Food food food and knitting.

Item the one-yesterdays almond butter fudge in the freezer was a win. 1/2 c almond butter, 21/2 tbsp coconut oil.  I put in a splash of maple syrup and a dash of cocoa.

Today’s dinner was quite colorful. Brown rice, mushrooms, fresh carrots, and spinach. Tamari sauce garlic and ginger for flavor.

This is the knitting I’ve been playing with.  You don’t have to think so much.

            

Sunday night sweets

Two adventures for a Sunday night.  Pumpkin mini muffins (one mix makes 48) with half of them frozen.  And almond butter fudge.  The recipe called for almond butter, coconut oil and some maple syrup.  I also added some cocoa.  I haven’t yet mastered the put candy into molds skill.  They are to be kept in the freezer.  The muffins are a win. The fudge tbd. And this post may or may not make it from this app.

Mobile posting not working... grr

First off- you're probably already better but if not, Get Well Soon Lisa Simpson!

The mobile posting app doesn't like my pictures. That makes me crazy and leaves me at one post this week.

On Monday there was a spinach, kiwi, agave sweeter smoothie.  It was not terrible.

Secondly this water bottle is hilarious.  But I am happy with my free Wal-Mart water bottle and instead just added the hour markers.

Next, knit night was amazing because both Amanda and Dr.Justine were there and it's been so very long since the three of us laughed like we do.

Next I've convinced ZumbaBetty that she can have all of her songs on an mp3 player and have loaded them for her.  As a result, I now have all the songs.  Fast Latin dancing songs for days.

In return, (but not really- mostly just because we're friends) ZumbaBetty sent me a recipe for cookies with banana, unsweetened applesauce and a few other handy ingredients with which to make cookies.

I have only one banana and need three so I'll be waiting for the back up bananas to ripen.

And finally, sometimes you just have to cheat.  I only ate half of this pizza but then made up for it last night with a thick crusted 14" cheese pizza that is no longer.  Apparently one must do this every now and then to remind oneself of how hard it is not to crave yummy carbs and gluten once you give in a little bit.

And for dinner tonight, an experiment with mashed cauliflower, potatoes, tahini and coconut milk.

Also today- I had to send a link about menopause and scatterbrainedness to greathusbandbob after he was worried because I put the dog collar in the milk bones box.

Juicy Lucy

Ahh the weekend.  Zumba and grocery store this morning.  Adventures in juicing when I got home.

If a person really wanted to do what Joe does in Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead, it would be a full time job.  When you weren’t exercising you'd be buying, and cutting vegetables and slowly feeding them through the juicer.  I think for now I may be a weekend juicer.  It’s a bit of a production. And yet there are scenes where he’s doing it from the back of his car.

The juicer (Omega for anyone who cares) cracks me the hell up because when it’s breaking down most foods it really just sounds like it’s chewing.  Which is also a litttle gross but I try not to think about it. 

The juice is best drunk immediately but preserves its goodness for 2-3 days.  After that it loses nutrients. Hence the full time job.

I made two full containers of the green.

I

Two full containers of the dark orange and one half container of the bright orange.

Let’s just say I drink these in lieu of breakfast, lunch and snacks this weekend.  By Sunday I will have consumed

An entire bunch of kale, 2 sweet potatoes, 8 stalks of celery, 4 pears, 3 cups of blueberries, w cucumbers, 2 oranges, 3 carrots, 6 apples, a lemon and some ginger root.  All of this is notably better than eating 12 pumpkin muffins all weekend.

The juicer removes the non soluble fiber and keeps the fiber and nutrients.  

The taste- the green one tastes like summertime when I was little.  Which is bright tangy and  just a little grassy.

The dark orange is mostly pear flavored with hints of berries.

The bright orange is hilarious. Carrots, oranges and ginger.  I was a little heavy handed with the ginger.  I'll know better next time. But it does taste like bright sunshine.

I have a friend at work who had the stomach band surgery.  She is struggling mentally with it all.  I feel like we are at good connecting points on our food journeys.   I’m about six months ahead of her in the changing of eating (and also no surgery.). That means I can share how the changes feel and how they’re worth it with her.  Also it gives me a reason to keep going when I really want a break.  We walked in circles in the school gym on Friday (which was great for me because up to this point I haven’t done much on Fridays.)and shared the week's struggles.  Including husbands who overindulge somewhat thoughtlessly (although it’s not fair to expect them to change just because you are) and regularly.

What a path I have chosen.  How surprised I am to be following it.

(Backup) Two day week— five day weekend

Monday was MLK day, Tuesday was a snow day and today was an Arctic Academy day.  Teachers at school kids at home. I spent nearly all of the time planning for the high school class.  Do you have any idea how many different versions of Brahm's Lullaby there are? Yo yo Ma and Nat King Cole were my favorites.

The requested ponytail hat remained on the requestees head all day today.  It kind of cracked me up.  Maybe just because it was so pleasing to me.

Here she looks like a Barbie doll (minus the ridiculous proportions)

I walked a lot today.  Grabbed the first grade teachers for some laps around the gym. Then went to the gym gym and did 3 miles with one mile of intermittent running. I saw a recipe online about healthy comfort food. I didn’t follow it but used some of the ingredient ideas.  I am not disappointed with the result. Quinoa, firm tofu, carrots, spinach, cherry tomatoes, olive oil, tamari sauce, cumin, and a little chili powder.

I've started a hundred knitting projects. None have stuck. This one is called the Mithril Beanie on Ravelry. It uses the honeycomb stitch whic I like but one mistake and it’s time to start a new one because I surely can not read those stitches/rows.

