Steppin' It up a Notch!

I have shared with you all how I am trying to get healthy this summer. I have been eating low carb for about a month now. I have tried this diet several times. This has happened to me every time, so I am switching gears. I do fine on low carb for about 4 weeks, then my body rebels. I won't go into details, but let's just say low carb isn't for me. (grin) I prayed about this for a couple of days. Yesterday when I got up, I had this urge to go to our book shelves. There I found this book that I had bought a couple of years ago and never really paid any attention to it.

I figured the Lord was trying to tell me something, so I pulled it out and started reading. This diet is basically high fiber/high carb(though low glycemic index carbs)/low fat. Here is what I have had for breakfast for the past 2 mornings : 1/2 cup steel cut oats, 1 tabl. ground flax seed, 1 tabl. unsweetened coconut, 1 tabl. chopped English walnuts, 1/2 teas. cinnamon and 1/4 cup 2% milk. After eating this and drinking my cup of tea, I exercise for an hour to 'Sweatin' to the Oldies'. I am satisfied till lunch, my blood sugar is still coming down, I have lost 2 more pounds for a total of 8 so far, and my body is much happier. LOL  I am eating lots of veggies and some lean meat. I have blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries in the freezer for snacks. I have some apples and natural peanut butter. I am just eating whole natural foods and so far this is working much better for me. So now I am thinking maybe I can meet my goal this summer. With the Lord's help, these books, and my 'Sweatin' to the Oldies' DVD's, I can do this.

I haven't had much time to work on the Carpenter's Star since the weekend, so not much to show there. I did make a run to JoAnn's to go to their Firefly Frenzy sale. I picked out enough fabric to make mom a Carpenter's Star in mainly blues. I think she will like it.

I also found a couple of redtag fabrics that weren't too bad. I used a coupon and bought another ripper. Mine was getting kind of dull.

Well, Blogger is really slow with uploading pictures today, so that is all of them for now.

On a sad note....we lost our old tomcat, Herc, this week. His name was really Hercules, but we always called him Herc. He was pretty close to 15 years old and a good old boy. He never wanted anything to do with the inside of the house, so he was an outside kittie. He never wandered, but stayed right around the house. That is probably why he lived so long. I knew when he didn't come when I called him, that something was wrong. Then I found him. This year has been rough on our animals. We lost most of our chickens to a predator. Then we lost our old rat terrier, Sheba. She was almost 17 years old. After that, we lost my 6 year old guinea pig, Riccu. Now we have lost Herc. We still have our two kitties inside, and outside we have the two other dogs, but they are both over 10 years old. Such is the season of life...

Thanks for visiting. Have a wonderful day.

It has been a week!

Good afternoon,

Sorry that I just disappeared like that. Spring has arrived and I have been busy. (grin) Not sure what happened last week to prevent me from posting. Fridays through Mondays are my busiest days around here. I spend Fridays getting ready for the weekend. The weekends are spent with my dh. Mondays are spent cleaning up all the messes we made on the weekend. LOL We both got our eyes checked last Saturday and will both be getting new glasses. Wow! That was expensive. Since I am diabetic, I had to have my eyes dialated. I hate that, but it is necessary. I was so relieved when she told me I had no problems. I will be getting transition lenses since I have dry eye and the sun kills me. After our eye exams, we had to get groceries for my MIL. Dh was driving. I had to wear these lovely things.

Aren't they stylish? LOL They also hurt my ears, but I had to wear them for a couple of hours because the sun was so bright and it was giving me a headache. Believe me, I tried just wearing sunglasses, but these wrapped around so the sun didn't get in the sides. So I had to wear this fashion statement through Sam's, Aldis, and Wal Mart. I did take them off inside the stores, but did lots of squinting until I just gave up and put them back on. I am glad that chore is done for another year. Now I look forward to getting my new glasses. Kevin wanted to take a picture of me wearing these, but I wouldn't let him. (grin) Anyway, we dropped the groceries by my MIL's and I put things away for her. Kevin spent the rest of the day watching movies and I worked on my Peter Rabbit challenge by Milah. I now have my top all done, but you will have to wait till Easter to see it. LOL I might even have it quilted by then.

