Ah, Tuesday. In at the office, a little early, so I have time to settle myself, get coffee, check email and maybe type a little bit into this blog. I’ve left the blogging part a little late, so I may have to cut it short and come back later.

When I walked in this morning I was greeted by my blooming paperwhites! They look so pretty and springy. I didn’t know that their scent was so strong. (Actually, between you me and the gate post, they kind of remind me of wet, urine soaked nappies, or, something electrical burning - oh well….) I went back to K-Mart on Saturday with my friend Jacqui - I persuaded her to go there to look for scratching posts for her new cat, now renamed Cleo. Jacqui likes higher end places, and is generally loathe to set foot in K-Mart, which is one of my stand by favourites for cheap things. I found another paperwhite kit, as well as an amaryllis kit, both marked down from $14.99 to $2.49. Such a deal! Well, only if they’re not dead, I suppose. I bought the extra paperwhite kit for my boss, who had mentioned that if I saw one would I please pick one up for her. I forgot it in my car this morning, hope it doesn’t freeze to death. It was only 12 F when we left the house at 7:30.

About 10 or more years ago, I bought a kit containing an amaryllis bulb, some dirt and a pot at another discount store, The National Wholesale Liquidators Warehouse. That store is near Hackensack/Lodi here in North Jersey, and when you go there, you see a lot of immigrants from Latin America and Eastern Europe shopping for deals. I feel right at home there! At the time, I had noticed lovely amaryllis blooms being sold in a couple of places, but when I priced them they were steep…as much as $25 for a flowering bulb. The $2.79 price tag on that dusty little box at the Warehouse was right up my frugal (cheapskate) alley. I brought it home, set it up and it started to grow rapidly, sending up long green leaves. The box had a picture of a white and pink bloom, and I waited excitedly for it to show, but it never did. After about 5 years of this, the plant with its long green leaves looked full but it had still not bloomed. I was going to chuck it in the garbage, but I didn’t. I had repotted it several times and lavished love and attention on it, and I was mad at it for letting me down! Anyway - we moved to our present home and I lugged the durn thing with me and put it on the sunny windowsill in the living room, and the second year in our new home, in late January, it produced four spectacular flowers. Every year since then, it has produced a beautiful show for us and I notice that it seems to be propagating itself, if propagating means there are more plants than what I started with. I didn’t know that could happen. I thought there had to be bees or male plants around, like with with avocados. This year we’ve had two shows so far of at least eight blooms and I see more are forming. My mom has become emotionally attached to this plant, and speaks of it with reverence as one of God’s beautiful creations. She looks forward to its yearly show. I told my boss about this, because she said she receives an amaryllis kit every year as a Christmas gift from her mom, and sometimes she’ll get a bloom, sometimes not, then she throws the plant away because she thought they were purely seasonal, like poinsettias. I’ve never known much about this sort of thing, so in my ignorance, I always just left the plant out, all through the year. Just goes to show you, sometimes ignorance works in your favour.

Don’t know what the point of that story was, just felt like telling it. I don’t know……Good things come to those who wait? All in good time? Be patient? Don’t give up? Was this for me? Must be.

Joy, I did not use canned broth in my soup, but the Goya vegetable seasoning is vegetable broth boullion. For the 10 or so quarts, I used 4 packets of the Goya vegetable and (I forgot to say) two packets of the Goya chicken & tomato boullion. I happen to like this particular product from Goya, and always make sure to have some on hand. I think each packet is equivalent to 2 cups of broth. I wanted to make the soup as light as possible, since I know it’s the one thing I can have without guilt, I can even have two cups. Because of using the boullion, I didn’t really have to salt the soup too much, just added freshly ground black pepper. My family liked the soup.

Thanks for the words of encouragement on healing from my nemesis, my weakness, my ball and chain. It’s a process, that’s for sure. Even as I sit here enjoying the paperwhites, my cup of coffee and typing my blog, I feel a sense of unease. I would very much like it to go away for a little while and leave me in peace.

I have to track what I’m eating - later today I’ll work on yesterday and today.

This’ll be interesting. I just found out that 1/2 cup of prepared tuna salad is a whopping 7 points. The bread I’m using, from Trader Joe’s, had 6g of fiber and is 100 cals per slice, so that’s another 2 pts.

I wonder how many points my rusks come to? I made them smaller than usual, and I’ve had two today. I wasn’t planning to, but they were THERE.

Thank goodness for my soup! It is essentially free - 0 pts per cup. When you’re starving, two cups will go a long way to sating your hunger.