The start of a new adventure

So I’ve been pretty quiet on the blogging front these days. Some because I don’t think about it. Some because I’m a little embarrassed about not sticking to the Daniel Plan. Some because I don’t have much to write about. However, yesterday I embarked (that’s a serious word, “embarked.” Makes you know something major is about to be announced.) on a new adventure. I’m calling it “the great smoothie experiment.” As of right now, not sure how long this experiment will last.

Background: Meg’s been having aches and pains now for, well, it seems like forever. We’ve moved up the chain of command, medically-speaking, but can’t get her seen by a pediatric rheumatologist until March. So until then, we are trying some home remedies. Her drum major coach thought getting more greens in her diet wouldn’t hurt so we are trying some green smoothies. We decided to try this adventure together since I need to get back to eating better and since I get up before her, I said I’d be in charge of being Smoothie Maker. She looked up some different recipes and we decided on one that we thought might not taste too disgusting bad. We went to the store and picked up our supplies.

Monday: Monday’s green smoothie was made from 1 frozen banana, 5 frozen strawberries, 1/3 honeycrisp apple, 2 handfuls of baby kale/baby spinach combo, 1 scoop protein powder, 1 cup of coconut wate and ½ of a lime wedge. It blended up into a delicate green color. It tasted…okay. It wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever tasted but I’m certainly not gonna jump out of bed and bounce into the kitchen because I can’t WAIT to drink this smoothie! There was a bit of a bitter taste that I figure came from the lime rind. Apparently I was supposed to peel the lime, but that bit of info didn’t get communicated to me. One problem we ran into was that Meg looked up the recipe but didn’t forward the link to me, so I kinda put it together based on our conversation. Got a laugh out of Meg when we figured out what happened. However, it did keep me pretty full. I had a handful of almonds mid-morning, but that was more because I had the munchies and was trying to keep myself away from the chocolate jar.

Tuesday: Found out that Meg isn’t a big fan of the banana. Who knew?! So this morning I attempted a non-banana smoothie. Today’s not-so-green smoothie was made up of 2 handfuls of baby kale/baby spinach, 5 frozen strawberries, about a ½ cup of frozen blueberries, 1 scoop of protein powder and 1 cup of coconut water. It blended into a pretty purple color. It was, well, tart. I think I needed some apple or something in there to help it out. Again, not the worst thing in the world, but I won’t make it again, especially since I was hungry by 8:30. L

I’ve been looking up smoothie recipes and think I’ll add chia seed or flax to tomorrow’s smoothie to see if I can get to lunch without being hungry.

Catch-up

I’ve been pretty quiet on the Daniel Plan front, haven’t I? I’ve kind of been quiet on all fronts. I

"If you can't say something nice, don't say nuthin' at all!"

learned from Thumper that if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all. And frankly, I haven’t had a lot to say nice. Well, that’s a lie. I can always find something nice to say…although I don’t always say it. It’s just that there has been so much that it’s been shadowing everything. But I’m determined to not let it anymore. I've said more before but I'm not going to here. I'm walking the Thumper Road and since I can't say something nice, I'm not saying nuthin' at all!

Anyhow, back to the Daniel Plan. Tonight is the last meeting. Yep, we made it through the entire study. Kenny’s lost almost 20 lbs (stinker) and I’ve lost anywhere from 5-10 lbs…depends on if the scale decides to like me that day. I am very proud of myself for getting through the entire six week study. Kenny’s and my 40 days of eating the Daniel Plan way ends next Friday since we got such a late start due to not beginning until after we took Lorie back to school. Kenny is so happy with his weight loss and with how he feels that we’ll pretty much stick to the Daniel Plan way of eating as a normal way of life (at least that’s the plan. It was the plan when I did it back in January but the nasty foods crept right back in).

Meg in uniform

We are firmly into marching band season. We have a little more than 2 weeks until our first

competition. It’s very exciting. We haven’t used the props yet, but hope to get them on the field at the next game which is the week after next.

