Garlic

Garlic is great! I love it ! I love it!

On a recent trip to CostCo, I discovered a fairly large container of dried garlic slices. We have tried the chopped garlic bottled in water and did not like it at all. I have seen jarred, peeled garlic but I would rather peel my own. I was really intrigued by the dried slices.

Last evening we made pizzas. I liberally sprinkled dried garlic slices under the sliced tomato and top layer of cheese. It was soooooo yummy. Howsomever, Bill was just on his way out and stopped by to give me a kiss and said that I smelled of garlic. BIG TIME!

What to do? I have to be at work in a couple of hours -- working very closely with others. What to do? Bill suggested mega mouth washes before brushing. Is that going to help? I doubt it. I seem to be one of those people who ooze the scent of garlic out of my pores. Yuk.

07-07-07

Couldn't let this day pass without acknowledging the number reiteration. I love these dates. Remember last year's -- in June of course. Looking to the future I hope to witness five more. That will take us to 12-12-12. Then the next one will be 01-01-01 and it will be the year 3001. I cannot even imagine the changes.

Will we be any closer to the Kingdom of God? Or will we still be fighting among ourselves? Will we have migrated to other planets? How will we have mutated? And how do those mutations fit being "created" in God's image. My own theology holds that creation is ongoing and therefore, mutation will be a part of that. So as creation continues in ongoing changes, so does the image of God.

OOooops! 122 Pounds

The scale hasn't hit 120 since March. Maybe the Philly Cheese Steak last evening did me in. OR perhaps it was the two Blue Moon beers. Hmmm. Beers. Doesn't look right. One beer, two beers? Seems like the plural of beer should be beer -- no "s." Oh, well, I digress.

I whipped out my Sanoma book and copied out the Phase One food lists. Will stay on the Phase One program until I get back down below 120. Weight Watchers strongly discourages checking the scales more than once a week. For me, this is just stupidity. So maybe the extra IS water. So what? Get rid of it. The weigh in every day works for me.

AND, this is the important part -- this works for ME. May not work for you or a kazillion other people. I am just saying that daily weigh ins keep me on track.

My mother was an inveterate dieter. Also an habitual exerciser. Mom was attractive, took good care of herself, and was proud of her looks. And rightly so. BUT, and here is the real stickler, she was always at me to be thinner. I got to believing that she would love me more if I was admirably thin. And this is stretching into my fortys and fiftys. I wasn't obese but I was always twenty to thirty pounds overweight. When my husband died in 1992 I weighed in at 175. Well, I guess that is a little more than twenty or thirty pounds. A few months of dinners consisting of vodka and popcorn brought me down to 135. I have since passed on the vodka, and with Sanoma, pass on the popcorn except for very special occasions.

Achieving my ideal weight AFTER Mom died was kind of a waker upper. Did I care? Initially, I said that it didn't matter. Then, after I lived with it for a bit, I realised that it DID matter. A lot. I wish she could see me the way she thought I should be. I wish she could see that I'm not any smarter and not any prettier. I wish she could have loved me for ME.

Sanoma Dieting

I started on the Sanoma diet May 1, 2006 at 153 pounds. I was a real stickler and adhered to the first ten day regime. On the eleventh day I started adding in the allowed foods. The nutrition plan is set up so that any idot can follow it. Works for me.

Along about mid-July Bill and I went on vacation to Tennessee. I weighed in at 142. I followed the breakfast and lunch guidelines but relaxed on afternoon beers and bread at supper. Wine too. Potatoes once or twice. Upon our return ten days later I was at 144.5. Not bad. And cutting back to the eating plan was easy with an occasional beer and hamburger on a Friday evening.

By October when I visited my sister, Jacquie, in Indiana I was at 127. This was almost the six month mark. I had dropped from squeezing myself into size fourteens to a size 12/10. The twelves were comfy, the tens fit nicely.

I could never have done this without the participation and support of the people in my workplace. Diane started on the diet that March and when we began to notice her weight loss, asked how she was doing it. "The Sanoma Diet" by Dr. Connie Guttersen, R.D., Ph.D. was purchased and read by several of us. In fact we joked about buying a case of them to hand out to patients who came into the office who were obviously in need of some sort of nutritional guidance -- translate that as being FAT.

Diane tried some of the recipes in the book and raved about their ease of preparation and marvelous taste. I was too lazy and stuck to plain food. But then, Bill and I were eating separate diets and we needed to keep it simple. The one thing that I did try was quinoa (keen-wa). This is a very tasy little grain that is high in protein and easy to prepare. Bill likes too.

I am happy to report that I am now into a size eight weighing in at between 121.5 and 117. I wiegh myself daily and keep a record on graph paper taped to the bathroom door. If I go over 120 I know to cut back or portions or food choices, if I get to 117 I know to relax a little.

It has been a wonderful journey. It is a good eating plan. It is my intention to follow the plan for the remainder of my life.

Look it up; try it out; be healthy.

Happy Birthday, Heather

The youngest of my sister's children was born on my husband's birthday. This made it easier for a forgetful aunt to remember the day -- although I haven't always. Now she is all grown up, a single mom, struggling in the world to make a place for heself and her two lively, young daughters.

I am extremely proud of this young woman. Heather has grown through some outrageous stages that her mother and I despaired of her surviving, let alone the two of us. But she is much the better for the growth and the experience. Her life is still a struggle but when I visit I am uplifted by her spirit and her determination.

Here's to you, Heather. And may you have many, many more.

Blogging

Obviously I'm very new at this blogging thing. What happened to all the paragraph spaces? Will certainly have to work on cleaner posts.

Have been trying to get a picture up so that y'all can see who's blogging and to whom you are replying. Well, forget a picture. We have taken dozens and they all look DUMB. If the smile is right, my eyes are close; if my eyes are open, I look startled or glazed; a serious pose ends up looking sad or sappy -- ridiculous. We gave up. Then I had the brilliant idea of "feet." Yes, pictures of my feet. In sandals so you could see my toes. I think you can probably tell a lot about a person from their feet. Maybe not as much as a face, but close. Tried that. Still workin' on it.

Library Adventure

We were late getting out of the house and only just got to the dump in time to deposit the smelly chickeny garbage that needed to get out of the kitchen. And then on to the library. I was just about finished with the last book I had at home and needed further reading for the weekend. As we left the parked car, I realized that I did not have my Vest Pocket Brief Case with me. This handy little convenience carries index cards in three separate pockets and on the outside has flaps that hold an inserted card upon which to write. This is a memory jogger, a place to keep lists -- like my book list, a "to do" list, a "to buy" list, and any other ol' thing that pops into my mind that I don't want to forget. I keep the book list and "buy" list in there all the time. AND in the outside pocket with the fresh index cards, I keep my library card.

Having to deal with only pulled up stored brain memory was difficult. There was an author I wanted to revisit as I have already read two of her mysteries but I could not remember her name nor the names of the two books I had read. This is exactly why I carry the Pocket Brief Case in my purse.

I meandered around the library like a lost soul. But meandering is good. I browsed through the just off the rental shelf section. And there was a book with the title that I had read years ago. But this was a NEW book. I pulled it off the shelf and ran my hand over the delightful cover and read the complete title: The Last Unicorn: The Lost Version, by Peter S. Beagle. I read the first couple of sentences of the first chapter and fell in love with the book all over again. This will be a delightful read.