am dealing with another letting go experience; I'm letting go of a dream.

Dreams of two people together can only come true if in reality the two actually stay together. Sometimes the dream of something is so cherished that the dreamer clings to the dream despite all signs of it not coming true in the horizon. I used to be that type of a dreamer; I thought of myself as an optimist. I believed in the power of love- until reality slapped me across the face and out of my daydream. Love isn't everything, and it can't save the world. Loving someone doesn't mean that they will love you back just as much or at all. Being willing to spend your life with someone doesn't make the rest of the world ready to agree with the union. And, even when you give it your all, love doesn't always work out. Sometimes, sometimes you just have to let go.

One of the times that you know you have to let go is when you've been let go. When someone has cut you lose and wants you out of his/her life, the only thing to be done is make a graceful exit. Yet, it's never quite that easy, especially when your dreams are involved. When you have made someone your dream of happiness and that someone has said that life with you is a nightmare, your life becomes a strange, unsettled universe where nothing makes sense or adds up right. How can you let go of something that means everything to you? How can you give up a dream that you've had forever? You just do.

They say that it takes 21 days to break a bad habit. If a person is a bad habit, maybe letting go of the person can be done in 21 days as well. Somehow I don't think so, but if you're in the habit of talking to someone or seeing them, then maybe after 21 days of not seeing the person, you'll let go of something.

I'm going to call this Day 1.

Looking Back on My 1st Year as a Law Student

I started my first year of law school in August 2008. Prior to the beginning of the semester, I went to the public library and checked out two law related books: Constitutional Law in a Nutshell, and some book on why lawyers write the way they write. I had no idea of what to expect from my law classes; I didn't know if I was expected to read the US Constitution prior to my first classes or whether I was supposed to have already memorized the Bill of Rights. As it turned out, I didn't even get Constitutional Law as a class until my second year. Full-time students on the 3 year path took Con Law their first year, but the part-timers, like myself, were off the hook.

I went into my first year of law school blind, and I came out of it with 20/20 in retrospect. Before I started law school, I had a plan to blog about my first year in law school during my actual first year. Obviously, that didn't happen. The reason it didn't happen is because I didn't have the time to blog; I barely had time to sleep. At the first year law student orientation, a professor warned that law students had to schedule in free time. I thought that the professor was laying it on a bit thick, but as it turns out, she was right. Full-time law students take five classes their first year; they are under an agreement to work no more than 25 hours a week; and, they don't have to take classes during the summer. A lot of the full-time students, if not most of them, do not work at all. Yet, because they take two extra classes, they think that they have it so hard. Part-time law students take three classes a semester during the regular school year, attend two classes during the summer, and the majority of part-timers work full-time jobs. If I had my vote, I would say that the part-timers who work full-time have it a lot harder than the full-timers without day jobs.

My first year of law school, I worked as a high school English teacher from 6:50 a.m. to 3:30 Monday through Friday, and on days that I had law school, I went home for two hours before heading to class from 6:15-9:40 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays, and 6:15-7:40 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays. I found myself looking forward to Tuesdays and Thursdays because those were the days that I might actually be able to get some extra sleep at night. The weekends were supposed to be a reprieve, but how could they be when there were over eight hours worth of reading to cover and on top of that research to be done. The weekends were my only real time to study and work on my law school assignments. I had no free time. Over the course of my first year, I took Civil Procedure 1 & 2, Lawyer Process 1 & 2, Contracts 1 & 2, Professional Responsibilities, and Family Law. The hardest classes were the Lawyering Process classes. Lawyering Process is a legal writing class that teaches students how to write memos, how to write briefs, and how to research the law and apply it to legal problems, amongst other things. The class required hours and hours of research before any writing could be done. The research process was laborious to say the least. With only two hours to spare between work and law classes, the weekends were the only time that I had to work on LP assignments, and with those assignments went my social life. Free time meant compromise; the comprise usually amounted to me staying up late hours on a work night to finish assignments at the last minute. I can honestly say that the Lawyering Process classes really helped me in the long run. Everything I learned in those classes will help me as a lawyer in the future. I'm sure that Contracts and Civ Pro will help me in the future as well albeit not as much as LP. And, that's the beauty of law school- all of the classes, all of the assignment, all of the lectures, they're all relevant to what I'll actually do as a lawyer. Most of the classes that I took during my bachelors and my masters degree were completely unnecessary. Law school has been the best educational experience of my life.

