Well Meaning Words

I didn't want to tell a lot of people that I had joined Weight Watchers online. It seems that once you tell people you're trying to lose weight, you get all sorts of unsolicited comments or advice. I suppose it's not unlike any other major life challenge. When we were struggling with infertility having many miscarriages, I remember one well meaning woman who said to us, "Well, we believe in siblings." Um, OK, thanks.

That's really the only answer you can give, for the intent behind the words really is good will, even if the delivery doesn't make it that apparent. A smile, and a thank you, accomplishes exactly what you'd like it to. It shuts them up. Sometimes, too, the uncomfortable silence that follows the thank you is enough to give them time to think about what they said.

We all put our foot in our mouths occasionally, so it's easy to forgive these little snippets. We can't take them to heart or dwell on them. And it's in your best interest not to make it a big deal. I've found that what I've thought about myself at my lowest points, is usually worse than anything anyone else can say to me. As far as any of the advice, it's usually quite laughable. What's important is that you take from it what you need and toss out the rest. Everyone's weight loss journey is different. If there was one well meaning comment or solution that would work for all, we wouldn't be where we are today.

In Gratitude

~For a cold, which gave me some time to pause.

~For my mom, who is my greatest cheerleader and biggest supporter.

~For a husband who doesn't need much recognition, but who deserves it.

~For my son, who is growing up, but not away. I have to love him, but I choose to like him more and more each day.

~For a slow roasting chicken and zucchini bread in the bread machine filling my house with homemade goodness.

You're Still My Little Sweet Potato

I put myself through nursing school by working in nursing homes as a nursing assistant. It was brutally difficult work, but I just loved my people. Working in long term care, you get to know the residents and their families. Working as intimately as I did with my patients, I found the best way to preserve their dignity was to get them talking. I learned so much from these people. One, in particular, rings in my ears repeatedly. He was the father of a local celebrity and their family was absolutely delightful, and very dear to me. I'll call him Charlie.

Charlie greeted me every morning with a slightly confused smile. As I helped him get up for breakfast, dressing in what was, by far, the most dapper wardrobe of the facility, he would touch my cheek and say, "You're still my little Sweet Potato, aren't you?" I'm not quite sure if he thought I was someone else. My hope is that, it was me he was speaking to.

Charlie was a man of few words, but he's the man that taught me what I think is the best life lesson I've learned thus far. He said to me, "No one gets to the end of their life wishing they would have worked more." Now, isn't that true? I miss him. I doubt that his family would remember me, I tried very hard to be invisible there, knowing that their time with him was precious. I hope, though, that I was a comfort to Charlie. And, that I really was his little Sweet Potato.

My Little Sweet Potato Fries

Serves 6 at 2 Points per Serving

3 large sweet potatoes, scrubbed within an inch of their lives. Do not peel!

Nonstick Cooking Spray

Sea Salt

Freshly cracked black pepper

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Spray two cookie sheets with nonstick cooking spray. Cut sweet potatoes in half, lengthwise, then into 1/4 inch thick steak fries. Place in a single layer on cookie sheets. It's okay if they overlap a little. Spray with nonstick cooking spray. Then dust with sea salt and pepper. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until tender and browned. Cook longer for crisper fries.

You may season with any seasonings that you love. Cajun spice is nice.

Working Out While Sick?

I've had the most awful cold for about 4 days. It has literally flattened me. So, the question is, do you work out when you're sick?

I don't. And since, I'm sick, I'm just going to let you hear it from the professionals. As we enter cold and flu season once again, this little article from WebMD is a timely topic.

This year, if a cold or the flu tries to interrupt your quality time at the gym, keep this in mind: you are better off taking a break instead of breaking a sweat.

Forget about what you might have heard about trying to perspire your way back to better health. That's not the way your immune system fights off sickness, says Liz Applegate, PhD, a fitness and nutrition expert on the faculty of the Nutrition Department at the University of California, Davis.

Click here to finish the article.

Cinnamon Apple Snacks

Before

After...YUM!

My dad had over 300 apple trees. I was raised around apples, so I know apples! We don't have the orchard in the family anymore, my dad has been gone four years now this October. Apple season always has me thinking of him. He raised the best tasting apples in the world.

