1. I’m pretty sure I neglected to mention that I gained a couple of pounds last week. I’ll blame it on hurting my knee resulting in lower intensity workouts and no running. Oh, and then not adjusting my calorie intake to account for that lack of activity. I was back down a half pound (which is kind of staying the same, right?) this past Friday. I wasn’t expecting anything spectacular. In the preceding week I had spent a long weekend at my parents’ house, which included one really fabulous cheat day and then a few days of some decent self control. And then I had Fat Tuesday…which was yummy. Since Wednesday, I’ve been really good at sticking to my Lenten fast (no meat, dairy or sugar)…but a few days of eating healthy plus two cheat days just isn’t enough for weight loss. HOWEVER, minus a couple of slip ups…I’ve been following my self-imposed rules for Lent, which results in no cheat days or even any real cheat meals. Plus, my knee is much better…I’ve done a couple of runs and don’t have to modify near as many exercises at the gym. I’m looking forward to Friday’s weigh in to see how close I am (again!) to the 100 mark. Ready to blow past it!!
2. I’ve managed to make it five (and a half!) days of no meat and no dairy…but I did end up with a little sugar intake. Not a single bite of grilled cheese sandwich or pizza or Italian chicken sandwich. No brownie bites or m&m’s or Oreos. (Yes, these are all things I brought into my house voluntarily this week!) The sugar happened because the almond milk we had contained evaporated cane juice in it (see also: sugar). I have since replaced it with unsweetened almond milk, which mostly contains almonds and a few other things. Someday I may attempt to make my own almond milk…but we’ll see! I also ate pita from Zoe’s Kitchen last night. It was soooo good. I’m not positive it contained sugar, but most breads do. Oh, and I was excited that while my kids Veggie Straws do contain sugar, pretzels do not. Until I read the label again and saw corn syrup listed. Boo. And finally, I found a great vegan pumpkin muffin recipe. I made it this morning for the kids and myself. It called for 1/2 cup brown sugar and I substituted with baking stevia, which actually includes some sugar. I will probably play around with the recipe a little bit and see what I use to replace sugar totally. You can find the recipe here. I subbed whole wheat flour for the white flour and used quinoa flakes instead of oats. I cooked the apples in coconut oil. Everything turned out delicious. The cooked apples were really a treat. I think I’ll try them in other muffin recipes and will probably switch to cooking in just water instead of oil.
3. I do a letter of the week curriculum with my kids. Found here. Some weeks are filled with activities and some…are not. We’re doing a little better sticking to a routine these days. I have a lot of fun with the kids when we do school activities, especially when I supplement the curriculum with my own stolen from Pinterest ideas. This week is letter P week and honestly, there are not enough days to do everything I want! We started this morning by having a picnic. (Super fun way for me to avoid clearing the kitchen table for breakfast.) We had pumpkin muffins, bananas & milk. We had planned a play date at the park, but cousin Mary wasn’t feeling up to it. And so our previously planned peanut butter & jelly sandwich picnic at the park has been postponed until this evening when we will play outside until Papa comes home. The weather should be perfect! For lunch today we made pasta salad with peppers and provolone cheese Daniel poked the plastic to open the pepper package. He was so proud! We’re also planning a pizza party, movies with popcorn, pancakes on pajama day, polish sausage, pork chops, potatoes, p’sketti, pineapple, peaches, pretzels, pudding, potato chips and pie on Friday, March 14…because I am nothing if not a math nerd. (see here if you do not happen to share this love for numbers). I hope to make some penguins (maybe by painting with potatoes?) and we’ll be learning about the plagues. I found a great site to help me incorporate bible stories in our schooling. She shares links and even lists food ideas. Click here to see what we’ll be studying this week.
4. And…my thoughts have been totally interrupted by a dying laptop battery and kids that are dying to go outside. Occupational Therapy is finished, I’m packing our picnic and we’re headed outside until sunset.
Happy Monday, friends!
worth the wait 