Last Night was Brutal
The kids are sick. Now, usually when they’re sick with normal colds, they act the same during the day. Just as chipper, hyper, and energetic. Maybe a little more grouchy. But at night. Oh, at night.
Last night K2 woke up crying 3 different times. The last time, he came and laid in bed with me for about 2 hours, until 1:30 AM when I just couldn’t take it anymore. He slept, he coughed, he sneezed, he kept sitting up – not even really awake just sitting there until I gently helped him lay back down. By 1:30, I had to put him back in his bed because I basically hadn’t gotten any sleep yet. So after putting him down, I slept like a rock for about 2 hours and woke up at 3:30 to P standing next to my side of the bed asking if she could lay with me. I told her no. Does that make me a horrible mom? I gently took her back to her room, set her up with her blankets, told her there was no fly in her room (her excuse for coming into my room), and told her I loved her and to go back to sleep.
Then I stumbled back to my room, went to the bathroom, and got back in bed. I got back to sleep pretty quickly, and the kids didn’t bother me again. But I kept waking up wondering if it was time to get up for P’s school yet.
After much deliberation, I’ve decided to still go to the office today, if just to get it over with until Friday, because if I don’t go today I’ll feel like I have to go tomorrow. So I’m going to go. It is almost 9 AM and K2 hasn’t made a peep yet. I’ve been reading blogs in my Google Reader and checking emails for the last hour. I haven’t had breakfast yet because I have to wait for K2 to wake up so that I can use the blender for my green oatmeal, which I haven’t had all weekend.
And I probably could have taken a morning nap for the last hour. Stupid Google Reader.
Ideas on a Sunday afternoon
This morning I went to church. By myself. It was wierd being there without the kids, though I’m used to being there without K. I didn’t love it. I came home after sacramant meeting to make sure the kids were taken care of and fed, since I wasn’t sure if K would have woken up to do it or not. He had, but I’m ok that I came home instead of staying. I requested, firmly, that K start setting an alarm for Sunday mornings so that it isn’t up to me to get him up. Then it feels like its my decision whether or not he goes, when it should be up to him. He’s a grown man. Anyway.
I also stopped to chat before I left church with a young mother in my ward who moved here pretty recently. She and I have really clicked so far, though that has just consisted of a couple great conversations so far. Apparently, some ladies are causing a lot of drama around her and the way she is trying to do her calling. I just don’t understand why people have to be so ridiculous and childish. I mean, I know I have my own issues and imperfections, but I can’t see why everyone can’t get along!! And if you don’t like someone – simply because you don’t like them (let’s be honest, sometimes that happens) you should still be CIVIL to them! Its usually not even their fault you don’t like them! I just was so baffled by what she was telling me was going on that I didn’t even have any advice for her. It just all seemed so silly. So I really hope everyone gets their panties straightened out and they all stop acting like they’re in 5th grade. But I know it might not smooth out that well. All I can do is try and befriend everyone, keep any mental judgements I make to myself, and try my darndest not to participate in the nonsense. Ugh.
Moving on to less stressful stuff – registered for my race. Oh, wait, that’s stressful, too! 🙂 But in a good way. I’m so excited! I didn’t go for an outdoor run on Saturday because of the ominous clouds, but I’m going to do so on Tuesday. And hopefully Thursday as well. T will be here probably Friday night. I’ve invited him and my parents over for dinner Saturday night. No idea what I’m going to serve. Excerpt from an email I sent to that young mother: Upon telling K that I wanted to invite you and D and the boys over for dinner, we discussed it. And it came to light that I have NEVER had ANYONE over to our house that I did the cooking. K has cooked EVERY time. Now, I’m still racking my brain thinking there HAS to be some time that I cooked for someone besides my husband and my kids, but so far, it looks like I NEVER HAVE. OH MY GOSH – how sad is that??? K and I were laughing and he was joking around that I’m a horrible wife, and I was like, you’re supposed to be making me feel better!! And he goes, how can I when I’m just telling you the truth? And in actuality, I knew that I’d never invited anyone else to our house for dinner besides family – by the time I had made friends that I would want to have dinner with, our dogs had thrashed our house and I never felt comfortable inviting anyone but family.
So there you have my shameful realization. Mom and Dad and T will be my first guinea pigs, and then I’m hoping to invite that young mother (we’ll call her “R”) and her family over for Sunday dinner in a couple weeks.
I made some “granola” that isn’t really granola but its working great as a topping for my yogurt, which is all I really wanted. This is how I made it. I think I’d make it roughly this way again, maybe a few tweaks.
