Getting Down to the Nitty Gritty

Its been over a week since I started The Hunger Game, and I am very pleased with myself.  Its not so hard to wait until you are hungry.  Food tastes better when you are hungry.  And real hunger is not such a bad feeling.  Its not that horrible, low-blood-sugar hunger that I have feared.  And I have not experienced that for years now.  That is what helps me to make good choices in what I am going to eat most of the time.

Over the weekend I was going over my food in my mind and trying to add the calories up (I can’t make myself stop!)  And I realized that I could pretty easily write them down in my kindle.  So I thought I’d share what and when I ate for three days of The Hunger Game.

Its been over a week now, and its going very well.  The biggest difference is in my snacking, both planned and unplanned.  I am not having any snack with my afternoon coffee, and many times I eat ‘dinner’ late, and there is no hunger afterward (or time) so I do not have dessert.  And then there’s all the times during the day when I might grab a handful of walnuts.  None of that going on either.  Overall, it seems like I’m eating less.  I don’t know if it will make any change in my weight though.  We’ll have to wait a month to see that!  Which, BTW.  I laughed at myself when I checked my schedule to see when the month would be over.  The last week of The Hunger Game will be spent in Sisters, Oregon,   on a trip I have been looking forward to for months.  It will be a good challenge to NOT eat when I am not hungry, especially on the long drive.  I don’t think it will be so much of an issue while I am there, because I will still be able to have treats or eat out.  I’ll just have to wait until I’m hungry.  I am taking a workshop with two great teachers, and was so looking forward to meeting a long-time blog reader-friend.  Just yesterday she called and said her work schedule was not going to allow her to come.  I am so disappointed!  I was so looking forward to meeting you, L., and I hope that we will be able to plan a meeting in the future sometime!

So here’s my food log:

FRIDAY:

• 6am–coffee
• 8am–English Muffin French toast (200c)
• 11am–honeycrisp apple and Justin’s cocoa almond butter (300c)
• 2:30pm–cube steak w/tomatoes and boiled potato (300c)
• 4p-6:30p–Swim
• 7p–Vicky’s vegan banana nut muffin (250c)
• 8p–microwave carrots, roasted beets (150c)
• 12a–walnuts (200c)
• TOTAL 1400 calories

SATURDAY:

• 6:30am–coffee
• 7:30am–yogurt w/muesli, walnuts, and ch. chips (300c)
• 10am–apple w/string cheese  (200c)
• 12–Vicky’s taco salad  (350c)
• 4pm–coffee, blueberry pudding cake (300c)
• 8pm–tomatoes, popcorn w/2 sq. sugar free chocolate (250c)
• TOTAL  1400 calories

SUNDAY:

• 6am–coffee
• 7am–flax cake with walnuts, peach topping (350c)
• 10am–1/4 quest bar
• 12:30pm–3/4 quest bar (175c)
• 1:30p–froyo (400c)
• 5:30p–4 oz chicken breast, corn on the cob, tomato (300c)
• 9pm–yogurt/honey/walnuts (125c), Vicky’s nutty nibbie cookie (75c)
• TOTAL  1425 calories

Now.  The calories are approximations.  But I did try to be honest, and I erred on the side of rounding up instead of rounding down.  Its really interesting that they are almost exactly the same total each day.  I’m not going to continue to do this.  I want to see what happens when I eat only when I am hungry and make healthy choices the majority of the time.

Did the observant among you notice that I said I was swimming from 4-6:30pm on Friday?  Yes, that’s right!  I reached my goal of swimming 2.4 miles on Friday!!!!!  I was beginning to think that I was not going to make this goal.  But with a little encouragement from Shelley (“it’d be a nice way to end September,”) and a not-crowded pool on Friday afternoon, I decided to go for it!  I know for sure it is not physically as hard as running for that amount of time.  It is almost more of a mental challenge (I’m cold, I’m hungry, I HAVE TO PEE LOL).  Anyway, I’m not much of a goal-setter.  But it has been fun to set goals and then actually reach them.  My next goal will be to get back to the weights and work on that 100 pound bench press.

