Good Morning, Flowers! I can't believe the change in the humidity from yesterday, and NO wind! The sun is shining and it's a cool 60 degrees outside; it's only supposed to hit 75 with a chance of rain. We set a record of 90 yesterday. I need to run some errands this morning since I didn't go yesterday -- I hate fighting the wind.
Maggie -- I do get tired of thinking about points, what I can eat and what I can't. For the most part I've just cut back on portion size and try to avoid having "fun food" too often. I do like my WW leader and I do think facing her and the iron monster every week helps keep me on track better.
"Gma" -- Hope your day goes well and you are a bit cooler. I'm not ready for the hot and humid days yet. It's too early to run the air, but it sure felt nice in here yesterday! I opened the bedroom windows and had a nice cool breeze when I went to bed. Good luck with your new healthy eating plan.
I need to run some errands so I'm off! Have a great day!
It is a beautiful still (slight breeze) sunny day here in the heartland. Getting humid though. When our friends had that BBQ Will and the host went to the second hand store to get some tables. They found three 2ft x 4ft utility tables with the metal folding legs for sale. Two were priced at $8 for they had some gouges on the tops and one for $10 wich was like new. They all wore table cloths for the party and the gouges didn't matter. Will bought the ten dollar one thinking of me wanting one for my shop. It is in terrific shape like new ~ only thing we needed to replace the rubber caps for the split plastic ones on the legs. It is one of those formica type ones and great for what I need. Such a deal. Now that the party is over and it is in my shop I am a happy camper. Besides when we have a party we have another table we can use and it is small enough to take out back easily. I'll just use it as a lay out table and so it won't have stuff on it to be moved off if we want to use it elsewhere. Normally we could have used tables out of the church basement but there was a graduation party going on down there that afternoon and they needed to use all the tables. It all worked out fine. The folks called and will be delivering our new fridge Thursday afternoon instead of Friday morning. Suits me just fine. We have decided just to go ahead and move the old one down in the basement and keep sodas and such in it. We will put bags of ice in the freezer compartment to keep it in use. When our garden does produce lots of veggies that I want to dry we can use it for storage until I can get to them to process. Cold storage. The folks who deliver our new fridge will take this one down the stairs and hook it up. Well we won't be hooking up the ice maker in it. Our new fridge comes with a filtering system to filter the water before it makes ice. It will be nice to have a new one.
DONNA FAYE A gal has to figure what will work best for her to get down this road. Can you please post that website you mentioned. I am very interested in checking it out for it sounds like a great help for folks like us.
JEAN It does get tedious to count points doesn't it. Cutting back and eating sensible wins the race. Making good choices and staying healthy. Sounds like you are working it well. It is such a plus when you have a good inspriational leader at WW.
Good afternoon, ladies. Another cloudy, humid day.
Nothing interesting going on this week but it does give me some time for piecing and quilting.
Faye, it sounds like you have a good plan. Could you share the website with us? I'm always looking for meal ideas. I have to have variety or I over eat. I think we are for a bad summer, too. Hurricane season starts June 1 so I'll check my supplies and get bottled water over the weekend.
Jean, I had my bedroom window open, too. I love to get fresh air into the house. You could switch to SF at WW and not have to count points. You still have your WPA and AP for extras.
Maggie, I'll be making your soup tomorrow. I like to have soup in the fridge at all times.
Maggie -- I know you will enjoy your new refrigerator, and using the old one for your extras will be nice. I have really liked having our 2nd one in the basement, and especially when I have extra food when the kids are coming or we have company, card club, etc. We keep bags of ice on hand during the summer to put in the coolers when heading for the lake.
Susan -- I enjoy soup during the summer too. One of the gals at my last WW meeting shared this web site and said she's used a lot of the recipes. skinnyweek.com I really haven't had a chance to search through but it looks like there are a lot of recipes.
Just peeking in during a break and decided to post a recipe I just made and put in the fridge to chill for dinner.
