Update on 365 and Beyond

So I am sad to admit that I have given up on Project 365. I didn't intend on it but life is getting in the way and I am just taking photos as they come and putting them on facebook etc. I enjoyed it while I did it, but I know life is just going to get crazier the further into spring I get.

I hope to keep posting photos every so often but it won't be happening everyday like I was. I will have more updates and posts as they come up and as I have a chance to write about them but for now, the majority of pictures are done.

Pizza Dough!

I decided that tomorrow night we are going to build our own pizzas for dinner. I figure the kids will have a BLAST picking what to put on their pizzas and it is all from scratch (except the cheese, I haven't learned to make that on my own yet).

So I got my dough book out and made an olive oil bread dough that will be rolled out flat and made into pizza by the kids tomorrow night!

First Nice Day

Book List

So I totally missed yesterday. Booo. We were out and about a great deal and I just forgot. So here is today's post instead.

Today's post is my little sticky note with my list of books that I have read this year. So far there aren't many. I have managed 4 and have started a 5th. Now, considering the only time I really read is right before bed, it isn't a half bad list.

This list doesn't show Dark Tower Book 1 Gunslinger because I got about halfway through it and decided it was garbage and I wanted nothing to do with it. I know a LOT of people disagree with me on that book but I just couldn't get into it. I did try, honest.

Last night I started Hunger Games which is a fiction book written towards young adults. After my heavier non-fiction reading I wanted something quick and easy and this seems to fit the bill quite nicely.

Spring/summer is coming and I will have much more time to read on the front steps while the kids run around and play. Then I will actually start making a dent in my reading I hope!

The "Fridge"

I always heard growing up (and now in the parenting world) that a child's arts and crafts go on the fridge. As it happens we don't have many magnets and those that we DID have were run off with by the children.

What this means is that in our house when the kids do a craft it gets taped up to the window in the kitchen. We have these great big double windows that the table is in front of and each kid sits on one side. So when they do a craft it gets taped up on "their" side.

We HAD some snowflakes up there but with spring coming I couldn't stand it anymore so I took those down and we did a craft where they got to pick stickers off a sheet (flowers, butterflies, frogs, trees, etc) and put them on a piece of blank paper where they wanted. They also did a trace of their names where I dotted lined their full names for them and they "wrote" their names with crayon.

You can also see a little peak of Ms. I's clothespin stegosaurus we made last summer. It has managed to stay up and she is QUITE fond of it, so it hangs out there. Plus it isn't seasonal so Mama lets it stay put as well.

Clean Sink

Well, as clean as my sink gets anyway.

Last night I prepped some lasagna for dinner at the inlaws today. After I did that I decided I would do the dishes.

My reward was coming downstairs this morning to a perfectly empty sink. It was lovely.

Lentil Shep Pie

Mmmm Breakfast

We went to my inlaws house yesterday and my mother in law found a waffle iron she had from awhile ago but never used, so she passed it on to me. I decided I wanted waffles this morning so I made them up using a wheat batter recipe I found online. Then I topped mine (the kids got plain and loved them) with cut up strawberries and a bit of cabot whipped cream.

Imagine my surprise, upon putting the info into myfitnesspal, to find that my whole breakfast only had 10 grams of sugar in it! This is compared to a 1/4 cup of maple syrup which has 53 grams of sugar in it (not counting the little bit in the waffle itself).

Meanwhile I am finding that I PREFER the taste of the way I topped it today! YUM!

Being Healthy

I am 26 years old. That is about half the age of my biological father when he died. I never really knew him so it didn't "bother" me that much but his cause of death really does bother me. In his mid 50's he died of a heart attack. He had several heart attacks (from my understanding) before that final one and it is really a wake up call for me.

Now I am "thin", I have the correct BMI for my height, etc, however I *know* I am not healthy. I don't eat enough veggies, I don't eat enough fruit, and I was eating FAR too much sugar.

Diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and a myriad of other ailments run in my family. These are bad things folks, things I don't want to have to worry about as I age. With the genetic background I have, being healthy is even more important.

So, 3 weeks ago I decided to start exercising. I wasn't interesting in losing weight, I knew I likely wouldn't given that I am at a "healthy" weight already for my height. I also know that muscle weighs more than fat so if I toned up I actually expected to GAIN weight.

Admittedly I don't do a LOT of exercise. I do a 20-30 minute DVD a day along with the normal chasing after children/housework that a stay at home mom does. I have a yoga DVD with 6 20 minute works outs, I have 30 Day Shred with 3 20 minute work outs, I have No More Trouble Zones with a 40/50 minute work out on it (you can pick and chose any of the 6 minute circuits), and I have a 6 Week 6 Pack that has 2 30 minute work outs. However, even just 20 minutes a day, 70 days a week is 140 minutes of exercise a week...that is over 2 hours that I wasn't getting before. These are all also pretty intense exercise with cardio and strength training all in one. It is a big step for my health, for sure.

