These Poor Achin' Feet

I am so happy for my feet and my ability to walk, but if I had a choice I would not have chosen flat feet.  My feet are SO horribly flat.  I was limping after cleaning the new church building on Saturday for so many hours.  I didn't get a break on Sunday because of grocery shopping between church times.  Monday was the zoo.  I so brilliantly wore flip flops that were very thin, so my feet clanged onto concrete all day long.  No physical exercise today, but I think my tootsies needed a rest anyway!

I had such a busy day yesterday that I was completely clueless about the events in Oklahoma until pretty late in the day.  I didn't cut on the van radio since I was with a friend and chatting, and I was gone all day so I never checked foxnews.com.  So sad and so scary that life can change so suddenly, in the blink of an eye.  My heart and prayers go out to all those affected.  It almost feels odd just to post about my day today when those people didn't have a normal day. :(

Have you seen this video where the woman finds her missing dog in the rubble during the interview?  Seeing her "house" in the background was awful, but feeling her happiness in finding her pet was nice.  Hope this works.

News Clip - Woman Finds Dog in Rubble

Breakfast was an Oikos Greek yogurt, a microwave egg, and some blackberries with decaf black coffee and water.

Lunch was a peanut butter and banana sandwich on honey wheat bread with some Baked Ruffles.

PB and banana sandwiches were a frequent childhood lunch of mine... usually paired with canned ravioli, tho.  I guess you never grow out of some things!  I did plan to have pretzels today instead of chips, but I just wanted the flavor of those chips paired with the pb.

The kids had music lessons today, and then I took them all to the library to check out books and play on the computers.

Supper was a Bertolli chicken and spinach meal, a slice of garlic cheese toast, and a salad on the side. I used leftover shredded lettuce from the tacos, Roma tomato, cucumber, a radish and some shredded cheese.  I added some RF ranch on top.

Dessert was the last of the Dove dark chocolate.  This. is. sad.

I feel silly because I just said my new goal was to not snack at night.  HOWEVA...  :)  Around 8:30 pm I realized I needed to take my multivitamin.  When I take them without food, I get sick and often actually throw up.  Eeek.  So I had half a pack of pistachios (the kids ate the other half) and some frozen blueberries.  Yum!

Publix had these Dole frozen blueberries half price last week.  I only got one bag because I wasn't sure we would like them frozen.  Well, turns out even my husband and 2 kids who don't even LIKE blueberries enjoyed them frozen!  It changed the texture.  Sure wish I had bought 2 bags while they were half price!  Live and learn!

In a nutshell:  I drank only 48 oz of water today.  I slacked in the morning hours, so my number is low.  It's now almost 11:00 pm, so I don't want to grab another bottle.  I'm actually just now finishing up the 48th oz.  I feel okay with my eating.  I got in good fruits and veggies.  Lunch could've been healthier, but it at least included a banana, right?  Hehe  I have the hardest time ever with picking lunch meals for our family.  We just aren't lunch meat sandwich kind of people.  Every time I buy lunch meat it sits in the fridge and goes bad before we use it up.  I just don't do good with lunch ideas!  

Anyway, thanks for the comments on yesterday's post.  It's good to know there are still people out there!!!

Back With Bells On

Well, not really... but I am back!

I can't begin to explain to you all how busy the last week was.  I won't even try.  Saturday, I spent 7 hours at the church organizing and cleaning and scrubbing stuff.  My husband spent nearly 11 hours there doing stuff, too.  

C-R-A-Z-Y!

But we got in there for our first service on May 19th, and it was great to have all the extra room and the nicer facilities.  I thought better of sleeping on the pew during Sunday School, but it sure was tempting!  LOL

I never got to go to the grocery store, and we had eaten EVERYTHING in this house.  We had literally nothing left.  There was never a free moment all week for me to actually get to the store.  So I went between church and after church Sunday.  I am all stocked up and ready to eat at home this week and get back into eating healthier.

I took food pics today (I know you're so excited) even though it wasn't a perfect eating day by any means.  You have to start somewhere, and for me there was no more putting it off "just one more day" before taking pics and becoming accountable again.

We had friends coming to our house at 9:30 to meet us for a zoo trip, so breakfast was just a Clif bar and a banana with water while I ran around getting me and the kids ready.

Here's my crew plus one other boy.

Lunch today was a Subway 6" oven roasted chicken breast sub on wheat with provolone, lite mayo, spinach, pickles, onion, tomato, cucumber, bell peppers, and banana peppers.  I brought Baked Ruffles from home and 4 Dove dark chocolate pieces.

