Do You believe in Magic?

Okay, fess up.  How many of you read the title of this post and immediately thought of the Lovin' Spoonful hit from 1965??  (click here to enjoy a trip down memory lane) That was from my high school days and I loved that song.  And, while we're confessing things, I'll admit that while I don't believe in magic, I have certainly wanted the ability to wiggle my nose or wave a magic wand to eliminate the time and dedication necessary to many an undertaking in my life.

Ella at Halloween.  Here talented (other) grandmother
made her costume.

I'm not sure whether Ella believes in magic, but she certainly has a "thing" for princesses and fairies these days.  I am a firm believer in afternoon naps up until kindergarten (!), but allow them to have a quiet time if sleep doesn't come.  Ella has spent her recent quiet times  looking through the Usborne Big Book of Fairy Things to Make and Do.  I get her to fall asleep by promising to wake her up before Jack wakes up so that we can do some of the projects together.  It's worked two days in a row to get her to nap and there's nothing like some good quality time together letting her create girly, glittery fairies with construction paper, tissue, glitter, and glue.  Here's one she made this week.  The under skirt and sleeves are made from torn paper (rather than cut) and she was proud to be able to do it all by herself.  We didn't have the called-for glitter, but the book has quantities of pages with foil stickers that can embellish the fairies plus about 20 different projects to make with fairly simple supplies.  If you have a little girl in your life, this is a super gift.

As I lack a working magic wand, I've been putting in some effort to get back to a workable exercise plan.  My goal is to do some exercise every day over and above my normal routine.  At this point, I'm doing a lot of walking along with trips to the gym.  If the weather is good this weekend, I'd like to get in a couple of bike rides.

Jack is making great progress on the potty training front.  In just over a week, he's gone from wearing diapers 24/7 to being in big boy pants except for when he's sleeping.  He hasn't had an accident here since the first day and tells me when he needs to go.  Pretty amazing.  I wish it was so easy for me to learn new habits!

I've been enjoying pears recently.  I tend to like the anjou pears best.  I like them cold in wedges, or with a bit of muenster cheese, or even, like Lori has hers, with a sprinkle of cinnamon.  There's something about the texture of fresh pears that is very pleasing to the tongue, no?

It's time for me to wrap this up so I can wake Ella up for todays Art session!

Magic wands are great for bringing smiles to 4 year olds, but exercise and a reasonable diet are the ticket for making the changes I need for healthy living!

Be good!

Monday, Monday

Good Morning!  Well, the snow and sleet we saw over the weekend have given way to a sunny, crisp fall day.  I've delivered the children to pre-school and came home to enjoy a quiet morning and get some things done.  Instead, we have several men making a racket on the roof (beginning the roof replacement).  It's incredible how loud it is, all over the house--no quiet corners here.  I'm also awaiting a call from the plumber who is going to fix a drain problem at our rental house.

I'm very tempted to make a batch of cranberry bars and fill the house with wonderful aromas of sugary treats, but I'm thinking that it's probably more a reaction to stress than to any actual need to have delicious, calorific treats on a cooling rack in the kitchen.  If I can hold out for about 10 more minutes, I won't have enough time to finish before I have to go pick up the children from school.

Have you discovered SweeTango apples yet?  I found them at Wegman's after a friend told me about them.  They are a successor to the popular Honey Crisp apple, but have an even more delicious juicy/sweet/tart flavor.  They also have a very nice texture.  I took some sliced very thin and served with meunster cheese to our evening Bible study the other night.  People always bring "treats" to this study and I'm always trying to counter the sugary dessert type offerings with something healthy and diet friendly.  This was a hit.  Someone else had brought apples too, but theirs were incorporated in a deep dish apple pie.  I'm not saying that the apple pie went begging for attention, but every slice of apple and every morsel of cheese was gone from my plate and more than half the pie went home with it's maker.  Just saying.  Look for them.  You'll like  love 'em!

Okay, I think I'm safely over the urge to make cranberry bars--not enough time before I have to go.  :-)

My choir does a yearly community Messiah sing every year.  It's not a show up and sing along, but rather come to 6  one hour rehearsals and sing with the orchestra for a packed house.  Mostly it's the same people who come every year, but our choir swells from 25 to 70 and it a very fun thing to be a part of.  The first rehearsal is tomorrow!

I've got to figure out a way to get in a walk today, but between the roofers, the plumber, and the kids, I'm thinking it will be a moonlit walk rather than a sunny stroll through the leaves.

Happy Halloween!   (I haven't yet bought our giveaways--maybe on the way to pick up the kiddos.)

Thursday Thinking

Hi All!

