Itsty, bitsy, teeny, weeny ...

I'm not sure what these little flowers are, but I'm pretty sure they're weeds. They might be Western Stickseeds, but I don't know for sure. They're growing in our flowerbed by our walkway and I know we didn't plant them. The thing is -- they're TINY! The flowers are smaller than the head of a thumbtack, maybe 2 to 3 times smaller. Let me put it this way -- I could probably fit EIGHT of them on the nail of my pinkie, if that gives you a better idea. This isn't the best picture of them, but it started raining and I had to come in before I could get more. For weeds, they're pretty amazing, especially when you look at all the detail on these tiny flowers. If you think about it, there are some really pretty weeds like dandelions, thistles, goldenrod, clovers, kudzu, burdock, and a slew of others. It's funny how some weeds are so hated, some can be deadly, and yet, many can be so amazingly beautiful, if only you stop to take the time to look at them.

Itchy Fingers

The other day I spent a few hours reading the last middle grade story I wrote awhile back. It's called Encroached and is about two young girls who sneak away to go on an unsupervised camping trip in the Montana wilderness. I want to start submitting it again, so I figured I better read it over and see if there was anything I'd like to change. I found a few things, but not too much. I was surprised I enjoyed reading it again. That's not always the case with me. Sometimes I cringe at things I've written in the past, including on this blog. I've also been itching to start working on something new -- hence the title of this post. I had a general idea, but it wasn't enough to start with. Then today I was folding clothes and the rest of the story just sort of materialized. I love it when that happens. Some writers get their best ideas in the showers. Usually they come to me in the wee hours of the night and I'm always too tired to write them down. By morning, I've usually forgotten half of what I wanted to write about. Hopefully, that won't happen this time and I can start working on it soon. I just recently joined Goodreads, so if any of you want to add me as a friend there, I'd appreciate it. I've been sending out requests, but I guess there's a limit how many I can do each day. I'm still trying to figure out how it works and all. I did manage to get an author profile up, which is nice because it shows all of my books. I also got my book trailers up, except for Stork Musters & Critter Clusters. For some reason, it's not accepting that one. I'll try it again later. I hope you all had a great day. I woke up thinking it was Wednesday, so imagine my surprise when I found out it was Thursday. I'm all messed up when we're not doing school regularly. And finally, Blogger has really been messing with me lately. I'm sorry this post is all lumped into one paragraph. When I add an image, it removes all my lines in between paragraphs. Is this happening to anyone else? Heck, I feel lucky if I can even get a blog to post at this point. Sometimes it won't even let me log in. It's getting really old ...

Handsome fella ...

Well, at least I thought he was handsome, especially the way he posed so elegantly for me. I saw this duck at Epcot last month. He walked right up to me and by the look in his eyes, it almost looks like he was smiling. I started walking away after I took some pictures and he followed me for a bit, squawking and carrying on. I think he was hoping I'd give him a French fry in return for his modeling efforts. My mother used to tell me she had a male Mallard duck as a pet when she was younger. I never saw any pictures of it, so I don't know if that was true or not. It's so hard to tell with her. I always thought it would be fun to have a duck, but we never had any when I was a kid. We had some chickens, but only for a short time. Mallards are one of the most common of all the ducks and are found all over North America and throughout Eurasia. They live about 5 to 10 years in the wild and weigh around 2 to 3 pounds. They are believed to be the most abundant duck on Earth. A group of mallards flying is called a sord. Males are called drakes. I'm pretty sure the baby duckling we found this weekend was a mallard, as well.

Weekend Camping Trip

We went to Lake Mary Ronan State Park this weekend and camped for 2 nights. I've been wanting to do some do-nothing camping trips, as it seems we usually visit national parks and spend all day sightseeing. It was nice to just sit around and not rush back and forth. I sat in the sun a lot and read Michelle Moran's book, Cleopatra's Daughter. Rick and the boys did a lot of fishing and actually caught a few. We went kayaking and even had some friends come down to join us, which was a lot of fun. The duckling you see here was found wandering around the parking lot by the boat dock. It had gotten separated from its family and huddled under a mini van. We didn't want it to get run over, so Rick picked it up. After contacting the park host, he told us that the ducklings had left the nest already, but hopefully the mother would show up. Within a few minutes, he heard what he thought was the mother quacking down shore. Rick and our friend's daughter took the duckling in one of the kayaks and paddled down a ways to get it closer to its family. The duckling took off towards the other ducks, so hopefully it was a happy ending.

Homemade PB Cups

Someone commented on yesterday's blog (anonymously) asking me to post the recipe or a link for the low-carb Peanut Butter Cups I mentioned. I thought I'd put up the recipe today. These are sugar-free and really, really good. I'm planning on making more soon because everyone in my family loves them. The actual recipe can be found @ www.fattoskinny.net under the dessert section. These are also in the Fat To Skinny Sugar-Free Bakery book by Doug & Sherri Varrieur, which has some amazing recipes. This particular one calls for "Beanit Butter" which is a soynut butter from Dixie Dinner. However, you can use any type of peanut butter. It also calls for Xylitol, which is a sweetener and can be found in many grocery and health food stores. These are super easy to make and super yummy!