1/2 cup quinoa, cooked plain
1 cup dry oats
1/6 cup brown sugar
about a Tablespoon of honey (not sure, because I just drizzled)
1/2 cup of Kix cereal
1 T coconut oil
I mixed everything together except the coconut oil, melted the coconut oil on my cookie stone and then tossed the mixture around the oil to get it even as possible. Then I cooked it at 400 for about 25 minutes, tossing frequently. I think I’d cook it a little less, or the same amount at a slightly lower temperature. I’d move the tray up to the high position in the oven from the start, instead of toward the end like I did this time. It was cooking a little too fast from the bottom for my liking. Anyway, it is crunchy, barely sweet, and pretty healthy I think.
I haven’t made my hummus yet. I’m hoping to make it Tuesday or Wednesday. Tuesday night there is an activity to which I’m going to take some veggies and refried black bean dip (refried black beans and some cream cheese mixed together – never tried it but it sounds good to me). I’ve dried a bunch of stuff in the dehydrator, and I’m taking a break for a few days. I’ve made strawberry, banana, apple, blueberry chips. Mango fruit leather. Zuchini chips. The zuchini chips turned out pretty good, though I’m not sure the kids will like them (they haven’t tried them yet) because I think I used too much pepper for them. But they are tasty. I used olive oil, parsley, salt, and pepper to season them before drying. I think it future efforts I’ll use less oil, less pepper, and more garlic salt instead of regular salt.
Here are some of the things I want to accomplish/try over the next few months:
- Make hummus to see once and for all if I like it or not
- Make a framed Living Christ hanging for my neighbor. A made one for me a couple years ago for Christmas, and the mat around the proclamation is covered in little pictures of Christ in one situation or another, cut to fit the mat perfectly. It is so cool, and I want to share it with someone.
- Use my Pampered Chef cookie maker thingy. It is this cookie gun that you put a cutout into and it squooshes the dough through as you pull the trigger on the gun in the perfect shape of the cutout. I’ve never used it, and I’ve had it for like 3 or 4 years. I want to make pretty sugar cookies to give my friends for Christmas, so I figure I need to practice using the gun. Only problem is figuring out what to do with the practice cookies – because I can’t eat them all.
- Try making more dried chips – more veggie chips. Perhaps some fruit leathers with steamed spinach blended in to give it an extra vitamin and mineral boost.
- Make oat bran muffins, zuchinni muffins
- Try whole wheat pancakes again, but this time add oatmeal or oat bran to try and make them thicker, fluffier, less flat
- Continue to try new foods, new food combinations, and new recipes to expand my healthy eating frontier, and hopefully by extension, my family’s healthy eating frontier
- Continue to spend 15 minutes a day reading to the kids
- Rollerblade for exercise
- Try to find a hobby of some sort to revert to when I’m bored and want to eat. Could go back to drawing.
I’m sure there’s more. But those are the things that have been on my mind today that I didn’t want to forget.
P’s birthday is in 10 days. And I have nothing planned. Ugh. Might be copying my SIL that lives in Japan. I’ll keep you (my future self, my only reader) posted on how that goes, if I decide to do it.
This is my 301st post
Not that I’m going to celebrate or anything, I just noticed on my Dashboard that I have written 300 posts. That’s a lot of rambling on my part.
Yesterday at the office, I had 7 Hershey’s nuggets & a bite-size Snickers. And then I went out in the stairwell and did 2 sets of HoeDowns and climbed 3 flights of stairs to try and offset the indulgence a little. Kept it under control the rest of the afternoon. Then came home and K suggested pizza. Or did I? Not sure, but I asked him to order cinnabread again. By the time the pizza got to the house, I was so hungry. I had 4 pieces, then shared half of the cinnabread with the kids and K. And stuck the other half in the freezer. The only other thing I ate the rest of the night was some dried fruit (pictured in last post) after my T-Tapp workout.
With that, I was up 2.5 pounds this morning. 🙂 Today’s eats are planned out. Made whole wheat pancakes from scratch for the kids and myself for breakfast. Topped mine with lowfat plain yogurt w/ stevia and cinnamon and some thawed frozen fruit. They were pretty good and I didn’t eat all of the pancakes – though I finished off the topping.
Hoping to run outside today, though I don’t know where. The race is a week from today and I’m already starting to get nervous.
Other than that, not much going on today. I may or may not start up the dehydrator again today with some veggie chips. Just not sure how to season them, and nervous that I’ll be wasting perfectly good veggies if they don’t taste good. Some laundry. Might try and make some homemade granola today as well. Going to wait until next week to make hummus, for when I have some good dipping veggies on hand. Blah,blah,blah. Not looking like its gonna be an exciting day, but I’m okay with that. Just need to stay busy enough and entertained enough not to turn to food for entertainment.