I'm sitting at the kitchen table across from two year old Jack, who is, for the first time, in big boy underpants during his day with me.  I hear great reports of his potty progress at home, but have never yet had him perform successfully here, so I opted for a morning in the kitchen--nice slate floor rather than the hardwoods and area rugs in the rest of the house.  He's none the wiser.  He's happily building a huge lego tower and has a continuous loop of Thomas the Tank Engine going in case his architectural endeavors fail to hold his attention.

Fall has definitely arrived.  There are drifts of dried leaves in the yard and the nighttime  temperatures are flirting with Jack Frost.  I went to my WI yesterday and had yet another small gain which managed to wipe out my progress from the past few weeks.  I won't give up, but it is frustrating to be seemingly stuck at this number on the scale.

I try  to encourage myself by thinking of the positives.  Here they are:  I still weigh less than I did when I started 3 1/2 years ago.  I have established some healthy habits that are here to stay (whole wheat pasta, breakfast every day, smaller portions at dinner, weighing myself every day, to name a few).  DH is a rock in his support and encouragement.  I have the support of a great WW leader, Barbara, a BFF who is a fellow traveller on this road, and you all, my cyber support team!  We have a fabulous Christmas planned.  We'll drive to TX to see my brother and rendezvous with our Laura and her family.  We'll spend a bit of time in Austin and then celebrate Christmas out in west Texas at Big Bend with lots of hiking, family fun, and sight seeing.  I have several weeks before then to get myself in better shape to thoroughly enjoy the trip.

I need to remember what has worked for me and start to re-incorporate those things into my routine.  Today I'm working on tracking my eating.  The new WW e-tools have evolved so that they are really easy to use and helpful.  I have the WW app and WW kitchen companion app on my ipad and really have no excuse not to use them.

I'm continuing to work on our room now that the paint is done.  The new love seat that I'd ordered to replace to too-large sofa (DH and my first purchase after our wedding in 1973) was delivered this week. I also bought two fun ottomans (ottomen??) at Home Goods.  They were quite inexpensive and add a fun pop of color to the room.  Here's a picture.  The love seat is Pottery Barn (PB Basic in "natural").  The paint is Benjamin Moore (Gray Wisp 1570).

I'll leave you with a picture of Ella.  I had her by herself when Jack was off doing something with his daddy the other day and we went shopping.  I let her choose our destination.  Her choice?  The American Girl Doll Store!  I get their beautiful catalog and Ella loves to go through it and talk about each doll and outfit.  She'd never been to the store, but she recognized it right away in the mall.  Her eyes lit up at the sight of the store window featuring a tea party with one doll dressed up in Ella's favorite outfit--the "fancy dress" with the "fairy costume"  added.  Despite my admonitions that we were just window shopping to see things to add to her Christmas list, I totally caved and bought her a doll.  And the fancy dress outfit.  And the fairy costume.  My rationalizations--I'm the grandmother, I get to spoil her a bit.  We'll be away at Christmas (with our other grandkids) so I wouldn't be able to see her joy at opening the doll.  That was a trip that she may remember all her life.  And by the way, despite my efforts to lead her to choose "Kit" a doll that looks rather like her, she instead choose "Ruthie" a brunette doll who is Kit's best friend.  Ella told me that if I liked blond Kit so much, I should put Kit on my Christmas list!  The sharp-eyed among you may have discovered where we went after we bought the doll.  Yes, to the Hagen Daas store for a small vanilla cone covered with rainbow sprinkles.  Four year old bliss!  Oh and we stopped at the CVS on the way home to find a toy for Jack.  Not nearly as expensive, but Jack reportedly loves his new motorcycle toy.

Well, the legos have lost their luster, but Jack is watching Thomas while climbing back and forth on the kitchen chairs.  Whatever works.  It's almost three hours since he came and he's still dry and still says "no" every time I offer him the opportunity to go potty.  Something's gotta give soon!  This potty training business is stressful!

Go Away, Mr. Munch

It's that temptation time--a few hours after lunch, too soon to eat dinner and Mr. Munch is on the loose, knocking at the doors, peeping through the windows and trying to take over my house.  I've got the electric tea kettle turned on with some of my favorite tea (Bigelow Vanilla Caramel) almost ready and thought I'd come here to enlist your aid in my effort boot Mr. Munch out of the area.

