05/31/10 - Food

Breakfast - toast with peanut butter and some fresh cherries

Lunch - spinach salad, 9 grain bread, baked potato chips, sugar-free Jello, sugar-free cookies

Supper - steamed chicken, onions, potato & broccoli, melba toast bites, spoonful of dark chocolate gelato.

Tonight when I was getting to the end of my bowl of steamed chicken (etc), I realized that I was full - very full. I wanted to finish up the end of what was left in the bowl - some potatoes and onions - but I stopped myself and reasoned that I did not have to eat that last little bit. Yes, I was brought up in the generation that was taught to "clean your plate" and consequently throwing out food is very difficult for me. I can easily do it in restaurants where the plate is taken away from me, but at home I find it extremely hard to throw out food. If there is quite a bit left, I will have it the next day, but if there is just a little bit left I almost always eat it in spite of the fact that I am full. I have to be very mindful to stop and make the decision to throw out the food. So, for me, throwing out those last few bits of potato tonight needs to be noted and counted as a step in the right direction - the direction towards food sanity.

05/30/10 - Food

Breakfast - toast with peanut butter and fresh cherries

Lunch - at Red Lobster - yummy biscuit, salad, shrimp, baked potato

Snack - some pretzels, some veggie sticks and a few potato chips (the baked kind). Can you tell I had the "munchies"?

Supper - a very weird supper, but I ate what I wanted and enjoyed it immensely. Two Eggo blueberry waffles and the leftover mashed potatoes from last night.

Have a good Memorial Day

Perfectionism (A long wordy post)

Quite often I find myself not wanting to quilt because the thought that I am not perfect at this craft stops me cold. I look at magazines and see award winning quilts and instead of enjoying the beautiful quilts, I lament that I have never acquired that level of expertise. I decide in my mind that everything is too hard, would take too long, and I couldn’t think up the designs in the first place. So why should I bother at all? Then someone will remind me that you have to work at the craft; that the expertise only comes from years of practice and failing. Sorry, but that does NOT inspire me. It just increases the size of the mountain I must climb.

Oh, I have periods of not letting the perfectionism factor stop me. I sew, I quilt, I buy fabric, I continue haphazardly, enjoying the colors and patterns. Most of all though, I love my fellow quilters – the friends in my Bee group, women I admire in my Guild, and many, many quilting bloggers.

As the years have gone by I increasingly lament the fact that I am not good at quilting. As I bemoan my shortcomings I have begun to notice that my listeners are getting tired of hearing my sob story.

My unhappiness got so bad that there have been many times recently when I seriously considered throwing out or giving away ALL my fabric and quilt books – thousands and thousands of dollars worth of quilting stuff. It was not bringing pleasure into my life and instead was making me miserable.

Enjoying lunch with my friend Brenda the other day, she patiently sat listening to me once more go on and on about poor me, lousy quilter me, never good enough me. What do I expect people to say? “Yes you are lousy. You better quit quilting.” Hardly. The usual response is “Oh Bonnie, I love your quilts. You’re too hard on yourself. Your quilting is fine.” They might as well be saying, “blah, blah, blah” for all that I listen to that reply. But Brenda replied with something that I have heard before, but have never felt as deeply. She gave me the “enjoy the process” speech – and it penetrated my thick brain that the whole point of quilting or stitching or knitting or reading or eating or being with your friends or just about anything that you do is to enjoy the process.

The people I admire most in the world are those that have enthusiasm – about what they are doing or what they just acquired or where they are going or what they had to eat or what they are reading. Who wants to be around someone like me who whines and complains about being less than adequate? Not me. I want to be around the person who can’t wait to show me their latest garage sale find, who just has to tell me about a good book, who got some fabulous new fabric, who had a great idea for a quilt project and who made a wild, crazy, wonky quilt. I don’t care if the quilt they show me is perfect – all I care about is the enthusiasm and pride with which they share their craft.

So right here on this public blog, I am vowing to stop the negative thinking and begin to truly enjoy the process of quilting – picking out the fabric, deciding on a pattern, cutting everything apart, sewing it all back together again, and sometimes doing my imperfect but unique (and wonderful) machine quilting.

If I slip up on my vow, would you please remind me? Thanks!

05/29/10 - Food

Breakfast - 9 grain bread and cereal.