Homemade Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups

4 squares unsweetened baker's chocolate

3/4 cup Xylitol

1/2 cup heavy cream

1/4 cup Beanit Butter (or PB of your choice)

1/4 cup roasted peanuts (chopped if you like)

Line mini muffin pan with muffin liners. Melt chocolate in a double broiler. Add Xylitol and mix well. Add cream and mix well. Remove from heat. Fill each liner one-third of the way with chocolate. Next, fill each liner one-third of the way with Beanit Butter or peanut butter. Add remaining chocolate and top with chopped nuts. Refrigerate for 2 hours. TIP: Leave in the fridge for best results. The original recipe says this makes 20 candies and the entire recipe is 11 net carbs. However, each time I've made them I've gotten 24 candies out of the batch. They're really good, so give them a try!

If you're interested in losing weight or just eating healthier, check out Doug's book, Fat To Skinny. This is the program I've been following for the last 8 months that's helped me lose 63 pounds so far. And, don't forget to check out the Fat To Skinny message board because there are a lot of other great recipes just like this one. One last thing -- I apologize for the formatting of this post. Blogger is acting so screwy with me and won't let me edit and add spaces between paragraphs. Stuff like this makes me bonkers, so I hope it doesn't bother you nearly as much as it does me!

What do low-carbers eat?

When people find out I follow a low-carb eating plan, the first thing they say is, "Oh, I could never do that. I love bread, fruit, and ice cream too much." After that they usually ask what foods I do eat just out of curiosity. So, in all my weirdness, I took pictures of some of my meals. Of course, Rick thought I was nuts and said, "Why are you taking pictures of your dinner?" I said it was for my blog and he goes, "You're going to blog about your dinner?" Well ... DUH! So, if pictures of food bothers you, don't scroll down any further. But, if you're interested ...

The picture above is, or shall I say, was my breakfast this morning. It's pretty simple. I scrambled three egg whites with a slice of lean ham and some jalapenos. I toss the egg yolks to cut down on the carbs; they're 1 carb each. I usually drink 3 cups of coffee each morning, sometimes with heavy cream and sometimes with a sweetener. The sugar alcohols in the sweeteners have been playing havoc with my stomach lately, so I'm trying to cut back. I've found I prefer my coffee lightened over being sweetened anyway. Some mornings I'll have a bowl of low-carb cereal. Other days I'll cut this meal down to two egg whites and add a muffin made with flaxmeal. If I'm feeling ambitious enough, I might even make some pancakes out of flaxmeal. They taste just like buckwheat pancakes.

The next picture was my lunch, which I ate a few minutes ago. Here I used the same flaxmeal recipe to make a thin slice of 'bread' for my turkey sandwich. Add some habanero mustard and a little lettuce and I was good to go. If I had a tomato, a thin slice of that would make this sandwich perfect. Since I don't eat bread on this program (unless it's low-carb) I get my fiber from flaxmeal. I also had a half cup of sauerkraut, which has a little fiber as well. And lunch wouldn't be complete without two habanero stuffed olives. After the mustard and the olives, I like the sugar-free Jello to cool my mouth down. ;)

The next picture was last night's dinner. I had some meatballs (can't remember the brand name, but we got them at Costco), some spinach lightly pan-fried, and a serving of mashed cauliflower. I also had a container of Carbmaster yogurt, which you can find at Smith's/Krogers. It's only 4 carbs per container. That's a high number for me, considering I eat less than 20 carbs a day, but I'm such a yogurt lover that it's worth it. Most days I stay around 10-11 carbs. I also added a couple of Beanit Butter cookies. No, that's not a typo. They're made with soynut butter instead of peanut butter. And for my FTS friends reading -- yes, I know there are TWO desserts here. Snort! I don't always have the cookies on hand, but I did last night, so there. And considering I've lost 7 pounds in the past week, I guess it's working okay. I suppose once I get to my goal weight I'll be making more of the dessert goodies listed in the Fat To Skinny Bakery book. Some of those are really good. The peanut butter cups are AMAZING!

This last picture is what I had for a snack yesterday. It's simply a piece of low-carb Scandinavian crispbread with a slice of cheddar cheese (cut in half) on top. I also added a cup of unsweetened almond milk to go with it. I've stopped drinking regular milk since going low-carb and found I really LOVE unsweetened almond milk. It's 0 carbs and only 35 calories per cup. Compare that to regular milk, be it whole, 2% or 1%. It has more calcium, too. So, there you have it -- just a small sample of what I've been eating these past 8 months. It might not look like much to you, but it's helped me shed 63 pounds, so I'm happy. But yeah, blogging about my food ... major weirdness.

ACK!

Here's a more recent before & after shot of me. I still have some more weight I'd like to lose to be at my goal, but I'm getting there. I did put on a few pounds during our trip to Disney World. I even brought my scale with me, which drove Rick crazy. At one point it said I had gained 14 pounds. I about freaked! However, by the time I got home the actual number was only 7 pounds over. I've been home a week and am happy to say I'm only 1-2 pounds over where I was. Hopefully, a few more days and I'll be moving forward again. But even so, my first reaction when I see these pictures is -- ACK! In all honesty, I don't recognize either of those people. Who is that weirdo?