The kiddos are having a snack (beautiful little baby carrots from Costco) and watching a Veggie Tale DVD.  I've made a bit pot of turkey noodle soup that's nearly ready (my chicken soup with noodles, but I made it with turkey and added some chopped collard greens and mushrooms this time).  I'm sifting through WW recipes for biscuits to go with it and think I settled on one that has some crisped turkey bacon added to the biscuit.  Oops, the kids are both finished with snack time.  We just read Epossumondas (by Coleen Salley) and now they're doing some parallel play with a big bunch of wooden blocks.  Ella is pretending her tiny doll is Rapunzel and is walling her up in a tower with only the yarns of her hair sticking out a tiny window.  Jack is building a more utilitarian garage for his little FedEx truck.  I love their imaginative play.

I had a good week last week, for the most part, and was rewarded with a 1.4 loss at my WI on Wednesday.   It has really helped me to track my eating.  I have to confess that even though I've been continuously enrolled in and a pretty faithful WW attendant, I'm still not really conversant with the points plus of the food that I eat.  Part of that is that I followed CORE for so long, but also, because I haven't tracked.  This spate of tracking is helping me.  I'm still trying to do mostly CORE--all my pasta and rice are whole grain.  I buy very little processed food and concentrate on the lean meats, fish & poultry and fruits and veggies still.  I have, though, decided to allow some previously verboten food to make it's way into our meals occasionally--bread (whole wheat thin Pepperidge farm), butter (light) used very sparingly, for flavor.  The difference with the past few months--when my weight chart looked a lot like the Dow Jones average, dramatic losses and then huge gains, all making for a fairly flat average--is that now I'm tracking those "extras" and fitting them into my daily and weekly points.  Amazingly, this works.  Biz--over a My Bizzy Kitchen is a great inspiration.  She posts her WW meals, with pictures and recipes, every day.  Her meals are fantastic, and she doesn't stint on using whatever she needs to make them, but she is doing a super job on her weight loss goals and is keeping healthy.  I'm enrolled in her latest challenge and have challenged myself to lose 20 pounds by Jan first.  Three and a half gone, 16.5 to go!

Oh, last week I suddenly remembered my wonderful baked apple recipe that my sister (hi Missy!) shared with me last fall.  Buy Fuji apples, core and slice them 8-12 slices per apple, layer them on a large cookie sheet (use foil for no clean up mess), sprinkle generously with cinnamon and bake at 350 degrees for 45-60 minutes until they are tender.  These are great just for snacking on (NO points), wonderful on oatmeal, loved by the kiddos, and make a very nice dessert with a dab of fat free cool whip.  Try 'em, you'll like 'em!

DH has arrived home and is happily playing with the children.  DIL is due here any minute and then I'll get  those biscuits started and we'll eat in about 30 minutes.  I think Mr. Munch has taken a powder for the time being.  And, just to get all my boxes checked on my tracker (and, of course, because it's good for me) we'll go to the gym tonight

Stay tuned,

Off and Running

This is a snap of Ella and Jack on the first day of preschool.  Ella often had teary drop-offs last year, but is raring to go this year.  Jack is new to preschool, but seems to take after his daddy whom I remember running off to join the line of new kindergartners with never a backward glance.  Here's hoping that they're this eager every day!     I am not quite this geared up to meet my goals, but I can happily report that I'm starting my fourth week of being on program, exercise, and tracking what I eat.   

I lost 3 pounds the first week and, as Debbie wisely predicted in the comments of my last post, gained one pound last week (the day after my surgery).  Thank goodness for her counsel, because I just chalked it up to water and stress and kept on going.  Of course I haven't been perfect every day in my eating choices, but, on the whole, I'm pretty content with my diet.  I've tried lots of new recipes and bought a few new food items  to keep things interesting.  The WW online recipes are great.  I made their Classic Chicken Soup with Noodles for dinner the other night now that we're getting a hint of fall in the air.  It was a definite winner and will make a repeat appearance soon, I think.  As a side to the soup, I made a half recipe of Apricot Scones (just 4 points +) and used some of my flex points to have two!  Such indulgence!

Thank you all for your good wishes about my surgery.  It went well and I was back to my normal routine the next day.  I got the great news yesterday that the biopsy came back "all clear."  I'm not a huge worrier, but, as you can imagine, this was really good to hear.

Today I earned a gold star (well, an imaginary gold star).  I had the morning "off" and had decided to get out and do some exercise.  I woke to the patter of rain on the window panes, but got dressed and went out and did it anyway.  I went to my favorite river path and did Week One, Day One of C25K!  It's the first time I've actually run in any organized sort of way since my spine surgery in March.  Yay me!  And I didn't even melt in the rain--I guess it was only the Wicked Witch who melted.

