There's More to Life than Food

 

Hey y'all!  There's more to life than just food.  I'm trying very hard to convince myself daily, who am I kidding, momentlly (I just made up another word).  I really believe that as Americans, we are obsessed with food.  I know I am, I'm a "Food Addict" and Weight Watchers is my recovery program of choice. 

 

Everywhere you look there is a new restaurant, a billboard, a pizza place, etc.  And the commercials, if you weren't craving something when you sit down to watch a show, you will be by the time the first commercial break is over.  This is all very hard for a person that is coming "down" from their food high/habit.

 

The good news - at weight-in this week, I dropped 1.6 lbs., for a total of 6.6 lbs. in two weeks.  Yippee-yiho-kiya!!!!!!!  I don't think I mentioned this last week, but as I stood in line for my initial weigh-in, I noticed all the women ahead of me were stripping.  Taking off clothes, shoes, purses, belts, earrings, necklaces, etc.  I thought to myself, self, you don't want to do this, you are here today to keep it real.  So I weighed with my boots, jacket, skirt, jewelry, everything.  The Speaker, who is also the weigh-in-er (we'll just call her SW) told me that I will have to dress the same way every weigh-in to get an accurate reading and I said no problem.  So this week, I put on the same boots, same jacket, a tank top, a belt, a scarf, my jewelry, and my denim skirt.  As I'm putting on my skirt, I reach for my slip (for you young girls out there, us more mature women always wore slips and still do most of the time) and say to myself, self, don't wear a slip today cuz this denim is heavy and you don't need the extra weight of the "slip" (a blonde moment if there ever was one).

 

So SW weighs me, sees the look on my face and asks me whats wrong.  I tell her how good I was and thought I should have lost a little more.  So she assures me I'm doing well, but then says, "well look at what you're wearing.  You didn't have that heavy (leather with studs) belt on before, or the scarf."  So she makes me take it off, weighs it then me, and those two little things were 1lb.  I couldn't believe it.  Then she wants me to take off my skirt, but I couldn't because of the "slip" thing.  So she tells me that the skirt was about 5lbs.  SW starts the class after weighing everyone and right away she asks me to step forward.  Then she proceeds to use me as "Weight Watchers What Not to Wear on Weigh-In Day".  It was very funny and the class had a good time poking at me.  So, I told you all that to say this, I'm doing good with the program, I probably lost more than 1.6 lbs, but - My name is Cindy and I'm a foodaholic.

 

Speaking of food, I want to get a couple of chickens.  MY mother had a bunch of them years ago and I used to help take care of them and enjoyed it a lot.  Chickens are very smart and can become tame and trained.  Plus, they are a great food source that you don't have to pay for at the grocery.  I went to a County Commissioners Meeting last night where they were supposed to be discussing a decades old law that states you can not keep chickens in the County.  You can, however, keep them in the City limits.  Doesn't make sense to me, the City has chickens, but the County can't???  But there is a bunch of us "Crazy Chicken People" opposing this and asking the Commissioners to re-visit the ordinance.  They tabled the discussion last night for another 90 days.  But, I'm gettin' me some chickens!!!!  You have to brood them for up to 15 weeks anyway and that can be done inside in a cardboard box.  I want the ones that lay the Easter eggs, they are called Araucana.  My mother had some of these, they are cute and they do well in this area.

 

I guess my country roots are showing in full color.  I will stop bending your ears for now.  Take care.

 

See you in the funny papers!!!

 

 



My New Habit

Hey y'all!  Well, I did it!  Last Wednesday, I joined Weight Watchers.  I'm happy about it and I'm committed to follow through with it for the long haul.  Of course I want to look good.  I want to be able to go in a store and look at the "normal" sizes vs. the "plus" or "real women" sizes.  Real Women my big booty, they have some Ad Team sitting around a big conference table brainstorming on how to make us "healthier" women feel not so bad about ourselves by calling us the Real Women.  I'm just speaking for me now, but that is just a ploy to make me not want to loose weight so that I will continue to buy the bigger sizes and pay more money for the clothing.  Oh, I really don't want to get started down this road........I think you kind of get my drift on this.

