Reliving my vaca--a little bit at a time

Here are the kids out in the ocean on the beach at Newport, CA. Son was a little freaked out about the seaweed. But they had a great time. We walked up the pier and back and then played in the ocean for about an hour and a half and then had dinner at Rockin' Baja Lobster. Here are my kids in the stockade--they really got in trouble at Legoland and I had to lock them up.

And speaking of Legoland, I thought the bathroom signs were really cute. Little Lego people that had to go potty.

Well that's enough vaca for today--coming tomorrow (maybe): Disney crowds and pirate's treasure.

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For lunch today, I made a broccoli and kale salad (garden kale) with nut cheese mixed in. Son said it was good, but he didn't eat very much of it.

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Last night dinner was sauteed veggies with olives, mushrooms, and a can of diced tomatoes served over whole wheat pasta. CCV mentioned yesterday about putting vinegar in stuff, so I put a bit in the veggies and it really added something. I make a pasta with capers and marinated artichoke hearts in it and the vinegar in my regular veggies gave them a similar flair.

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Today, daughter is over at a friend's house and hubby is helping another friend out with some work on his place. So it's just son and I. I could get used to this (although it is better with both kids in school and hubby working).
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Also, I have exercised 2 days in a row. (Yeah Me!) And my relationship with food is getting back to where it needs to be. (Yeah Me, again!) I just need to keep going.

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Well, back to work.

Ciao for now.

Day one--a good day

Yesterday, I decided that I needed to get back on track with my health. I had been feeling crappy, I had been eating crappy, I hadn't been exercising. I was feeling bad emotionally and physically. I was cranky with my family. And the scale was starting to go back up.
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So today is day one of taking care of me again. I already feel better. Right after dropping the kids off at school, I took all of the Girl Scout cookies and put them in shopping bags and put them out in the trailer. When people want a cookie, they are more than welcome to get one--but they may only get as many as they want right then; they may NOT bring a whole box in the house. I know that will keep me from eating them. I'm basically lazy and if I have to go outside to get the cookies, I'll give it a second thought and skip them.
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I also got out a notebook to record my food intake and exercise in. I'm not counting calories, but I know that if I make myself write what I'm eating down, I'll think twice about putting crap in my mouth. I also know what appropriate portions are and am more likely to stick with them when I am writing things down.
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I did some research and found a running program (I dream about being a runner and actually enjoying it) and implemented it--day one down, only 7 weeks and 6 days left to be up to running 2 miles. Day one wasn't that hard, so if I stick to the program and don't try to move forward too fast, maybe I can do it. Day one was run 1 minute, walk 2 minutes, repeat 10 times.
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Funny story about exercising, though. The pup figured out that if she dropped her ball on the front of the treadmill, the belt would take it and shoot it off the back of the treadmill and she could go get it. The only problem was that sometimes, the ball would bounce back under the treadmill and the belt would take it up to the front of the machine where she couldn't reach it. I had to stop twice to fetch her ball from under the treadmill.
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Daughter and I had a confrontation last night. She has had an attitude about karate for the last few months. She doesn't want to do it. I have told her that I think self-defense is important and I want her to continue for now (she's a brown belt--why wouldn't she want to keep going long enough to get to black?) Her teacher has noticed her attitude and suggested she "take a break". That made me mad; she kept saying that he said it, not her. I pointed out that he only said it because her attitude in class is so poor that he needs her out of there. And I pointed out her messing around and distracting the other students. (She does that in her music lessons, too.) So after a lot of tears and me being a hard-ass. I think she is to the point that she will shape up. If she doesn't shape up, she's going to lose the fun stuff like Girl Scouts (all her troop seems to be is a craft, cookie, and play group--I can't see that she's learning any life skills).
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So, we'll see how that goes.
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Tomorrow is my birthday. 41! Old, huh? I found a Chickpea Blondie recipe from "have cake will travel"'s blog that I'm going to make. It will be better than the chocolate cake that we've had ad nauseum since last August. I already got my dehydrator and my Titan Peeler from my family. Mom wanted to split the cost of a Magic Bullet with Ron and they'd go in together to get me that. I want it, but we've spent enough money on me. If Mom wants to get me the Magic Bullet (I hinted it to her), fine. If not, then no biggie.
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Well, I had better get back to work.
Ciao for now.

