Walking Again

This is my 2nd post of the day but only because I forgot to post last night and threw a small one up this morning as my weekend recap.  I want the norm to be posting in the evenings when my day is coming to a close.

I snapped a few food pics today.  First, some fruit for snacking and meals.

Then some carrots and yogurt:

And finally, some egg cups that I made from Biz's blog post a few days ago about Green Eggs and Ham.  Now I don't have to cook breakfast every single morning and I LOVE that!!  Just 30 seconds in the microwave and voila!  I used ham, egg beaters, mushrooms, onions, a sprinkle of cheese on top with some salt and pepper.  I baked mine at 375 for 20 minutes and they came out perfectly cooked.

I finally started walking again this evening.  I asked Dwayne to go with me and he said yes so we loaded up the dogs and went to a park that's about 1/2 mile down the street from our subdivision.  I need some new shoes but don't have the money to buy them quite yet...I will on the 15th.  Thanks to diabetes AND hypothyroidism my feet hurt immensely every day.  They hurt when I'm on them, and they hurt when I'm sitting or lying in bed.  I have neuropathy where there is numbness but also pains that feel like electrical shocks or bee stings that come and go constantly.  I really don't think new shoes will do a whole lot to ease the pain, but I haven't bought new shoes in about 3 years, so I'm hoping it at least helps a little.  Something will be better than nothing because I certainly need to get moving again!  I took my camera with me to snap a couple of pics with my babies:

We got back home and I watered my flower bed in the front yard and my little garden box in the back yard.  It's after 9p now and I'm winding down for the night.  I think the only thing I have left to do is put some boneless chicken breasts in some marinade.  I'm going to use some Jerk seasoning with some pineapple juice.  That sounds like a good combo to me and will grill the chicken on the Foreman probably tomorrow, along with some shrimp I bought to cook for lunches.  Nite nite.  :)

Relaxing Weekend

After an insanely busy week last week I finally had some down time this past weekend.  Not much to report and that can be a good thing, lol.  Just a few chores around the house, meal planning and grocery shopping, took the babies to the dog park and a trip to Walmart for bubble wrap for my Ebay sales.  That's about it!

I'm sorry to say that my garden is doing poorly.  I started my veggies out in pots before we got the raised bed/box built and they were in the pots too long.  Root bound and leaves were turning yellow by the time we got them in the box, and they're just not recovering.  I have some bell peppers and some tomatoes that are still green, but the squash, okra and cucumbers are just pathetic.  Oh well.  I'll deal with what I have this year and just do better next year. 

I'm headed out shortly to the Goodwill for some Ebay inventory as I have nothing here to list.  Sales have been extremely slow lately despite the fact that I have over 400 items in my store.  All I can do is list, list, list to boost the sales so let me go get busy.  Happy Monday! :)

Summer Challenge With Biz

Yesterday was another insanely busy day so I'm looking forward to a relaxing weekend where I don't do much other than grocery shop and a few chores around the house.

I joined a Summer Challenge on Biz's blog.  My main goal is to eat well enough that I achieve better numbers on my lab work when I have it done again in 6 weeks.  The last lab numbers were absolutely hideous and I've got to get the diabetes in check.  My hypothyroidism is also out of whack, even though I've been taking meds for nearly 13 years.  I'm learning and reading about something called natural dessicated thyroid, which I believe is a hormone treatment.  Hoping to try a new approach to treating the thyroid very soon. 

I am getting ready to do my meal planning for the upcoming week.  This week's mini goal, in hopes of reaching my main goal, is to eat every single meal at home this week.  No eating out, not one single time, for any reason.  I do so poorly when I'm out for several hours and away from home and that has to change.  I'll be scheduling any necessary errands to only last an hour or two so that I'm back at home for each scheduled meal.  This really must become a priority and I'm going to make it one. 

I snapped a pic of breakfast yesterday.  I had made 1/2 a pork loin earlier in the week and it came out really tough.  I didn't want to serve it to Dwayne for dinner, so I decided to use it in my breakfast scrambles the next few days.  I diced it up along with some fresh mushrooms and onions and sauteed for a few mins.  Then mixed it with some egg beaters and a sprinkle of lowfat cheese.  Added some diced tomatoes on top with salt, pepper and hot sauce.  Totally delish. 

I just realized that looks like a large dinner plate.  I assure you it is much smaller than that, lol.  So I'm off to do the meal planning and make my grocery list.  Have a fabulous weekend! :)

Back To Normal Schedule

Mom is back home from her FL getaway so my duty of staying with Dad is finished.  I really enjoyed spending that much time with him, but it will also be nice to get back to my normal schedule. 

Tonight is Boomer's last night of puppy training.  We'll see if he does well enough to earn his certificate...but I'm not holding my breath, lol.  He does pretty good with his commands most of the time, but he's only 7 months old, which means sometimes all he wants to do is play.  Plus he's easily distracted - squirrel!!

