saturday morning

I'm working on a special post about a special day for a special person in my life. That will go up later. Right now I'm just in major chill mode... enjoying Rachael Ray's old $40 a day shows on the Travel Channel. I don't necessarily believe she's really doing it on $40 but I love her perspective of travel.

My kitties are super happy right now because they're fed and there's a pile of laundry, fresh out of the dryer on my bed that they can enjoy. You can tell they're in a moment of pure bliss. Clean laundry makes me happy too... putting away clean laundry - not so much.

Austin came back from Myrtle Beach yesterday. I picked him up at the church and thanks to Stasha's excellent tip, I arrived JUST AS the bus pulled into the parking lot. Perfect! Austin was tired, a little sunburned and excited to tell me about his trip. The guy who was their chaperone is one of those people who lived a little before they found the Lord and before he settled down. He's tattooed, unflappable, mature and really kind. Austin said he was his "second father". High praise, indeed. He also said that Pastor Jamie's sermon on Wednesday night was the best sermon he has ever heard. He was mesmerized... told me it hit him right in the heart. I was so impressed. Lots of good people are involved with our kids... we're blessed.

Weigh in is in about an hour. I am fairly sure I'm going to hit my ten pound mark today... and could possibly hit the 5% goal as well. Maybe. I'm roughly a pound less on my terribly unreliable scale this morning. I'm not as bloated as I was last week. I think it's going to be happy days at the scale for me.

My Nutrition Coach (aka my brother's girlfriend aka my sister-out-law, Candice) and I were talking about the weight stall that I had last week. We researched the point vs. calorie perspective and realized that at my average of 22 points per day, I'm really only eating about 1100 calories a day and that is NOT enough for healthy weight loss. I'm supposed to have 25 points a day plus an extra 35 points spread out over the week for an average of about 30 points a day. It's quite possible that I'm hampering my metabolism... so I'm going to bump it up a bit this week point wise... and see what happens on the scale. I haven't been hungry but I could definitely stand some extra protein and I think I need a little extra *healthy oil* because my skin is really dry. For me to lose 1 pound a week I should be consuming about 1500 calories a day, if I don't exercise... about 1600 calories a day if I do.

I'm planning to go to my weight watchers meeting this morning and then maybe check out a local farm. I hear they have some excellent quinoa salad - something I've been wanting to make for myself. I'm in search of basil... haven't been able to find any over the past week at the local grocery stores. I should just plant some... if I could grow things. We're going on that picnic after church tomorrow and I thought my chickpea caprese salad would hold up really well in the heat since it's olive oil based. I found some beautiful orange tomatoes yesterday at a farm market and I think they'd go really well in a caprese salad...a mixture of red and orange tomatoes with some fresh green basil... wouldn't that be pretty? I live on my cold salads... they're so easy to pack for lunch! I'd also like to try the orange tomatoes in my taboule... give it a little extra dimension.

Last night for dinner I broiled green and orange tomatoes, broccoli and zucchini... drizzled in olive oil... sprinkled with parmesan... it was really, really good!

My parents are coming up tomorrow and hopefully will want to join us for our picnic... they're bringing me a food processor and I'm excited about the prospect of making some of my mushed bean loaf or mushed bean burgers... which will help me amp up the protein AND save a little money this week (beans are cheap!). I shopped smart last weekend and still have some good, fresh produce in the fridge... frozen fish... so I won't have to put a whole lot out on groceries this week.

I've still got another nine days until payday and... the next pay period coming up is going to be really tight. I guess I say that every time... but when I look at the things that absolutely have to be paid over the next pay period and I calculate what my paycheck will probably be... the numbers don't quite work out. Not eating out has made a huge difference, though.

Ok... that reminds me... I need to make sure there's enough in the budget to handle my weight watchers monthly fee. I think it comes out on the 28th. I'll post my special entry later... and come back with my weigh in results. Happy Saturday!