I’m still trying to work out what my job is and what it isn’t. It’s kind of frustrating sometimes but I do really like the people I work with and am happy that I can dress up and not find myself crawling around on a teacher’s floor trying to re-hook some piece of electronics that someone unplugged.

Pretty boring stuff, to be honest.

I will take some time to hype an audiobook I just listened to, “Unglued” by Lysa Terkeurst was really well done. I could totally relate to this woman and if she lived anywhere near me, I would want to be her best friend because she totally gets me! I laughed, I cried (a little), I was struck speechless a LOT. I think I’m going to purchase the paper book of hers so I can highlight and write some notes. I’m also going to look her up and get another one or more of her books. She’s part of the proverbs31 woman website, so I’m going to have to give that another whirl. I’d stumbled across the website a couple years ago. I don’t remember why I haven’t been more engaged with it.

And last, but certainly not least, Jo has her driver's permit. She conned me into letting her drive home from Walmart the other day. My fingers have finally unclenched themselves from the claw form they were in, but there are permanent fingernail grooves in the handle of my car. Poor thing.

She's actually not a bad driver for an absolute beginner. But there's just something about being in a car with your 15-year old at the wheel and your heart being in your throat that makes you want to go berzerko!!

My sweet Meagan

Had this email conversation between Meggie and me last Friday in anticipation of her first game in drum major uniform.


Me: Do you have your gloves for tonight? I have your “stars” in my jewelry box at home. Do you need them?

Meagan: Yes... I thought I had lost them!!!!! Oh my goodness thank God!

Me: You ding-a-ling! We decided I’d keep them so you WOULDN’T lose them! J I just gotta remember to get them!

Meagan: Oh... I don't remember that. Ok cool.

Me: Will you be home before the game? It’s in one of the little drawers…think it’s the second one.

Meagan: I got them. I left my wallet at the house so just got home and on my back
 

Me: Child, please!! You may need to go to college in Georgia just so we can rescue you from yourself!

Meagan: Lol... Well I had totally forgotten, well I mean I still don't remember doing that, but yeah. I was planning on going to the army surplus store to get new ones or borrow lories old ones.

And funnier still, when I got to the school to volunteer with the band, I found out that her boyfriend (sweetheart that he is) had driven to the army surplus store for her and purchased new leaves (got that wrong by calling them stars...oops!) for her.

I can't be too irritated with her because the apple don't fall far from the tree! :)

 

Daniel Plan...Day 13

So glad that we started on the 1st. It makes it MUCH easier to remember what day I'm on!

It's one of those "blah" days, which followed a "blah-er" day. My get up and go is so far away, I'm not sure how it will ever come back.

As for Daniel Plan, we're off the detox part (no gluten, no caffeine, no sugars, no dairy). I'm still trying to be careful and only eat gluten in one meal and not going overboard on the dairy. Now, while I'm enjoying (surprisingly) trying new things, I gotta say that everything takes such a long time! Meal planning, grocery shopping, cooking, clean up...they all require a heck of a lot more work than I usually put in and that just does not gel with my lifestyle. Anyhow, time to look back at the meals I've had:

Day 10's dinner was beef chunks in the balsamic vinaigrette we like to make now. Didn't turn out so good. I don't think I picked the right kind of beef as it was super tough. Guess I need to do some research on that. We also sliced the zucchini into coins instead of spears...and that didn't go over too good. I really think my oven is whackadoodle. I need to get that looked at now that we are cooking more.

Day 11 I made the regular blueberry/banana/flax smoothie for breakfast, had celery with peanut butter/apple/and something else but I can't remember for lunch. I grocery shopped after school and got my beloved wheat bread (hooray). Jo had her first home lacrosse game so after putting groceries up, I headed to the high school and for a treat since 1) it was her first home lacrosse game and 2) it got over at 7 and there was no time between getting home and leaving to make dinner, we went to Wendy's. I got my favorite apple, chicken, pecan salad. Meg did, too, but she didn't like it. Poor baby. She was so looking forward to getting off the detox. Jo went totally rogue and ate off Plan and relished it.