Dehydrated Blast
This is what I’m eating as a post-workout snack tonight. Usually I don’t have a post-workout snack, but I just had to have a little of everything. They might not look pretty, but they sure taste good!
Mango fruit leather, apple chips, banana chips, strawberry chips
TGIF
I’m glad its Friday, if for no other reason than that P doesn’t have school tomorrow so we can both sleep in a little.
Other than that, not real excited to go to the office today.
Dehydrating: I’ve made apple chips and some mango fruit leather. Still need to dry: some strawberries, blueberries, kiwis, bananas, zuchinni, summer squash. Not going to be making any more fruit leather for a while, since I’d rather use thawed frozen fruit for that than fresh – and we have a lot of fresh stuff right now.
Went running outside yesterday. Didn’t even go 3 miles, but I think I went a little faster than when I go further. One week from tomorrow is the 5K. Going to register sometime today. Yay!
Last couple days have been nice – I’ve been in an organizing mood. I’ve shampooed carpets, organized bookshelves, dresser top, and linen closet. Cleaned almost everything (just haven’t dusted. I hate dusting). Gotten some ideas for foods I want to make (hummus, dehydrated stuff). Changed sheets on bed, washed our wedding quilt that’s been in a bag waiting to be taking somewhere fancy for cleaning for a year – decided to just put it in the washer and see what happened. Hmmmm. It got clean. Should have tried that sooner. 🙂 There’s still lots more things/nooks/cupboards I could organize, so watch out. I’ve also been having really vivid dreams. And waking up at exactly 4:30 AM to go to the bathroom each night. And…. my period is late. These all add up to something….. but I don’t know yet and I could be way off. I SHOULD be way off. But I’m buying a little box on my way to work today to try and get an answer and set my mind at ease.
Off to get K2 up, have breakfast, start prepping for work. P gets out at 10:15 on Fridays instead of 11:15, so I’ll probably really get ready after I get her home.
Oh, and 189 today. TA-DA!!! Been so looking forward to that number!! And it is slightly dampened by my suspicions. Hopefully, I’ll know later today if I can continue to try and lose weight, or if I need to switch to maintenance today.
Clean carpets, Trial & Error w/ Dehydrator
So our upstairs carpet definitely doesn’t look brand new or anything. But it sure looks better. And knowing how much gunk I got out of it (lots of dog hair) makes me feel good. Our floors upstairs haven’t been this clean in a while. 🙂 Edged & vacuumed, moved all the portable furniture like chairs and fans, shampooed, let dry. It looks great in my humble opinion! Took me about 3 hours in all.
Amidst breakfast, lunch, taking and picking P up from school, and the carpets, I also blended up some thawed frozen strawberries to make fruit leather. And ended up making fruit paint. Like, it was so thin as it dried that it wouldn’t come off the tray, just flaked a little and the rest wouldn’t come off at all. So I wasted 2 cups of blended fruit. Basically, I hadn’t filled the trays with enough fruit puree. So now that I’ve learned that lesson :), I’m going to try it with mango next. Tomorrow morning because for now I’m sick of the noisy dehydrator. I think I might put it on the front porch to dehydrate – the noise is annoying. After the failure with the strawberries, I sliced up a couple apples and repeated my yummy apple chip experiment since it went well last night. They just finished a little while ago – yum.
K bought some zuchinni and summer squash today so I’m going to try making some veggie chips tomorrow, too. Perhaps before the mango fruit leather, since I’m so anxious to try dried veggies.
Down to 190.5 this morning. Going to do T-Tapp tonight. Hoping to run outdoors tomorrow. Still don’t know if or when K’s going to start his second job, but for now I’m continuing with my adjusted work schedule and will be going to the office on Friday.
Thursday afternoon I also have an appointment, of sorts, to go visit an older lady from my ward. And talk to her about food. And nutrition. Because she was just diagnosed with diabetes and somehow I set myself up for thinking I had something to teach her? Argh! What have I gotten myself into?! I also …. maybe…. um…. told her I’d …. make her lunch with stuff that she has. ARGH! I’m really dreading it. She’s very nice, understanding, and kind. I’m sure she won’t make me feel like an idiot if it just turns into a nice little visit with no help for her diabetes on my part. It started with me posting about my green oats on FB, her responding that she has to make some dietary changes (I didn’t know about the diabetes yet) and that she might try it. Then I responded that I could give her lots of different ideas from the changes I’ve been making for 6 months or so now. Which is true. But I know nothing about diabetes!! And I don’t know how she currently eats. But she said she’s having to completely overhaul her dietary habits, so it can’t be great. Well, I hope I can impart some ideas and not look like a total idiot. Or mess up her blood sugar levels. Ugh.