Just a real Quick Re-Cap

What do you think of my new T-Shirt? Pretty cool, huh? OK, so here's the re-cap since last I blogged. Saturday we went to Boise--there was a banquet in Nampa that hubby wanted to go to. Daughter won a pellet gun, hubby won a range finder, son and I got squat--actually both kids also got a pair of gloves and some junk. We went to a Thai place and got take-out and I brought my own food to the banquet. I figured I'd get comments, but no one said a thing.
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We also went to the mall--I got the above T-shirt.
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Sunday, hubby was sick. Kids and I went down to breakfast, hubby slept. Kids and I swam in the hotel pool, hubby slept. Kids and I went in a store, hubby slept. I drove home, hubby slept. (Are you starting to see a pattern?)
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It was a bad, achy flu bug. He was home from work for the last two days but didn't bug me because he slept the whole time.
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Monday, as I said, hubby was home sleeping and I was working. Work went fairly good, right up till the end when it fell apart. Then the kids had piano and the grown-ups did grocery shopping (hubby came along cuz he said he thought if he did something he might feel better--wrong.)
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Today, son had a dentist appointment in Boise--had to get some cavities filled so I dropped daughter off at my mom's and mom took her to school and son and I hauled it up to Boise, had the appointment, and hauled it back. We were back by 1 and I started work. Fortunately we (the gals in the office and I) were able to get the stuff from yesterday cleaned up.
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Now hubby is gone to take the kids to Karate. He's finally felling better for real. And I am posting here and then going to watch Biggest Loser.
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As far as eating goes, I have been really bad lately. There is something about Girl Scout Cookies--if they are in the house I have to eat them. So starting tomorrow, I am going to start writing down everything I eat again. I'm going to do it just like I did when I was actually trying to lose weight. (And now I do have some weight to lose to get back to where I was before Christmas.)
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I have been better about exercising lately--4 out the last 7 days. I am going to start pushing myself on that, too. I DO NOT want to go back to being FAT!
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So I am making a commitment for the whole world to read and to hold me to.
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Well I had better get going.
Ciao for now.

Chocolate Give-away, exercise, and my new peeler

First of all, I was perusing CCV's blog just a few minutes ago and she is having a Jocolat bar give-away. If you want to participate, here is the web address. http://chocolatecoveredkatie.wordpress.com/2009/02/26/so-what-about-this-chocolate-giveaway/ (Sorry, I don't know how to do links, so I just copied and pasted the URL.)
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It's a great blog. I visit it regularly. She had a recipe for Tofu pudding--basically just blended silken tofu with flavors. I had it for an afternoon snack yesterday--mine was tofu, cocoa, agave, and a splash of vanilla. It was really good. Who would have thought that something that simple would be that good?
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I'm really proud of myself. I have exercised 2 days in a row. Last night, daughter and I exercised while we watched Biggest Loser--about 35 minutes worth. And today, I exercised after the gals at the office went to do lunch and errands--about 30 minutes worth. I don't know why I have such a hard time exercising. I feel so much better after I do it, but I can't seem to get motivated to do it regularly. It's frustrating. I would really like to be a runner. I have daydreams of myself jogging out in the sunshine with our pup. But the reality is that I am so self conscious (I still see myself as a fat chick) that I only jog on the treadmill or in place in the living room. I am going to try to exercise more regularly.
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I was also proud of my daughter for exercising with me. We did it as sort of a game. I need to do that with her more often.
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Last night, daughter and I played with the Titan Peeler. I still love the peeler, but the jury is out on the julienne cutter. We were playing with the dinner potatoes--peeling, making "chips", making hash-browns, etc. All of the product went into the curry to cook. And all of the little bitty potato pieces cooked down to make the sauce really thick.
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Today, I julienned a zucchini for my lunch. It takes longer than my julienne attachment on my mandolin, but the clean-up was so much easier. Also, the shreds are a lot finer using the Titan. I like it, I'm just not sure if I like it better than my mandolin.
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Well, I ought to get back to work.
Ciao for now.