Day 12, again my regular smoothie for breakfast. For lunch I mixed Greek yogurt with tuna and stuffed it and romaine lettuce in a small oat/flax/wheat pita pocket. I had carrots and brought an apple which I didn't eat. Dinner was chicken that I'd put in the crockpot with salsa and left on low all day. I made the gluten-free corn tortilla crisps from the book (not bad) and had some corn with it. I put a dollop of Greek yogurt on it in place of my normal sour cream. We failed in that we didn't include a non-starchy vegetable. :(

Today I finally made Dr. Hyman's whole food smoothie, with one exception...I didn't have pumpkin seeds. It's a combo of blueberries, banana, a little almond milk and some water with chia seeds, hemp seeds, walnuts, brazil nuts, almond butter and pumpkin seeds. It blended up okay but the recipe said that it served 3. It didn't make much more than the amount I normally drink for my breakfast smoothie. I should have listened. That drink is dense. It's also...earthy. The blueberries and banana don't do much to add any flavor, that's for sure. It's also, well, chewy. BUT, I drank about a third of the cup and couldn't handle anymore...I was full and satisfied. It's 9:30 and I'm still okay and not doing what I usually do, looking at the clock to see how long it will be until lunch! I'll make this again...but this time only take a third so I don't waste it. Lunch is natural peanut butter (9 g protein in 2 tbs of sugarless peanut butter) on one slice of whole wheat bread, carrots and a banana. Dinner tonight is supposed to be spaghtetti squash, turkey meatballs and the sauce I make from tomato paste that's so nummy, steamed fresh green beans and sliced apples. Tomorrow night we are making turkey burgers and Paula Deen's healthier macaroni and cheese from the recipe she put together for Dr. Oz. So excited about "real" comfort food!

Oh, and weight-wise, on day 11, it went down .2 lbs, day 12 stayed the same and this morning I was down .8 lbs. I also told my Bible study buddies that I was going to try to be more active this week and wanted them to hold me accountable. Monday I did 6 EMS laps (450 steps each) and a mile in the neighborhood, Tuesday nothing, yesterday I only got in 2 EMS laps but did a mile in the neighborhood in the blustering wind (seriously, I was being bounced around out there). I'm planning to get in a mile when I get home today, too. Go me! I'm definitely exceeding what I did last week...which was NOTHING!!!

Daniel Plan...Day 10

It’s day 10 of the Daniel Plan and I’m having a hard time. For 8 straight days the scale went down…sometimes no more than .2 lbs but .2 lbs down is still .2 lbs not on my body, right? Well, yesterday and today my weight is back up. I know I should base my self-worth on my weight and in my head, I’m mentally smacking myself for even giving into this feeling, but…I’m trying to be honest with myself and I honestly feel like a failure.

So, trying to be honest AND logical about the whole deal, I know I didn’t drink enough water this weekend and I know that yesterday’s meal at Don Tellos was a total bust. But to know that I would eat nasty, awful, bad/bad/bad/bad/bad stuff all the time and my weight would s-l-o-w-l-y creep up and then I have two days where I don’t drink water and have ONE bad meal and I pork on almost 2 pounds? The bad angel is screaming at me “give up.” I’m not going to because my good angel also has a chorus with the names of Kim and Barbie telling me to hang in there. All the same…

So during yesterday’s Bible study, we took on the Essential of Food. So timely because we were all feeling pretty badly about lunch. I also need to keep my eye on the Fitness Essential because I’m not doing well with that at all. And that frustrates me to no end. Yesterday, my brother-in-law posted a picture of my sisters and I from two summers ago on Facebook. That’s when I’d lost almost 30 lbs and was walking 2-3 miles a day and loving (well, putting up with) exercise. You would think it would spur me on to trying to be better, but it doesn’t. I’m sitting here trying not to cry because I’m so frustrated with myself.

