Terrific Tuesday

Two year old E, mixing her mom's birthday cake.

Well, today seemed almost as busy as yesterday!  I had promised E that she could help me make her mom's birthday cake. She takes her job seriously (note the blue polka dot apron).  When we've cooked before,"helping"  meant washing hands, wearing an apron and dumping things in a bowl after I'd measured them.  Well, I'm here to tell you that she wasn't having that.  No, she wanted to do the measuring.  She wanted to crack the eggs.  And she wanted to wield the electric mixer.  Did I mention this is a chocolate cake?  I gave her an extra reminder NOT to lift the mixer and stepped back to take her picture.  She was great!  And the cake turned out wonderfully well.  I had a very thin sliver (DH noted it was  about 4 crumbs thick!).               

And there were more sweets in my day, too.  Cupcakes with a Cherry on Top!  This one is a blogger award from Deb at Deb Will Be FREE.  Thank you Deb!  And there's no calorie expenditure for this sweet treat!  Even better.

The Rules for Eligibility are: 1. Answer the question, "If you had one chance to go back and change one thing in your life, would you and what would it be? 2. Pass on to six people and inform them of the award. 


I'm going to follow Deb's lead and do part 1 today and part 2 tomorrow.  So, what would I change?  At first I thought, duh, I'd learn these things I'm learning now soooo much earlier in my life, but then, no, I don't think so.  I've actually loved my life.  I've never been one to wish myself younger--I've lived a great life and had some wonderful relationships, friendships and experiences. I think all my experiences, through thick and thin, have worked together to make me who I am.   What I'd change is I'd let my young self know is that I was eventually going to get the hang of living at a healthy weight.  




I changed my plan from last night and decided to make two pans of lasagna--one traditional and one seafood (instead of the lasagna roll ups).  The traditional lasagna is one I've made for 30 years.  It's an old WW recipe and my family thinks it's the best lasagna ever.  I made it for some Italian friends when we lived in Rome and they asked for the recipe, too.  It was good, but the seafood lasagna was AWESOME!   DIL loves seafood and doesn't eat ground beef, so I made it for her, but everybody else liked it, too.  That's the one I ate.  It had a few more "extras" than I usually eat (cream cheese, 2% milk, parmesan cheese, and mozzarella)  but I had a small piece and it was certainly within my calorie target--<350 per serving.   I've linked to the recipe, it's from a Cooking Light cookbook, but most of their recipes are online, too.


I did my gym workout after dinner.  There were only three of us in the workout room (such a nice change from the crowd at the beginning of January!).  I listen to a book on my ipod while I work out.  It really passes the time nicely and has the added benefit of keeping me going to the gym, because I don't allow myself to listen to that book except when I'm at the gym.


I'm hoping to knock off some more sticks o' butter at my WI tomorrow.  I'm going to get up early to run and I have my first BSF (Bible Study Fellowship--an intensive, year long Bible study of the book of Isaiah) before my noon WI.  My BFF (Best Friend Forever!) and I will go out for lunch together and then shopping.   Another full (fun) day.