The other REALLY big step I took 3 weeks ago was cutting out as much sugar from my diet as I could. It was pretty difficult at first. I had been eating 100 to 150 grams of "added" sugar a day (candy, cookies, brownies, etc). This wasn't from fruit or juice, it was from the "bad" stuff. Since then I have cut down to 30-50 grams of added sugar a day. It is a pretty big jump for someone that LOVED candy as much as I did.

You see that? "Did". The oddest thing for me since cutting out the baked goods and the candy has been the total lack of desire for these things. Now, don't get me wrong, those first days were HARD, really hard. I walked down the aisle with the Easter candy and it was extremely difficult to keep my hands off the mini eggs and the peanut butter eggs, but I did it.

I do have the occasional chocolate chips (semi-sweet) and I even got Nantucket Dark Chocolate cookies from the store and have one a day if I want them (only 9 grams of sugar per cookie). However I don't even find myself WANTING these anymore. I made brownies today because I love to bake and it seemed like a fun activity. They are still sitting there on the stove completely untouched. I have NO desire to eat them. Zero. I am hungry, I want food at the moment, but I find myself thinking about cheese or an apple or maybe a bagel thin with peanutbutter...but NOT the brownies on the stove.

I am working on slowly adding in more fruits and veggies but I admit that veggies are a new thing to me so finding ones that I like and figuring out what to do with them has been hit or miss. I know I like corn, peas, potatoes, sweet potatoes and even lettuce. Beyond that it is a challenge for me. I am hoping though, that with persistence, I can change my tastes to be fond of these things. I already know that taste buds can change, I have proven that with the decrease in sugar, I just hope that they keep working towards liking green beans and carrots.

All the while, I am trying to set a decent example for my children in activity, trying to be healthy, food, and not "dieting".

Snow. Lots of Snow.

We got the 3rd biggest snow storm in our states history on Sunday into Monday. We ended up with 25.3 inches of snow. Wow.

This is the road that I live on. My husband had snowblowed a path for the car down to the road only to find the road had just as much snow as the driveway. Cars are suppose to drive on this...didn't work out so well.

Playing in Puddles

Just Some Bread

So I tried my hand at 100% whole wheat bread today. It seems to have come out bread like and I plan to use it for grilled cheeses tonight (I hope). I used this recipe only I used 8.5 cups of whole wheat flour instead of any bread flour. I also read in the comments that if you make it two loaves instead of 3 it works better for bread. So I went with that.

Playing

For Christmas my kids got a Dora and Diego (I think??) book where the two people have magnets in their hands and stick to various things in the book. The book is like a story that these two "dolls" walk through etc.

Well, my kids, being kids, found out by throwing said dolls that they stick to metal items like our lamp and our baseboard heaters. From there a super fun game started where they would toss the dolls into the air and see where they landed. This particular time it landed on the lamp and that was extremely exciting.

Another Lunch!

This lunch was prettier to look at so I wanted to show it off.

Scrambled eggs (with cheese and a few spices), clementine, and lettuce. They will likely eat all of that and request a few animal crackers when they are done too. I am happy to have good lunch eaters.

The Great Paint Debate!

So we have lived here for almost 2 years now and I am getting tired of the paint that came with the place (mostly just white). I have slowly been painting rooms as I am able...both the kids bedrooms, the playroom, and the downstairs bathroom. I have had free range to pick the colors for those rooms and my husband hasn't said a word.

I am working on picking a color for the livingroom as well probably going to settle on a light yellow-ish color because it gets very little sun light and has a lot of dark wood.

The debate part you ask? I want to paint my bedroom purple. All of a sudden husband has input. He doesn't approve of a purple bedroom. Why? I have no idea. He isn't a manly man, he doesn't care that our son wanders about in tutus or carrying purses, he isn't very set on gender role issues...but for whatever reason, as soon as I said purple bedroom he said NO. Meanwhile, the only time he sees the bedroom is at night when it is dark the room could be magenta and he wouldn't know it.

So now I have to decide if I just ignore him and know paint isn't permanent or try to come up with some other color I love just as much.

The color I am thinking about is the one called "Your Highness". I was tempted to go to the one just a smidge darker than that but I know once it is on the walls it will look darker so I went up a color scale. It seems like the *perfect* color for a sunny bedroom. It does look a *little* more gray in this photo than it actually is, but there are gray undertones in there.