Taking it to the next level!

As many of you know I’ve been trying to eat a lot healthier since Christmas. I’d gained a few pounds after last summer and kept on gaining as we went through Thanksgiving and the holidays. I let myself indulge in way too much candy, chocolate, chips, big meals etc, and I paid the price! I couldn’t get my jeans fastened and resorted to elastic waist pants all through the winter!

I’m happy to say since December I have dropped 10lbs :-) My jeans fit again and I’m still on track with healthy eating. BUT, I could do better! Despite the fact that I eat a lot of veggies and fruit I still find myself buying a lot of processed foods, quick frozen meals, tinned soups etc. and I want to change that.

Although my breakfast could be something healthy like this . . .

low fat whole grain waffle, Better ‘n’ Butter pb (85% less fat than regular pb), one egg and 1 eggwhite scrambled, and some fresh strawberries and grapes,

my lunch could be something ‘not so healthy’ (imo) like this. . . .

OK, so it says ‘lean’ on the packet and I know there’s only 7 ww pts in this meal, but is it really healthy? What is actually in it? Yes, it’s low in fat, only has 270 calories in it, but it has 750mg of sodium!!

Considering the recommended amount of sodium per day is between 1500mg and 2300mg, that is a LOT! To be honest I’ve never really checked labels for sodium, but it’s about time I did! Even soups I buy contain a lot – and why do I buy them when I can just as easily make my own? I love homemade soups and I want to start making an effort to prepare a lot more of our meals from scratch, rather than opening a tin or popping a frozen meal in the microwave!

Jason and I were talking this week also about the ‘meats’ we eat. He had watched a show on tv this week, I think it was called FoodInc. I haven’t seen it yet, but seriously when I think about what I eat, I am realizing that a lot of it is still total ‘junk food’! And not only that but I’m feeding it to my child as well! I really want to try and eat better… ‘cleaner’! Clean Eating is a great example of how to do this. I have the books, I’ve bought the magazines, but I’ve not been eating this way. It’s time to start, make a better effort.

Our veggie gardens will soon be finished, we are excited to try and grow our own produce again. I want to create my own ‘freezer meals’ so I know exactly what ingredients are in them. I want to make my own soups, dips, hummus etc. I want to . . . and I will :-)

Sorry if this got a bit long winded, but I’m sharing my heart today, and this is heavily laying on it. It’s never too late to start, as they say, and I’m sure along the way I’ll stumble, but the best thing I can do is try.

Now with all that said, let me quickly share with you what I made yesterday. . . my friend Cindy and I found a great bargain in Target after we’d had coffee together – All Natural whole chickens, ($3 off) for just $1.99 each! We each bought 4 of them!!!

I’ve shared this recipe before I think, a simple roast chicken with rosemary and lemon, and that’s all I did yesterday. I bought a big bag of lemons at Target, came home and cut some rosemary from the garden, stuffed the chicken with both and drizzled olive oil on top. Roasted it for 1 1/2 hours (it was a 3.5lb bird) and voila!

There is no need for me to buy a rotisserie chicken again, when I can make my own like this (especially at such a great price)!

And finally, this was our driveway yesterday!

The yard work is just about complete, crushed granite paths are in, we will be waiting for new soil and mulch to be delivered today or this weekend.

I’ll have finished photos to share on Monday (hopefully!).

Have a great weekend, and thanks for reading this unexpected long post!

The best kind of busy!

Wow, I can’t believe it’s Wednesday already and I haven’t posted since Sunday! I still haven’t had a chance to upload the video of Kristen’s piano recital, I will try to do that after I've posted here.

We’ve been rather busy since Sunday, doing . . . . ‘nothing’! Ha ha, yes, all we’ve done for the past couple of days is ‘watch’ the work being done in the yard. Isn’t that the best kind of busy ;-) Jason took Monday and yesterday off work and we’ve just enjoyed some relaxing time together watching what’s going on out back. . . . pictures? Well of course I took pictures :-)

Work started late on Saturday afternoon, just two guys, but within a couple of hours the garden went from looking like this . . . .

to this . . . . .

We were amazed at how quickly the weeds and dead grass were torn out of there! The guys don’t work on Sunday, but on Monday they showed up with the limestone rocks and started marking out the perimeter. . . .

We are itching to get plants in the garden and I’ve actually bought some from the store ready, things like heirloom tomatoes, eggplant, spaghetti squash, bell peppers, jalapenos, AND we’ve planted some seeds that are sitting on the kitchen windowsill.

Hard to believe that the work will be finished by this weekend and we can start planting! We are SUPER excited. The only downside, I’m doing a craft fair with Cheryl all day Saturday AND Sunday so I won’t be around to ‘play’ in the garden :-/ But that’s ok, we have plenty of weekends free after that.

Linking to Tuesday Garden Party at Oregon Cottage.

A Wonderful Sunday

What a wonderful day we’ve had. Kristen took part in a piano recital today, held at her teachers home. She didn’t want to play in it last year and it’s something I’ve never forced her to do. She’s only done one which was in her first year. She’s been playing for 3 years now. 