JICAMA ORANGE SALAD
Combine in a large bowl and whisk together:
1/4 cup vinegar
1/2 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp white pepper
1/4 tsp chili powder
1 Tbsp. canola oil
Peel then cut 4 navel oranges in rounds
Juilienne cut a red bell pepper
Slice up a red onion and section into rings
Juilienne cut up a jicama (after pealing it)
Add the fruit & veggies to the bowl
Put a lid on and turn upside down
gently a few times to coat
Good morning gals! I am so jazzed about this website I found. For one thing, it is FREEEEEEEE and it had everything you could possibly want, exercise section, diet programs, including one called Miami Beach, which is basically the South Beach. I chose the healthy lifestyle and though it takes time, I did two full weeks of menus through next payday, then will do two more weeks then two more weeks, then I will have 45 days of breakfasts, lunches, snacks, and dinners I can flip flop around and put into the menu section. I have always wanted something structured like this and this is sooooo cool. For my plan, as you insert your food, it subtracts carbs, fats, and protein and adds up the calories you just go back and forth for breakfast, two snacks a day, lunch and dinner until what you have chosen gives you the right balance of everything. I worked on it almost all day yesterday to get everything. It also will then give you a grocery list and you can save it as a weekly plan. I just took the grocery list and checked off what I already had, it then will let you "hide" what you checked off and you can print it out if you like. I just wrote it down so I could get proper amounts of everything I wanted to buy. You can also insert one of your own recipes in the program then click on a button that figures out the carbs, fats and proteins from what the recipe serving size is and you can then insert it into the menu and it figures it all out for you. It has a place to journal food and a blog to put down feelings and stuff and you can make it public or private. It has pretty much everything you could want. You can choose a bazillion exercise plans and set them up too. I think this may be the ticket for me as I can cook WW for Jack and still have the same kind of stuff that fits into my menu. The website is fitclick.com. It has been a long time since I was upbeat about any of this. I have been pretty depressed about the whole thing because though I lose with WW I knew I was not nutrionally getting the right stuff and this balances everything out. Oh and it has recipes too! It is just totally cool and will be fairly effortless once I have all my meals planned so I can just change them up. Cool thing is I don't have to eat everything sugar free or fatfree if there is something I just can't abide like I hate ff grated cheese because it won't melt. It has a pretty big database to draw from too so let's say you love those ritz crackers, you just type ritz crackers in the search and it brings up every ritz brank cracker in their database including ff or reduced fat varieties. Since you keep track of your starting weight and then losses, I imagine for my chosen plan it will reduce the calories, etc allowed as I lose. fitclick.com
Susan: I have a question for you. I sent a post to my knitting website but would like your opinion too since you do socks too. I am doing my first striped sock using a basic solid sock pattern. My cuff is solid as is heel and toe with the foot and leg being striped. I did red and blue striping up to flap, then did flap in red, did my pickup and have started knitting gusset in red, but oops, I have my heel color red but I need to change to blue for leg front then back to heel color red around heel cup then back to leg front which starts blue again, but since I knit the stripe only in one direction, the blue is always at the opposite end when I begin next row and same goes with the red for the heel. What is the best way to do this since I basically end up with the color on the wrong side of heel and then leg with every row I do. I am not experienced in intarsia and am kind of clueless on this one as I have tried a couple things but it is kind of a mess. Am I just going to have to cut the yarn each section I do then reattach and I don't want a hole between my heel and leg section so what is the best way to prevent that sinc it isn't one color but two (I usually twist the two strands and knit the first stitch with both the cut strand and the starting strand but when it is two colors you can't do that because you end up with a half red half blue stitch)
Jean: I don't open the windows mainly because the back side of the condo has windows you can't open and the front side in the dining room has two huge tall bushes in front of them so you wouldn't get any air that way. My storm doors are glass so opening the doors won't do it either. I just rely on the box fan and the ceiling fan in the living room to keep air moving. The upstairs is the problems. Jack will not open windows because he can't stand people being able to see in so he just has to suffer in his office. The guest bedroom is rarely used and the door kept shut so no sense in opening them and again Jack goes to bed and can't stand the windows being open soooooo.