Lunch - spinach salad (with egg & bacon bits), crackers, and a Skinny Cow ice cream.

Afternoon snack - TJs veggie sticks.

Supper - the leftover chicken dish from last night, some mashed potatoes, fresh cherries and some sugar-free cookies.

Happy Saturday

It was a happy Saturday at my house. I machine quilted (cross-hatch) this little pieced pumpkin quilt and it is now ready for me to hand sew down the binding. My machine quilting is a little less than perfect, but it is OK with me. I like the over-all effect and will think of it as "quirky" quilting.

I used a varigated thread that had yellow, gold, orange and beige which adds to the quirky nature of this little quilt.

There was time also to work on this little piece of stitchery which is from Blackbird Designs - one of the August miniature stockings.

Finally, I made a little progress on my latest binding project.

Time went by very quickly today as I enjoyed working with needle and thread.

05/28/10 - Food

Breakfast - toast with peanut butter and fresh cherries

Lunch - chicken salad sandwich on whole grain bread, pickle slice and potato chips (at a restaurant)

Supper - chicken, onion and broccoli cooked together in chicken broth, mashed potatoes, sugar-free Jello with Cool Whip (Free) and some sugar-free cookies.

Snack - some yummy almonds.

To those who might read this blog, you will notice that I don't often put down portions/amounts - just a list of the foods I have eaten. Sometimes I don't eat all that much and sometimes I practically lick the plate. For example, the sandwich I ate today had very thick bread with extremely chewy crusts, so I left a lot of the bread on the plate. Now, if the bread had been the kind I have at home, I would have eaten every last crumb. The chicken dish I made tonight was too much with the mashed potatoes, so I left half of it for tomorrow but I ate every last morsel of the mashed potatoes. The reason I just list the food is because this blog is for my personal benefit. I know how much I ate and am just listing the foods to keep track of what not how much I have eaten. This is not a reducing diet. This is a personal food journal.

05/27/10 - Food

An odd day food-wise...........

Breakfast - toast with peanut butter, a few leftover strawberries with a half cup of cereal and skim milk.

Lunch - I really didn't have lunch exactly. I had a 1:00pm appointment at my home and since the person coming was usually early, I didn't want to get caught eating lunch so at 11:30 I had some Guiltless corn chips with a little melted cheese - a snack portion. Surprisingly enough, it filled me up and when the appointment was over I left the house to run some errands and completely forgot about eating a normal lunch.

Then I made the mistake of going to the grocery store around 3:30 - hungry! How many times have you heard that you shouldn't go to the grocery store when you are hungry? I wanted almost everything I saw - from healthy to outright fattening. The good news is that I didn't buy any of the fattening foods and the bad news is that my bill was $78.46. $17.26 of that was for fresh cherries! Yikes. I'm going to savor every single cherry. Another $9.73 for lettuce, spinach and broccoli. Looking over my grocery bill almost everything is $3.00 or $4.00 - for salsa and applesauce and sugar-free Jello. When did the prices get so high? Fortunately I did have coupons that saved me $26.89.

So, by the time I got home around 4:00ish, I was hungry. I made a spinach salad and two small pieces of fresh 9 grain bread. For dessert I had cherries - a bowl of cherries (not a chair of bowlies). Then the "munchies" attacked me and I started trying a bite of this and a bite of that. Very dangerous. Unable to stop, I forced myself to clean up my dishes, turn off the lights and walk out of the kitchen.

05/26/10 - Food

Breakfast - toast with peanut butter and a scrambled egg with a little bit of O'Brien potatoes.

Lunch - sandwich, pickles and TJ's veggie sticks. One helping of sugarless cookies.

Mid-Afternoon snack - Guiltless corn chips with a small helping of cheese.

Supper - Carrots, onion, broccoli - steamed. Small helping of mashed potatoes. Two teaspoons of dark chocolate Gelato.

05/25/10 - Food

Breakfast - toast with peanut butter and some strawberries

Lunch - sandwich, pretzels, one spoonful of dark chocolate gelato

Supper - smoked turkey sausage, baked beans, salad with broccoli, WW fudge bar.

Right now I am feeling stuffed and uncomfortable - like I ate way too much.