We have season passes to the zoo (that expire 5/31), but drinks and food at the zoo are UNREAL.  My friend ordered a 16 oz bottled Coke and it was $3.00 plus tax!  Yikes!  This was my first zoo trip ever without the stroller, so I had no way to carry my water. The zoo does have some water fountains, but they are few and far between.... and sometimes the water is hot from the sun and the pressure is low.  So I did pack water, but it was in the van in a cooler and we were in the zoo.  Hmmm....

So with 4 kids, our answer was finally buying the $7.45 Arctic Blast in a mug that comes with free refills all day long..  We had 4 of these puppies drank by the end of the day.  Way, way, way too much sugar, but at least 5 of us were sharing it (hence all the refills, lol).  I drank my fair share, I'll just say.  It was a bit humid today and the sun was beaming down on us in a lot of places.  So this wasn't a good part of my eating today, but it was part of my day so you get a pic of it.

We got to the zoo at 10:45 am and left at 4:45 pm.  We were BEAT. By this time, we were all hungry again.  My friend had a container of cookies.  We had 1 each.  I'll admit that I had one, too. I even took a picture.  My goal today was to be honest and conscious, not perfect.

When I got home, I had to set in on washing dishes and making supper.  We had a yummy new recipe tonight!  Let me share the link to the credit:  CLICK HERE for the recipe and the blog.   I didn't read that I needed 2 lbs of meat, so I used only 1 pound of lean ground turkey but used a full amount of the other items except only used a half can of FF refried beans.  I used a McCormick's seasoning pack instead of making my own as she suggests.  All of us really liked this!  All I would do differently is put even less of the beans in the mix next time.

This is 2 of the tacos with toppings.  I did get another serving of rice.  Not the best thing, I know, but just sayin.  ;)

At some point after supper, I had one more Dove dark chocolate piece that I found all alone, abandoned by some fool with no sense in their head, obviously!

My new thing is going to be trying not to snack in the evenings.  Unless I am truly hungry, I think this will be a really good way to cut some calories out of my day.  I'm sure I will snack after church on Wednesday evenings because we eat in a hurry and I'm always hungry after church, but other than that night this is my new goal.

I did lots and lots of walking today at the zoo.  UGH.  Between working so many hours at the church Saturday, doing a grocery marathon on Sunday, and being at the zoo so many hours on Monday, I am smack worn out!

I have gotten in three 16-oz bottles of water so far, not counting an 8-oz bottle at the zoo today and some other water from the fountain.  It's been my best water day in about 2 weeks.

In a nutshell:  First day of actually seeming to care and try since my surgery a month and two days ago.  I took pics of all my food, I got in lots of walking, I drank plenty of water, I didn't snack tonight - I'll take it!  

To those of you have are still lingering, thank you!  I'm sorry about my neglected blog and my neglected health.  :(  If you are still out there, I'd love to hear even just a "hi" from you tonight.  Receiving comments makes me feel like my blogging is worth my time and lets me know I'm still worth YOUR time.  Lol.  Thanks!!!

I'll Be Back Soon

I cannot begin to explain how crazy this week has turned out to be for us with trying to get everything in place for our first service in our new church building.  It has taken up every evening of the week, along with some errand-running during the daytime hours, too.

I love my husband, but he has NO concept of TIME!!!  Tomorrow is Saturday and there is still so much left to do.  All the signs are placed around town announcing that our first service at the new location will be this Sunday, so there's no backing out now!  I have told him from the beginning that we would need until Sunday, May 26th, but the longest he would wait was the 19th.  LOL  Why do husbands and wives have to be so different????  :)

Anyway, if there's anybody left out there, I really will be back soon.  I'm feel so gross and miserable.  It's been an on-the-run kind of week with no decent meals of any sort other than tonight and Tuesday night.

It is now exactly one month since my ruptured ectopic pregnancy and emergency surgery.  I am feeling great at this point as long as I continue to take my iron.  I can't believe a month has passed this quickly.  I am so happy to be here and be healthy.

Well, that's all folks!  See you soon!

Us Southerners and a Me Update

This video cracks me up every time!  Hope you get a laugh out of it.

If you know what Cracker Barrel is, I'm sure you can appreciate this!  Ha!

Ok, so just poking a little fun this morning.  I'm feeling much better today!

I didn't do badly at all yesterday with my eating.  It wasn't an amazingly healthy day, but it was controlled.  So far today, I have had a really great breakfast and plan to have a healthy lunch.

HOWEVER, the missionaries who came to our church Sunday night have devoted themselves to doing all the painting in our new church building that we will get to be in this coming Sunday.  So my husband called them to tell them we are taking them out to eat tonight.  Instead, though, the missionary said his wife was already cooking lasagna to feed OUR family tonight.  How nice!

I was going to start today by taking food pics and doing a regular food post tonight.  But I'm not going to go snapping photos of a missionary's lasagna for fear of what the wife will think of me.  Hehe  "Ummm, ma'am, I'm photographing your cooking skills.  You call this lasagna? Maybe in New Zealand, but this is America, Honey!"  HA!

