Halloween

Happy Halloween

Feeling Ugh!

Right now I feel "Ugh!"  I think my body wants to be sick.  My body wants to crawl up in bed with a nice, warm blanket and a cup of homemade chicken soup.  But that just can't seem to happen.  So I feel Ugh!
Brian IS sick.  Yesterday, about 9 in the morning he came downstairs from working on his schoolwork and asked if he could go back to bed.  He didn't get back up until after one.  Today, he came to church with us and slept on the couch in his dad's office all morning.  He is starting to sit back up and interact more this afternoon so I think he should be ready to go for tomorrow. 

By the way, did you realize that tomorrow is Halloween?  I am not prepared for it.  To be honest, Bonnie and Brian are too old for it, but Bryce is all excited about it and trying to pull a costume together.  A friend told me that she knows a mom who buys her daughter's candy from her after she goes trick or treating so that her daughter doesn't have all of that sugar.  I am thinking about making a deal with Bryce. 

As far as the diet goes, I have been hungry all week.  It doesn't help that I made cookies, muffins and pies all weekend and couldn't eat any of it.  I didn't even lick my fingers.  It might also be that I am coming down sick, which explains why I am craving a giant bowl of chicken soup.  On the bright side, I was able to wear a skirt that I haven't worn in years and I know I have dropped a size in my pants because they are hanging on me.  Four more weeks to go before the big weigh in.

Ten more minutes til dinner, choir concert at seven then off to bed. 

Friday

Yeah for Friday! 

It has been an odd week here.  Bonnie didn't have school Wednesday or Thursday due to parent-teacher conferences and with us getting ready for our missions conference I just didn't have it in me to do school after lunch this week.  So I let the boys off the hook in the afternoons.  Although I did push them to get majority of their work done in the mornings while we were at church.  That means they got done their math, language, spelling, penmanship for Bryce  and all of that plus history and science for Brian. In reality they got the majority, if not all of it, done, I just wasn't going to stress over anything after lunch.

My afternoons were spent prepping for the weekend,  that means, house cleaning, food prepping, baking, etc. So now it is Friday and the conference begins tonight.  We start off with soup followed by the missionaries sharing with us about their mission field.  Right now, the boys are upstairs with Matthias whose parents are missionaries to Thailand  Actually, this is Matthias's grandparent's house that we are living in.  The boys are having a blast with him.  The weather outside is pretty nasty - rain, grey, and gloomy, but the Weather Channel says it will be gone by 5 pm.  Of course, I am not going to bank on it.  I just want the rain gone by tomorrow so that we can go on a hike with our missionaries.


Of course, I am still sticking with my diet.  Tonight is soup night so that is easy.  I will just have a cup of soup that I brought so I know what is in it and the calories of it.  Tomorrow I am serving breakfast to the ladies and their children.  I am making some muffins that I can't eat so it is a bit challenging to make things like muffins, cookies, and pies knowing that their sweetness will never cross my lips, but I try not to dwell on it.  My biggest challenge has been trying to figure out what to pack for our lunches tomorrow since I can't have a sandwich.  I think I am going to have an apple, celery sticks with peanut butter and some dill pickles wrapped in cream cheese and ham.  This is one thing I do know, my pants are super loose!  I like that .  I am eager to try on some clothes that are hanging in my closet.  I can't imagine where I will be in five more weeks. 

Here is to a super busy weekend!

Getting over the Hump

My daily devotions with my diet program stated that day 4 of the journey was when most people hit a wall.  The temptation to snack or break their resolution hits them.  I was surprised that by mid-afternoon I found the urge to munch.  Here's the thing.  I had been eating a lot of low calorie food so I could munch, the challenge was finding the right things to munch on.  My favorite snack is a piece of lunchmeat covered in cream cheese with a pickle spear in the middle.  Wrap it all up, and it is a yummy low-calorie snack.  By the end of the night, I still was under my daily caloric goal so I drank a glass of fruit juice and had a cup of coffee with Stevia and a tsp of creamer to meet my minimum goal.  My one concern was the major headache that plagued my evening.  I really believe it is from not having coffee that mornng.  I am going to stay off the coffee for the rest of the week and see how it impacts me.