So what’s the best thing to do when you are feeling down? Help someone else and find something to make you smile. I just came back from helping someone and that did nothing for me. (I’m such a putz.)  Laughter next: I’m trying to remember the Bible study yesterday and Kim’s little sweetie grunting out her BM. Jo was sitting next to her and suddenly blurted out, “It that smell all Gloria?!” So much for teaching my child manners and the fine art of subtlety. The room dissolved into laughter, we paused the Bible study DVD, Kim took the baby to change her and Jo went to find some Lysol. As Meg, Barbie and I are sitting around giggling about what took place, the next thing you know, Kim’s in the doorway. I don’t even listen to what she’s saying because she’s got Gloria with her feet in one hand and raised up and her other hand holding the baby up. We can see that she’s oozed out one of the legholes. Then she turns and walks in the other room. I’m dying laughing and remember other instances of baby blow-outs I’ve experienced when Barbie says, “I think she needs to some help.” (which is what Kim had said, but I was too busy laughing to process.) Off we go to the rescue. That child had it all over. We laughed until we cried. I still dissolve into giggles when I think about Kim coming to the door with Gloria hanging upside down (and Gloria with the biggest grin on her face).

And that reminds me why I’m doing this thing with my girls and with my friends. Because they can make me laugh and bring me out of the doldrums even when they aren’t around!

And, to top it all off, Kenny’s taking the dogs out for their morning walk for another week for me!!! Score!

So now that I’m back to my happier self, let me report in on Day 7’s dinner and Day 8 & Day 9 (if I can remember that far!)

Day 7’s Chicken Walnut Pesto dinner was fabulous! I mean, really nummy. I will make that again in a heartbeat. We had brown rice and roasted yellow squash for the sides.

Day 8 I made a blueberry/banana/flax seed smoothie for breakfast and had leftover Chicken Walnut Pesto and sides for lunch. For dinner we went to Applebees and I ordered the grilled Oriental Salad without the crunchy noodles. I asked for the oriental vinaigrette on the side and good thing because that thing wasn’t clear…it was opague and when I tasted it, lots of sugar there! I enjoyed the salad anyhow.

Day 9 I made another blueberry/banana smoothie (didn’t do the flax seed cuz I didn’t want to burp my way through church). Here’s where it fell apart. We went to Don Tellos for lunch and we convinced ourselves that the corn tortilla chips and salsa were okay to eat. And then I bulldozed my way through a couple baskets of it. I ordered Nachos Grande without the cheese or sour cream. Then we went to Bible study and we all agreed that the chips were probably not Daniel Plan okay. We were all feeling sluggish and guilty (except, perhaps, Johanna. I think she was okay with the slip.) So…oops! Anyhow, I was so full that I didn’t eat any dinner except munch on some nuts.

Day 10 started out with no ripe bananas so I made a tropical smoothie with some frozen pineapple, strawberry, mango fruit, coconut milk and protein powder. It was okay. It was kind of flavorless, to tell the truth. I think it suffered for not having the banana. Anyhow, since I need to stock up on groceries but waited since TODAY’S THE LAST DAY OF THE DETOX!!!, I have a weird lunch. I have leftover yellow squash and rice, some blackberries, and celery with natural peanut butter (9 g of protein in 2 tbs, no sugar). Tonight I’m going to marinate beef chunks in the balsamic vinaigrette and sauté them, and more brown rice and roast more zucchini. Gotta do it quick when I get home because I have a meeting at 5:30 and one following it at 6:30. Gack! Hoping to have enough leftovers for Meg, Jo and I for Tuesday lunch!!

Also, I’m down 5 lbs and my waist dropped a half inch over the past 10 days.

The start of something new...almost

This is actually the freakout BEFORE the start of something new. I’m a nervous wreck. In full disclosure, I’m munching on a fun-size Twix from a Valentine baggie I found on my desk this morning. What am I so nervous about? Well, the Daniel Plan. We’re going to do it. Me, in all my “wisdom” bought the book and read it and then opened my big mouth to my family. Kenny is wavering but Meagan is all for it. I’m making Jo do it. She’s not happy but not as stinky about it as I thought. Course, we haven’t even started yet. Then, to make matters worse, I invited a couple friends along for the ride. AND THEY SAID YES! We will start the eating part on March 1^st and end on April 9^th (40 days). We are going to do the Bible Study together and meet on Sundays to watch the DVD and go over the study part together. Oh. My. Word. What have I done?