A few food notes:

• English muffin french toast:  I use Thomas’s Whole Grain English muffins, split in two. I mix 1 egg, 1/4 cup almond breeze, and 1/4 cup eggbeaters, with a bit of cinnamon, splenda, and vanilla.  Let the muffins soak for a bit in the liquid, then cook in a pan sprayed with pam.  Top with spray butter, cinnamon splenda, and SF syrup.  I think this is my most ‘processed food’ meal that I eat.  So delicious and filling.  Then I save the egg mixture, and the next day use it to make two flax cakes!
• Microwave carrots:  I LOVE carrots fixed this way.  Just wash carrots (don’t peel) and cut into approximately equal sizes.  Put in a microwave safe bowl, sprinkle with Mrs. Dash and a little salt, and top with a bit of lite butter.  Microwave for 2-3 minutes and stir to evenly coat with melted butter and spices.  Microwave for another 2 minutes until soft.
• The flax cake with walnuts and peach topping:  I made the flax cake recipe, but left the blueberries out, and just pressed a few chopped walnuts into the top.  The peach topping I made the same way I make my pear spread.  It worked wonderfully, and I will be doing this with fruit in the future!
• The froyo on Sunday was not planned…I went to the gym after church, and was so disappointed that the pool was closed.  It was miserably hot, the air conditioning in my car is STILL not fixed, and I WAS hungry.  So I headed to froyo.  The shop in town doesn’t really have good frozen yogurt (2nd time I tried) so I know I would have felt better if I had just gone home and had something healthier.  Oh well…

And last, I want to include a few links that I’ve run across.  They are all written by low-carbers (which I am not,) but they apply universally to all types of eaters.  Loretta left this link to a podcast in the comments on my last post.  It is long, but this woman speaks so well about how the body processes food.  She is not a scientist, but it seems she has done a ton of research.  Everything she said made sense.  And she talked a LOT about “women of a certain age.”  She was coming from the angle of low-carb eating, but everything she said applied to all people interested in losing weight and increasing health.  It is a really long podcast.  But much more interesting and informative than the ‘movie of the week.’  (do they still make those?)

This was a very interesting post, written by a young doctor, about “The Weight Loss Conundrum.”  Again, a low-carber, but again, it applies to everyone.

And lastly, this link, about intuitive or mindful eating.  I think what I am doing now might be my version of mindful eating.

 

 

 

 

Short and Sweet

I made a new recipe.  Actually its my version of Lori’s One Minute Muffin.  I kept thinking about how I like fruit inside my baked goods, and Lori likes her fruit on top (am I right, Lori?)  Anyway, I decided to try putting blueberries in the one minute muffin, and I’ve changed the recipe a bit (plus, mine take a lot more than one minute LOL,) so I’m going to share my version here.  I’m calling them Blueberry Flax Cakes, and this was DELICIOUS!!  I really like the moistness of this cake.  A different texture than most baked goods, but very satisfying.

Doesn’t that look delicious?  Here’s the recipe.

I also wanted to link to a relatively new blogger.  She is a long-term radical weight loss maintainer, and writes eloquently about the perils and pitfalls of maintenance and living in our food obsessed society (did I describe that right Sandy?)  I heartily recommend her blog to anyone interested in losing and especially maintaining a weight loss.  Check out these two posts to start:  I Have A Dream, and Dazed and Confused.  In fact, Sandy writes so well, I am not feeling the need to write any more tonight.

Here’s an actual moment in time in this doggie household.  Bess was posed so cute on the pillow that I picked up my camera VERY QUIETLY, and turned it on.  The minute it made that little whirring opening noise, Sophie came out of nowhere and positioned herself for the photo shoot!

Silly dogs!

Is this what they call the dog days of summer?  I couldn’t quite get myself motivated to work on any big project today.  So I finally gave all four dogs a bath!

Fruit and Other Assorted Topics

Seems to me that fruit has been bandied about the blog world a little more than usual lately.  Helen doesn’t really like it, Shelley has the market on WATERMELON, and Lori can get blueberries cheaper than either Shelley or myself!!  Then there was that bit about blueberries being a negative calorie food, which all us foodies had a good laugh over. Of course there are those who think fruit is to be limited/avoided, etc. Then, occasionally, I hear someone comment that they could eat 12 servings of fruit in a day!!  Are you kidding me?