05/24/10 - Food

Breakfast - toast with peanut butter and some strawberries

Lunch - the left over lobster pizza from yesterday's lunch and a few TJs veggie sticks. Strawberries and a few sugar-less cookies for dessert.

Supper - a big salad with egg and broccoli, some Guiltless corn chips and one small teaspoon of dark chocolate gelato.

Met with my quilting bee group tonight and had a piece of no-sugar-added apple pie with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream.

05/23/10 - Food

Today I ate too much, I confess. However, I did refuse cake at church, so I consider that pretty good.

Breakfast - toast with peanut butter and a bowl of strawberries

Lunch - at Red Lobster - the Cesar side salad (which I didn't finish), one of their wonderful cheese biscuits, and half of a lobster/cheese pizza (oh man it was good!). I brought the other half home. When I got home I had a spoonful of the dark chocolate gelato.

Supper - a big green salad with egg and broccoli, a 100 calorie popcorn, and a WW fudge ice cream bar.

As I watched TV I got the munchies and grabbed the TJs veggie sticks. Didn't eat too many of them though because I have been trying to fill myself up with water. Yes, I drank a lot of water today - at least a lot for me.

It is hot here and when it gets hot I get cranky and when I get cranky I start to feel sorry for myself and when I feel sorry for myself I get comfort from eating food. So any overeating I do is not my fault - it is the fault of the weather! That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

05/22/10 - Food

This is the second time I am writing this post. I accidently erased the first post. Not easy to do, but I managed it with a keystroke or two.

Breakfast - cereal with fresh strawberries.

Mid-morning snack - 100 calorie pack of peanut butter crackers

Lunch - salad with egg and broccoli, toasted sandwich round (100 calorie kind), and a few Guiltless corn chips. When I went shopping on Friday I purchased a container of dark chocolate Gelato. I have never tasted Gelato and wanted to give it a try. It is very rich so a teaspoon full is enough - like a piece of candy. That was my dessert - one teaspoon full of dark chocolate Gelato.

Supper - smoked turkey sausage dipped in honey mustard, some sweet potato fries and a small green salad. Then I had another teaspoon full of the dark chocolate Gelato. It truly is too rich to have more. One teaspoon is plenty. (For cousin MB, it is like a Java Chip all condensed down to one spoonful.)

More poppies

Lots of quilters are also gardeners. I am not among those green-thumb people. This year I hired my grand-nephew to plant a few flowers so that I won't be the ugly yard on the block.

Some marigolds and petunias,

and some impatiens.

The star of my garden though are the poppies that were planted last year. I just can't get over how beautiful they look - that bright red against the green grass and the lavender centers - simply stunning.

As far as quilting goes, I spent the day organizing and making lists. There are so many unfinished projects in my home, it overwhelms me. By making a list of exactly what needs to be done I can now prioritize and start making some progress. I did manage to sew binding onto a rather large quilt that just came back from the long-arm quilter, so that is one thing already to cross off my list.

Today I am grateful for a nice gentle rain. (I don't have to water the plants!)

05/21/10 - Food

It is a RED LETTER day. No, I didn't lose 50 pounds, nor did I run a marathon. What happened......(drum roll)...........I didn't even think about lunch until after 1:00pm. Of course I had a big breakfast, but still.....

For me to be so engrossed in what I was doing to actually not notice the normal lunch time is close to a miracle. I'm usually planning lunch as I eat breakfast and planning supper while I'm downing my lunch. To not even think about a meal because I was too busy.......well, it happens so rarely that you may have felt the earth shake where you live.

Breakfast - toast with peanut butter AND a small bowl of cereal.

Lunch (fashionably late) - tomato soup, some crackers, some cheese, and a few pretzels dipped in honey mustard.

Supper - vegetables stir fried along with a small piece of chicken, some crackers, and a Skinny Cow ice cream for dessert.

I may celebrate this exciting day by having a glass of skim milk before going to bed.

05/20/10 - Food

Breakfast - toast with peanut butter and one egg scrambled

Lunch - a lovely lunch at an assisted living facility hosted by a lady from my church. This facility is first class. White linen tablecloths, excellent table service, well-balanced light lunch served on sparkling white china with real iced tea in dainty little glasses. The luncheon plate included fresh fruit (cantaloupe, melon, strawberry and pineapple) with a small croissant sandwich and a cup of chicken soup. Dessert was squares of chocolate cake in little paper cups.

