Running shoes

In my ongoing quest to get in shape and lose weight, I've been walking again, and have even managed to add in some running.

As per goal #50,  I've been looking for races to participate in. Registering for a race is one of the best ways for me to stay motivated in my workouts.

Saturday I registered for the local Womens 4 Miler that will be held the first Saturday in September. I'm excited- I haven't run a race since New Year's Day 2009. As usual, I'm trying to be careful to avoid shin splints- they're the reason I haven't run any races in so long.

Since my running shoes were pretty old and worn out,

I decided it was time to get some new shoes:

I love new shoes! The old ones were feeling saggy and lopsided. The new ones feel so good- nice and firm and supportive. 

Progress on goals

You may (or may not) have noticed that I added a page titled 100 goals, 100 weeks.

Mostly it's a list of things to keep me busy, but it also represents a list of things that I would like to do or accomplish.

I've already started on some of them:
#2.  I walked once the week before last and three times last week. I also swam laps twice last week (during LMS' swim lessons) and once this week so far.
#3.  I did some running on all my walks
#11. Started building furniture for the craft/sewing/play room
#29. Started the red chair re-do
#47. I've been doing a fair amount of gluten free baking lately
#48. I have three different muffins in the freezer right now
#50. I registered for a 4 mile race in September
#51. Started reading the Book of Mormon again a week or so ago
#56. We've had FHE the last 4 weeks!
#87. I've started researching homeschooling methods- it'll take awhile to wade through all the info out there

Cubby progress photos

I spent the day working on the cubbies. I finally finished building them (after two unplanned visits to Lowe's), and caulked and puttied them as well. 

At one point after lunch I sent LMS inside to take a nap. She resists taking naps, so she stayed downstairs and played instead.

As I was cleaning everything up, I peaked into the playroom to see what she was doing- she was being so quiet.

As I got closer, I heard some heavy breathing, and saw this:

She was fast asleep and snoring because she was folded in half.

Notice the Aurora doll clutched in her hand? She must have keeled over from exhaustion while playing :)

My Favorite Things Birthday Giveaway: Day 5

No list of my favorite things is complete without chocolate and peanut butter.

However, it's waaaay too hot to be mailing a bar of chocolate.

Then I remembered this:

Sooo good!

It's like a melted Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, all mixed together, though not quite as sweet, which is fine with me.

I will admit to eating it straight out of the jar. A spoonful here or there is great for satisfying my sweet tooth.

To enter the giveaway, leave a comment:

Have you ever eaten peanut butter or nutella straight from the jar?  :)

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If you missed the first four giveaways, you can enter Day 1 here, Day 2 here,  Day 3 here, and Day 4 here.

Each giveaway will be open for a week.

Enter them all, or just some of them- it's up to you :)

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This giveaway will close at midnight on Thursday, July 1.

My Favorite Things Birthday Giveaway: Day 4

Today I'm giving away a Sun Valley Soy candle.

Mmmmm... Pink Grapefruit!

Like I said on Tuesday, I like citrus scents. They're perfect for warmer weather.

For colder weather, I prefer pumpkin and gingerbread scents. Yum!

To enter the giveaway, leave a comment telling me what your favorite candle scent is. Also, have you ever made your own candles?

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If you missed the first three giveaways, you can enter Day 1 here, Day 2 here, and Day 3 here.

Each giveaway will be open for a week.

Enter them all, or just some of them- it's up to you :)

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This giveaway will close at midnight on Wednesday, June 30.

Vindication

Before we moved, I tried to keep LMS on a gluten free diet, but I didn’t push it too hard. Daddy Daughter dates were at Pizza Hut, crackers and cookies were always available at Grandma and Papa’s, and so on.


After we moved, I tried a little harder, but I didn’t stress too much if she ate something with gluten. When Mr M headed out on a business trip, I decided to do it right and have her go completely gluten free.

Along the way, I wondered whether I should pursue the issue.

Was I being super-paranoid? Was I projecting my issues onto her?

Then I’d remind myself why I thought it was worth focusing on: she’s been a lot crankier and a lot more prone to meltdowns the last two years, and in the last 6 months or so she’s had intestinal “issues”: nasty, stinky, sticky poop that she can’t control, despite the fact that she’s been potty trained since she was 2.

She was completely gluten free for two weeks, and what a difference. She was happier, calmer (significantly fewer meltdowns) and had normal bowel movements in the toilet.

After two weeks of being gluten free, she ate some crackers in Primary on Sunday.