I LIKE fruit.  Duh.  Its sweet.  But I am rarely tempted to overdo on fruit, and it just seems normal for me to have 2 servings a day.  I don’t think about it or count them out, but that’s usually what it turns out to be.  Once in a while a day will go by and I will realize I only had one serving.

The thing about fruit is that, by itself, it just does not hold me that long.  It is so pleasant to eat, very enjoyable at the time, but it does not appreciably satisfy my hunger.  I usually have fruit with some kind of protein, most commonly with cottage cheese or yogurt.

All that said, this is the time of year for the most wonderful fruit.  I try to limit the amount of fruit I have in the house at one time so I do not feel pressured to eat it ‘just because its there.’  Right now I happen to have a LOT of really great fruit in the house.  So I decided to try something this morning.  I made a fruit salad.  Four types of fruit, cut and put in a bowl.  Four servings, approximately 400 calories.  I wrote that down on my food journal this morning.

Here’s how I had the first serving, over a half cup of Wal Mart cottage cheese.  This is the world’s best cottage cheese!

At first I thought, yep, it didn’t hold me, but then I realized it had been 3 hours since I ate, so I had a second breakfast–very low calorie English muffin French toast.  With Smucker’s sugar free syrup.  That is the only sugar free syrup I like.  I really try to soak the muffin in the egg mixture so I get a decent amount of protein in there.

Had the second bowl of fruit for my afternoon snack, with a 3M Chia muffin (10 grams protein), and I had the last bowl for dessert tonight.  All in all, a very satisfying experiment.  But I don’t really need to eat that much fruit.  And  overall, I think I like eating one kind of fruit at a time.

But we should all eat fruit, don’t you think?  One of God’s great gifts to us.  Full of all those good nutrients (you’re gonna have to look elsewhere for what exactly those nutrients are…)

So earlier this week I was involved in what could only be called a QUILT OBSESSION.  Quite a while ago, I put together these various assortments of simple squares using my boxes of pre-cut strips and squares. And then I switched gears and started working on the housetop quilts.  But I was determined not to let those orphan squares go to waste.  So I pretty much worked non-stop on this quilt for a few days.  I had the idea of zig-zagging the squares to a background instead of sewing them together, since they were odd sizes that wouldn’t exactly fit together.

You can see my ‘zig-zag technique’ in this photo.

I did realize that all that sitting and sewing was making me quite stiff.  So I did get in some walks every day.  And I did actually make it to the gym three days this week!  But the biggest source of exercise for me this week was FUNCTIONAL exercise.  Yeah, where you actually USE all those muscles you’ve worked so hard for.  I FINALLY returned to the garden, and bought some plants, and actually planted them.  Planting them involved moving around a lot of big heavy pots full of soil, bags of soil, and all that.  Its so nice to have flowers in the garden again.  Keep your fingers crossed for me.  Noah seems to be leaving them alone.  He does still like the plastic pots that they come in.

THEN, more functional exercise.  I did a lot of housework, and I cleaned off the back porch and the deck and took a load of stuff to the dump!   You know, keeping busy like that keeps your mind off of “what’s next to eat?”

So, speaking of what’s next to eat, I found a really interesting product at Trader Joe’s the other day.  Literally has three ingredients:  honey, chocolate liquor, and oil of peppermint.  Quite decadent.  And interesting, as I don’t think the chocolate is sweetened.  About 50 calories each.  I find that one mint usually satisfies my sweet tooth.  I also like the Russell Stover sugar free mints.

So, I don’t know what got me in the mood.  Maybe it was my dingy socks and my filthy shoes?  Anyway, I started looking around the internets for those darn Newton’s Running Shoes, and I found that they sold them on Ebay!  So I sprang for a pair.  Free shipping, and they accept returns, so I’ll only be out about $5 if they don’t fit and I have to send them back.  And I also ordered 10 pairs of my all time favorite socks. These really are THE WORLD’S SOFTEST SOCKS!  I love how they feel, I love how they stay in place, but they aren’t too tight around my ankles.  And they last a pretty long time.