Maggie: Thanks for the soup info. I have a shorter version in plastic of what I call "church tables." It is great when the whole family is here. I just stick it in the living room and move the chairs and stuff out of the way. It is a great craft table and it fits under our bed so storage isn't an issue.
I am going upstairs and finish the vacuuming and dusting in about an hour before it gets too hot. I waited too long yesterday to go upstairs and got the bathrooms done, but was drenched and pooped from the heat to do the rest. That'll teach me to get things done first thing in the morning! lol I did get the bills paid this morning so we can still have a roof over our head, utilities and such! lol I have to get Jackson's birthday gifts ordered but am looking for the best deal and shipping etc. I hope Jay realizes he is going to have to put that darn bike together. Ahhhh, the joys of being a parent with a grandparent bent on buying the kid a bike! Have a great day gals!
Faye
I have a pot of Peal a Pound soup on, made a big container of salad (I chop up lettuce, romaine, add some bagged cabbage slaw and shredded carrots and mix it all up). I have downstairs floors to do today and then I'm going to quilt.
Faye, when I have been in situations like yours with the sock, I've carefully carried the blue thread along the back, knitting over it, until I get to the other side. Maybe you could try that. Thanks for the website. I'll be checking it out later today.
Maggie, thanks for the salad recipe. I've saved it for I love jicama. I thought about getting the filtered water when I got my new fridge a few years ago but the cost of those filters turned me off. I have a Britta filter on my kitchen facuet and a Britta pitcher I use.
Hi, Jean!
Back to housework!
Last edited by QuilterInVA; 05-26-2010 at 10:32 AM.
Good Morning, Flowers! It's sunny and cool, with the never ending breeze. We had 2 separate rain showers on our side of town around suppertime and then a couple of hours later. There was nothing on the other side of the lake -- strange for sure. I had a meeting at church last night which about did me in. The pastor had a list of 9 items to go over and we were to suggest people who might be good candidates for each position. No decisions were made and we weren't asked to call anyone. He'll go over the lists and we will meet again in a month. He's been here long enough to either know people or not imo. I missed the first part of DWTS, but taped it so can watch it whenever, since I know who won. Bob is at an all day meeting for BCBS so I am on my own for lunch. I need to go to the grocery store and pick up some Bible School supplies. Would you believe WM doesn't carry paper cups? The director specifically said paper, not plastic. Maybe the Dollar General will have some.
On the Today Show they talked about the calories in different restaurant food. The biggy was from Cheesecake Factory, Pasta Carbonara Chicken, 2500 calories, and 86 grams of saturated fat! To me it looked "gooey.
Maggie -- Thanks for sharing your recipe. Is the jicama like a peach, pear, orange, or plum? I will have to do a search for one as I don't ever remember seeing it in the stores.
"Gma" -- I definitely will check out the new website! My problem with planning a menu too far ahead is that if it is to be chicken day, I may not feel like having chicken on that day. You are determined and motivated so that's good! Now we have a yard full of those little "whirly" seeds that come off of the neighbors' trees. Bob says we get them back with all of our leaves blowing around in the fall. Intarsia?? You've got to be kidding!
Susan -- When you put your salad makings together, do you keep them in a plastic bag, bowl, or how do you store them to keep them from getting soggy? We use a Britta pitcher too!
I'm not dressed yet -- spent too much time watching the Today Show this morning! Have a wonderful Wednesday!
Wow did we ever have a light show last night. Couple tornadoes touched down a few miles from here. We had our stuff ready to head for the basement when they gave the word to duck and run. Ole Ragg Mopp wouldn't let me out of his sight so he would be right with us down those stairs. It sorta gives us a clue that something is coming close when the sirens go off. I love it when they stop. After while we are going to drive out to where they touched down and see if any damage was done. Word has it that it only downed a couple power poles.