Mid-afternoon snack - some almonds

Supper - Stouffers meatloaf and mashed potatoes (only 340 calories) along with a green salad. Sugar-free Jello for dessert with some sugar-free cookies.

05/19/10 - Food

Breakfast - toast with peanut butter

Mid-Morning snack - True North almond clusters - 5

Lunch.........I passed my favorite Cantonese restaurant on the way home from getting my hair done and I had such a taste for lunch special #5. My mouth was watering, but then I thought of all the calories that the sweet & sour chicken would have and the pork fried rice and the egg roll - oh my. Just writing about it makes my mouth water. But then I thought about the two packages of lettuce at home that were open. If I didn't use them soon, they would be wasted. Yes, a salad at home would be the better choice. So I drove by the restaurant, went straight home and made a nice salad with chicken. I had a few crackers and a few sugar-less cookies for dessert.

For supper I had a Marie Callender's frozen chicken dinner. 360 calories - not bad. It was OK. Not as good as a chicken dinner that I could make myself, but a whole lot more convenient. Of course I added a Skinny Cow ice cream for dessert. I'm full and satisfied.

05/18/10 - Food

Breakfast - toast slathered lightly with peanut butter and one egg scrambled

Lunch - lunch-meat sandwich, TJ's veggie sticks, and some Quaker Oats caramel corn rice cakes.

Snack - some almonds

Supper - a nice salad with chicken and red pepper, and a small portion of O'Brien potatoes. For dessert I had a WW ice cream.

It is time for me to go to bed, but I'm a little hungry so I think I will have a glass of skim milk and a couple more rice cakes.

05/17/10 - Food

Breakfast - toast with peanut butter.

Lunch - salad with red pepper and egg with a side of some of that boring macaroni salad made interesting by adding honey mustard.

For dessert I had sugar-free Jello and CoolWhip Free

Looks good all mixed up - and tastes good too.

For supper I decided to have this Healthy Choice Lobster ravioli. One small taste and I knew I couldn't eat any more. I did not like the taste at all, so it got thrown out and I went back to my freezer.

This Healthy Choice meal was my next choice. It was OK and I ate it, but I don't think I will ever purchase it again. It says Pineapple chicken, but it had more carrots and rice than anything else.

To add to the meal, I wanted something crunchy. I had these in the cupboard and gave them a try. They were rather bland and I decided they were not worth the calories. They went in the trash.

Next I tried these. They were a little better, but still not worth the calories as far as I was concerned. Out they went.

I feel like I have wasted a lot of money on food that got thrown out. Some of the healthier foods just don't excite my taste buds. I keep trying to find something low in calories, low in fat, and high in taste. Of all the crunchy type snacks, the Trader Joe's Veggie Sticks are by far my favorite. I guess I will just stay with that snack as it is better for me than my very favorite, potato chips!

For dessert I had a WW fudge bar.

05/16/10 - Food

The following is a listing of all the foods I ate today and it will be long. Please, under no circumstances, try to add up the calories as the amount will be staggering.

Toast with peanut butter. - at home

Mini almond muffin - at church

Auntie Ann's salted pretzel - at the tollway oasis

Then at my nephew's house for a graduation party......

Corn chips with taco dip (three helpings)

Crackers with garlic spread (only three)

Potato chips - a hand-full

Bratwurst - no bun

Bread and butter pickles

Broccoli salad (the kind with mayo and bacon and raisins)

Fruit salad (the kind with mini marshmallows) (two helpings)

NO CAKE - yes folks, I said NO to cake.

Back home I had the munchies -

Three pieces of cold meat

A large helping of TJ's veggie sticks

Three crackers

A handful of baked potato chips

My teeth are now brushed so no more food. It was a fun day and the food was good and even though I undoubtedly ate too much, I feel proud that I did not have a bun and that I refused the cake.

05/15/10 - Food

Breakfast - one egg scrambled, two corn muffins

Lunch - lettuce with a large spoonful of the macaroni salad from yesterday, and a bowl of cooked shredded carrots.

Afternoon snack - sugar-free strawberry Jello with a dollop of FREE whipped topping.