On another note....Snow is in the forecast.  I am so glad I got the yard winterized last weekend.  Todd and the boys have been working hard at getting our firewood stockpiled and yesterday we fired up the woodstove.  

Staying on Track

I am at the end of Day Three of Week One of Phase One.  I have tried some new recipes and so far all but one was approved by the family.  The whole business about writing everything down is not so bad.  The thing I don't like is measuring everything out before I cook it.  It is taking me twice as long to put together a meal because I have to make sure everything I add to the pot is measured.  Hopefully these new recipes will be a part of our normal menu and I will memorize them.  My big victory for today was sitting through Sunday School class with cookies and sticky buns being consumed all around me.  I was not tempted in the least bit.  Tomorrow night will be challenge number two as we have Bible study at our house which always means having a snack.  Fortunately, I don't have to make anything since Diane offered to bring a pie.  Yet, again, I won't be able to eat any of it.  sigh....It is not so bad though.  I am satisfied and especially thrilled that my clothes are getting loose again.  I look forward to the day when I can successfully wear clothes in my closet that are the next size down.  When we moved from Michigan I was wearing a size 8 blue jean.  I would love to be able to wear them again. 

So here is to the start of another week....

Day One

It is Day One of Phase One of my journey to lose weight.  After getting my handbook and cookbook last night, I sat down to map out my food for today.  Since I have to count calories for everthing that passes through my lips, I went on line and signed up with sparkspeople.com .  It is an online program that allows you to track your food and it calories.   I looked up everything that I planned to eat today and mapped out their calories.  I was even able to type in the ingredients of a soup I made to find out its nutritional information and calories. Pretty Cool! 

Now, my next task is to map out the next week.  Figure out my main meals and see what my calorie intake is to know how many calories have left for snacks through out the day to keep me going. 

Here is the rough draft for my menu today:
Breakfast:  1/2 cup of Quaker Instant Oatmeal mixed with 1/4 cup unsweetend applesauce, 1/4 cup blueberries, 1/4 tsp cinnamon and an 8 oz. orange juice.
Morning Snack:  1 Gala apple
Lunch:  2 cups of White Chili
Afternoon Snack:  2 Brown Rice Cakes
Dinner: Chicken Breast Piquant (Prism Cookbook), 1 cup of steamed Brocolli, 1 cup of unsweetend applesauce.

The Plunge

I joined a weight-loss group!  Two weeks ago we met for an orientation and tonight we have our first official meeting.  I will receive my handbook and cookbook and begin my journey.  I have been trying to lose weight since last spring (2011) and have slowly lost 27 lbs.  My goal is to lose another 20 to 25 lbs but my eating is what I really need to control.  Having a support group, I believe, will help me in this journey.  The particular group that I joined is pretty severe when it comes to losing weight.  They have phases that you go through in changing your eating habits.  Phase One is the most intense as it is designed to break the cravings  that we all struggle with.  The majority of our cravings stem around sweets and breads so for the next 6 weeks I cannot have anything with sugar in it (at least not in the first four ingredients) and also cannot have any breads.  The only carbs I can have right now are brown rice, oatmeal, and....I can't think of anything more.  I actually started wheening myself off all of thses things over a week ago.  Can you imagine the look on my face when a sweet, elderly lady from our church showed up at my door with two dozen glazed donuts, a cake, and a cherry pie for us to eat.  (She didn't want it to go to waste.)  For a whole day all of that sat on my counter, and I didn't eat a thing!  I made my husband take the donuts to school, allowed the boys one slice of cake and then threw it in the trash.  The pie went in the freezer, cause you can do that with pies.  After the first six weeks are up, I will enter Phase Two when they begin to re-introduce carbs like whole wheat breads, etc.  At the orientation meeting, several ladies had gone through this program before. The average weight loss among them was 20 lbs in the first six weeks.  That is encouraging.  So here I go, I officially start tomorrow morning.  Wish me luck!