Sunday was spent doing some laundry and maintenance on the vehicles. Our daughter, Carolyn and her husband Bob came by for a visit. We always love seeing any of the kids. I forgot to get my camera out. I need to get used to carrying the camera so I can become a good blogger. LOL Anyway, here is a picture of Carolyn from last summer. Here is Bob, also last summer. We hadn't seen them since Christmas, so it was good to see them.

I think I promised about a week ago to show you some change purses I have made. I found a tutorial for making them here. These are the first 3 I made. I called them change purses, then a friend told me she uses hers for a verse keeper. She cuts 3X5 cards down to fit in them and writes Bible verses that she is memorizing on them. She can then carry the verses around in her 'keeper'. I thought that was a neat idea. Here is the inside of the chicken change purses/verse keepers. The inside of the pumpkin purse/keeper. I made these one day last week.
I opened them up so you could see the lining.
Guess what I did yesterday? Give up? LOL It was such a gorgeous day with a nice wind. I stripped the bed and washed everything, even the comforter. I hung all this outside. They smell so good when you can hang them on the line. Yesterday afternoon when I made the bed up, I decided it is getting too warm to keep the comforter on the bed. So I folded it up and put my Thimbleberries Village quilt on the bed. So for the first time ever, we slept under a quilt that I had made. Ahhh, it felt good. I told Kevin there was no point in making quilts and just saving them. What am I saving them for? LOL This is the first big quilt that I made. I have made lap and twin size before, but this one was huge compared to them. Of course, the cats approve. They are both laying on it right now. Aeris was on it when I took the picture. Callie soon joined her. Doesn't it look good on the bed? Something very satisfying, sleeping under a quilt that you made and hand quilted yourself. (grin)

We get groceries every other Saturday. This Saturday is the week to get them. I am making my list. I have an idea. My husband loves ketchup. We cannot find any around here that does not contain high fructose corn syrup. In my opinion, that stuff is slowly killing us. It is so hard to buy groceries any more. I have to constantly read labels. I just put it back on the shelf if it has that nasty stuff in it. We are trying to eat more natural. Anyway, I can buy a gallon of tomato sauce at Sam's without any of the nasty stuff in it. Do you think it would work to use the sauce and add the spices and honey to make some ketchup for us? I don't eat much of it, but Kevin really likes it. If I just make up a gallon at a time, I should be able to keep it in the fridge. I am sure K can eat that much before it would go bad. LOL Actually I wouldn't even mind adding sugar to it instead of honey if the honey makes it taste too strong. We do like barbeque sauce made with honey, so I figured the ketchup wouldn't be bad with it. It would definitely cost more than buying it already made, but we would avoid the nasty stuff. I hope to have a good garden this year, so I can make and can my own ketchup, tomato sauce, spaghetti sauce, salsa, and even pizza sauce. As you can see, we love tomato products. LOL I would love to have your opinions on this. I will probably try it. If so, I'll let you know how it turns out. We are trying to cut out 3 nasties from our diets. They are high fructose corn syrup, of course, monosodium glutamate, and partially hydrogenated oils. (Not real sure about all the spellings here, but I am sure you all know what I mean.) These 3 things are just not necessary in our diets.

Tonight is Biggest Loser, so you know where I will be. Planted in my rocker, watching tv, with a quilt on my lap. LOL I may not get a chance to post tomorrow. My MIL has asked me to come up and help her some tomorrow. She is in a power chair and finding it harder and harder to get things done, so I offered to come help her. I was surprised when she called me last night and told me she wanted to take me up on my offer. She has always helped everyone else out, but it is hard for her to sit back and let us help her now. I told her it was her season to take it easy and let us help. Anyway, not sure how long I will be there. Now I need to go make some laundry soap for MIL. I made some up a while ago and took it to her. She loved it and had me get the stuff to make her some, but she just isn't strong enough anymore to grate the soap. So I will do that in a bit so I can take it with me. I also offered to do her washing. As I said, she always was there to help me each and every time I had a baby. It is my turn to repay her for all of her help. She also taught me how to sew, crochet, cook, and can. She just lives 3 miles up the road from us, so I can help her alot if she will let me. She will be 80 on her birthday and is now very feeble. I am glad to help her.

Everyone have a great day. Thanks for visiting and please come again.