Monday the uncontrolled nasty, stinky, sticky poop in the underpants returned.

I feel vindicated.

I didn’t feel well for a number of years, and I know I tended to be cranky. I think that’s why LMS has been cranky- she hasn’t been feeling well, but didn’t know how to verbalize it.

Now we’re working on asking if proffered food has gluten in it. ‘Does this have gluten in it?’ If the answer is yes, then ‘No, thank you’. And I’m trying to make sure I have gluten free snacks available at home and wherever we go, so she doesn’t feel deprived.

My Favorite Things Birthday Giveaway: Day 3

Today I'm giving away something I've talked about before here and here:

Three Larabars

I like all three of these flavors, and try to keep at least one or two in my purse at all times.

They're great for those times when I get the munchies, and they're not dry and crumbly like a lot of food bars.

To enter, leave a comment telling me what your favorite snack is.

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If you missed the first two giveaways, you can enter Day 1 here and Day 2 here.

Each giveaway will be open for a week.

Enter them all, or just some of them- it's up to you :)

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This giveaway will close at midnight on Tuesday, June 29.

My Favorite Things Birthday Giveaway: Day 2

Today I'm giving away:

Virginia Soaps & Scents Fresh Orange Handcrafted Soap

It smells so yummy!

I loove citrus scents.

You can visit their website here.

These soaps are the result of a homeschool project that morphed into a business. Good thing they have lots of kids.... :)

I've been using their shampoo bars, and really like them- they're a nice change from the chemical-laden stuff in the stores.

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To enter, leave a comment telling me if you've ever tried making your own soap.

I've always wanted to, but I've never quite gotten around to it. How about you?

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I forgot to mention yesterday that each giveaway will be open for a week.

Enter them all, or just some of them- it's up to you.

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This giveaway will close at midnight on Monday, June 28.

Nilla Wafers

So, I'm on a baking kick lately (working on that goal of becoming more comfortable with gluten free baking), and I have more results to share.

I think I may end up trying every single recipe in Easy Gluten-Free Baking- something I've never come even close to before. These recipes are sooo good.

Yesterday I tried the tastes-like-Nilla Wafers recipe. Yum!

they don't look like much, but these taste like Nilla Wafers!

The recipe did neglect to mention that you should only put nickel to quarter size dabs of dough on the cookie sheet, so my first two trays were quite a bit larger than regular Nilla Wafers. They tasted good, but the middles didn't get as crunchy as they should have- they were softer than a Nilla Wafer. The tray I made using smaller dabs turned out much better- much more 'authentic'.

These were very yummy, easy to make, and I'll be making them again!

My Favorite Things Birthday Giveaway: Day 1

So, last night I finally decided I was going to do 5 separate giveaways.

So, what am I giving away?

Some of my favorite things.

Today's item is:

If you haven't tried these yet, here's your chance!

To enter, leave a comment telling me what kind of nut is your favorite. And if you absolutely hate nuts, tell me something else you like :)

Then come back tomorrow and enter tomorrow's giveaway!

This giveaway closes at midnight on Sunday, June 27.

Morning Glory Muffins

Morning glory muffins are basically a spice muffin with lots of stuff added. In this case, there's crushed pinapple, coconut, raisins, apple, carrot, and pecans.

So Yummy!

And so moist!

I think these are the first truly moist baked good I've had since going gluten free (besides brownies, and they don't count).

They're sweet enough that you could even call them a cupcake- sort of a souped-up carrot cake cupcake. We frosted a couple with cream cheese frosting and took them to a birthday party today. I'm sure the sand castle cake tasted good (very cute idea), but our cupcakes were better :)

The recipe makes two dozen cupcakes/muffins, so I froze all but a couple. They defrost quickly and without any problems.

Like all my recent baking experiments, this recipe was also found in Easy Gluten-Free Baking by Elizabeth Barbone. I can't say enough how much I love this cookbook!

Don't forget to come back on Monday to enter my giveaway!

Gluten free cheese crackers

I got the recipe for these from my favorite gluten free baking book: Easy Gluten-Free Baking by Elizabeth Barbone.

These crackers are so good! They really do taste like Cheez-Its/Better Cheddars. The texture was a bit different- they flaked vertically instead of horizontally, but they definitely tasted very close to a store-bought cheese cracker.

You form the dough into a log, refrigerate, then slice off very thin slices.

I made a second batch and rolled out a portion of the dough. I rolled it to the size of a cookie sheet, but it was a pain trying to get an even thinness. However, after I baked them, they flaked horizontally instead of vertically. Just like a gluten-loaded, store-bought cracker! Yum!

