Sick and Fat - A Pitiful Combination!

One totally irritating thing about Dave (and when I say irritating I really mean admirable) is that when he sets a goal he always meets it.  In this particular case he has already lost his extra 6 pounds of "cruise weight".  I on the other hand am fatter.  :(  158.3 glucose 121.  Of course there are a number of reasons.  The number one reason is making roca for Valentines Day.  I have got to quit making that stuff.  The second is that I came home from the cruise to a house well stocked with snacks.  Having just been on a feeding frenzy I'm finding it hard to break the habit.  So... I decided that all the snacks had to go!  Chips, popcorn, candy, everything!  So I ate them all.  :)  That's sad and pathetic and delicious!  That's the fat part.  The sick part is... blechk!  We must have picked up a bug on the plane.  Dave is really sick and I'm about three days behind him and eating all kinds of little oranges in an effort to not be as bad as he is.  We have 1 week to become nontoxic because we are going to visit KT Bug, Ish and Baby Charlotte next week.  Yay!  Anyway... I'm supposed to be driving over to spend some time in Woodinville this week but instead I'm slumped in my desk chair in my furry PJs.  I feel a bit like poo - still I am hopeful.  This morning I soaked in the tub to warm up and watched the sky become light.  The light came sooner today.  Noticeably sooner!  What a happy thing!  Just as I was celebrating spring I noticed three snow flakes drifting by.  What?  Noooo!  They began falling faster and harder and became a certified snow shower, covering the ground.  But the temperature is warming up now.   The flakes are once again floating gently down as if to say, "wrap your throat, put on some cozy sweats and curl up with a cup of hot herbal tea.  You're going to be ok... and spring is coming soon."

Ciao!

Except For The Cold I'ts Good To Be Home

I was not terribly happy to only have lost half a pound this morning!  (insert big sign here) 157.3 but glucose was 102 so if I can keep that down the weight will follow.  It's really taken me a while to get back into the groove.  I've been so tired!  Maybe it's that it was a two day process to get home from Florida.  And it's been super cold.  Usually I don't mind the cold because it also means clear sunny weather.  After lounging around in 8o degree weather though it's just brutal to wake up to 8 degrees.  :)  Ok, enough whining.  I love the ocean and the beach. While we were waiting for our plane in Miami before heading home we decided to take a bus to South Beach and wander around.  There was a wonderful street where there was an outdoor market with lots of outdoor restaurants.  We walked down to the beach where I took off my shoes, rolled up my jeans and waded in the waves and picked up shells.

It reminded me of when I was a kid.  We used to vacation in Florida or the gulf coast in Alabama every year.  That may be why sun and sand are really my definition of vacation.  Here are a few pics from the trip.









 Here's Dave lounging on deck, fruity drink in hand, not caring that he now weighs over 200 lbs.  :)

View of Miami from the deck of the ship

 Dave, Gary and me getting ready to sail away.  We were still in our jeans.  Our suitcases had not yet been delivered.

In Costa Maya we kayaked over the barrier reef in clear kayaks.  It was fun.  I was very glad we were not the poor couple whose boat sank.  :)

Here we are before dinner one evening.  These pics were taken by the photographer on board.  I almost didn't bring them home because I am not pleased with the way I look in any of them.  Then it occurred to me that in 10 years I'll probably think they look great :)

And a more casual little portrait...















And finally, here's a pic of Dave and me along with Dave's sister Lorie (who was celebrating her 50th birthday) and her husband Gary.

Now that we are back we decided to break out our first "Panda" steak.  She's pretty tasty :)  Last night I made sirloin steak with caramelized onions, curried asparagus and Parmesan baked sweet potato fries sprinkled lightly with sea salt, pepper and fresh thyme.  Except for one lobster dinner on the boat I'd have to say I enjoyed my home cooked steak dinner as much as anything I ate on vacation.

Of course the entire steak is too much for one dinner - for me at least.  Dave had no problem polishing his off.  I saved half of my steak and Dave made some very tasty steak and eggs for breakfast.   It's nice to have him around this winter.  Not only do I not have to feed the animals but he's been doing most of the cleaning.  How bad can that be?  :)  So... yeah!  It's good to be home!