 

The main reason for doing this, is to get healthy.  I'm not healthy at this size, everything in my body has to work twice as hard as it would if I was my optimum weight.  And that starts to get a little scary thinking about that once you start getting older.  I know people my age that have died.  DIED, I said. I'm 56.  I still feel very young mentally.  Like, where has the time gone????  I don't like this getting older bull_____, you know what I mean.  People don't prepare you for this.  Now, here I am 56, fat, and don't wanna be this way any more.  So now I have to kick my booty, and get it in to shape.  Then maybe I can live even longer and get even older, hahaha.  Seriously though, this is it.  I'm doing it, I'm in it for the long run.  Going to the meetings every week, doing exercise, psyching myself up, all that stuff......

 

So this is Tuesday, weigh in is tomorrow morning.  I'm closing for today and I will report back tomorrow when I get home.  Oh, I guess I didn't mention earlier, you guys are going on this journey with me.  I'm gonna try to update you every week along with other stuff, but this weight loss adventure will be in here too.

Well......anyone bet money on whether I lost weight or not?  I did, yayyyyy, 5.2 lbs.  I'm very happy and surprised.  I didn't have all the food I needed to start this last week, but I was very careful (except for when Emmy was eating mini marshmallows and before I knew it, I had eaten a couple of handfuls without thinking and then I'm like, oh, how did these jump in to my mouth, bahahaha) and I cut the amount of sugar in half, in HALF, do you hear me,  in my tea, that was seriously hard.  I went through some serious sugar withdrawals last week.  So here I am, in it for the second week.  Food can be just as much of an addiction as anything else and I'm a life long junkie (more on this later).

Closing for now, I have to go to the Farmer's Market, grocery, and any place else that I need to go to feed my new habit.  Love you guys for sharing this with me.

See you in the funny papers!!!

Canning or Memory Lane???

Hey ya'll!  I hope all of you are doing good. I love this picture that I've posted about canning.  This isn't mine but I wish it was.  I love the rustic items in the pix especially the jars.  I love what we call now-a-days as the "old stuff".  I never thought I would say this, but I remember jars like this when I was younger and didn't pay a lot of attention to them.  Sad to say, but I remember hearing some of my friends who were older than me talking about the old stuff and me thinking at the time that I wasn't old and would never be old like them.  Ha, 20 years later and here I am.  It's so hard to believe that 20 or so years have passed and it really does seem like yesterday.

Twenty eight years ago, I was pregnant.  It was the best time of my life so far.  I had a new life growing inside of me and I was the happiest I could ever remember being.  Almost twenty nine years ago, my baby was born.  That was definetly the best day of my life so far.  That beautiful curly headed baby was the prettiest baby I had ever seen and I was in love more than I had ever been able to imagine.  The years of raising my beautiful daughter were the scariest but best years of my life so far, and without the help of my heavenly Father, I wouldn't have made it. 

During those years, I had some wonderful friends in the country that taught me how to garden, harvest, prepare, freeze and can.  I owe pretty much everything I know to my neighbor on the corner, his daughter, his granddaughter, his two sons, his son-in-law and his two daughter-in-laws.  They also taught me how to cook like a true southerner.  I am so very thankful for the times I spent in their kitchens, on the road talking, in their barns (sheds), or sitting in their yards.  I loved sitting and listening to them talk about the old days, there were always stories about them growing up.  They had us all laughing and always having a good time.  All this would go on while one of them was cooking, shelling peas, preserving veggies, etc.  Those were some of the best times and fondest memories I have.  I do miss them all terribly.

Going down memory lane and canning is almost one and the same to me.  As I'm preparing my garden list and collecting jars and canning supplies, I can't help but think of all of this.

I want to carry on the things I've learned over the years.  Teach and learn with my daughter and my granddaughter.  So one day they can think about the old stuff and me fondly, like I do now.

See you in the funny papers!

