Monthly Archives: June 2007

if I had a million dollars

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It’s post #100! That’s amazing to me.

I have a big favor to ask my Blogland friends. I have decided that along with my purging of things, I am going to set a large collection of my books free. I came across BookCrossing.com. It’s a way to send books to others and/or leave them in random places and then have their adventures recorded. I am very excited about this. However, I live in central Kentucky. There is a limit to adventures that a book can have here.

Here lies the favor to me/prize for you. Email me your mailing address, leave a comment, and I’ll send you a book. In the mail. It’s that easy. I ask only 2 things of you: log it on the website (there are instructions on the inside of the book) and set it free when you are done. You can read it if you like, if it suits your fancy, but when you’re done, leave it somewhere. In a dentist’s office, at Starbucks, in the newspaper bin at the convenient store, wherever. Then log that into the website as well. This will be so exciting! I have a ton of books that I am liberating, and I can promise that the first 8-10 will be weight loss related and then my favorite fiction. The ones that I didn’t enjoy will be going to Goodwill, not to my friends. If you are willing to take more than one, please let me know.

I am still trying to get back on track with my eating. Nathan is home, we’re back in our house, things are good. I did have Starbucks for breakfast and I only ate half of my lunch. Dinner is yet to be determined, but it’ll probably be take-out.

I’m so excited to get my books into BookCrossing. So my 100th post is going to be short.

Send me addresses and I’ll send you books!

all my fruitless searches

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I’m back! So is Nathan! We’re home and happy.

I love my new job! Things are going so well there!

Eating has been terrible. Pizza, Qudoba, Chick-Fil-A, horrible foods but the quantity of food I have eaten has been substantially less than what I ate a few weeks ago. So that is good.

I will have more to day tomorrow. Right now I’m going to eat spaghetti and go to bed.

I have so many blogs to catch up on! Such exciting stuff!

I have no reasons for you

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Hello Blogland!

Today will be short and sweet.

  • I listened to a great sermon on the way home from work today. Rob Bell spoke of addictions and how food is a common temptation in the Bible. He discussed feasting and enjoying food as pleasures that God gave us. Eating is sinful and physically unhealthy when we use food as an attempt to fill up the emotional hole we have. Eating is sinful when we try to make food our god. I dig that. I feel like I finally have a grasp on when eating is healthy and celebratory and when eating is sinful.
  • Nathan is in Atlanta. I am sad.
  • I have our house almost totally clean. The realtor is coming by Wednesday to take pictures and check on the cats.
  • I will not be blogging again until probably Saturday. My friend who was supposed to stay with me this week bailed. And since I’m uncomfortable here by myself, and I have another friend who lives an hour away in the city I work in, I’m going to spend the rest of the week there to shorten my commute. I don’t think he has internet anymore.
  • Nathan is in Atlanta. I am sad.
  • I had a hamburger from Sonic today. I was mad that my friend isn’t coming to stay, and I was really hungry, and I got a hamburger. Didn’t even think about the “no meat” thing until I thought about fixing a frozen dinner with chicken in it. Oh well. I’m back on the wagon.

Don’t forget about me! Wish me luck with the realtor! Have a great week!!

I told you I was trouble

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Very busy day, and I still have the kitchen to clean!

The reason, you ask? I am hopefully meeting with our realtor in the next few days, so the house needs to be in tip top shape. We are planning on going from this:


To this (the townhouse on the left):


3400 square feet to 1200 square feet. I’m really all about this simplify thing. We’ve got another car load to take to Goodwill as I type. 2/3s of all our stuff will belong to someone else!

I am so excited. And this should be really possible. The contractors are building a total of 21 units, 4 are finished now, 4 will be ready next month, and the rest will be ready in the next year or so. So that means that if it takes a while for our house to sell, it’ll be okay…There will be one ready when we are. It really makes me comfortable and so much less nervous since I was so concerned about the timetable of things.

I love how modern it is. 2 bedroom, 2 bath. The only thing upstairs (in the loft) is a bedroom and a bath. I am totally in love. And Nathan really likes it too!

He leaves for Atlanta tomorrow, and I’m working him to death tonight. Poor guy.

Eating has been okay today. I kinda took today off, and I was still pretty good.

B: Starbucks
L: Vegetarian burrito from Moe’s
S: Decaf Iced Coffee, Nate and I split a Brookie (brownie/cookie at the Fudgery)
D: Wheat Chex

Have a great night!

here comes the rain again

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I have one thing to say to you:

Get out and support your community theatre!