Doggie love.  That Bess is a cutie.  We had a little emergency with her earlier this week.  She had a scar on one eyeball when I got her.  Not that unusual for a pug, I thought.  But somehow it got irritated, and overnight it looked really terrible.  I think the vet gave me NEOSPORIN for the eyeball, along with a little steroid.  She has certainly made herself at home here.

And Mr. Monk, in a particularly energetic pose.

Sophie’s version of a big stretch.  Isn’t she cute?

And the latest completed housetop quilt, with two of my favorite verses on it (Matt. 11:28-29, and Psalm 23.)  I think you might be able to see the writing if you click on the picture and enlarge it.

Oh, I was reviewing my pictures from Paducah today and I ran across this great picture.  This garden art was in what seemed to be an abandoned lot.  Isn’t it great?

Wow, I should really blog a little more often.  Well, you could save this and read just a little every day…

Good Afternoon!

Don’t feel like doing much else right at the moment, so thought I’d write a blog.  Wow.  If I was a good writer, I would delete that sentence.  Cause basically it says DON’T READ THIS BLOG.  Oh well.  Continuing on.

I have almost completely converted to a free weights girl in the gym.  Oh I am proud of myself.  Yes, pride does goeth before a fall.  The other day I dropped a 25 pound weight and it landed on my shin.  Fortunately I guess we don’t have many nerve endings there?  Because it doesn’t hurt much, except when I touch it.  Anyway, back to the free weights.  I am almost completely over my fear of “men in the weights room.”  Yesterday I walked into the gym, and my favorite receptionist whispered “we’ve been taken over by high school children…”  Oh brother.  Sure enough, they were EVERYWHERE when I went upstairs to the weights room.  I peered into the free weights room and there were 3 or 4 little boys strutting around doing their thing.  There were weights on the bench press bar.  So I left and did a couple other things.  I went back and the same weights were on the bar, and the boys were nowhere near it, so I just went in there and said, “any of you using this (pointing at the bar,) or did someone just leave the weights on there?”  They said no, and then one of the little boys volunteered to take the weights off. Which I gladly accepted his help.  Then I put my little weights on there and went to work.  After that I used the leg press machine that they had left their weights on, and the barbell for dead lifts that they had left their weights on.  I didn’t have to change those weights.  Yeah!  I liked that workout.  70 pounds on the bench press, 85 pounds on the dead lift, and 200 pounds on the leg press.

Hey, here’s another item of interest.  (Switching to my favorite topic, food.)  Vicky was doing a special ‘detox’ diet plan this week, and I told her about the veggie cereal idea, because 1)  I think it tastes good, in spite of you nay-sayers, and 2) I thought it fit in with the kinds of food she likes to challenge people with.  She is pretty picky though, about what she will serve.  Anyway, she liked the idea, and she included it in her plan this week.  And she thought it tasted good too!  Come on, you guys, be a little adventurous!  It lasted really well in the fridge too.  The apples turn a little brown, but still tasty after about 4 days.

Along the lines of adding veggies to food, I just took a “zucchini cake” version of the one-minute muffin out of the oven.  Smells heavenly.  followed Lori’s basic applesauce version recipe, added a sprinkle of nutmeg, the shredded zucchini, and then must admit to adding about 2/3 Tbsp of agave nectar cause I wanted it a little sweeter.  I will have that for my afternoon snack, after I come back from getting my haircut.

My haircut for my trip next week!  Eeeeekkkk!  Does anybody know how I can lose 10 pounds in a week? LOL.  You know how that goes.  The minute I think about cutting back, I rebel.  NO I AM NOT GOING TO GO WITHOUT GRAINS.  Etc.  Sigh.  It is what it is.  I’ve been this same weight since before I went to Africa.  Someday the mojo will come back.  In the meantime, that is a very nice word using the letter ‘j’ for Words with Friends.

