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!

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.

Rainy Day Thaw

Today is an odd mix of rain and sleet (but thankfully no snow). My back gutters are dripping all over the place, I know that isn't ideal but it is nice to see the melting happening instead of it just sitting up there cold.

Of course, this is New England, and though it may be 38ish and rain/sleeting today...it is going to be back to a high of about 18 for Thursday. Weather doesn't last long here in the pre-spring.

Fries

Ignore my gross oven door.

This is the result of me still going strong with the lack of grocery shopping. If I get to Saturday it will be just about 3 weeks since I went "real" grocery shopping and I shouldn't have any trouble getting there. I did hit the store yesterday for a few staples (plain yogurt, fruit, lettuce, etc) but it amounted to $19 worth of stuff. Not exactly breaking the bank.

I had a potato left, one lone, sad potato. So I opted to take it, cut it up, toss it in some olive oil and a little salt and toss on a baking sheet to make french fries to go with lunch. Yum!

Pre-Spring Snow Storm

This is one of my least favorite types of snow. The kind that goes sideways. It has stuck to our kitchen windows (and all the windows on the back side/ bottom floor) of our house. No screens or anything, just stuck straight to the window. Our kitchen is now very dark because the snow is blocking that light. Evil snow. The plus side is, as it looks now, we are suppose to get a 45ish degree rainstorm on Monday (after tomorrows high of 18 degrees). Just another sign of the approach of spring around here!

Our Little Oddity

So, apparently, this is what happens when a 12oz can of polar seltzer is filled up too full by the company. We opened it and it flowed over a little bit and stayed like this until we drank it.

Sugar

I have decided that sugar is about the most evil thing that exists.

I have always consumed a lot of sugar, for as far back as I can remember. After I had kids this became a problem for some reason or another. I am guessing it relates to hormones because they seem to be responsible for a lot of not so great things.

When I eat too much sugar I suffer from yeast trouble. NO not just *down there*. I get trouble from it with bad skin, I get cranky, I get fatigued, and the most annoying trouble of all is it makes my IBS flare (assuming that my IBS isn't simply sugar/yeast related).

So, after yet another bought with these issues, I have decided to do my best to cut out the sugar. Sugar is in EVERYTHING. Even yogurt, which is generally seen as healthy, has 20+ grams of sugar per serving. Obviously the plain doesn't but the grab n go flavored ones do.

It means little to no juice etc as well.

The biggest problem I have? Chocolate. I LOVE chocolate.

The most difficult thing I have done in quite awhile, was done about 30 mins ago. I had to go to the store to grab a couple of quick things and I was craving sugar like crazy. Of course, I had to walk by all the Easter candy, which includes one of my favorite candy's, cadbury mini-eggs. I love them.

It was almost as though there was some sort of gravity pulling me toward the candy. I managed to steer away from it, but it was extremely difficult.

The other problem is now I am in the withdrawal phase of getting rid of sugar. I have headaches and bad IBS flares. I am super tired. This is "normal" as the yeast dies and release toxins all at once. Since I am not giving them sugar, they are dying because there is nothing to eat. It lasts a few days and I am hoping to be out of the worst of it by tomorrow, but today the headache is pounding and I KNOW that some chocolate, that I want so badly, would make it ALL go away.

As a way to keep myself accountable I am writing down everything I eat. I am not writing down amounts or any of that, but I am writing down WHAT it is that I put in my mouth. It looks like I eat a lot, and it is possible that I do, but I am a grazer and grab a handful of something here and have half a thing there etc.

This was yesterdays list.

Double Post Day!

I had two things I wanted to post about today. I thought about saving one for tomorrow but what is the fun in that?

The first photo I have is of our little dinosaur project. For Christmas the kids got a little dino in an egg. You place it in the water and let it sit there for awhile and eventually the dinosaur grows so big he "hatches" out of his egg. The kids have been begging off and on since Christmas to see what dino we got, so I placed him in the water yesterday. This afternoon this is how he looks.



The kids are quite pleased by him and think he is pretty cool. They were going up every 5 minutes at first waiting to see him and I had to explain, several times, that it takes the dinosaur a little while to grow big first so they had to be patient.

The second thing I wanted to post about today is the great cupboard clean out project.

Normally I go shopping for food every week or so. I had a list all made out for this week and decided, at the last minute that I wasn't going to go. I decided this for two reasons. The first reason I decided this is because I am sure I MUST have enough things in the cupboards to make it through another weeks worth of dinner. I have beans and lentils and all sorts of odds and ends that need to be used up. The second reason is because of my battle on sugar, which I will get into another day when my resolve is a little stronger, but suffice to say if I had gone shopping Sunday as planned I would have left with copious amounts of chocolate which goes against my battle on sugar.

So dinner tonight is a variation on the lentil soup recipe I found here. I didn't have carrots or celery so I opted to use 2 potatoes and used a can of corn to go in there as well. In the end it doesn't get much easier than a crockpot soup and I really enjoy lentils so I figured I would give it a go.

This is a picture of what it looked like when I first put it going this morning. It looks much thicker now as the lentils have plumped up nicely.