I’ve been trying to upload the video of her performance but after hours it was still uploading? I’ll try again tomorrow, in the mean time here’s a few pictures from this afternoon. It’s getting late, nearly 11pm here so I’m off to bed. Not looking forward to getting up at 6 for school tomorrow.

 

Work has already started on our veggie garden, I can’t wait to share the process with you this week. We’re told it should all be finished by Thursday!!

Garden Cleanup!

The weather is really warming up here in TX, all this week is forecast to be in the mid 80’s! That’s not warm, that’s HOT!!! I am itching to get outside and start cleaning things up, especially the front porch area, but it’s been rather windy the past few days and my allergies are playing up too (oak, grasses and other tree allergens have been pretty high) so I’m avoiding being out there for too long. That, plus the fact I’ve been busy sewing all week is what’s keeping me indoors.

But, I need to get out there soon, it’s looking pretty sad right now, no flowers in the beds and just dead plants :(

We also need to get out back and clean up too. It’s looking even sadder out there. In fact I’m almost too embarrassed to show you. . . but I’m gonna!

This picture was taken March 2010, we’d just started cleaning up the beds and here I am planting some herbs

By July it was looking like this!

Pretty impressive, but that’s when the weather starts to get brutal, I’m talking nearly 100 degrees EVERY SINGLE DAY! We just find it way too hot out there and start to go out less and less. I’ve tried going out in the mornings after taking Kristen to school, but it’s still nearly 80 by then, and we tried going out after 8pm when the sun was setting, but it’s still in the 90’s even at that time!

Sad to say we didn’t go out much after this and this is what the garden looks like today . . . .

We’ve felt really overwhelmed at the thought of trying to clean all those beds out again. This week Jason and I talked a lot about what we want to do out there. I didn’t even know if I wanted to try growing veg again, knowing that as soon as the weather heats up I won’t want to go out there!  But after lots of talk we’ve decided we DO want to still grow veg. It’s something we enjoy doing together now, we just need to be more consistent with our efforts and motivate each other to go out there.

We’ve decided to have some one come in and redo the beds, AND put crushed granite on the pathways to help prevent weeds. We found a local ‘crew’ that does a lot of work in the neighborhood and we’re hoping the will make a start sometime this weekend. Not only are we having the paths done we are taking away the wood boxes (because most of them have already started rotting) and we’re having limestone borders put in. It’s costing A LOT OF MONEY! but we think it’s worth it. If we don’t invest something in the back yard then it’s really all just a waste of space.  I am excited about it, and I will be sure to blog about the process as we get started.

In the mean time, I couldn’t resist planting a little ‘pizza garden’ in my big tub on the patio!

The large pot has a grape tomato plant in it, basil to the left, cilantro at the front and tarragon at the right.

 

The terracotta pot has a yellow cherry tomato plant in it.

So, how about you? Have you started cleaning up your garden yet. Will you be growing any veggies this year? I loved reading blogs last year that were gardening too, it always inspires me when I see other peoples spaces :-)

 

Linking up with:

An Oregon Cottage -  Spring Spruce Up.

A Southern Daydreamer – Outdoor Wednesday

Did you guess?

It was Kristen’s first taste of COFFEE that made her pull such a face!

She asked last week if she could try a taste of coffee and I had no problems saying yes.  I drank coffee from an early age, because I didn’t like tea AND we used to have instant coffee (back home in England) which we made very weak! The fact that a friend’s little boy who is only 3 yrs old  likes the taste, I think intrigued her, not to mention her friend Connor next door really likes it too.

I always have creamer in but she wanted to  pick one herself while we were at the store. She chose Peppermint Mocha, and I picked up a small bottle of Caramel Macchiato :-)  Here she is taking her first sip of the peppermint coffee . . .

I had a feeling she wouldn’t like it right off the bat, it was totally new to her, I told her to try again, now that she knew what to expect.

She still didn’t like it. . . so, how about the Caramel Macchiato? I made a little cup of that for her

The verdict?

As you can see, much nicer!  She liked that one and drank a small cup of it.  She had another cup on Sunday morning, but said she would probably only drink a little of it each weekend – which is fine by me ;-)

What did Kiki eat?

Any guesses what Kiki ate (or drank) that got a reaction like this?

Back tomorrow with a full post ;-)

A New Look!

Ta Da!!!  Here’s the new look to my blog… what do you all think? I’ve been working with Jenn from Munchkinland Designs this past week and I think she has done an awesome job on redesigning my blog. I’m loving it :-)

As you can see from the buttons up top I will have all my knitting posts, cooking posts and healthy eating posts labeled so when you click on those buttons you can easily see them at a glance. All of my blogging will be done here, my other blogs will be left as they are right now, mainly for my own purpose of using my blog rolls on those pages to visit other blogs.

I hope you like the new look, it’s certainly motivating for me to get back to what I loved most and that is ‘daily journaling’ about my life.

I’ll be back soon with a picture post. Today I’m just chillin on the sofa with Jason (and of course I’m knitting) :)