Friends.  My next topic.  I emailed another friend from my past, and we are going to meet up at the quilt show.  That means friends from a 30 year span of my life, from three different interests in my life, are going to be a part of this trip.  First up, meeting my newest friends, from my bloggy life,  Sharon and Cammy!  Of course, this will be our first time meeting in person.  Blog friends, because of what we share, seem just as close as friends IRL.  Next, I am going to meet an old friend (I’m guessing we first met in ’91) from the spinning and knitting era of my life.  Lynn is an accomplished knitter and designer, and my knitting has even been included in her books.  I am really looking forward to seeing her again and discussing all things fiber and color!  And the last friend I am going to meet is now something of a rock star in the quilt world.  But I know him from my years in raising and showing Cocker Spaniels, where I was a rock star in the dog show world LOL.  (so I showed cocker spaniels before the internets were born.  You’ll just have to take my word for it.)   Back then, neither of us were quilters.  I always did handwork of some sort.  But he really took a detour from his career in music to go full time in the quilting world.  This is really going to be a great trip!  And that doesn’t even count the wonderful quilt show I will be visiting, and all that goes with that.

Okay, back from the hairdresser.  I asked her to put layers in it, because I read somewhere that that made you look younger (lost cause.)  Anyway, I am quite layered.  We’ll see how I like it after it dries.  Should be easy to take care of anyway.

Back to my favorite topic.  My friend Wendy (of The Bridge project) has a lot of food allergies.  Coconut is not one of them.  She made an unbelievable orange cake with chocolate frosting with only coconut flour.  Well, and a lot of other stuff.  Anyway, it was quite delicious.  Here is a link to the original recipe, and here is a link to Wendy’s version.  I was surprised when I did the breakdown that it was only 140 calories per piece if you divide it into 12 pieces.  Of course, that is before icing…

Well, this is a long enough blog for now.  I have other things to do which I didn’t want to do when I started this…

Good Food

Thought I’d report in on some good eats from the past couple of days.  First of all, in spite of the cold weather, and my usual reluctance to eat salads when it turns cold, I have thoroughly been enjoying my salads this winter.  When I travel, I find myself actually looking for a reason to eat lettuce.  If you had told me this when I was a kid, I would NEVER have believed you.  Lettuce was just something to be picked off of the hamburger bun.

My version of the California Chef's salad: baby lettuce topped with chicken, oranges wedges, carrots, blue cheese, and pecans.

So I told you about the food I was going to fix for ‘sewing day,’ and I have to tell you it was a resounding success!  That triple berry granola crisp is a no-fail recipe.  People absolutely love it, and they seem to really enjoy hearing that it is a low-cal healthy recipe. If you have access to a Costco, their frozen triple berry blend works great, and is the most economical way to buy berries.  I served it for ‘brunch’ (we meet at 10am and always have some sort of treat and coffee to start the day) and I had a bowl of Fage mixed with cinnamon and splenda to top it with.  Yummy.

On to lunch.  Helen, the soup was the smash hit of the day (I made Helen’s coconut curry kale soup.)  Everybody loved it, and every last bit of the soup had disappeared when I went back to the kitchen.  I made the recipe just as printed, including the chickpeas.  I didn’t have a can of tomatoes, so I chopped up a couple of tomatoes and then I found a bag of frozen cherry tomatoes in the freezer and threw them in too.  I think that was about the same tomato content as a can.  I put in 36 mid-sized shrimp.  One of the ladies, who is an excellent cook, took the recipe home to make for her husband, and she mentioned to me that the flavor was very similar to the soup served at Lemon Grass, which is a very nice Asian Bistro restaurant around here.  Now.  I have to admit.  I still don’t like the flavor of curry very much.  And I picked out all my chickpeas!  But that’s just me.  I really wish I liked curry, because it just seems like the ‘in’ thing. That’s okay, there’s plenty of other food I like just fine LOL.  Case in point:  I LOVED the low fat corn bread that I made.  LOVED!!! I don’t know if its because I’ve been corn bread deprived for a couple of years, but I thought it was quite delicious.  And I tried to make a ‘healthy’ honey butter by combining Smart Balance Lite and some honey.  Its probably because the smart balance lite has a higher water content or something?  It kind of separated, or became weepy.  It looked weird, but it tasted DELISH on the bread.  I was never so happy to have one piece left over!  Guess who had a second piece of corn bread with dinner.