JEAN You can probably find jicama right there in your market for it is called the Mexican Potato by some. It is a large root vegetable with a thin brown skin and a white crunchy flesh. It is becoming more and more popular in Asia and the US, but hasn't been widely used outside Mexico or parts of South America until recently. In texture, and to a lesser extent in taste, it is very similar to the water chestnut. It is peeled and eaten raw or cooked, and has a taste that is slightly sweet and nutty. You might get a better sense of the taste by considering what some cookbook authors recommend as substitutes if you can't find jicama - uncooked in a salad, the best substitution might be a firm, not-too-sweet apple. In a cooked dish, go the waterchestnut route. There are an awful lot of recipes available that use jicama - either in a starring role or as a humble contributor - among them, lots of salads, slaws, salsas, relishes and fish dishes. I have never eaten it cooked and have known about it since a child for living on the West coast we were privy to lots of Mexican favorites and my mother was not ever afraid to try new things. So there you may have just gotten more information about jicama than you asked for.
DONNA FAYE Thanks for the web site. it sounds like you have found your key to unlock the door leading to the path to thin. That site really sounds like someone is doing a great service for us that need to shed pounds. You go girl. It is so neat to have an extra table isn't it.
SUSAN You are smart to get your chores done before your crafting. I try to do the same and do most of the time. I really don't have a clue to what the price of the filters are but we use so much ice in this household that is the route we chose because we spend a lot on buying ice. If the water making your ice isn't filtered then you are not getting the benefit when putting ice in your filtered water or sodas or ice tea, etc. We were using a Brita also and the ice maker ice in the fridge was making our drinks taste awful. We shut the ice maker off for there is no filtering system in this fridge and just bought ice. At least with this new fridge the water and the ice will be filtered. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. We do have a filter hooked to our kitchen faucet so I can use filtered water to cook with.
DONNA FAY Thank you for the recipe. I will certainly try that one. I ran it through my Recipe Calc at 4 servings and it came out to be 1 POINT a serving. Was that the proper amout of servings?
Good morning to you all! We have been having thunderstorms late every afternoon and yesterday was the same. We got a downpour around 4:30 for about 5 minutes or so and then nothing. Just enough to up the already high humidity.
Maggie: I copied and pasted the recipe to 3fc and looks like I forgot the serving size. Actually the servings said 6, but for one WW pt I think it is worth the little extra, don't you? Your Dodgers eeked out a win from us last night but hoping we can beat them tonight and take the series. We did shut Manny Ramirez down pretty well both games, which is always great.
Jean: The commissary carries jicama so I would imagine Walmart grocery would. I don't know how big your produce section at your local grocery is, but jicama is actually quite popular now days.
Susan: I figured out what was wrong in my sock thinking and I think I fixed it. I guess I am going to have to hit Jack over the head about the photo program so I can post some pictures of the socks I have done.
I have lots of work to accomplish today so I better get started. Have a great day today and looking forward to a long weekend with no dr appts, no therapy, just relaxing. Faye
What a beautiful day in the neighborhood here in the Heartland. Will is out checking out the front yard, bet it is too wet yet to level though. We didn't have the guy plow the grass under in the back yard for it would have been just too much to have the church yard and our huge front yard plus the back yard all trying to grow grass seed at once. Plus we want to use the backyard for BBQing and we can just fight the weeds that want to take over. Yipekio our new fridge is being delivered this afternoon. I have got to transfer the stuff that we have in the freezer to our big freezer and clean out the "stuff" in the fridge. I don't want it do it too early but want to get it done before the new one is delivered. Well folks we have decided not to put the old fridge down stairs because it leaks a bit and we don't want it to ruin the carpet down there so it can live on the patio out back to store fresh veggies out of the garden in. Good thing we have decided just where we are going to put it before time comes to put it. I wasn't real thrilled to have it down stairs because I don't go down there. It will be so much more convenient for me to have it on the covered patio for when I start drying some of it I can get to it easier. This week sure is passing fast. Soon it will be June and we have been having April weather in May. I wonder what June will be like. Probably hot. The neighborhood dogs are raising a ruckus ~ wonder what is happening out there. Ragg Mopp lets out a bit of a growel when they start up. He has a big voice for such a little fellow.