Now, I can see what I look like in the mirror and I know what the scale and what the tape measure says, so it’s not like this is NOT needed. I also know how badly I feel and am 99.99999999% sure it has a lot to do with the junk that I put in my body.

In the meantime, I’m not doing myself any favors with how I’m eating (I finished off the fun-size Twixs and am mowing my way through the SweetTarts). I’m too cheap not to try to eat up the junk that I’ve already purchased that’s in my house. We’re going to start working this week on the kitchen. We’ll pull everything that is not Daniel Plan friendly and put in a box and then stuff that is not Daniel Plan Detox-worthy (10 days of no sugar, no processed food, no dairy, no gluten and no…I’m missing something)

In the meantime, I’m getting back on my water. For awhile there I was drinking half my weight in ounces every day but with all the snow/ice days, I got myself off track. Plus, now that I’m back at work, I’m planning on doing a school loop once an hour. I already screwed that up for today as I didn’t do a loop at 8 or 10, but I did get in one at 9 and just did my one for the 11 o’clock hour. Not sure how I’ll do that with the other school…I’ll have to figure that one out. But one of the things that the trainer from the Daniel Plan Rally video Meg and I watched said was for people with sedentary jobs to get up once an hour and do something. I’m thinking at the other school since I have an office with no way of people seeing in (unlike my office where I am now…totally open to anyone and also a cut-through the teachers get from the back hall to the media center), maybe I can do push-ups/sit-ups/that sort of thing. That’s a thought.

Anyhow back to what I started on. I’m a nervous wreck. It’s a whole new way of eating. Plus, I really don’t want to screw it up. I guess it’s actually a good thing that I do have the girls and my friends along for the ride. They’ll give me the additional impetus to actually see this through.

I hope.

Sometimes seeing is believing

Okay, so the house is out of control. I don't think there is one area in the whole house that I wouldn't be embarrassed to have seen right now. (Yes, I can see how there would be an obvious question of why I'm sitting here blogging instead of cleaning my house, but I don't come out looking well in the answer so I'm going to choose to ignore that and move on.) So, as I'm traversing the Basement I step over something yet again but this time something in my brain says, "hmmm, something's not right." Now, the something not right isn't that I'm stepping over something again and not picking it up. That's another something not right and not part of the story. It's that I realize that there are no dolls or other things sitting around this something. I look at the "something" and realize that it is a shoebox top sitting on the carpet in the living room right in the path from the girls' area to the kitchen. I then notice it has writing on it. Apparently, they came across a bug. And instead of killing it with a shoe, they decide that the best course of action is to trap it and to leave a note. If you can't see it, it says, "Bug! (under this) Needs to be Killled. Meg and Jo" with an arrow pointing down.


No, I didn't lift up the box top to see if the bug was under the box top and yes, the box top is still sitting in the same spot I found it. Killing bugs is Man's Work.

The one, the only...Meagan

My dear sweet middle child. The one I used to call "doe-di-doe" because she just went along with the flow. She's killing me. Seriously. In the mornings as we drive to school, the radio station we listen to has a thing called "the Jr. Joker" where kids call in and tell a joke. Every day it's the same. We'll be driving down the road, the Jr. Joker will come on and tell the joke and then beat...beat...beat and you'll hear an "oh!" and then quiet laughter out of Meg's corner of the car as she finally gets the punch line. And these aren't hard jokes, people. Today's was, "What do you say to the hammerhead shark after a test?" "I don't know, what DO you say to a hammerhead shark after a test?" "You really nailed it!"

Now I wish I could just leave it at that but in writing this post I couldn't remember what the joke was today so I went to the girls' rooms and asked Meg and Lorie if they remembered what the joke was and Meg's response was, "I don't remember it exactly but it had a hammerhead shark and a nail in it and it took me a really long time to get it."