Not much else going on. Had a kiwi and a couple apple chips for snack, now going to have a granola bar and call it done for eating for tonight.
Oh, I taught K2 how to play the rice game that P always played when she was little. We set up a blanket in the middle of the floor and I gave him a bunch of raw rice and 3 different size cups for him to pour it back and forth. He had a blast, and its good for him since I don’t think his precision is very good. So it’ll help him coordinate his hand control a little better. We did that while P was at school before I started the carpet project upstairs.
Productive
I got a lot done today. Don’t know if I would have been so productive if I hadn’t finished the third (and last) book in the series I was reading, but anyway…. List: Cleaned all 3 toilets, all 3 bathroom sinks & mirrors, 2 bathtubs, put away 2 loads of laundry, sorted through a huge stack of paperwork & filed it, culled P’s huge folder of preschool papers down to keep just a few really fun ones for memories, cleaned the kitchen, loaded and unloaded the dishwasher, wiped down the counters & put away a bunch of stuff in the “leave-it” spot on the counter, scrubbed the kitchen drain, scrubbed the stairwell wall (K2 had used a crayon on it a couple weeks ago, all. the. way. up), swept downstairs, took P and picked her up from school, fed the kids, fed myself, helped P do her homework, and culled my Google Reader subscriptions.
That last one has needed to happen for a while. I was so enamored of Google Reader that I got a little carried away and I was getting over 40 updates a day. Its fun – feels kind of like I’m getting emails! But really, I was just wasting a lot of time reading about other peoples’ lives instead of living mine. So I went through it and deleted a bunch of blogs. I enjoyed those blogs, the people writing them are fun and entertaining. But really, I read blogs to find inspiration and ideas for my eating and losing weight habits. I also read them for reassurance that others are struggling like I am, and still succeeding. So many of the blogs I’ve added to my Reader are by young ladies that I just really have nothing in common with. They are single, have boyfriends, or are newly married. None of them have kids. Most of them live in very different areas. They’re much younger than me, and most of them work full-time outside the home. Well, none of that sounds like me. And while its fun to live vicariously a little – I got things to do!! I hope to visit their blogs occasionally, and the ones that had Recipe Index pages, I saved in my favorites so I can go search them when I’m looking for something new to try. But for now, I won’t be reading every time they update. I kept the blogs that I’ve been reading for a while, have thoughtful posts that make me think or that I feel a little attached to because I’ve been reading them for a while. I kept the ones that are struggling to lose weight and build new habits and are doing great – or sometimes not so great. And I hope that keeps me from spending too much time sitting here, reading about living when I should be DOING.
Had my wonderful green oats again this morning. Still loving it. I figure I’ll start having shakes for breakfast soon, but for now I’m happy having oats every morning. I might add a little coconut oil to it tomorrow. Done pretty well in the eats today, if a little heavy on the beef tips at dinner. They were so good! Last night was not good and I owe $10 to the family competition pot. I think I’m losing. 😦 But, I started this thing to help me be better, and it HAS helped me. I will need to walk for 30 minutes on Sunday to make up for not working out last night. The $10 is for my binge. Which, after I decided I owed $10, just got worse.
Up to 192.5 this morning from Sunday’s low of 190. But I am hopeful that my PMS-appetite (I think that’s what’s up) will be controlled the next few days and I’ll get back down to 190 and below. I think I’m going to run tonight; I’m not really in the mood to T-Tapp. So if that is what I end up doing, I’ll T-Tapp tomorrow.
Also need to do a little grocery shopping tomorrow to get stuff to try with my mom’s dehydrator! I have some apple slices in a couple of trays going right now as my initial foray into drying fruit and veggies. I’m hoping I have some yummy dried apples to feed the kids tomorrow. I know now why I remember Mom putting the dehydrator out on the balcony while it was going; its kind of noisy. But I’ll put up with the noise….. because…..
THE PUPPY’S GONE!!! Yay!! He snapped at K and the kids one too many times and K decided not to keep him. I can’t even BEGIN to describe how relieved I am. He’s gone! He’s gone! He’s gone! I could do a dance, but I won’t. I’m going to shampoo the carpet upstairs tomorrow to try and fix some of the damage he did with his accidents, and I’m looking forward to getting out some of the spots that weren’t caused by him at all.