First DIY Project

Hi y'all!  First thing I want to share with you is this great find from one of our local thrift stores.  I went to the mission two weeks ago to search for some white ironstone that I've been collecting for some time now.  I found a really cool platter that I looked up on-line while I was there, I paid $4 for it and it was listed for $54.  Score!!! I was very excited.  As I was making my way to the check-out, I thought I'll just go by the furniture to check it out, you never know what you can find, right?  I'm looking and I'm looking and then.....it called my name - Cindy, come look at me..... It was a really cool wicker chair that was pretty old looking and black.  But it had pretty good bones and it was only $4.99.  I'm thinking, Score Again!!!  So here is my first on-line DYI project.  Turned out pretty good.  Don't look at the table or the surroundings, I'm still working on it and I'll share that as soon as I get it done.

 

 Last week I went to my niece's house and helped her and my sister-in-law can.  We had such a good time.  I was a bit nervous, I've never canned anything really.  I've watched friends can before but never assisted.  It was pretty cool.  I also bought some of my own canning supplies to get ready to do this wonderful thing on my own.  Well, not really, I'll either be doing it with my daughter or my niece and sis-in-law again.  So I'm not an expert yet, I'm a canner in progress.  Buts it's so cool.  It's amazing how excited you can get about such simple things isn't it?  LOL.

 

Also, this past week, I went to a knitting circle with my sis-in-law and same niece.  My niece taught me how to knit.  I've crocheted since I was knee high to a grass-hopper, but let me tell you, knitting is a whole other ball park.  You would think, oh I can do this it's got to be close to crocheting, but no.  First problem I had is the way you hold your fingers to let the tension of the yarn go through them to the needles.  It's so different.  Then just remembering the difference between a knit and a pearl, man!  My poor niece deserved a medal after the other night, she was so patient.  After sitting with me and then letting me go at it (I was planning on following a pattern to make a dishcloth), she looks at it and says, "why don't you just practice knits for a while and then pearls for a while?"  I just laughed and told her I thought that was a good idea.  I know this may sound funny, but I've wanted to learn to knit most of my adult life.  I've just never taken the time to learn, so I'm very excited about this as well.

 

I've decided for myself, I'm still never too old to learn new things.  I hope you will agree that you can learn new stuff too no matter where you are in life.

 

See you in the funny papers!

 

 

 

 

 



A Brand New Start

 

Happy New Year!  I really took some time off during the Holidays, didn't I.  Like all of you, I was very busy and then had to recuperate a few days.  For my family and I, this was one of the best Holidays we've had in a long time.  My brother and sister-in-law had moved home from Virginia and were here to spend Christmas with us for the first time in many years, yay!!!  We had a lovely time.  Then we got to spend the evening with my brother and sister-in-law from Louisiana a few days later, yay!!!  I really enjoyed the time spent with all of them.  Now if we can just get those LA folks to move back home...

 

The New Year is about brand new starts.  I really had my brand new start at the end of August, 2012.  I made some serious decisions about my health that started me on a path to being healthier both physically and mentally.  I haven't felt this good in years, actually its been about 15 years.  And, I'm looking forward to continuing this process in the new year.

 

My daughter and I are putting in a garden.  One at her house and one at mine.  I'm excited about this, I've never actually had my own garden, but I've had a neighbor out in the country where I lived before, that used to teach me all about it.  He also supplied me with veggies and taught me how to put them up every summer.  He was a dear man, kind of like a grandfather to me.  He lived on the corner and every time I'd drive by, he would flag me down just to talk and see how I was.  I miss him dearly.  Everything I know about "country" ways, I learned from him, his daughter, and my closest friend, his granddaughter.  I guess I was and still am part of their family, that's what they always told me.

 

Back to the garden.  We are going to get in to canning this year which I'm very excited about.  I never had time to explore that aspect of the garden due to working and raising my little one, then getting sick.  So, that is the new "country" way that we will be working on.  So if any of you have any tips, advice, recipes, jars, canning equipment, pressure cooker, etc...............LOL.

 

I will keep you posted on our progress.  Right now we are reading seed catalogs and preparing our list.  Drawing up garden plans. Saving paper towel and toilet paper rolls......I bet you are wondering about that one.  You can cut the roll in to the size of a seedling pot, cut slits in the bottom, fold them in like a cardboard box lid, start a seed in it, when it grows big enough to put in the ground, just plant the whole thing.  You don't have to take it out, the roll dissolves. Cool, huh? 

 

I should close now before I write a book. I hope that your new starts will be as successful as mine has been so far. 

 

See you in the funny papers!