Ciao!

The Day of Reckoning!

Well!  I'm home after a fabulous and toasty 9 days of Florida and Caribbean sunning, eating and loafing in general.  It was grand!  We stopped and visited Grand Cayman, Cozumel, Costa Maya and Roatan.  We snorkeled and kayaked over the barrier reef.  We hit all the Hard Rock Cafes so I could enlarge my pin collection. I have 20 now.  We look a drive up into the mountains of Roatan (which was by far the most beautiful stop on the cruise.  Unfortunately it was also raining and so we were unable to do the zip line canopy excursion we planned on.  Bummer!  But that was the only bummer of the cruise.  Of course we ate and drank everything on the boat.  Just how much you want to know don't you?  Hmm???  :)  Well.  let me look back at my last posting to see how fat I was then...  Ok... the official weight gain was 5 pounds.  The fatometer reads 157.8.  What a pig!  Glucose this morning is 107.  I didn't weigh on board but I did bring my glucose meter and the highest my glucose ever reached was 119.  So cruising is not really on the diet plan.  I could have done much better - but that would not have been vacation in my book.  I could have done MUCH WORSE!  :)  I did get up early 4 of the mornings of vacation and went for a walk/trot for a couple of miles on the jogging track on deck.  Breakfast and lunch were pretty light usually.  Dinner is what did the damage!  Of all the pics I took pretty much none of them were food.  It was in my belly before I remembered to take a pic.  :)  I think I can get those pounds off pretty easy though.

I am currently frustrated because I'm having trouble emailing my pics from my phone to my computer.  I don't know why and it's making me super grumpy!  Fine!  No pictures for you today.  I did post some to facebook though.  Vacation is hard work!  I think I need a post vacation vacation.  I'm going to bed!  It's very obvious I'm not a travel writer :)

Ciao!

A New Woman!

We'll get back to that.  First... I got home just last night from my regularly scheduled trip to Woodinville.  I always have a blast when I'm there.  I get visit my children, granddaughter and friends.  I get to go shopping!  And I get to hang out with the cool people I work with.  We are constantly emailing about something or another but it's just not the same as being able to flop down in their office chair, invited or not :)

For some reason I was unable to connect to the internet at my sister in law's house.  I was never quite there at the same time as Cory, the resident computer guru was so I never got to ask him why and my limited knowledge of anything related to the computer just didn't cut it.  All that to say... no time to blog.  This morning upon weighing in I was delighted to see 152.8 on the fatometer and 95 for a glucose reading!  Yay!  And I have no idea how that is possible since I took the kids out to Mexican for Bobby's 20th birthday on Wednesday night.  Bobby is 20!  I can hardly believe my baby is 20.  No more teens!  Now just as they are all moving out of the teen decade and are all in their 20's, some (cough cough... Adam) will soon enter into the 30 decade!  How old do you think that makes me feel???  Ok... reel it back in.  On Thursday I met my friend Dee for lunch at the Maltby Cafe.  Home of the largest cinnamon rolls I have ever seen.  I did not have one!  The only good choice I made at each of those fine establishments was to split a meal.  Darn good thing too cause just look at the home made chips from Maltby Cafe...

This is the most horrible picture imaginable - but I deserve to have it posted for eating those!  What was I thinking???  I was thinking... MAN these are AWESOME!  :)  Very fortunately at the end of that day I got a haircut so I no longer look quite so horrible!

I guess perhaps the slight loss of weight is due to making "over all" better choices than - well the poster child for how to have a heart attack shown above.  On Monday night before I left home I grilled some tuna steaks and make some quinoa with caramelized veggies.  It's the first time I made or ate quinoa.  I've seen it quite a few times lately on my food shows.  Once on Ellie Krieger and one recently from Giada De Laurentis.  I may even have seen Rachel Ray cook some up.  I was intrigued!  It looked like something that I might like since I love all grains and pastas.  It is actually a seed.  Here... check it out on Wikipedia....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinoa  It's all the rage now.  And I liked it!  It's a little like couscous ( I just had a seriously senior moment!  I could not think of the name couscous so I had to Google "tiny pasta" to find it.  Wow!!!)  Anyway!...  all that to say, the left over tuna and quinoa were used the next day to make a killer tuna salad!  I had enough to pack in my lunch box and had it on the road for a snack and for lunch the next day.   Here the tuna salad was served along side some whole wheat spaghetti noodles tossed with freshly made (by me) pesto and sprinkled with ... yeah you guessed it... bacon :)  Better half a slice crumbled than three slices woofed in two bites right?  RIGHT????  :)