Here's a pic of my boy.  I took about 12 pics to get one "this clear".  It's nearly impossible to get a perfect pic....they're always moving!  Except Scarlette....here's one of her trying to nap on the back of the sofa, wishing I'd get the camera out of her face, lol.

I've got a day full of errands tomorrow.  Hoping I might be able to SLOW DOWN a bit this weekend though.  Momma needs a break. :)

Quickie

I've been so busy this week between taking care of things at home, getting my Ebay listings done for work and traveling back and forth between Dad's house every evening and morning that I totally forgot to post yesterday.  Don't really have time for a good one today, so I'm just checking in.

Fixing to put a pork tenderloin in the oven and bake it because there wasn't enough time to cook it in the crock pot.  Then going to shred it, add sauce, and make BBQ sandwiches for dinner.  Will leave some here for Dwayne and take the rest of Dad's.  Tonight is the last night spending the night with him as Mom and the kiddos will be home tomorrow afternoon. 

When I leave his house tomorrow, I need to go by Goodwill and grab some inventory, then run by the tanning bed for the NLD on my legs.  Then back home to do my listings and whatever chores I need to catch up on.  And tomorrow evening is Boomer's last day of training.  We will see if he retained enough to "graduate" and get his puppy certification.  Oh and Dwayne called me on his way in to work this morning to tell me he caught Boomer humping a couch pillow.  NICE.  He's 7 months old so I guess it's time for neutering. 

I'm off and running again...will be back to post again sometime tomorrow. :)

Weekend Re-Cap

Good news on the last post about flaxseed oil tasting like poo.  I added 4 drops of liquid Stevia to the next bowl and it tasted just fine.  Yay!

So...the weekend was pretty busy.  Our spare truck that we bought from my mom about a month ago had been in the shop for a couple of weeks.  The a/c needed to be fixed, finally was, and I took Dwayne to pick that up.  After dropping him at the garage on Saturday, I headed to mom's to pick her and my niece and nephew up to go get the rental car.  They were headed to Florida Sunday morning to meet up with one of my sisters, bro-in-law and their 3 kids for a little vacay. 

When I finally made it back home I wrote up a grocery list and went back out to get that chore done.  Back home to do the regular household chores and then cook dinner.  I made shrimp lo mein that I found on Biz's blog and it turned out ok.  I have to leave certain things out so Dwayne won't freak...like anything green (goodbye cilantro), so it wasn't as good as it could have been, but he was happy and cleaned his plate. 

Sunday I did the grocery errand for an elderly lady that I've been doing for a couple of years.  I have a side business called The Errand Fairy and she is currently my only monthly customer that I work for on a recurring basis.  Every Wed. and Sun. morning is spent buying her groceries.  After that I met up with a friend who has a membership to BJ's Wholesale Club so I could get a few other things.  Dog treats, meats, etc.  With Mom and my sister being out of town together, that left me to take care of Dad.  I'm staying with him from late afternoon, spending the night, and then headed back home each morning to take care of my dogs, do my Ebay listings, etc. 

While in BJ's yesterday I got a call from Dad who was having a mini emergency and needed me to drive up right then.  I had Dwayne meet me at the store to get the groceries and take them home and put them in the fridge while I went to help Dad.  Then back home to do a few things, cook dinner for Dad, etc. and then back up to his house to feed him dinner and spend the night.

I got home this morning to find out the a/c in the house was out of order.  Frozen up.  Running constantly.  So I called someone to come out and fix it and thank God in Heaven it was only a $210 repair.  I just knew they were going to say it was dead for good and time to replace it....$3-4000.  We've been waiting on that to happen.  But not today.  The part that went bad has been replaced but the a/c is still turned off so the lines can thaw completely.  It's a bit uncomfortable but Dwayne will be able to turn it back on when he gets in from work this evening, so tomorrow it should be much more comfortable when I get home in the morning.  Today I have to leave at 4pm to stop by the store and pick up sandwich fixin's and then head back to Dad's.  Was going to cook him a ham, potato salad, veggies, etc. but there's no way I'm turning on the oven today.  Maybe tomorrow.

Mom bought and left me 3 books at her house to read about hypothyroidism.  I told her that I think there's another medicine I'd like to try instead of the synthroid I've been on for 13 years.  I've been reading a lot on FB on this page called Stop The Thyroid Madness and it talks about a natural treatment called Naturally Dessicated Thyroid?  I still don't fully know what that means, but I started reading one of the books she bought last night.  After I get through all 3 of them, I should be better informed on what I need to do to fix my thyroid.  It just doesn't make any sense to be on meds for 13 years, be told you're in the "normal" range, and still have all the symptoms of hypothyroidism, like you're doing nothing at all to treat it. 