Tofu Scramble and ramblings

My dinner was really good. As a 'good ole boy', hubby wanted to have fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and gravy--yuck! So I contributed steamed carrots and cauliflower and made myself a Tofu Scramble. I have seen them all over the blogs and seen recipes that all look easy, so I just put it together, seasoned it how I liked and served it over spinach. Here is my recipe:
Curry Tofu Scramble
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1/3 of a package of extra firm silken tofu-mashed
1/2 of a sweet potato spiral sliced
curry powder
ginger
turmeric
salt
pepper
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I mushed up the tofu, spiral sliced the sweet potato, added the curry, ginger, and turmeric. I then sauteed in a little bit of coconut oil and added a bit of salt and pepper.
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Serve over spinach leaves.
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I thought it was really good. I think I will definitely do this again. I had leftover chowder for both breakfast and lunch. I got thinking about the chowder (the recipe is on yesterday's post)--the recipe originally came from a lady at my mom's church when I was a kid. Then, it was made with butter, cream and clams and had no corn, garlic, or cabbage.
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When I got married, I started making it occasionally with milk (instead of cream), sometimes bacon or no meat (instead of clams), and margarine (instead of butter). Then I got a recipe for col cannon--basically a potato and cabbage soup--and liked it so well that I started adding the cabbage. I started adding corn when hubby raved over some corn chowder he had.
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Now I've veganized it and it's the best ever. Hubby even likes it!
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Speaking of hubby, I sometimes get a little frustrated about my family. I read VeganDad's blog and his family likes the way they eat. Mine hates my food for the most part. The problem, in large part, is that hubby is a old farm boy and thinks of meals of as "meat and potatoes"--fried is better. That is the way I ate for the first 23 years of our marriage and that is what made me 276 pounds of fat, unhealthy misery.
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Now that I've changed and feel so much better, I'd really like to get the family to change. The problem is that kids look to whichever parent is to their liking at the moment. Hubby used to smoke and then he had a bloody nose that wouldn't stop--he ended up having to have surgery and he really thought he was going to die. The doc gave him a lecture about how it probably wouldn't have happened if he wasn't a smoker. That scared him out of smoking.
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I'd rather it not have to be a heart attack that scares him into getting healthy. To often people don't get a second chance to get healthy after one of those. He's overweight, pretty lazy, and resists changes to his diet. He's teaching daughter to be just like him.
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On a better note, after spending all that time at the Y exercising yesterday, the kids wanted to go back again today. The Y is closed on Sunday so instead they did over an hour on Wii fit and Wii sport. So they did get moving. That's really good.
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Well, I'm off.
Ciao for now.

Chowder and the YMCA

Our local Y has been remodeling lately and had their open house today. We went to "look around" and ended up staying for almost 2 hours! They have all new weight equipment, they got new cardio equipment, they now have a circuit room that takes a half hour for a full body work-out, and they have a kids room.
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The kids room has a dance floor-type game where the kids can play games that are like dodge-ball, squash the bug, tennis, etc. It also has WII-type boxing and bowling. It has Marshall arts-type 'hit the target' game, and a sit-up basketball game. It is so cool. the kids were in there for about an hour and still not ready to leave.
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Hubby and I did the circuit room and then he went and walked on a treadmill, while I did the grown-up's sit-up basketball thing and then rode the stationary bike. Their stationary bikes have computer screens and you choose your track and then ride on the track you choose. Or you can do a "chase the dragons"game on them. They were so cool. I almost enjoyed sweating.
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Daughter took our guitar to her trumpet lesson this morning (this was before lunch and the Y--I'm just typing out of sequence.) Her teacher spent time with her to do some basic guitar stuff. that was really nice of him.
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After the Y, we came home and I started dinner. We had Chowder--my own recipe. Here it is:
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1 head cabbage-chopped
1 onion-diced
3 stalks celery-diced
garlic to taste-chopped
6 potatoes-cubed
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp allspice
1 can corn
1/2 stick of vegan margarine
1/4-ish cup flour
2 cups soy milk
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Saute the onion, celery and garlic for a few minutes in just a little olive oil. Add the cabbage and potatoes and just enough water to cover them and then boil until tender (25 minutes or so). Add the seasonings and the corn.
In a separate pan, melt the margarine and stir in the flour to make a stiff paste. On high heat, whisk in the soy milk to make a gravy. It will get thick fast so watch it. Put the gravy in the pan with the veggies and stir it in.
The water in with the veggies mixes with the thick gravy to make a nice creamy soup. I had to add more salt, but I didn't add it to the recipe above because not everyone likes things salty.
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I don't have a picture, but it was really good. The recipe makes a lot, though. We have enough left over for another couple of meals. Daughter picked the potatoes out and dipped them in ketchup--go figure.
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Then, just a little bit ago, I made vanilla almond ice cream and added a tablespoon of dark cocoa powder--yum yum. I could have eaten the whole batch by myself.
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Well, I ought to go. It's getting on toward bedtime. Son should be home soon (they are doing a scouting fundraiser) and he'll want some of MY ice cream and then we can all crash.
Ciao for now.