Definitely a better choice than... the chips!  Another positive choice is this delightful breakfast I had this morning of plain low fat yogurt with home canned peaches (very little sugar added) and sprinkled with a few soy nuts and pumpkin kernels. I sweeten it up with a little sugar free coconut syrup.

Now that I'm back home I can pack in earnest for our cruise which is coming up next Saturday!  Yay!!!!  And that brings me to the tiny story I intended to tell in the first place.  Sorry.  I know what a hardship it is to follow my thought processes.  Can you imagine actually being me?  :)  It's a wild ride for sure!  In preparation for the cruise I made an appointment for a little pampering and grooming.  I was accompanied by my best friend and partner in crime, Brenda for moral support.  Actually she just wanted a facial she wasn't really thinking about me :)  We have been clients of our local (formerly local for me) nail salon, T D Nails in Mill Creek for years!  Since I moved to Chewelah I don't get back very often.  I am always scolded when I come in for being gone so long.   They are super busy usually and when I asked for the "waxing" portion of the visit to be done first so I could relax later after being tortured they agreed but... sometimes things don't work out just right so I had a pedicure first, then was escorted into the dreaded "waxing room".  My sweet friend Brenda who is actually just a little bit wicked was in the next room receiving her facial.  I know she did not achieve the deepest state of relaxation because she was waiting with joy in her heart to hear me screeeeeam!  She was disappointed though.  I took it like a soldier.  Well... a female soldier anyway.  Next was my French manicure.  They were practicing a new process with something they call shellac and so it took much longer than normal.  They said it was because they always have to start all over on me :)  Finally after three hours I was finished and they were satisfied with the work they had done.  They told me, "Thank you for coming, you look like a NEW WOMAN!  Don't wait so long before coming back!  I felt like a new woman. After all I had a fabulous mani/pedi and ... perfectly arched brows.  It wasn't until I got back to Lorie's house and looked at my reflection in the mirror that I realized how absurd it was to spend that much money to be LIED  to!!!  :)  Oh well... Who doesn't love to hear... "you look fabulous"!  Even if you really never quite believe it.

Ciao baby!

It's a Melty Kind of Day

Close your eyes and imagine it's a balmy 34 degrees outside.  The sky and ground are becoming one, enveloped by a white fog slowly swirling.  The trees are barely visible.  Obscured by layers of mist, clearing now and then to reveal snow falling from the branches in tiny puff explosions, that never reach the ground.  Drip, drip, drip.  I'm almost hypnotized by the icicles that are ever melting and yet never seem to get smaller.  Turkeys are scratching through the slush and deer paw the ground and are happy to find winter grass to munch on.  :)  No... I'm not on some psychedelic drug... it's way too white for that.  It's just my world today.  And I'm melting away just a little bit too.  This morning the fatometer read 153.8.  Progress at least, glucose 100, sweeeet!  DWL hmmm what it the date today... 7.

Last night I made something quite tasty that is pretty rare for a beef cattle girl like me.  I made a vegetarian dinner.  It was awesome.  I began with a recipe that I found on the allrecipes.com web site.  I love that website but I'm frequently amazed to find some of the most lard butt recipes imaginable!  A serving of soup with 900 something calories???  Still... You can trim pretty much anything and still have it be scrumptious.  Someone needs to put a leash around my neck and yank me back periodically!  What I was going to talk about was the Spicy Thai Tofu dish that I made.  I should have taken a picture of it but we gobbled it up before I remembered the camera.  Anyway... as usual I was missing a couple of ingredients so that always gives me permission to just figure something else out.  I stir fried firm tofu cubes in a little olive oil and sprinkled some Thai coating sauce mix that I found at Cash and Carry a while back.  I added a little Tamari (rich soy sauce) in and removed it from the pan when it was nice and brown.  Then I stir fried an onion, some broccoli and... something else :) Oh!  a glob of peanut butter and stirred it until it melted away.  At the end of the stir fry time I threw in some shredded Napa cabbage, a little more Tamari, a drizzle of champagne vinegar and a little water to sauce it up just a bit.  I  added the tofu back in and sprinkled the whole thing with sesame seeds.  There you have it.   Highly experimental and not half bad.