Supper - a baked potato, smoked turkey sausage dipped in honey mustard, and a Skinny Cow ice cream for dessert.

The tastiest thing I ate today had to be the honey mustard. I'm having a love affair with that flavor and want to dip everything in honey mustard. As a matter of fact, that salad today was rather bland so I added a teaspoon of honey mustard - and the baked potato was dry and bland also so I dipped each bite in honey mustard. I think I better go check the calorie content of honey mustard..................130 calories for 2 tablespoons. Oops, that's getting close to the calorie content of my all time favorite - peanut butter. No wonder I like it so much!

Sewing today

All the stitching around the letters is complete for my Welcome banner and I started working on the stars.

I also finished the binding on this little quilt for friend Moe.

That is today's sewing report from my house.

05/14/10 - Food

Oops - I ate too much today. No binges - just more food than my body needs.

Breakfast - the last two slices of the Ezekiel bread with peanut butter and an orange.

Lunch - turkey sandwich from Subway and some multigrain chips.

Book club was today and that means a fancy dessert. I could have said "no thank you", but instead I said, "please cut me a small piece." It was a gooey four layered chocolate cake, probably the whole day's calorie allotment in one slice of cake. The worst part is that it wasn't that good. If I am going to spend my calories on a dessert, I would much rather have cheese cake or apple pie. Those gooey desserts are nothing but sugar with little flavor.

Supper - I saw a recipe in a magazine for a macaroni salad that looked and sounded good. I made it this afternoon and let it blend in the refrigerator for several hours. The magazine showed the salad with some beer brats. I didn't have beer brats, but I did make turkey smoked sausage. The macaroni salad was a disappointment. The sausage was delicious, especially since I dipped each piece in honey mustard. I added lettuce to a large spoonful of the macaroni salad and it still was a disappointment, so I added some honey mustard and it finally tasted good.

Snack - 100 calorie pack of yogurt pretzels.

Looking back on the day I guess it wasn't that awful food-wise. It would have been much better without the cake and the unsuccessful macaroni salad. Those things filled me to overflowing without the joy of wonderful taste.

05/13/10 - Food

Breakfast - Ezekiel bread with peanut butter and an orange

Lunch - two pieces of cold meat, two WW Swiss cheese slices, a few TJ veggie sticks and one corn muffin

Supper - artichoke stuffed ravioli, a side salad of lettuce, broccoli & red pepper (it looked very Christmasy), and yogurt with granola for dessert.

Also munched on a few almonds.

Yesterday I was about ready to give up on this food reporting thinking that it was not accomplishing what I had hoped, however, this morning I ventured back onto the scale and discovered that I have lost some weight. Not much, but enough to give me encouragement.

I also went back to reading Women, Food and God, the book by Geneen Roth that I had started reading previously and put away when I had company. I not only put it away physically, I mentally put it away also because I completely forgot about it. When Oprah had Geneen on her show yesterday, I searched my house for the book and found it safely tucked away, out of sight out of mind.

Geneen has some interesting things to think about. For example, "self loathing does not lead to change." It is not easy to look at myself without being extremely critical, a form of self loathing. Can I change that attitude? Geneen also says something about food "numbing" you. Oh yes, I do use food to numb myself. Can I face my feelings and emotions instead of numbing myself with food? All good questions.

Today I feel like I am making progress. It is a good feeling.

Poppies

My favorite flower is a red poppy. This is a painting done by my friend, Donn Warden. It hangs in my office and is my favorite painting.

This round robin quilt hangs in my bedroom and is my favorite quilt.

This beautiful poppy with a lavender center appeared in my garden this morning after a night of pouring rain. Lovely!

05/12/10 - Food

Breakfast - Ezekiel bread with peanut butter.

Lunch - green salad, carrots dipped in hummus, TJs veggie sticks, WW ice cream treat.

Late-afternoon snack - some baked potato chips

Supper - Didn't know what I wanted for supper. I spotted a box of corn bread mix in the cupboard and decided to make corn muffins. They were so good that I ate three muffins and considered those my supper for today. Not a very balanced meal, is it? And on top of that I finished off the "meal" with a Skinny Cow ice cream.