With September, it seems like everything's starting up again.  This year, instead of BSF, I've joined another Bible study group (Community Bible Study).  They are very similar in content and format, but CBS is a bit closer to my WW meeting so that I won't be late.  

WI tomorrow and I'm hoping to lose.  

Are you off an running?

Sunny Sunday

Our deluge of last week finally ended.  We got 12+ inches over two days.  Today is sunny and beautiful.  DH is off refereeing soccer games and I'm supposed to be catching up on laundry.  Instead, I thought I'd blog a little and then go out for a walk along the river.  

I'm still going strong with staying on plan and tracking.  I've tried out lots of new recipes in the last week and a half.  Some highlights were stuffed peppers, an awesome curried chicken salad (from the WW online recipes, called Curried Chicken Salad Sandwich), and barbecued pork chops with a peach barbecue sauce.  I bought a half a bushel of peaches at the Farmer's Market on Wednesday.  I put up (froze) about half, but we've been in the land of good eating with marvelous fresh peaches.  I had the last one sliced on my cereal this morning.

I'm going in for some minor (same day) surgery on Tuesday.  Hope to get a conclusive good biopsy and be done with worrying. The surgery is one of those deals where I'm not supposed to eat or drink after midnight until my 12:30 pm surgery the next day.  I thought I'd leave a crockpot simmering with some tempting recipe (osso bucco?) so that I can eat well (and not frantically) when I get home.  Wednesday is my WI day and I'm hoping the Tuesday fast will work to my advantage.

We're going to have our bedroom and sitting room painted soon.  I've been working my way through Benjamin Moore's blues, grays, and greens and have finally found the perfect color.  It's BM 1570, called Gray Wisp, which looks definitely gray on the fan deck and color chip, but turns the loveliest gray-blue-green color on the wall.  It was a close call with another BM paint called Elemental (a brownish olive green which works well with some of our accent colors) but I really had a blue-green-gray color in mind.   We have no fewer than 12 big splotches of paint samples up in our rooms and will both be happy to have the new wall color up. 

DH and I are working on figuring out a nice 4 or 5 day fall trip.  We want to take our bikes, maybe see a little fall color, and get away for a bit.  I need flat bike trails (!).  Any ideas?

Last night I had 4 points left over (plus about 25 of those extra weekly points).  I had a bit of frozen leftover oatmeal cookie dough in the fridge--just enough to make 4 cookies.  DH and I enoyed a very nice evening snack with milk.  (Jay was already in bed, so missed out on this little treat).

For your viewing pleasure.  We have lots of squirrels who like to hang around.  This guy evidently decided to take his afternoon siesta on the deck rail.  He was there for a good 5 minutes, just laid out flat.  Have you ever been that tired?

Time for my walk along the river.

 

I Found it! Finally.

My cell phone. We have two pre-paid cell phones (besides the fancy smart phone DH uses for work). Way back at the beginning of July I lost mine. I thought I'd lost it while traveling back from Seattle, on one of the planes. Gone forever. Not so. I was driving today and slipped my fingers down between the seat and the center console and, much to my surprise, came up with my very own cell phone. That's the good news. I tried to call to have the number reinstated. Several transfers later, many explanations, many repetitions of my cell phone number and pin code and I finally got to the right agent to help me accomplish my goal. Long story short, he couldn't understand what I wanted and I couldn't explain it so that he did. His English was minimal at best. I finally gave up. I'll go into my local T Mobile and take care of it in a couple of days. Very frustrating.

Oh, and maybe, just maybe, I've found my mojo, too! One entire week of being OP, feeling confident, exercising, tracking, trying new recipes, and generally feeling good about myself and my weight loss and health goals. I was rewarded with a 3.0 pound loss at my WI today. Yay me! It's amazing the contrast in my outlook from just a couple of weeks ago. I'm an optimist--I'd wake up every morning feeling that maybe, somehow, that day would be the day I got back on track. My optimism lasted until the first temptation and subsequent bite of some non-program food. I can't tell you what did the trick. I'm just very grateful.

We had Chicken Tetrazzini for dinner tonight.  One of DH's favorites and nice and hot for a cool rainy day.  I made a WW online recipe which was yummy and only cost 9 points.

I also bought a half bushel of peaches at the Farmers' Market.  My favorite seller says this may be the last week for the yellow peaches (which I prefer over the white variety).  I hope to get some frozen while the grand babies are napping tomorrow.

One of my recent photo finds while sifting through one of the many boxes from my parents' attic (now in our attic!).  This is my mother, about two years old, in 1922.  I got none of those natural curls, BTW, nor the blond hair.  The puppy is Dis-Donc  and appears to have been her constant companion for the first few years of her life.