Which brings me to my next topic.  The whole idea of a ‘treat day’ or a ‘treat meal.’ I’m a little on the fence about this whole idea as it applies to me.  Of course, I LOVE the idea of a day to eat what I want.  But there’s so much I want LOL.  I have a tendency to go overboard.  And then there’s the inevitable ‘unplanned’ treat days that just naturally occur in real life.  So if I fully subscribed to the ‘treat day,’ and had it planned for the end of the week, but in that same week, 3 unplanned treats occurred that I partook of, I would still be wanting my ‘treat day.’  Which leads to a whole lotta overeating.  Now that is JUST ME.  Just what I know about me.  And the funny thing was, when I was discussing this with my BFF, she described the exact same thing (eating the unplanned extras and still wanting the planned treat day.)  So for the most part, I think its best if I don’t plan (and look forward to) a WEEKLY treat day or meal.  I think maybe once a month might do it for me.

That said, I did decide that Tuesday (sewing day) would be a treat day.  Quit laughing at me LOL.  I had my favorite cottage cheese/pear/walnuts combo for dinner, along with that second piece of corn bread, and some leftover broccoli, just to make it healthy.  And then I tried a new recipe.  That chocolate covered katie has it going on when it comes to single serving recipes.  You heard it here:  I will NEVER buy another bakery cupcake.  There is no way they can compete with the deliciousness of her single serving cupcakes.  I tried this little chocolate cake, and I had some pre-made vanilla icing that I had bought at that Harvest Festival.  Oh my goodness.  It was quite worthy.  I made myself look the calories up (300 for just the cake.)  That helps me to eliminate it from any kind of regular rotation.  But for a once in a while treat?  Quite worthy.  I had some kettle corn too.  See what I mean about going overboard?

But back on track today.  And no problem doing so.  And this is the low-cal day of the week–no fruit, and one grain.  No problem.  I tried one more thing this morning that I want to pass along.  That multi-grain oatmeal that I told you I loved?  I made it custard oats today–FANTASTIC.  The most fantastic part is that you fix it in the microwave, so there is only one dish to wash.  After I microwaved the oats for two minutes, I took them out and stirred in 1/4 cup of egg beaters.  And microwaved for maybe 30 seconds more.  Yumm yumm.

Today I had to go to the lawyer’s about my dad’s trust, and she talked lawyerese at me for over an hour.  QUITE anxiety producing.  But did I eat?  No I did not.  I went to the gym as planned! Like Lori says, you never regret a workout.  I felt quite victorious after that.  Had one of Vicky’s California Chef’s salads for lunch, and then went to Starbuck’s for a little session with my Kindle Fire.  I had a Quest protein bar for a treat with my coffee.  Those Quest bars are hands down the best protein bars I’ve ever had, but they have a pretty hefty price tag too.

I’ll end with a stealth photo of the Queen.  Her majesty has some new crown jewels.

Turning the Day Around

I had an extra busy week (for me.)  A few too many appointments.  And out after dark two nights in a row?  Unheard of.  So today was an “at home” day.  I felt like crap when I got up.  Everything just aches.  I don’t know if its the changing weather (which I am loving)  or just some weird clinging damage that I did to (apparently) both legs.  Anyway, I just took it easy this morning.  Ooh, I tried a new recipe–most worthy!  Katie calls it Pumpkin Bread in a Bowl.  I only changed one thing–I used 1/2 cup of almond milk and 1/4 cup of eggbeaters.  I liked it so much I tried to make an “improved version” for lunch.  I tried replacing the cereal with my oatbran/flaxmeal mix.  I didn’t like this as much, but it stuck with me a lot longer.  I might experiment a little bit more.