05/11/10 - Food

Breakfast - Ezekiel bread and almond butter

Lunch - egg/tuna salad sandwich, veggie sticks

Mid-Afternoon snack - 1/2 cup of chocolate Cheerios and a couple of crackers (I had the munchies again.)

Supper - I tried something new - artichoke stuffed ravioli. I sprinkled them with some Parmesan cheese. Very good. (Trader Joe's, of course) Also had a lettuce side salad and a Skinny Cow ice cream.

Again, the munchies attached me, so I had five potato chips - baked, not fried.

Enough.

05/10/10 - Food

Breakfast - Ezekiel bread with almond butter.

Mid-Morning - some crackers

Lunch - leftover green salad from Sunday and some Trader Joe's veggie sticks. For dessert some fresh strawberries with vanilla yogurt AND it wasn't crunchy so I sprinkled granola on top. Then I felt guilty because it was too much, however, it held off hunger until time for supper.

Supper - more of the leftover green salad, the leftover beef brisket, and a Skinny Cow ice cream.

Even though I look over what I ate today and see that it isn't too bad - not excessive overeating and minimal snacking...........still, I feel like I ate too much and that I'm not really learning how to stop when I'm full. There is that part of me from childhood that still thinks it is wasteful to throw out food, so I eat it instead. I know better. I know that finishing what is on my plate will not save starving children. I ate the final piece of beef brisket that I didn't need and could have easily thrown it out. I put yogurt on the strawberries and granola when I could have eaten the strawberries plain. My choices today were poor. Will writing about it help me tomorrow?

05/09/10 - Food

Mother's Day 2010

Breakfast - Ezekiel bread with almond butter and a small bowl of fresh strawberries.

Lunch snack - some carrots with hummus and a few slices of swiss cheese.

Family dinner - oh boy..........fruit salad, pasta salad, green salad, cole slaw, chips, pretzels, celery with peanut butter, chicken (honey mustard, teriyaki, and plain), baked beans, and SEVEN desserts. No, I did not have all seven desserts, but I wanted to have all seven desserts. Carrot cake, cup cakes, rice krispie treats, brownies, short bread, mock turtles, and lemon bars. Oh my. I had half a slice of carrot cake, the smallest short bread piece I could find, and half a slice of a rice krispie treat.

Family dinners are wonderful because of the variety of food and the fact that it is all homemade with love. They are also good because there is laughter and lively conversations and kidding and silly jokes.

So for today, I will focus not on the amount of calories I consumed, but on the amount of laughter and love that filled me up.

05/808/10 - Food

Breakfast - back to the 100 calorie bread with peanut butter and some fresh strawberries with a dollop of vanilla yogurt.

Lunch - the leftover tuna fish salad combined with egg white salad (from Trader Joe's) made a tasty sandwich, with veggie sticks and sugar-free bread & butter pickles, a Diet Coke, and a good book on my Kindle. Of course I also had a WW fudge bar. Nice lunch.
White waiting for supper to heat up in the microwave (leftovers from last night - mixed vegetables and beef brisket), I munched on some crackers. I would rather have had some nice fresh crusty French bread, warm from the oven, slathered with butter.
I can dream and I can even imagine the smell of that fresh bread.

Evening snack - some yogurt covered pretzels, a 100 calorie pack. Then I had the "munchies" and grabbed four potato chips. STOP. I washed up the dishes and turned off the lights in the kitchen. I wasn't the least bit hungry, I just wanted to eat/munch.

05/07/10 - Food

Finished up the end of the multigrain Artisan bread this morning. It was getting hard, but I dunked it in my coffee just like I remember my favorite Aunt Betty doing long ago.

For lunch I made some tuna fish salad and just snacked on the salad with some crackers. Then I had a WW fudge bar.

It is rare that I have beef, but today I had a craving for some meat and stopped back at Trader Joe's to get their already-prepared beef brisket. It is pricey, but I figured I could get at least three meals out of the $9.00 package. It was worth the price as it was very tender and nicely fulfilled my craving. Along with some mixed vegetables, it made for a nice dinner. For dessert I had some fresh juicy strawberries with a little vanilla yogurt as a topping.

I feel pampered with good food and quite satisfied.

05/06/10 - Food

Breakfast - multigrain bread with peanut butter - a new brand of peanut butter I had not tried before, from Trader Joe's of course. It is Organic Creamy Peanut Butter made from Valencia peanuts - "naturally sweet". I give it an A++ rating.