Tonight, Nate and I went and watched the Children’s Theatre performance of “The Hobbit.” Not only was it funnier than anything I’ve seen on television in a long time, some of the acting was even better. The girl that played Gollum was amazing. And the dwarfs, which I thought would all just be dressed in traditional Lord-of-the-Rings-type costumes were in a variety of clothing. One was dressed like a chef and had spatulas on his sword. Another was dressed like a tourist: safari clothes, a lei, and he snapped pictures the whole show. Then the Elf King was a washed-up hippie in hippie gear and eating Funyuns. They responded really well to wardrobe malfunctions…”Hmmm. My sword just broke.” When the spiders came out, the assaulted the cast and crowd with silly string. There are just too many things to recount. And the kids were having as much fun as we were. Absolutely hilarious.

Go support community theatre! It’s great entertainment!

the heat was more than hungry

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Happy Saturday!

Man, have we had a busy day…and it’s only 4:30!

2 major projects we can cross off our list!

Our pantry was terribly ugly. So much so that we just had all kinds of stuff in boxes in it. But when I began my purging of stuff, we said “adios” to many of those things. So we were left with still yet another space to beautify.

We started with this ugliness:

And, from Thursday night to this morning, ended up with this! (it’s attached to our dining room, and they are now the same color.)

And then comes the hideous staircase. The previous owner did some really stupid things in the house, and the staircase was one of the worst. When we moved in, it had pea-soup green carpet from the landing up and burgundy paint the rest of the way down – except on the overhangs where she did not worry to tear the carpet off. When we pulled up the carpet, we had beautiful original unpainted steps. We had a choice: refinish most of the steps (with a hand sander and a lot of time) or paint them all. (This picture does not do justice to the horribly mismatched staircase that we had grown to love.)

Two years later, we decided to paint them. Tah-dah!!

I also received a very special delivery today! Aimee sent me a package! I haven’t received a package that didn’t cost me something for a long time! Thank you so much, Aimee, for the cd and the cookbook and bracelet and the card! So very thoughtful! (And the Wedding CD I sent you is actually the favor Nate and I gave at the wedding of our favorite songs. ) I am so excited to try out many of your recipes!!

We also took all our paint cans from working on the house (over 20 of them) and filled them with cat litter so we can dispose of them properly. I’m getting ready to wash dishes and then get ready for our night out on the town – in our little town of 7000 people. We are starting our evening off with another load taken to Goodwill, then dinner at the Fudgery (peanut butter, banana, and honey sandwich on wheat for me, thank you), and a children’s production of the Hobbit at the Ragged Edge Community Theater.

Eating? 2 thumbs up.

B: Starbucks and banana

L: 2 eggs, a slice of 2% cheese, 2 pieces toast, strawberry preserves and ketchup (for the eggs)

S: another Starbucks drink, banana Popsicle

D: pb, banana, and honey sandwich

I’ve found that my eating has gone very well this week. I have been using fitday to record my eating. I put in breakfast and lunch choices the night before. That way they are already in writing and I have made the commitment. Then today, I just add dinner and plan for the next day. It keeps me from eating on the fly. I really haven’t been thinking about what I eat. I have been having some physical signs of hunger throughout the day, but I am getting a sense of pride from waiting until my next meal. I have popcorn, jell-o and popsicles available, but I just don’t want to give in. That’s such a change for me. I am very proud of myself.

Exercise will come next.

Still no tv, limited meat, and I’m listening to sermons on my commute. It’s all working out well! Next week, though, Nathan will be in Atlanta, so I’ll spend the week with company here or staying with Kent. (I’m scared to stay in this big house all by myself.) The test will come with how well I stick to my guns when others are around. I can do it!

Hope you all are having a great weekend!

I can change, I can change

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Happy Friday! This will be rambling, but it’s been a full day! I’ll just be chronological.

I actually got to do some productive things at work! I think I am really going to like my job. I’m not actually doing therapy anymore, I’m managing foster homes and other case managers. I actually have people that I manage. That’s so cool! I really enjoy it so far.

On the way home, I finished listening to the sermon I almost finished yesterday. I still didn’t like it. I went back and listened again to the part that I thought was controversial, and she still said that following a scripted weight loss or exercise plan was an idol. I don’t agree with that. I think that spending an hour on Saturday and planning my week keeps me from being fixated on food all week. But that’s just me.

Then I listened to a sermon out of Mars Hill, minister being the Rob Bell whose books I love but don’t necessarily agree with everything he says. The sermon I listened to today was really good. He talked about leaving control and seeking faith. It really hit home to me and my control issues. More than that, though, hearing the message today really comforted me. God will take care of today. I don’t need to worry. I will do what I can about selling the house, and finding a new one, but God will take care of that today when it comes.

I ate REALLY well today.