I pulled out a big quilt that I hadn’t finished quilting before I had to take a break for my hand surgery, and did quite a bit of work on it.  And then I headed down to the gym to take a swim.  I really had to talk myself into this.  But I wanted to get a few groceries for my cooking for spa week tomorrow (ever notice how food is always the deciding factor for me?)  On the way down I started to get sad, or down.  Just a vague feeling.  Maybe because the body aches make me wonder if this is going to be the way it is from now on, or maybe just missing my dad catching up with me.  Or maybe the stars just weren’t aligned quite right.  Whatever.  But I just continued on and got in the pool and did my thing.  Nothing hurts too much in the pool.  I kept swimming until the spa cleared out.  Oh my goodness.  That spa felt so magnificent.  All those lovely little bubbles.  It felt like I was getting a special treatment on every little ache and pain in my body!   And for a while after I got out, everything felt good again.

The doggies and I all went out for a little stroll after dinner (believe me, when Monk’s along, there is no cardio effort involved.  A stroll is all we get.)  And I just made a batch of Roni’s version of Katie’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Dip.  I love Katie’s recipes, but sometimes they are a little calorie dense for us umm, well, those of us who DON’T have a problem putting weight on LOL.  So Roni slimmed the recipe down just a bit.   I’m going to have a bit as soon as I get done writing this blog.

And  hey!  Does everybody know about the Shape Best Blogger Awards?  Several of our friends have been nominated, but at the top of my list is BBB (Best Blog Buddy) Jill!!  Go on over and vote for her now!  Jill is the one who got me into this blogging in the first place, and we’ve been buds through thick and thin (LOL) ever since.

I’m thinking about getting these knee bands to tide me over.  My brother swears they are the best thing out there.  Anybody have any experience with this brand?

What’s Going On?

What’s going on?  Not much, really.  In case you can’t tell, I’m not much interested in chatting about weight loss these days.  Weight loss?  What is that?  When does that happen?  How does it happen?  I still have some of that ‘weight creep’ hanging on, and I am working more and less consistently at trying to remove it.

• Eating healthy?  Check with an asterisk. I guess I’d say 80% of my choices and portions are very healthy.  I’d probably lose weight if I could make that 90%.  At least that’s what Jillian Michaels says.
• Exercising?  Check with an asterisk.  My hand strength is  back, but the incision is taking its sweet time to heal, which is VERY aggravating.  And that little ‘knee hurt’ that I mentioned a few weeks ago?  Maddening, really, that I could injure myself so badly from a few paces at a slow jog.  A jog so slow that Noah didn’t even break his pace.  But it was enough to jar something out of place.  So with only having one good hand and one good leg, I haven’t gone back to the gym.  I have continued to walk once or twice a day through the HORDES OF FLIES.  I’m sure these horrible little things have some reason for being, but for the life of me I can’t imagine what it is.

So most of my blogging’s been about the “and life” section of my subtitle.

The foodie speaks:

A few days ago I experimented with using Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Biscuit mix to make my blueberry scones.  Very nice!  A little ‘doughy’ in taste and texture, but I really like them.  Here’s the scones in progress.

At the same time, I had a massive yogurt making operation going on.  Multiple batches, and straining some of the yogurt to make my own ‘Greek style’ yogurt.  I wanted to make extra yogurt to share with my neighbor who shares her vegetables with me.

The finished scone:

And an inside peek to show you the berry to dough ratio!  I put two whole cups of berries in each batch of scones.

Some of the great tomatoes my neighbor shared with me.  I’ve been having them with a splash of balsamic vinegar and some chopped basil.  Very tasty!

As I mentioned, I’m VERY SUGGESTIBLE when it comes to food.  The other day I had planned on a piece of pre-cooked chicken breast and some left-over cooked broccoli for dinner.  That was as far as my planning went.  When reading the blogs that afternoon, Lynn mentioned sprinking some parmesan on her broccoli.  Mmmm.  Then Lyn wrote about some meat lasagne, which got me in the mood for Italian.  Hey!  I had some TJ’s marinara sauce in the freezer.  In about five minutes I had my chicken breast with some marinara sauce and topped with an italian cheese mix, as well as sprinkling some of the cheese on top of my broccoli.  This time being highly suggestible turned out healthy…

My breakfast clafouti, with raspberries in it.  To be honest, it looked better than it tasted.  Raspberries are too strong a taste for me, and so I ate it, but I picked out about half the berries.