Well, all that was from this morning.  I never got a chance to finish and post.  Gotta make the big bucks you know :)  Now it's the weekend.  My favorite days of the week!  While I was finishing up in my office just now Dave was getting creative in the kitchen and whipped up a cheesy tuna melt (yep Amberlyn you guessed it... Velveeta!) grilled on sour dough bread and served with half of a left over sweet potatoe.  What's not good grilled?  I ate every bite! 

Have a great weekend everyone!

Ciao!

Good News Bad News or Bad News Good News?

As I mentioned before... Dave is home for the winter.  It will take me a little while to get used to this.  I waiver from feeling very blessed to having him around to insanely jealous because he get's all winter off.  Yes, I realize the jealousy is petty and mean.  But... have you met me?  :)  I'm working on it!  Here's one example of the stuff that's been driving my crazy the last couple of days.  He RUINED my Starbucks travel mug by putting it in the dishwasher!  Every time I took a sip from the mug it dribbled coffee on me.  He said, well, it isn't a big dribble".  I replied that it wouldn't mess up a white shirt at all!  I almost felt bad because I jumped down his throat like he had committed the worst kind of sin.  Later in the day I pulled a funny o ring looking thing out of the dishwasher and wondered out loud of course what it was.  He got a sparkle in his eye and asked if I thought it might be the seal to my destroyed coffee mug.  (insert big eye roll and teeth grinding here)  As it turns out... my coffee mug is fixed.  He promised to NEVER put it in the dishwasher again.  This morning just when I was about as irritated as I can be he called me to breakfast and here's what he had made.  The good news is that he was so very sweet and made breakfast for me.  That bad news is that it contained fabulous fried potatoes with onions.

This could be a problem.  I was able to restrain myself to half a cup.  Oh how I wanted to eat the whole pan. The omelette was tender and tasty.  I can't make omelettes by the way.  I can never quite master them so he has to make them.  I can make a mean fritatta but sometimes you just want a real omelette.  Anyway... It had goat cheese and bacon crumbles.  I topped mine with a little plain Greek yogurt rather than sour cream.  Even though I showed amazing control moderating the potatoes... well let's just say it would be better for me to have no potatoes.  But I didn't want to hurt his feelings.  :)  Riiiight!   

I decided I better go light for lunch.  I rummaged around in the fridge freshly stocked with raw crunchy goodness and came up with this.  Let's see.  We'll call it...

Kicked Up Caprese Salad

It started out Caprese because I remembered the fresh mozzarella "pearls" in the fridge.  Then I added the tomatoes and cukes and got derailed because I have NO basil.  :(  Hmmpf!  I got angry all over again at Walmart because they had NO fresh basil last time I went.  Some crazy person took over and added red cabbage, bacon crumbles and these nice little garlic flavored pistachios I found at good ole Walmart the other day.  A little ground pepper and sprinkling of olive oil and balsamic vinegar (my favorite) and ta da!