Mid-morning I felt a little woozy (hate that feeling) and had a 1/2 cup of Activa yogurt with some granola.

Lunch was salad (like yesterday) and crackers with guacamole hummus (like yesterday.)

Mid-afternoon snack - some almond clusters (True North).

Supper was the leftover rice from yesterday and a WW strawberry ice cream treat.

BTW - that guacamole hummus has a little kick to it, not as you eat it, but after you have swallowed and are on to the next bite. All of a sudden you realize - oh my, that was spicy! I'm not one for spicy hot foods, but I kinda like the surprise ending to this hummus.

Fun in the Quilt Studio

This is the Welcome banner that hangs on my front porch. It has been there a long time and is looking rather faded and worn out.

Time to make a new banner. I gathered together a pattern and some fabric choices and began

This is what I got done this afternoon. The house is all sewn together. Now I need to sew the borders, add the WELCOME at the bottom and the stars along the side panel. A lot of my original fabric choices were changed, but that was the fun - digging through my stash and saying No, No, No, or Yes, Yes Yes.

I will add a button for the door knob and sew in some window sashings. The door looks huge and entirely out of proportion, but that makes it all the more charming. The patterns are by joinedatthehip.com. At last count, there were 48 patterns in this series and I want to make more - at least one for every month.

05/05/10 - Food

Breakfast - three very thin slices of Artisan Multigrain bread and an orange.

Mid-Morning snack - three spoonfuls of yogurt.

The mail came and the new Trader Joe's newsletter arrived. Hmmmm - new products at good prices. It didn't take me long to get in the car and head over to Trader Joe's.

The Onion & Chive corn crackers are very small and thin, but have a nice taste. The Guacamole Hummus is excellent! ! !

These little tomatoes are like candy - easy to pop in the mouth and full of sunshine flavor.

So for lunch I had a salad with crab meat, broccoli and cauliflower - and some of those crackers with the guacamole hummus. A Skinny Cow ice cream ended my meal with a smile.

For supper I made some Knorr Teriyaki Rice and added some microwaved frozen veggies. Also had some of those tomatoes and a small slice of the multigrain bread. For dessert I had a small amount of yogurt to satisfy my sweet tooth.

My gratitude list for today will include Trader Joe's!

Mitten, Mitten

The borders are on the Mitten quilt and

the backing is made. The cute mitten flannel I saved for this quilt was not quite wide enough for the backing, so I had to put a strip of the border fabric down the middle.

Also made the binding so that it is ready to go when this project is quilted.

My cutting table and sewing table are cleaned up and ready for me to begin a new project, OR finish an old project.

05/04/10 - Food

Breakfast - two small pieces of Artisan Multigrain bread and an orange

Lunch - sandwich of 100 calorie bread and turkey slices, some pretzels

Mid-afternoon snack - 100 calorie popcorn

Supper - one small piece of Artisan Multigrain bread, small side salad, one baked potato with WW cream cheese.

Night time treat - small glass of skimmed milk.

05/03/10 - Food

Today I made the terrible mistake of weighing myself. It has been one month since I started this blog and I felt ready to see what the scale might show. I know better. My clothes are a much better measure of how I am doing and is much easier for me to take emotionally than seeing a number on the scale. I had tried on some clothes from several summers ago and even though I can get them on, they are much too tight for actual wearing. So why did I then get on the scale? It naturally followed that if the clothes are still tight, there probably wasn't much, if any, weight loss. The scale showed a lousy one pound loss and I was devastated. Yes, I know, I should be happy. One pound is one pound - in the right direction. And yes, I'm now happy, but I was not happy this morning. I will not make that mistake again. I will weigh myself only when I can get into and button that green blouse from several summers ago.

Breakfast - back to the 100 calorie bread (for 2 slices) with almond butter and an orange.

Lunch - Egg salad sandwich (with the 100 calorie bread), some of those popped chips, and a WW fudge bar.

Supper - a salad with broccoli and crab meat, two small slices of Artisan bread, and a Skinny Cow ice cream.

No between meals snacks today, but I will have a small glass of skimmed milk before going to bed.

One pound in one month - eating like a normal person - definitely cause for celebration!