Finally I am reading a beautiful book about and titled Silence: in the age of noise by Erling Kagge. I am constantly in search of silence. And when it’s there I often forget to embrace it. This book will be my friend for a good while.  I can feel it.

Truth or Consequences.

So, the pumpkin muffin plan is a no-go.  I can not prevent myself from eating all 12 muffins within 2 days.  And while they are lower calorie than actual muffins, 2200 calories is 2200 calories. That combined with snow shoveling as the only exercise means the scale did not change this weekend (though I'm starting to realize if I can just ride out the weekend food-wise I'm doing well.)

Last week while watching the news I remembered that Martin Luther King day is ideally seen a day of service in his honor.  My conscience was bothering me about this until I stopped to examine why I will not be doing community service today.  Then I realized that given the support and care of both my aunt and cousin, I do community service weekly.  Today I will be taking cousin to the grocery store.  Conscience relieved.

Procrastination Nation.  Has anyone written this book or made a movie yet?  Clearly not because I would be the star.  I make myself crazy in my clutteriness and my procrastination in attending to it.

Hence the title of this post.  I fear that the only thing that will get me to do the simple tasks at hand is some accountability.  So here is today's list-it's the same every time

bills (and clearing the kitchen table in the process), laundry, reading area near bed, knitting area near chair, yarn room floor, clothes not put away in the dog's room.

I've finished the bills and should finish the kitchen table after this post.  After taking cousin shopping I'll attend to the rooms.  I wish I could keep these maintained rather than having them always on my to do list.  Maybe I'll set a reminder on my watch for a daily check.  I fear once a clutterer, always a clutterer.

Going Green

Smoothie chronicle number two (not counting those two way early forays)

Kale, spinach, pomegranate seeds, three mini oranges, three dates and water. Poured over ice.

The pomegranate seeds in this one didn’t grind to nothingness so it’s a little seedy.p

There is enough orange not to taste too green.  No wonder I don’t like salad.  Greens taste like nothing. And yet looking at it you would think it’s yucky.  It’s not.  There’s just a hint of orange to it.

A second try with the pumpkin muffins used a little less pumpkin.  Just enough to please the dog. Baked at 400* for 18 minutes.  Now they look like this.

An entire box of dry cake mix is 1700 calories plus one can of pumpkin is 350.  Makes them about 170 calories each.  After I eat the first one I will use them as the sleepeating treat- the hardest food to conquer. I also will look into mini muffin pans and baking cups.

Tomorrow looks to be one of those send the kids to school and wIt for the roads to get bad later kind of days.  Those are the worst.

Welcome to The Smooth(ie) Chronicles

Ingredients: spinach, kale, blackberries, pomegranate seeds, banana, flax meal, chia seeds, almond milk (vanilla flavored because I didn’t shop)

Color: dark grayish purple

Ice would have made it better.  Didn’t even notice the spinach or the kale.  Meant to add a few dates for both sweetener and digestive purposes. Surprised that the almond milk (instead of water) was an acceptable flavor.

When you drink one of these and you’re not starving afterwards it feels pretty good.

Update on the pumpkin muffins- 15 muffins were gone in two days.  It was just so hard not to eat them.  I bought more mix and pumpkin.  I’m going to again use a full can of pumpkin and add a little oatmeal to firm things up.  I also saw that we have a muffin pan in the cupboard (maybe I snagged it from Aunt's House?) I’m just surprised greathusbandbob hasn’t thrown it out believing that we don’t use it enough.

I’ve started lots of new things.  This is the longest a new thing has stuck.  Go me.

If it’s January 6th...

It must be cousin's birthday.  She got an under the desk bicycle from the aunt and greathusbandbob and I sprung for the birthday party. She said 1)it was the best birthday ever and 2) she even got to talk.  Make of that what you will but the proof is in the pictures.

:

You might be able to tell from this smile that she wasn’t expecting to blow out candles.

And as an added bonus our waitperson was someone I taught in kindergarten.

In other OMG I’m so excited news, this came in the mail today

It’s your basic old lady wants to leave her fortune to her cats much to the dismay of the son and daughter in law who try to get her to change the will and if I’m not mistaken, the cats unite to kill the old lady for the inheritance before those changes can take place.  My movie partner in crime shared the title with me so I bought a copy for her too.  The trailer has a cat pushing a wheelchair bound lady down a flight of stairs.  You can’t go wrong.

Meanwhile in the tundra...

Children did not report to school Wednesday or today.  Teachers were supposed to but there is no way I could keep myself busy and I took sick days.  Sick of going out in the cold, that is.

Having an easy week and some extra time before zumba, a trip to the grocery store garnered a variety pack of mushrooms, some wonton wrappers, a box of spice cake mix and a can of pumpkin.

I made mushroom ravioli that tasted much better than it looked.  I soaked some cashews before I went to zumba and made a garlic cream sauce for the ravioli.  Wontons were a little thin.  It also took a million hours to make the ravioli that wanted to fall apart anyway.

I put the pumpkin in the spice cake mix, put that mixture into muffin cups and had some oh so delicious not full of sugar milk and butter muffins.  They were amazing.  The recipe came from the counselor at school.

For the hour to and from work the one day this week I started watching Fat, Sick and Almost Dead. The guy juices to get healthy.  While I've been doing great with protein supplement and beans, I've been pretty burned out on vegetables.  So today there was this from the food processor. 

 I drank it all which means for dinner I had 2 apples, 2 baby oranges, 8 baby carrots, 4 dates and a half of bag of spinach.  It did not taste horrible.  And I'm full (for now).  I will be investigating juicing further, possibly this summer.

And on the knitting front, a teacher asked for a ponytail hat and her wish was my command.  I made one for myself but it was a little shorter than it should have been.  It works, but not as well.