Well, gotta give the kids a bath. Especially since K2 decided to write on his face and arms with a pen just now.
Quiet Sunday – Another Monday
Yesterday was a pretty typical Sunday for the weeks we don’t go anywhere for dinner (family, not restaurants). Church, home, K made pancakes, eggs, bacon. Then we sat around for a while, then K2 went down for his nap. Then K went down for his nap. Then I read my book downstairs with P until I fell asleep also. And then I woke up, K2 woke up, K woke up, we had dinner, and soon it was ready for bedtime. And I ate too much. All afternoon and evening. K brought home an Edwards Key Lime Pie, and I had way too much of it throughout the day.
Sunday morning I weighed in at 190. That’s 40 pounds lost. Fabulous. Then I ate, like I mentioned. And today I weigh 192. I’m not too worried about it because now that I’ve hit 190 once I know I can do it again, and yesterday’s overindulgence will fall victim to my dilligence quickly. That’s what I’m telling myself. Friday night I had a huge, hopeless, I’m-never-going-to-conquer-this crying jag. It helped, sort of. I felt better on Saturday. I didn’t have another crying jag yesterday after eating much. I need to be on an eating schedule or things just get crazy.
Today I had my wonderful green oatmeal again. It is a little after 9 AM, P is at school and K2 is watching cartoons. I’ll have to get off the computer soon to get ready for work. New schedule of going to office Mondays and Fridays starts today, even though I still don’t know if K is going to start this job that’s supposed to be T, W, Th, Sa – the reason for my schedule change.
I hope to get more done this week than I did last week. More house-cleaning. More laundry. More cooking. More kid-time. More yard work??? That’s still up in the air.
First picture of food on my blog
I seriously can’t get over my newfound love of spinach blended oats w/ berries & peanut butter. Oh. my. gosh. It was so good this morning after taking the oatmeal to 1/3 cup, the sugar down to 2 teaspoons instead of a tablespoon, and leaving out the yogurt. It was SO. GOOD. Every time I’ve thought about it all day, I’ve been so excited to eat it again.
So I took a picture. It was pretty, and my picture doesn’t do it justice. Chalk it up to poor lighting in the room this morning and my non-skills with a camera. But here you have the yummy goodness. And keep in mind that is Naturally More peanut butter on top, which I’m also newly in love with.
- Green spinach oatmeal with berries & Naturally More peanut butter
So yeah, delicious. Might have it for lunch tomorrow after church since I never get up early enough to have a real breakfast before church.
Got carried away with breakfast and this “new foods” kick
I’ve been getting a little bored of my morning shakes. They are good and all, but it does no good to burn out eating something for breakfast every day for ages and then going off the deep end because of boredom and eating a huge stack of pancakes and bacon. 🙂
This morning I made oatmeal for K2. He’s been complaining about breakfast lately, so I decided not even to ask him what he wanted and just make oatmeal. I know he likes it, and I’m kind of fed up with his “opinions” lately anyway. Since I was making oatmeal for him, I figured I’d make it for me, too.
For weeks, I’ve been reading about the fancy concoctions eaten for breakfast by a lot of the foodie blogs I read. And seeing pictures. And thinking someday I’d try something similar. Ok. I did. And it was GOOD. On a whim, I also decided to plug it into sparkpeople just to add up the calorie and fiber intake. And. Um. Yeah. 453 calories. For breakfast. When my usual brekkie is under 300 calories. So I think I got a little carried away trying everything at once. What was in my breakfast?
1/2 cup instant oats, cooked in water in the microwave
about 1/4 cup of NF plain yogurt
2 oz steamed spinach
1/2 scoop All Natural Egg White Protein (French Vanilla)
1 cup of Mixed Berries + Pomegranate unsweetened Dole Blend
1 T of sugar
1 T of Naturally More peanut butter as a topper
And like I said. YUM. But I couldn’t figure out why I was feeling full before I’d finished. Thanks to sparkpeople, I now understand. Wow. So, if I do this again what will I do differently?
Nutritional Info from Green Monster Oatmeal Revision
Columns are in this order: calories, carbs, fat, protein.
That. And there’s still 11 grams of fiber in it! I also think that if I do it again, I’ll take a picture and post it. I’m not going to start taking pictures of everything I eat, but there have been a few meals lately that I’ve thought “hey, I should take a pic of this and post it to the blog because it looks yum!” I haven’t done it because I wasn’t sure how it worked. And should I take a picture with my regular camera or my phone? I guess I’ll have to experiment. This breakfast was pretty neat looking with the green oatmeal, purple & red berries, and blob of peanut butter.
Comfy in My Skin 