'Nuff said!

Celebrity Watch 2009

How is it that my last blog was in April? How sad that I'm still on the same woe-is-my-weight train since my last blog was whining about how big I'd become, too. It's just a little irritating that at the start of January 2009, I am almost back up to my January 2008 weight. Now, granted, it's not like I've been working out and watching what I eat (as I sit here scarfing down pizza and a Mountain Dew...the dinner of champions). But still, well, anything I say is going to sound stupid so I may as well leave that one right there, finish eating my pizza and move on.

I had a wee "oh my gosh" moment this afternoon and couldn't get the satisfaction of getting a "oh, wow, you're so lucky" kind of response, so all I'm left with is being able to type it here and see it in print.

Are you ready to "squee" a little? I was actually, truly and honestly, driving behind the General Lee today!!! That's right, the actual General Lee from the old Dukes of Hazzard show! And yes, I know there was more than one General Lee, and this is probably an imitation one, but barring those minor details...the General Lee, people!!

So, okay, that's not too terribly exciting. But heck, I live in Loganville, Ga...it don't get much better than that! Anyway, as the story goes, I'm in my car with Meg on my way to my friend who lives in Covington to close her Premier show. I'm at the entrance to the subdivision looking for a break in oncoming traffic when I see coming down the highway an old-timey looking cop car. So I tell Meg, check out that cop car! That's the way they used to look. And she nicely said, oh, wow. (She's my favorite) Then right behind the cop car drove the General Lee! Now big Kenny has this fascination for the dude that played Bo Duke (whose name escapes me at the moment). John Schneider. There we go, caught up. Anyhow, Mr.Schneider was apparently a celebrity honorary coach for his kiddie baseball team and he has pictures of the game that Mr. Schneider showed up at that he likes to show off. It's one of his Major Moments from his childhood. Well, dang it, I'm driving down the highway behind the General Lee! So I call my man and all I get for my troubles is, oh yeah, that's nice. Come ON!!! Seriously??!!

Anyhow, after THAT disappointing response I had Meg dig out my camera from the Black Hole (my pocketbook) and take a couple photos. I obviously need to have the kid get more practice with the camera because when they turned left and I told her to take a picture so we could see the 01 on the side, she got the cop car and not the side of the General Lee. They turned into Wendy's and instead of taking the picture like I told her spent the time chattering at me and by the time she remembered that in order to take a picture, you had to do something with a camera, it was too late. So all I have to show for my 10 minutes of being close to something vaguely famous is the back of the General Lee and my dashboard. Well, and a nifty picture of the stupid cop car. And when I figure out where she put my camera I'm posting it here, baby, for all (well the two who sometimes mosey over here to read this blather) to see!

Geez! How'd it get to be March?

It really doesn't seem like it's been 3 months since I've blogged, but I guess it is. Computers don't lie...or do they? The family's in a upheaval right now trying to get the Spring mess cleaned up. Meagan and big Kenny are getting ready to go for a 3 day trip to St. Simons on the 5th grade field trip. He's a bit overwhelmed with school, getting ready for the Spring season of ball and just regular church stuff. But how can he say no to Meagan? I had no less than 10 staff members come to me today to say that she was so excited to be going to St. Simons with her dad. I know if there was a way for him to get out of it, he would just so he could stay afloat with his work. Also funny, while he's there he'll have to call in to our local radio station. They have a contest called "BAttle of the Sexes" where they have a male caller and a female caller answering questions. The one that gets the most right wins. He signed up and what-do-you-know, they called him to play! He has to call in for the recording session. So funny. The kids are so excited that they're dad will be on the radio.

Other than that, we're about to fall headfirst into Spring ball, finish up Lorie's time with the drama dept at the middle school with their performance this next weekend, then move into dealing with Meg and Jo's school production. There are just no lulls in my life. Right now we're just trying to stay afloat and enjoy it while we're able. Soon the four kids will be up to their eyeballs in their own lives. I figured THEN Kenny and I can breathe.