Month: October 2012

I don’t like celebrating Halloween, as you all know. The whole day freaks me out, especially since it has gotten so popular. I just feel like our society is thumbing its collective nose at God.

But I still hand out candy to the trick-or-treaters, so I’m ready. I don’t think I got nearly as many here as in New Auburn in the past. Others have said they don’t get many in town here.  So I took my $8.88 bag of candy and divided it up into portions that I think are enough, but not too much.  It was very scientific: one large, one medium and two small. Anyway, I have enough for about 36 kids, and then I turn off the lights and retire to the back living room!

Then tomorrow I get up and it is November and Halloween is over for another year!

I got this off a site I visit. Some of them are not healthy because of all the additives or the sugar. Most I think you can figure out. Some don’t have substitutions. Just eat something else!

51 “Health foods” that aren’t (and some substitutions)

1. Digestion-aiding yogurts                                              probiotics
2. Special K                                                                         Fiber One Honey clusters
3. Raisin bran
4. Store-bought smoothies
5. Frozen diet dinners                                                       Amy’s Organics
6. Protein bars                                                                    nothing with over 10 – 15 gr.
7. 100 calorie packs
8. Sweetened dried cranberries
9. Multigrain breads                                                          100% whole grain bread
10. Vegetarian “meat”                                                         Natural veggie burgers
11. Turkey bacon
12. Store-bought bran muffins                                          Make your own small ones
13. Rice Cakes
14. Margarine                                                                      Butter
15. Bottled Salad Dressing                                                 Home-made dressing
16. Granola Bars                                                                 Almonds
17. Roasted Nuts                                                                 Raw nuts
18. Trail Mix                                                                Make your own, add hi-fiber cereal
19. Instant oatmeal packets                                             Steel cut oatmeal
20. Veggie boxed pasta
21. Gluten free or organic cookies                                   make your own cookies
22. Yogurt covered raisins
23. Reduced fat peanut butter
24. Non-dairy ice cream                                                   frozen bananas blended
25. Flavored almond milk                                                unflavored
26. Frozen yogurt                                                             Slow-churned ice cream
27. Canned Soups                                                             Amy’s Organics
28. Microwave popcorn
29. Flavored or vitamin water
30. Banana chips
31. V8
32. Fruit juices
33. Bottled green tea                                                       make your own
34. Pretzels                                                                       raw nuts
35. Vegetable chips
36. Sun Chips
37. Pop Chips
38. Breakfast Cereal Bars
39. Whole Grain Pop Tarts
40. Coconut milk
41. Splenda                                                                       Honey
42. Skinny Cow chocolate bars                   Real chocolate ice cream; piece of dark choc.
43. Corn syrup-free catsup                                             Annie’s naturals
44. Reduced sugar syrup                                                real maple syrup
45. Lunchables
46. Vodka Sauce in a jar
47. Spinach tortilla wraps                                              Whole wheat tortilla wraps
48. Whole grain boxed mac and cheese                       Make your own
49. Blue corn chips                                                          Whole wheat pita chips
50. Baked beans
51. Gluten-free pizza

Weird couple of days. Just wet. Not a lot of rain all at once, but a constant drip, drip, drip. And so dark – you need lights on during the daytime.

We got our bill for the gravel we put on the driveway last weekend and it was about 70 some dollars more than I expected. Then I got a call to play for a funeral today and made $75. Neat how God provides. And since the concert was last night, I was free to work some extra hours this afternoon to make up for the time I was gone this morning. I lose about an hour and a half going up, playing and coming back. So I cleaned my desk. Boy, did it need it! Feels so organized now.

Wednesday afternoon and things are pretty quiet around here. I went over to school to practice with all 3 choirs today. The high school choir concert is a week after the middle school, but Mr. D will be gone several days between the two because of state music teachers conference.

The high school choir is just awesome this year. It is the perfect combination of really musical classes – the 9th grade class is exceptional, and the seniors have quite a few really strong singers, too. Only one year that the choir has both classes, and this is it! Unfortunately the 7th and 8th grade choir is back to normal, which means not terribly good. The last two years it was so good, but now those kids are in high school. But this years 6th grade class shows promise. Time will tell!