I am now in my third month of my second year as a law student. What I know now about law school is that it requires all of my free time if I want to do my very best. I also know that if I don't want to give up all of my free time I can still do okay. The reading can't all be done before class in two hours, and a research paper for law school cannot be done in one night, even if it is all night, not even two nights. Professors don't expect you to memorize the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. But, professors will expect you to memorize a bunch of legal rules and the facts of a bunch of cases. Professors will call on you unexpectedly and ask you to provide the facts of a case or your analysis on a legal issue. The work in law school is not hard; there's just a lot of work to get through. It can all be done. It just takes time.

30 at Last

Al humdulilah. Landing on the other side wasn't so bad. I'm 30. I have been blessed to live 30 years. I feel pretty fortunate. How could I be sad about this?

1 Minute Until 30

I'm bracing myself.

2 Days Til 30

There's a birthday card that has the message, "30, it's all fun and games until it happens to you." A friend received the card some years back, and I found it hilarious; the message has been popping in my head a lot these past few weeks. What's funny is how true-to-life the card's message is. A week ago, a friend of mine had her 30th birthday on October 4th; on her birthday, I blasted her with jokes about being 30. And, now- it's my turn to undergo the change from my 20's to my 30's. I told a student that I was turning 30, and his response was, "Oh my God! You don't look that old!" Yeah, thanks buddy, way to make a lady feel good!

I think my biggest problem with turning 30 is that it changes how other people, especially those younger than 30, view me. It's like being 3o is an illness. When people hear you're turning 30, they're like, "Oh, that's big." And, the pity in their voice is a thick as syrup when they say it. "Uh, 30! Poor dear."

Society has expectations of each age group; there are certain things that you could get away with in your 20's that you just can't get away with in your 30s. I remember when I was younger, really young, I thought of 30 as being so old and grown up. I can't help being a little amused at life on the other side. I look at my friends who are mothers and fathers, and they are my age. I can still see the middle school personalities in my friends even now; we haven't changed all that much. We are just wiser and a lot less naive. We are still learning.

As this is one of my last days as a twenty-something-year-old woman, I feel I should commemorate my 20s with a list of all the things that I loved about my 20s.

1. Having a father that was still living.

2. Turning 21

3. Living with my godson Drake when I was a nanny.

4. Monthly trips down to California

5. Nights out Dancing

6. Weekend dinners at Dave's.

7. Playing Open-Mic nights

8. Getting my Mustang!!!!

9. Getting my house!!!!

10. Feeling optimistic

11. Graduating College

12. Getting my masters degree

13. Getting a job as a teacher

14. Producing short films

15. Writing screenplays while working at Spectrum Apartment Locators

16. Hanging out until late hours of the night with my friends

17. Having friends that still called weekly

18. Going to Canada

19. Going to Europe in 2007

20. Going to Hawaii with my mommy

21. Going to Maine with my mommy

22. Going to Europe 2009 with my mommy

23. Paragliding in Interlaken, Switzerland

25. River rafting in Colorado with my mommy

26. Going to Wet 'N Wild with Sidney, Dave, and Rena that one time :)

27. Getting my first iPod

28. Getting my first Apple laptop

29. Getting Bizbee

30. Not being 30

Spark People

Most successful diets include calorie counting. It's just a part of the drill. When you count calories, you can avoid consuming more calories than your body can burn in a day; eating more than you burn leads to weight gain. If you're looking for an easy way to track your calories, sparkpeople.com might be a good place to start. The site is free to join and offers access to a free calorie counter and much, much more. The weight conscious online community includes several weight loss tools, and it even provides users with a nutritional plan suggestion. You can use the site's tools to personally select your own nutritional plan and set goals for yourself. I'm aiming at 10 minutes of cardio a day and drinking 8 ounces of glasses of water per day. The message boards are also fun to dabble with if you're the type to like a little competition or friendly support. Some members create challenges, such as losing 15 pounds by December, that others can accept. I think it helps some people stick to their diets when they are a part of a group aiming for a common goal. You can link to sparkpeople.com on the right side of my blog.

The BEST Low Fat Honey Fried Chicken Recipe Ever!

How many of us dieters crave some delicious fried chicken but have to go without because of all of the fat involved? They say that the best creations and inventions come from those in need, and I was in need of some fried chicken this past Friday. I stopped for gas at a station located next to Popeyes, and the smell of the fried chicken stirred up a strong craving within me. So, I went home, and I got creative. The outcome was quite frankly amazing. Here is what you do:

1. Use a bag of flavored croutons (I used garlic flavored) and ground them into a powder almost. Ground them into as small of pieces as you can. I poured mine into a ziplock baggy and then used a hammer to just pound them into powder.

2. Take skinless/boneless chicken breasts and slice into strips.

3. Season the chicken the way you like- I like a little garlic pepper and salt.

4. Using about a cup and half of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter Spray (ICBNBS), fry the chicken strips until they are near done.

