Dean and MadMax left early this morning for a weekend of bird-hunting with Dean's dad and brother-in-law in Idaho. Dean was so excited he couldn't sleep last night. Woke up at 4:30. Went for a run at 5. Was showered and packed by 6:30.
Which means it's me and my girls this weekend--Cinder and Jazz. Cinder decided to kick off our weekend of fun and frivolity by throwing up on the hall carpet. So I started my crazy party weekend by cleaning cat vomit off my Costco hall runner. Ah, the brilliant life I lead.
Also on the docket for this weekend: In preparation for my book giveaway, I have to go through my 3-foot stack of books waiting to be read and figure out which ones I want to keep. Which means reading the first ten pages or so and seeing what I think. If I'm lucky, I'll get sucked into one and not be able to put it down. It's been awhile since I've read a book I couldn't put down.
I managed to reduce my four shelf-feet of picture books that I'm saving to read to my grandchildren by two feet this morning. I'd post a photo but I think I left my camera in my car, and Dean and MadMax took mine because Dean's is too small for all the hunting gear. That still leaves me with two feet of picture books. I admit to getting a little tear-y over How many Trucks can a Tow Truck Tow?, The Father that had 10 Children, Officer Buckle and Gloria, and 10 Minutes till Bedtime (possibly my all-time favorite children's book). But those aren't going. They're staying, because dangit in ten years I might have grandkids. Never mind that Nell is still in college and MadMax is still in middle school.
btw. Have I told you that MadMax is taller than me? It happened back in May or so. Five months later, he is over an inch taller than me. I'm the shortest in the family now by quite a bit.
the low-fat four letter word: so my diet is sort of going in fits and starts. Remember, it's not about weight-loss anymore, it's about lowering my cholesterol. Which is good, because I'm not losing any weight. I thought I would pass on the best things I've discovered that are low-fat. Some are obvious, like salsa and mustard. I'm lucky that I love both of those (not together). But there have been some surprises, too. Did you know that Hershey's syrup has no fat? So if I use a banana, a cup of 1% milk, a handful of frozen raspberries and 2 tablespoons of Hershey's, I can have a totally awesome chocolate raspberry smoothie for 2.5 g of fat (and even though I'm not officially counting calories, it's still only about 350 calories). And Tootsie Pops. No fat, 60 calories each. I missed regular tortilla chips at first, but really if you're just munching (with your low-fat salsa, of course), once you get used to them the baked chips are fine.
Then there's Dr. McDougall's cup soups. They're about $1.50 each from Amazon, slightly more from the grocery store, and there are several good flavors. The nutritional info varies with the flavor, but my favorite, PadThai, is 200 calories, 1 g fat, and 8 g protein. No, it doesn't taste like Pad Thai, but it tastes good-- pleasantly burn-y and interesting. and they have them at the student center at my school, which makes for an easy, quick lunch. also I tried a Rocco recipe for brownies that is based on a can of black beans. It wasn't bad, although I think I would call them black bean bars and not brownies, so you're not expecting them to taste like brownies. I want to mess with it a little bit and "improve" it and then maybe I'll post it.
Adding 15 minutes to my exercise time has turned out to be harder than expected, though. I get bored. I've tried reading, but I get a little nauseated with the book bouncing up and down. (Have I ever posted about how prone I am to motion sickness?) There's a TV in the room with the treadmill, but there's no cable in there, so I can only watch movies on it. I haven't done it yet, but I may have to if I'm going to stick with this. I've actually walked outside a couple of times, which is more interesting, but I don't get as good a workout because there's only a small bit that is hilly.
Hey, I have a question for you. What is your opinion about artificial
sweeteners? I just don't like them. Well, OK, I drink 3-4 caffeine-free
Diet Dr Peppers a week, but other than that, I'm not a fan. Many of
Rocco's recipes call for Truvia, which is based on stevia, an herbal
sweetener. So it's not exactly artificial, but still. It just doesn't
taste right to me. If I'm going to eat something sweet, I want sugar, dammit.
Wow, this has been truly all over the place. I confess to pulling this one out of a hat because I didn't want that last one to be the first post a new person might see. I don't know why I worry, though, since I've only got half a dozen readers right now. I seem to have scared off the phdonline person and my teethwhitening buddy with that TMI post. They'd been coming by for months, but I haven't seen them since. Which just makes me more grateful for you guys! Happy Wednesday, people!
of course, I may have lost those two, but I gained penisenglargementworlds.com! Even trade, right? I'm trying to think of some off-color pun to make to no avail.
ReplyDelete- (my) Max came by earlier and urped on the living room carpet, but he's a dog, so he just cleaned it all up himself.
ReplyDelete- Getting rid of books? I have no idea what you mean, or how this works, never done in my life. (I know, you have to downsize, still....)
- Can't go back and read those kids books, just have to walk past them (averting my eyes) and keep hoping I'll have grandkids soon (not just grand-dogs).
- Two thirds of mine got taller than me, way quickly. But then, it wasn't a far ways to go. And genetically Hanna never had a chance.
- That is a great smoothie idea. No bananas for me, but otherwise, awesome.
- Don't use or eat artificial sweetners, too many reports of brain damage etc. It's sugar or honey or agave for me.
- Not gonna touch that "leaving" the last post thing, lol. We've discussed it, and I completely respect your whys and wherefores. :)
Julie
-I will admit to having a small box of books that were the favs when the progeny were growing up. I am keeping those. And I still have too many books in the TBL pile. Those will have to be gone through, sigh.
ReplyDelete-I avoid ALL artificial sweetners, even things like Splenda. Have for years. I feel better when I do not ingest them and frankly, they just seem to make me hungrier, which seems to defeat the purpose.
-I am all for the no fat in Hershey's syrup but please no bananas!! I avoid those too.
hmmm, that is interesting that neither of you eat bananas. I was eating a bunch of them a few weeks ago, then started having more migraines than usual, so stopped to see if it made a difference. But it didn't, as far as I can tell. Dangit. Finally the last three days I've been better, so maybe next week if it keeps up, I'll try a banana just to see what happens. I would hate to lose them since we are big smoothie drinkers around here (MadMax has the monthly brace-tightening thing which makes soft food mandatory for a couple days every six weeks) and bananas thicken smoothies really well without adding fat or refined sugar.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you both agree about artificial sweeteners. They just give me the shivers. (Except my occasional DDPs, of course.)
hey, and julie! at least I didn't delete it!! it's still there! And the one I did delete is back, too. I edited it a little, but not as much as I thought I would. I did delete the comments, though.
ReplyDelete