October

I have to say that October is becoming my least favorite month.  It is so jam packed with things to do, events, stuff...that I feel like I am suffocating.  There is not one, not one, unplanned day in this whole month.  I thought I might squeak out last Saturday and next but NO!  Last Saturday I turned down an invite to go to a Ladie's purse party thinking I should use the day at home.  That day at home turned into running kids from event to event.  I got a lot of exercise since I chose to walk to the high school three separate times and then downtown twice.  I even went and picked 5 gallons of concord grapes, which, by the way, meant creating more work to do as I am now making grape jelly as I type. My third batch.  Next Saturday won't be a day off either as it is imperative that I get our yard ready for winter.  Snow is on the mountains!

Wow...it is no wonder that last Sunday I finally broke down in tears as I was running around getting bulletins ready and setting up communion when my mother in law reminded me that I was to bring Sunday School refreshments.  Yep, I had a little pity party.  Good thing I have an office I can lock myself in to.  It didn't help that the day before I had been at a conference in Spokane and was still exhausted from that.

Nope, I don't like October.  Things ARE looking brighter.  Cub Scouts got cancelled last week so I was able to tackle the garage and Bible study was cancelled last night so I got a few unexpected breathers.  The missions conference is coming up next week and that always puts pressure on me.  Our house tends to be a place where everyone congregates.  One of the missionaries is a Heath (our landlord's daughter) so I want the house to look especially nice.  She probably won't notice anything out of place but ....

Fifteen more minutes and I send the kiddos to bed. About twenty more minutes and my third batch of jelly will be done.  In thirty minutes I will kick back and watch the Duggards with their 19 kids and counting.  How does Michelle do it?  I bet she doesn't garden and can.  Wait ...she had lots of kids so they do it all for her.  That's my problem. 

Fundraiser

Bryce finally got his uniform for Cub Scouts.

He was so excited to wear it and I was pretty proud to see my son all dressed up.  To help raise money for our scouting programs, the Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts sell pretzels at the Oktoberfest held here in Leavenworth.  Bryce worked Friday and Saturday afternoons selling pretzels and had a lot of fun. 

I have noticed that he is a take charge type of guy and wants to be fast and efficient.  I was one proud mamma watching him at work.  (By the way,  see all of those buckets behind the boys?  They are gallons and gallons of sauerkraut.)  One of the cooks who grills up all the bratwurst next to the boys' pretzel stand would bellow out "PRETZELS"  for the boys to attract customers. Bryce said he got into a contest with the man to see who could yell out the loudest. : )

Next week, Brian will get to sell pretzels with the Boys Scouts.  He should get his uniform tonight at his scout meeting. 

Birthday

My baby is ELEVEN!
Wow!  Two more years and I will have a house full of teenagers.

Since Bryce's birthday fell on Wednesday night he asked if he could bring goodies for his AWANA group. 
He first asked for a chocolate cake decorated with chocolate covered peanut butter balls.  I managed to get him to change his request for peanut butter balls into Reese's cups and then we finally agreed on a chocolate cup cake tower with mini Reese's cups and Reese's Pieces.

 We debated on what to get Bryce for his birthday.  Musical instruments has been our theme of late and we seriously considered getting him a guitar but have decided that instead we are going to pay for a year of lessons and let him use his daddy's guitar.  After a year, if he is showing a true interest then we will make that investment.  For now....

 we decided to get him a camera.  He is loving it.  He is one happy eleven year old.

Handyman

While thumbing through his Cub Scout book, Bryce found a series of wood projects that he wanted to build with his dad.  Todd told him before he could start any projects he needed to first make a tool box. After picking up some wood at the hardware store, they went to work.  Bryce used both the table saw and Skil saw to cut his pieces and kept all ten fingers!  Once that was done, I walked up with Bryce to Marsons to pick up some stain and tools!!!  When the store owner heard that Bryce was making his own tool box, he gave him a brand new measuring tape for half price. Gotta love small town businesses.  

 He is one proud boy and can't wait to make some more projects.  Did I tell you how much I love Cub Scouts?  Well... I love it.