5. Pour the powdered croutons on a plate,

6. Heat up a cup of honey and 4 tablespoons of ICBNBS in a bowl using the microwave, about 30 sec.

6. Dip your strips into the honey/ICBNBS mix and then roll the strips in the powdered croutons.

7. Put the strips back in the pan and continue to fry.

8. Drizzle honey over the frying strips of chicken and sprinkle more of the powdered croutons on as the chicken fries.

9. Crisp both sides of the chicken and you're done.

If you do it right, it will be dee-lish, and far less fattening to your typical fried chicken dish. Enjoy.

* You can use chicken pieces with skin, but it is more fattening that way.

Pork in Cheese?

Remember the days when vegetarians ordered cheese pizzas because they didn't want to eat meat? It's ironic to know that cheese pizzas are not necessarily vegetarian foods; in fact, there is a high probability that the cheese on the pizza was made with pork or beef enzymes. It's becoming harder and harder for people who do not want to consume animal products to avoid eating foods that are made with pork or beef. A grilled cheese sandwich used to be the substitute for vegetarians during lunch at my old elementary school; how ironic that those kids were chewing on the insides of a calf or pig's stomach. When did eating only the foods that you want to eat become so hard? If you're a vegetarian, you might as well go completely vegan to be safe. But, if you're not a vegetarain and are instead a Muslim, a Jew, or Hindu, you may not want to give up cheese; however, if you want to follow your faith and avoid eating pork or in the case of Hindus, beef, then you just might have to give up that dairy product.
When people order cheese pizzas or a vegetarian pizza at that, they may not be getting what they want at all. Instead, they are getting cheese that contains rennet which comes from the stomachs of slaugtered animals, such as pigs or calfs. Sounds delicious right? Wrong.
I miss the days when cheese was from milk and not from pigs. As a Muslim, I am finding it impossible to eat at any restaurants outside of those that are halal. I simply don't know what ingredients are used in restaurant foods. Does the bowl of clam chowder that I'm ordering have mono-dyglicerides? Does the bread and butter that I'm served have mono-dyglicerides or pork enzymes pervading through the food? I don't know. And because I don't know does not excuse me to eat the products when I do know of the possibility of those products being haram.
I am calling for action from all of those out there who believe that people deserve to know what they are eating. I said it before, and I say it again- it is time to start calling out all of the food restaurants that claim specific items to be vegetarian when those products are indeed made with animal products. Complacency will get us no where. We must act. And, we must act now. First, stop eating at resturants that cannot provide a list of ingredients that go into their foods, and more specifically, a list that is clear and identifies animal products unambiguously. Second, call up restaurant companies and demand to know if they use animal enzymes in their foods. If they do, and you have consumed a product that was labeled vegetarian (vegetarian pizza, vegetarian sub, vege burger, etc), but it wasn't, then get a lawyer and sue. Your rights have been violated. Third, spread the word to others who do not know about this issue. People all over are ignorant about the fact that cheese is not a vegetarian product. Furthermore, neither is bread a vegetarian product. And finally, if you have the ability to do so and you are Muslim, only shop at halal grocery stores and restaurants.

Here is a link to a list of brand of cheese that only use vegetable rennet. http://cheese.joyousliving.com/CheeseListBrand.aspx

Days 11-15 of My 30 Day Diet

Keeping up with a blog, a diet, full-time teaching job, and law school has taken it's toll on me. Unfortunately, I'm finding it very difficult to blog at all. What this means that instead of daily updates on my my diet, I may have to post weekly. I will try to post as frequently as possible, and hopefully soon, things will be a little easier for me allowing me more time to blog.

Day 11

1 slice of wheat toast 70 calories . 5 fat

1/2 banana 55 calories .5 fat

1 bag of light popcorn 110 calories 1.5 fat

Chicken and rice 360 calories 7 grams of fat

1 bowl of Corn Flakes 160 calories 0 fat

Day 12

1 1/2 bowls of Reese's Puffs cereal 200 calories 3 grams of fat

pretzels 200 calories 1 gram of fat

1 bowl of oatmeal 160 calories 2 grams of fat

Left over Chicken and Rice - 360 calories 7 grams of fat

1 Weight Watchers Chocolate Cake 100 calories 3 grams of fat

Day 13

Cheat Day

Day 14

Another Cheat day

Day 15

1 slice of wheat toast with jelly 90 calories .5 fat

1/2 banana 55 calories .5 grams of fat

yogurt 100 calories 0 fat

pretzels 200 calories 1 gram of fat

Garden Burger Sandwich 300 calories 12 grams of fat

Weight today 128.3