Apples are a great snack. Young One was complaining, though, that all the apples in the house were bruised. I didn't want to remind him that he was the one that picked them all out at the market last week! Because I sorted so many apples as a kid, picking them out at the grocery store is easy for me. Young One doesn't have that art down yet! So, I needed to figure out a way to use up these apples, without baking a pie (which I just can't have in the house right now without a little more advance planning).


We love dried apples in our house, so I just took it to the next level by adding some apple pie flavors. I hope you give these a try, they really are delicious.



Cinnamon Apple Snacks

About 1/2 an apple's worth of slices is 1 Point. These take quite a while to make, so plan a cool day to be home. I would imagine you could do in a food dryer as well.



Cored and thinly sliced apples, as many as you need to use up-- I like to slice them into rounds

For every two apples that you slice, you'll need 1 TB of raw sugar (Turbinado) and 1/2 tsp cinnamon or apple pie spice

Nonstick cooking spray



Preheat oven to 200 degrees F. If you have a convection oven, use the convection option and set it at 175 degrees F. Spray cookie sheets with nonstick spray. Place apples in a single layer on the sheets, spray apples lightly with cooking spray. Mix spices and raw sugar and sprinkle evenly over apple slices. Place in oven. Checking every 30 minutes, dry in oven until dried and your desired crispness. It took about 3 hours in my convection oven. I like them slightly chewy. Eaten warm, right out of the oven, they taste just like apple pie.

The Five

Sight
The Ten Year Nap by Meg Wolitzer

This book had me shouting, "Yes! Yes! That's it!" and reading passages to my husband, much to his annoyance, I'm sure. Wolitzer perfectly captures so much of what being a mother is. To say I loved this book isn't enough. I can't say it better than Publishers Weekly, so I'm sharing their review here: Wolitzer takes a close look at the opt out generation: her cast of primary characters have all abandoned promising careers (in art, law and academia) in favor of full-time motherhood. When their children were babies, that decision was defensible to themselves and others; 10 years on, all of these women, whose interconnected stories merge during their regular breakfasts at a Manhattan restaurant, harbor hidden doubts. Do their mundane daily routines and ever-more tenuous connections to increasingly independent children compensate for all that lost promise? Wolitzer centers her narrative on comparisons between her smart but bored modern-day New York and suburban mommies and the women of the generation preceding them, who fought for women's liberation and equality. Contemporary chapters, most of which focus on a single character in this small circle of friends, alternate with vignettes from earlier eras, placing her characters' crises in the context of the women, famous and anonymous, who came before. Wolitzer's novel offers a hopeful, if not exactly optimistic, vision of women's (and men's) capacity for reinvention and the discovery of new purpose.

Sound
I'm Not Dead by Pink

I think Pink is brilliant. Her duet with Steven Tyler, Misery, and her haunting, Family Portrait on Missundaztood hooked me when that CD was released. I'm Not Dead (Platinum Edition) gets me pumped when the last thing I feel like doing is cleaning. Snap on the iPod, hit play and try not to bop around and sing along while doing what you need to get done. I can't even begin to pick a favorite song of hers. She's just brilliant. Dear Mr. President is the perfect protest tune. Stupid Girls is delightful commentary on those girls that seem to gather great media attention. Please don't purchase the clean version, censorship is deplorable and they're just words. Clean it up and you don't get the artist as she was intended.

Scent
Cinnamon Apples drying in the oven.

Taste
Warm Cinnamon Apples. Yum.

Touch
New clothes. I'm down another size and am enjoying some cooler weather clothes in my new size. Purchased at my favorite shopping "mall", a local thrift store, I just bought 6 shirts, two pairs of jeans for under $30!

Dear Blogspot...

What's with the inability to format my posts with correct spacing? Why do I repeatedly save my formatting changes to have you post it just the way you want it, either adding spaces or subtracting them?

I'm such a perfectionist that having improper spacing drives me crazy!

I'm so frustrated with the inability to format the spacing on blogger that I thought that maybe if I posted a request out into cyberspace that perhaps it would get better.