 Now... back to my favorite subject... Dave.  :)  The real problem is that it feels like he is invading my territory.  I love love love him AND I do like my alone time.  If he's always here...   see where I'm going with this?  :)  I'm sure I'll settle down.  This is not the first time he has taken the winter off.  I'm always amazed that there is usually a knee or an elbow that needs repair and it tends to happen... from January through March.  :)  I need to quit making fun of him.  They are all valid and the rest of the year he works like a DOG!  Still... I wonder what I could come up with to get that much time off.  Hmm... my fingers would have to be smashed to smithereens (ha!  my spell checker just corrected my spelling on smithereens.  I didn't know it was actually a word) and my butt would have to... well... how can you not sit on your butt?  Alright.  I'm thankful that I'm healthy enough to make the completely exhausting climb to my second story office each day where I can gaze out the window and survey my Queendom.  Then I get take my frustrations out on those poor souls who have either been unfortunate enough or stupid enough to not pay their bill at Valley Supply Co.  :)  In the end I guess it's Good News Good News.  It will be very interesting... on Friday night we get to go hang out at Donna and Ed's house where we have a fun bible study about marriage.  Almost always I feel like I have the perfect marriage.  If not perfect then pretty darn awesome.  I am only rarely irritated by Dave.  :)  I'm sure he's frequently irritated by me!  We'll see if he "tells" on me.  ;) I just have to say though... the first morning he wakes up early and wants to get in the tub with me... I'm going to have to drown him.   Just Kidding... sort of... :)

Ciao!

Oh!  Fatometer.  Again... 154.8 Grrr!  Glucose coming down a skosh:  115.  Still high and DWL:  6.  Yay!

Feeling Better - still stupid! :)

Fatometer 154.8 Glucose 120 (Yikes!)  DWL:  5 (yay!).  It occurred to me that once I get beyond January I'm going to lose count of how many days wineless... if only all the months had 30 days.  Oh well.  I'll just have to estimate :)  I was on a good food roll yesterday and could tell that my face was thinning out a little as the bloat began to recede :)  Unfortunately - and this is where the STUPID comes in... I had a small bowl of peanuts in the shell as I sat watching the news... not so bad.  Then I had a small bowl of pistachios.  Hmm... Then Dave went to bed.  THEN I popped a bag of microwave pop corn!  THEN!!!!  I found the chocolate chips in the cupboard and ate maybe a 1/4 of the bag.  Geeze!  I hate myself!  


So...  I decided I better get back on the salad plan.  I've been balking at salads this winter because they are just so cold!  It's 20 degrees out.  The whole world is white - well... all of my world anyway and the counter tops feel like sheets of ice.   I was determined to have the quartz counter tops when we built the house and Dave warned me.  So now guess what?  As recently as today I got another great big I told you so from  Dave.  Fine!  He's right!  I really don't like super cold food.  Today I took my lettuce and veggies out of the fridge and let them warm up a little on the cutting board.  It was enough to make the salad so much more pleasurable to eat.  On this one I got about half way through and realized I forgot the bacon bits I had been saving for the top.  That added so much more flavor!  :)  Ummmm... bacon!  but just a few crumbles.  I also had a mug of nice warm turkey lentil soup.  It's been warming me up for two days now.  I really don't want to see it again.  I'll let Dave snack on it.

Clearly the fork is on the wrong side of the plate.  :)  I was just trying to get the soup mug in!


Well... It's snowing again and we've just come home from Colville where I took Dave to have his right foot put in a cast.  He has plantar fasciitis and will have one foot after the other cast until sometime in March.  Now before you go feeling too sorry for him you should know that they are letting him out of the cast and into a boot for the Caribean cruise in two weeks.  There is no way to keep him out of the water so...  He'll have to have it back on when we get home.   He's just not that sad to be out of work for the winter.  I can't imagine why!  I am happy to report though that I found an overshoe that will fit over his cast so that he can go out in the weather and feed the cows.  Hmm... maybe I'm not so stupid after all... :)  Yes... I really am.  While we were in Colville I ran by the grocery store and picked up some more "green" food.  Also got some eggs and thought it would be so tasty to have some tuna salad with hard boiled eggs in it.  I put some eggs on to simmer and then went up to my office.  About an hour later I realized that something smelled like it was burning... I ran all the way down into the basement where I found Dave and demanded to know what he was burning.  He said he thought I was burning something.  I informed him that I was working not cooking and stomped off.  :)  THEN I remembered!  I immediately began thinking about how I was going to get out of admitting...  nope.  No way out!  (Insert big sigh here!)  At least I have a winter maid to clean up the mess :)


Ciao!