DONNA FAYE I am so glad you figured out what to do with that sox. I certainly couldn't help you with that one. I have never knitted any sox. After I reach goal I am going to knit myself another fisherman natural color sweater. I had one once before that I knited. In fact it was what I knited first and learned to knit on because I wanted one and couldn't aford back then to buy one for they were quite spendy ~ maybe still are. Maybe I should get the yarn and start on it so to have it when I reach goal. There's a thought. I am sure you are enjoying the day without having to go to a dr office or a therapy place. Yes, think I will leave that recipe you posted at 4 servings.
Everyone have a wonderful day. Type at y'all later.
Good Afternoon, Flowers! It's a beautiful day in my neighborhood! The humidity is low, the sky bright blue, a slight breeze, and sunshine! I just got home from finishing my search for Bible School supplies. In case any of you are interested . . . WM does NOT carry paper cups, only plastic! Also fyi, the Pringles Wheat Sticks have been discontinued. I substituted the cheese flavor instead, found paper cups at the grocery store along with the Cool Whip, and sandwich bags. There was a whole list of supplies and I suppose what doesn't get donated we'll have to use church funds to buy. One option was blue Jell-o, already made in individual cups -- not my thing after my Betty Crocker attempt a couple weeks ago!
Maggie -- Thank you for the jicama description. I did look at WM and one grocery store this morning and neither had them. I did know how to pronounce it though. Many years ago, I monitored a class for "Career Day" and had to take roll. There was one Mexican student and his name was Jesus. Well, you can imagine what I called him! He didn't say anything but one of the other kids corrected me! I think of that every time I see "j" in a Spanish word! The little white fuzz ball across the street barks at anything she sees moving. She barks like she thinks she is a German Shepherd and would take your leg off if given the chance. Bob likes to get her going and then tells me to go pet her. She's tied up and there's no way I'm going over to see her when her family isn't outside with her.
"Gma" -- Thanks for sharing your recipe! Our canteloupe hasn't been very good yet this year. Both of our grocery stores have fairly large produce departments but one caters more to the Mexicans than the other. I haven't been there to check on jicamas yet. I'm glad you figured out your sock solution! I'm sure you are looking forward to a relaxing, no appt. weekend!
I need to make a grocery list and put in a load of Bob's grubby jeans to wash. I leave them until I have more than one pair! Have a GREAT rest of the day!
Steel Magnolias -- #26
For the most part I've just cut back on portion size and try to avoid having "fun food" too often. I do like my WW leader and I do think facing her and the iron monster every week helps keep me on track better.
from Iowa!
The pastor had a list of 9 items to go over and we were to suggest people who might be good candidates for each position. No decisions were made and we weren't asked to call anyone. 
I missed the first part of DWTS, but taped it so can watch it whenever, since I know who won. Bob is at an all day meeting for BCBS so I am on my own for lunch. I need to go to the grocery store and pick up some Bible School supplies. Would you believe WM doesn't carry paper cups? 
Is the jicama like a peach, pear, orange, or plum? I will have to do a search for one as I don't ever remember seeing it in the stores. 
My problem with planning a menu too far ahead is that if it is to be chicken day, I may not feel like having chicken on that day. You are determined and motivated so that's good! 
Now we have a yard full of those little "whirly" seeds that come off of the neighbors' trees. Bob says we get them back with all of our leaves blowing around in the fall. Intarsia?? You've got to be kidding!
We use a Britta pitcher too! 
-- spent too much time watching the Today Show this morning! Have a wonderful Wednesday!
We do have a filter hooked to our kitchen faucet so I can use filtered water to cook with.
The neighborhood dogs are raising a ruckus ~ wonder what is happening out there. Ragg Mopp lets out a bit of a growel when they start up. He has a big voice for such a little fellow.
I substituted the cheese flavor instead, found paper cups at the grocery store along with the Cool Whip, and sandwich bags. There was a whole list of supplies and I suppose what doesn't get donated we'll have to use church funds to buy. One option was blue Jell-o, already made in individual cups -- not my thing after my Betty Crocker attempt a couple weeks ago! 