I've also found out through my reading that many of my symptoms/issues/pains that I deal with on a daily basis are symptoms for both diabetes AND hypothyroidism.  I never knew a messed up thyroid could make your feet hurt.  I also didn't know that constipation was a problem caused by both diseases.  TMI??  Get used to it, lol.  If I'm going to journal about my health and my goal to fix myself, there's bound to be a ton of TMI in this blog.  :)

I'm off to finish a few more things before heading to Dad's.  Oh, and I joined a challenge on Biz's blog.  101 Days of Summer or something like that.  You had to choose a goal of something you want to accomplish this summer.  My one and only goal is to improve my diabetes enough with my food that I have better lab work numbers in 6 weeks when I have my blood drawn again.  That's where 90% of my focus is going to be.  The other 10% will be keeping the bills paid around here.  :)

Fabulous Flaxseed Oil

Mom has been hounding me for what seems like forever to eat flaxseed oil and cottage cheese mixed together.  ???  She says a lot of cancer patients eat this to fight cancer.  Apparently it carries oxygen to the cells, cancer can't live where oxyen is, etc.  I do not have cancer, thank God, but she SWEARS that flaxseed oil will help cure many ailments.  I have a rash on my legs as part of my diabetes called NLD.  I believe it's spelled Necrobiosis Lipoidica Diabetacorum...or something close to that.  It has been on my lower legs for about 7 years.

At first, it started out as one or two little red spots and I kept thinking it would go away.  It slowly spread and I eventually went to a dermatologist who looked at it, consulted with other colleagues, and then told me she had never seen that before in her life and had no idea what it was.  I had no insurance at the time and wasn't willing to fork out $800 for a biopsy so that was the end of that for a few more years.

My sister, who is a nurse, suggested I go to her dermatologist, that he could probably look at it and tell me exactly what it was w/o a biopsy.  So I made an appointment and went a couple of weeks ago.  Turns out she was right.  He knew exactly what it was, but he did tell me that it was really rare.  He also said that it was treated with steroid cream and light sessions, but that insurance no longer covered the cost of the light sessions.  He then told me he would give me the cream, and as much as he hated to suggest this due to skin cancer risk, that I could go to a tanning bed and get the same results.

So as of a couple of weeks ago, I now go to the tanning bed 3x/week to try and lighten the rash....there's no actual cure.  To tell you the truth, I don't see a difference yet but I know it takes some time.  To speed things up, I finally decided to try the magical flaxseed oil that mom has been pushing on me to see if it helps.  I certainly don't see how it could hurt.

Today was the first time trying this mini meal.  I was supposed to add 2 TBSP of ground flax seeds to the bowl as well, but for the life of me, cannot get my coffee grinder to work.  Apparently you are supposed to grind up your flax seeds to get the full value...otherwise they pass right through your system and don't do much good other than to act as a source of fiber.

There is a video on You Tube that shows how to do this.  It's 6 TBSP of cottage cheese to 3 TBSP of flaxseed oil.  You use the cottage cheese as a binding agent to mix with the oil.  Don't ask me...I don't really understand the science behind it.  But you use an immersion blender to fully mix these two ingredients until it's a pudding texture....about 60 seconds.  Then you can add fruit, nuts, etc.  I added a few raspberries, blueberries and walnuts.

I'm going to be honest.  As appetizing as the end product looks, it tastes like ass.  The oil taste is really gross.  If I would have used 3x more fruit it might have masked the flavor better, but this was just nasty and that's all there is to it.  Now, if you're fighting cancer or some other major ailment, then I can see happily eating bowl after bowl.  But for a leg rash...not so much.  I paid $13 for that stupid bottle of oil so I am going to use it.  If I actually see some improvement in my legs by the time the bottle is gone, then I will probably buy another and continue to use it.  I'm just being up front about the taste.  I definitely need to add more fruit!

 And here is the link to the video on how to make it in case you would like to try ass pudding :)



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSoddptWL0s&noredirect=1

I got my Ebay listings put up for today and a few scheduled for tomorrow.  I need to do some meal planning this evening after dinner and do the grocery shopping tomorrow.  As I said in my first post, I'm getting my cooking inspiration from Biz's blog.  In fact, I'm making some chicken tonight that I saw on her blog a few posts back.  I sliced my chicken breasts in half long ways and put them in a marinade of Greek seasonings, olive oil and fresh lemon juice  I'm going to grill them on the Foreman grill and then serve them atop Caesar salad.  I bought a mini loaf of bread from the bakery that I will heat, slice and serve on the side and that will be my carbs.  I'm not going to make it anywhere near 150g of carbs today.  Turns out it's going to take some real effort to change my mindset that 150g is just way too many for a diabetic.  I know it's not (see yesterday's blog post), but I'm just not ready, lol.