B: Starbucks and banana
L: banana, peanut butter, and honey on flat-out bread, an apple
D: flat bread pizza
S: Wheat Chex and 1% milk

After dinner, Nathan and I took a huge load of stuff to Goodwill. I decided that I wasn’t going to keep many of my skinny clothes. Considering I wore them 3 years ago, and I still have a long way to go, they would be out of style before I could wear them again. We also had a lot of sheets and blankets that we haven’t used since we moved, and rugs that we don’t use since we refinished the floors. We fit almost all of it in the car, and we’ll make a second trip in the morning. (Don’t worry…the garbage bags are all full of stuff, not trash.)


Tonight I painted the stairs inside the house. Or I primed them atleast. I took a before pic, but I’ll wait and post it with the after. Nathan also got the pantry painted, and I’ll post before and afters of it as well.

Have a great weekend!

Pita Pizzas

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(per person)

1 pita or other flat bread
1/4 cup organic pizza sauce
1/4 cup shredded mozzarella
veggie toppings as desired (tomatoes, spinach, banana peppers, pineapple)

Place bread on grill. Heat one side 3 minutes. Flip and top with sauce, cheese, and toppings. Heat until cheese is melted.

Enjoy!

daylight come and I wanna go home

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I know I weighed in yesterday, but today I decided to be honest and actually post my weight. Today I am at 221.8. Almost as low as I was during this most recent round of Weight Watchers. Go me! I am hungry a lot, but I’m determined to push through it. I really want a bowl of cereal, but fitday won’t load, so I don’t know how much I’ve eaten today without it, and I don’t know if I want cereal because I’m hungry or because I’m bored or because I’m craving something that is in Wheat Chex. Boo FitDay!

But today’s eating has been good:

B: Starbucks and banana
L: Kashi Sweet and Sour Chicken with broccoli
D: Grilled Tomato Pasta and broccoli

Work was also good today. I think I am really going to enjoy my new job. Although today there was a wreck and I had to turn around and it took me almost 2 hours to get home. It’s all good, though. I spent the time listening to a sermon that really confused me.

So I’m listening to this lady talk about gluttony. I know, none of us really wants to hear that. But she had me hooked. She started by talking about her own story and how she used her desire to be skinny and her love of food as roadblocks to God. I bought that. And I think that is something I have struggled with as well. She then discussed that in order to fight the battle of the bulge from a spiritual standpoint, we must give up our need to control things ourselves. We must repent of our gluttonous behaviors, ask for forgiveness, and allow God to help us. Again, I got that. I eat too much, I eat too often, I don’t move enough, and I am not enough to fix that. I may have sporatic successes, but I can only do this for the right reasons if I let God drive. I have to want God to change my heart not just my body. That really spoke to me. I do often pray for comfort in my skin, for positive feelings of self-worth, for some sort of magical change that will turn my body around. But I pray for the changes to occur on the outside, not on the inside. What I did learn today is something I already know: I cannot do this by myself. And I must ask for, and accept, a change in my heart.

But then the sermon got really confusing for me. (And I still have 12 minutes left to listen to, so she may wrap it all up nicely.) She talks about how we use idols. We use food, television, other distractions as idols. These nasty little things also keep us from being the person God wants us to be. She talked about the time that we spend thinking about food, planning food, planning exercise, and that all this time could be spent in more productive ways, like meditating on God and His word. So how am I going to do this? I seriously think that in order for me to not be a glutton, I have to plan. I have to shop once for the week and not deviate from the menu. I have to have my exercise plan written into my calendar. I have to plan. She discussed planning like it would somehow also become an idol that was a distraction from God’s plan. That’s when I stopped listening. I’m going to go finish it up in a few minutes.

I have been doing very good on my 30 day goals. Limited meat in my Kashi meal for lunch. Yes, it is processed food, but it’s Kashi! They care and are trustworthy. Still no tv. It was really hard tonight ’cause That 70′s Show was on while we were eating dinner. But we resisted. I listened to a sermon on the way home. I am going to try really hard to restart C25K Saturday morning. Really hard. I have also been drinking a whole lot of water. That helps me feel better as well.

And I’m going to have a bowl of cereal. I typed out my whole blog, and I still want it. Doesn’t someone say that when you get a craving, you should distract yourself for 20 minutes? I’ve done that, and I still want Wheat Chex.
Kitchen, here I come!

grilled tomato spaghetti

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1/2 lb whole wheat spaghetti
12 oz. package cherry tomatoes
1/4 onion, sliced
2 tbsp EVOO
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tbsp Italian seasoning (I use a packet from Little Casear’s)

Place tomatoes and onions in foil. Add EVOO, vinegar, garlic, and seasoning. Wrap up in a little package with all seams closed. Flip over and wrap in another layer of foil. Place on grill.

Cook spaghetti according to package directions. Drain pasta and remove tomatoes from grill. Combine and enjoy!