One thing I am happy about right now is this:  There are no more diet drinks in this house.  I was at the point again where I was grabbing them for breakfast, lunch, and supper.  I don't like that AT ALL.  I don't mind to have two a day tops, preferably one.  But when I start reaching for them at breakfast just to feel the acid burn, I know I have a problem.  Also, I didn't even enjoy them anymore yet kept grabbing them out of the fridge.  So when I ran out yesterday at lunchtime, I just let that be it.  I don't mind having them as long as I can control them, but when I can't control them and realize I have a problem it's time to cut them out!  I'm about to go drink 16 oz of water right this minute.  Oh!  And take an iron pill.  :)

Once again, I apologize my blog isn't what it should be for the past few weeks.  I am starting to feel sparks of motivation again, though.  Yay!  I set my alarm this morning.  I ignored it for 40 minutes, but that still gave me a head start on my day over what I have been doing.  LOL  I feel like trying to get up a bit earlier each day will be the way to ease into mornings.  How sad.  ROFL

Hope you are having a great week!  This week has been extra crazy in my world.  It's like being a single mom to 4 kids because my husband has been so busy with working during the day and taking care of things at the new church building in the evenings.  Ugh.  So I've not really had time to blog normally anyway.  I plan to check in tomorrow, but I'm not sure what kind of check-in it will be - pics or not.  Regardless, if you're still reading thanks for hanging around!  :)

Don't Forget Your Pills

Oh y'all.  I have felt so down and blah and horrible today!  I haven't been motivated to do a thing.  I even slept past my 9:30 mark this morning.

So pathetic!

I forced myself to take a picture of breakfast and lunch.  I picked a fight with my husband at lunch.  When I say fight, I don't mean yelling and screaming.  He always hates when I say fight.  Lol  But you fellow wives know what I mean, right?  Just a petty argument that leaves no one feeling happy.

I drug myself into the shower sometime after lunch.  I thought maybe I was feeling so yucky because I was still pajama clad and un-showered.

Nope, didn't help.

So I decided I must be feeling like this because I've kept myself trapped inside on a beautiful day!  I took the kids outside to ride their bikes.  I sat in a chair and seriously thought I was going to fall asleep in the chair while watching them ride their bikes!

This was no good, so I came inside to rest.  I went to the kitchen first to take a drink of water.  I opened the cabinet and BAM.  My iron pills were staring at me.  I then realized I haven't taken my iron pills in 5 or 6 days.  I was told to take them for 2 months solid because it may take that long for my iron levels to come back up.  I am still anemic.

I guess I was just feeling so great that I forgot the fact that I needed my iron.  I let my defenses down.  So I took an iron pill and then laid down.  This has to be the issue because I seriously felt like I couldn't pull myself up out of a chair.  I am the laundry queen, and I haven't done any laundry at all yet today.  That's what anemia does - it just drags you down and makes you pretty much worthless and unmotivated to face the day.

I also realized that in 5 days it will have been a full month since the day of my emergency surgery.  Where does time go?  So for another full month of my life now, I've put health on the back burner.  I just can't explain it.  I want so much to lose this weight and be fit and healthy.  But at the same time, I just feel like I don't have it in me at this point.

I feel like SUCH a terrible blogger.  I'm sorry!  I know I'm still posting and all, but I'm not posting anything motivational or helpful.  I just keep posting defeat.  I'm so sick of that!

Dear Moms

Looking Back

I really hate that I am back to struggling after feeling so in control before my surgery.  So this morning, I took a while to look back over the pics from before 4/18 when I was feeling so well.

Here is what I noticed:

1.  A lot of salads.

2.  A good amount of protein.

3.  Snacks were mostly things like sweet potatoes, squash, fruits... not processed junk.

4.  A good breakfast to start my day.

5.  Getting outside almost daily and walking.

6.  Rolling with the punches in life.

7.  I know I was drinking less diet drinks.

8.  64-80 oz of water daily.

9.  Staying positive when eating went bad, not beating myself up.

I want to be in that place again.  I want to grab a banana and peanut butter instead of a pack of Teddy Grahams.  I want to saute some zucchini instead of eating cookies.  I want to eat more kale chips and less Doritos.  Eating real food makes me feel better... which is really just DUH.  But our society has made convenience foods so attractive.  Yes, I'm a stay-at-home mom.  But I'm super busy!  Some days, I feel pulled in 50 directions.  I want to be a happy and healthy wife and mom, though.  So I have to start putting forth the effort I was putting forth BEFORE all this happened to me.  I've had a week at home now to try to fall back in line.  Time's up!  Time to take this seriously.

Just some Saturday Sentiments for you.  :)