And I have already mixed up dinner and have it waiting in the refrigerator.  Love to do this, because most days, by the time dinner rolls around, and the doggies have been fed, I am DONE.  Tonight I am going to finally have the   Apple-Bacon-Chicken Salad that Miz recommended. I followed the general recipe, but just mixed up a single serving.  I took a preview taste, and mmmm-mmm.  Thanks, Miz!  (Edited to add:  This was so delicious.  My easier quicker single serving: 3 oz. pre-cooked chicken breast chopped, 1 medium apple, peeled and chopped, 1 Tbsp pre-cooked bacon, 2 Tbsp yogurt, 1 tsp mustard, and I added 1 Tbsp roasted pepitas, which really added a needed crunch, and I didn’t have any green onions so I left those out.  Served it on a bed of chopped romaine.  Approx. 250 calories.Sorry, I ate it down before I took a pic!)

The Sophie Chronicles:

Since I started hand-quilting again in the evening, Sophie has been in seventh heaven.  She snuggles down right next to me under the quilt I am working on.  This is the most relaxed you will ever see Sophie.   She can almost forget all her worries about ruling the world.

New quiltworks:

I’ve been busy quilting!  This is the ‘quilt kit’ I made to work on post-surgery.  LOVED working on this.  A modern take on the traditional Double Wedding Ring pattern.

Love the backing fabric on this.

I really like this next quilt.  Very simple, but very cheery, to me.

I like the backing fabric on this one too!

These quilts, along with a few others, are on my Etsy site!   I’m getting better at putting the quilts on there.

Well, that’s all the news that’s fit to print around here.  Hope you all are doing well.  Keep making those healthy choices.

A Different Kind of Day

Today was a different kind of day.  I started my day same as normal.  And then I just didn’t feel like doing anything.  So I gave myself permission to do just that.  Maybe it was this poster I saw this morning.

I dunno.  Maybe I overdid yesterday.  Whatever it was, I stayed in my pajamas all day and was pretty content doing nothing.

Sophie got a little bored.

 

 

 

 

Noah was a good boy.

 

 

Sophie thought the picture needed some improvement.

Some of the recent eats:

I told you guys about this idea for fruit dip/spread a while ago.  This was the first time I made it.  Fixed dinner for my spiritual formation group last night–healthy taco salad (yumm) and strawberries with this dip.  It met with unanimous approval.    People were scraping their plates to get the last of it!   I had some leftover, so topped a white peach with a couple of tablespoons.  Divine!  Recipe for Creamy Fruit Dip.

Tried out that new recipe I mentioned the other day.  This was absolutely divine.  Maybe its been too long since I had the real thing.  But honestly, it tasted like coconut custard pie to me.  I made it this morning, and saved it for dessert tonight.  The rest is safely in the freezer.  Thanks again to the culinary genius of Georgie.  The thing about something like this is that yes, it tastes luxurious like dessert.  But the ingredients are healthy and are fueling your body while you indulge.  Its a win-win situation.

Dinner tonight was scrumptious.  I’m still trying to choose stuff that I don’t have to spend too much time chopping (what was I thinking of, buying a butternut squash,) and I’m still using paper plates (washing dishes is NOT fun) but I’m back to cooking obviously.  Leftover roasted beets, roasted green beans, and a piece of perfectly cooked salmon–yay me.  Too many times I get distracted and overcook it.

Been watching a marathon of Biggest Loser episodes today.  I feel a little guilty admitting to watching it, because I essentially disagree with most of what they do there.  But I pick up a few tidbits.  And today was particularly cathartic.   There was a father/daughter team on there that was particularly close, and I cried really hard a couple of times with their interactions.  And then that same father lost his brother DURING his time at the ranch and he was grieving, and I cried hard again during that episode.  I don’t cry much at all about losing my dad, so I guess I think its good that this happens once in a while.

And now I’m tired from doing nothing all day, so I think I’ll take a shower and head to bed. You all have a great weekend!