They turned out a little brown, but I like them that way :)

These do taste best the day they're baked- they're not quite as crisp the next day.

It's so nice to have a nice crunchy cracker that actually tastes good! I have not been impressed by the gluten free crackers I've bought. Why waste money on something that doesn't taste good when I can make yummy snacks myself?

Don't forget to come back on Monday to enter my giveaway!

My first giveaway!

My birthday is next week, so I thought I'd celebrate by hosting my first giveaway!

One question though, I have several items I want to give away; would it be better to give them away individually, or in a group? Let me know your thoughts!

Check back next week to enter  :)

Cheddar Corn Muffins

One of my goals is to do some gluten free baking and get more comfortable with it.

I've talked about Easy Gluten-Free Baking by Elizabeth Barbone here and here, and this is the cookbook I'm using for my experiments.

Last week I made some chedder corn muffins. They were supposed to have some jalepeno, but I didn't have any, and LMS wouldn't eat them if I'd included them.

The taste and texture were good. A tiny bit dry, but probably because I tend to err on the side of too much baking time rather than too little. I can't stand undercooked baked goods. Next time I'll take them out a few minutes sooner.

I froze the ones we didn't eat the first day, and we've been having them with an egg or two for breakfast- yummy!

More cubby progress

Today I got the cubbies almost all put together. I was ready to put the moulding on the bottom when I realized it was 3.5 inches instead of 2.5 inches. Enrichment was tonight, so I didn't have time to run to the store and get the correct size moulding :(  After I get the correct moulding on, I'll move on to the drawers.

I'm building these by myself, so there is some trial and error involved in figuring out how best to do it all. By the time I've got these cubbies built, sanded, and painted, I'll have the process figured out and my future projects (there's a lot of them!) should go a lot quicker.

No pictures yet- I wanted to post one with the moulding on and was a bit bummed that I wasn't able to finish that last detail, so I didn't take a picture at all.

Cubby progress

I've made progress on the storage cubbies for LMS

I finally finished cutting the wood:

Each stack is the wood for one cubbie and the drawer to go in it.

I intended to start putting them together Monday, but after spending several hours mowing the lawn and trimming grossly overgrown shrubs (they really need to be ripped out, but since we're renting, I can't do it), my Sweating-in-the-Hot-and-Humid-Outdoors quota for the day was more than filled.

And the answer is:

at the pool on Saturday

Eye Glogs = Goggles

at the pool September 2008

although, after correcting her several times, they're now Eye Goggles

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When LMS talks about something that is lower than something else, it comes out "my cousin wants to sleep on the down low".  What she meant was that her cousin wants to sleep on the lower bunk.

'lower' always comes out 'down low'
sounds almost gangsta-ish  :)

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At lunch the other day she said she was done eating, she was full to the top. We hadn't had our smoothies yet, so I asked her 'what about a smoothie?'

She said 'I have room on the top of my head for a smoothie'.

In the past, she's had room in her leg for dessert. And she's found room in her left ear for a treat. We asked if she had room in her right ear, and she said no, only her left ear.

Amazing where you can find room when you really want something.  :)

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She's started using tolater more: it wasn't a one-time thing. We've heard her use it on several occasions. 'I don't want to do that now, I want to do that tolater.' She seems to use it as a cross between tomorrow and later. Makes sense to me.  :)

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When something is fun, or she thinks something will be more fun, she says it's "more much fun".  :)

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We love our Little Miss Sunshine!

Rice pudding

I mentioned 'Healthy Snacks to Go' here, and last night I used the rice pudding recipe in it to make some rice pudding using leftover rice. Yum!

I tweaked it a bit, since I was using leftover rice, and just added the ingredients without measuring them. I'm working on going with the flow when cooking, though I suspect it will be quite awhile before I do that when I'm baking. I also used agave nectar instead of sugar or honey.

Not a lot of ingredients, fairly quick (I let it simmer while I got LMS ready for bed), and yummy. Can't go wrong there!

U-Pick Cherries

I wanted to pick cherries last week, but things were just too crazy. Things have calmed down a bit, so LMS and I picked cherries Wednesday. I was expecting the big, dark-fleshed cherries that you find in the grocery store. These cherries were a yellow-fleshed variety and the skin didn't get as dark. still sweet though.

After pitting them, I divided them into bags for freezing. More variety for our smoothies!

Eye Glogs

Anyone want to guess what Eye Glogs are?