The Red Cedar Choir, now under the direction of my favorite high school choir director, Cameron’s Beth Joosten, is really amazing, too. Quite a good number of Cameron graduates and adults “came with her,” so the choir is bigger and has more talent, in addition to having such top-notch direction. Just goes to show that “college” directors are not necessarily better than “high school” directors.

I advertised Jamal on Craig’s List and got a way bigger response that I’d expected – 7 interested people! So I had a single bid auction, which made some of them mad, but we had a gal offer us $50 for him. We’re only taking $1 more than the next highest bid, though, so that will be $21. Still, I’m glad he is going to someone who was willing to pay $50 for him. Makes me feel good about the kind of care he will get. Soon we will be able to stop driving to New Auburn every day and we will really begin saving on gas!

We’ve (mostly I’ve) been working on a cookbook for work. I finally sent it in today. It is going to be so beautiful! I’m really excited. I wouldn’t let myself try any of the recipes until I’d finished it, so I came home after work and made my first recipe – called Chewy bars. I ranked it as excellent – it was easy, pretty cheap, and tasted wonderful! I plan to try every single recipe in the book eventually. Notice how I started with a sweet recipe!

I got my hair trimmed today and it looks so much better. Jennifer didn’t cut much off, but it makes such a difference to have it all the same length. It cost the same as getting it all chopped off and styled, which was surprising, but I’m glad I did it anyway.

Nothing else very newsworthy around here. It’s the weekend – yea!

We are down to one goat, but not the way we planned. We knew that Jasmine was having troubles, quite thin and lost some hair, but it was growing back. So Dad was surprised to find her down and obviously close to death this a.m. when he went down to do chores. So I dug a hole this afternoon out at the property so we could bury her tonight. At supper our renter, Victor, called and said he had some bad news. We hadn’t told him anything, so he didn’t know we knew she was dying. I guess his wife found her and was really upset. We just got back from burying her. It is sad, but not as sad as it would have been if we hadn’t been planning on getting rid of her, anyway.

I’m going to go on Craig’s List now and advertise Jamal for sale. If we can’t sell him, we will probably butcher him and make sausages. (Don’t tell the kiddies…)

So, Chloe was here Wed. through Sat. (part of those end days), so I didn’t stick perfectly to my plan. When the week was finally over on Saturday a.m., I’d lost 3 1/2 pounds, but I’d lost 3 pounds in the first 2 days, so the rest of the week I wavered around the same weight, ending up just 1/2 pound lower.

But things are good today. I did my shopping for the next week and I have some good menus planned. I was afraid I would have to spend more to do this, but my shopping today was actually only about $30, so that is great. Even with the $40 I spend at Sam’s Club  yesterday, I’m still below my budgeted $75 a week.

Ever notice that it is harder to watch what you eat when you are also watching what you spend? We can only focus on so much at once. Besides, healthier foods are more expensive. Example:  “Should I spend $.35 on a huge sweet roll  or $1.59 on a single Greek yogurt?” Argh! It isn’t fair. Of course, I’m neglecting to say that I could also spend about $.15 on a banana!

I still monkeyed around with my “diet,” having very little success last week. But this weekend I’d finally had it – with myself being so on again/ off again, and with all the unsightly fat I’m carrying around. So I sat down Saturday and made up complete menus for 5 entire weeks, as well as the shopping lists to go with them. I don’t eat fancy food and I eat the same sorts of things a lot. But still, having a menu means I will eat a better variety than I eat otherwise. It took me about 5 hours, but it was worth it. For the last 3 days, I didn’t need to think about what I was going to eat and whether it was going to be an allowable food or not. I simply am eating what the menu says – no less, no more.

I know it has only been 2 3/4 days, so it is a little early to say anything, but I feel this might actually work. I want to believe it, anyway. I started right off by losing 3 pounds in those first 2 days. From now on out, I’m hoping for 2 pounds a week because I do exercise really a lot a work. I’ll keep you posted (if you care!)