Not all calories are created equal.

Something I have realized in my weight loss journey.  Not all calories are created equal (hence the title of my post).  Now I know calories from veggies and fruits are better than calories from junk.  That isn't what I'm talking about.  Most people get that.  I have discovered 1200 calories of real food are different than 1200 calories of fat free sugar free diet foods.  Seriously, they are.  Now I'm not quoting some study or recommendation from the powers that be.  No, this is only the observations of a woman with vast dieting experience.

 Based on my weight and weight loss goals, I get 1200-1500 calories a day.  1500 if I move and 1200 if I'm a slug.  It's been that way every time I've dieted.  I've used Sparkpeople before you see.  I've used weight watchers, and other plans too.  Each time I felt the diet food was my crutch.  It helped me get to the end of the day; or so I thought.  Instead, by the end of the day, I would be ready to eat the paint off the walls.  It was only through sheer will power I would get through the day without falling off the wagon so to speak.  Most times I wouldn't be successful, and would eat, and eat, and eat; scolding myself as I put something else in my mouth. You see it was all my fault.  I was weak.  I felt like an addict and wondered if I was actually addicted to food.

Now I know that none of that was true.  I wasn't weak.  I wasn't addicted, and Diet foods were not a help to me.  You see the human body is an amazing thing.  It is like the coolest computer ever.  It knows what it needs to function.  Not just carbs or protein, etc.  It knows what vitamins and minerals, etc it needs for any given task.  It relies on us to give our bodies what they need. It also relies on us to give our bodies what they need in a manner they recognize.  When our bodies don't recognize a component we ingest, they STORE IT!  Fat is the extra anything that comes into your body.  It's the stuff you didn't need to begin with.  Fat isn't just extra calories.  It is the extra whatever not needed by the body.  The body saves it for later.  The flip side of that coin is the fact that your body WILL get what it needs.  It will trigger you to eat until it gets what it wants.  So if you are filling your body with unrecognizable highly processed diet foods, you will have a mighty hard time staying on track.  I know.  I've been there.

Since I've started getting my 1200-1500 calories through real food; whole milk/whole milk products, Butter, Lean meats, fruits, veggies, Sugar, CHEESE (glorious cheese, NOT AMERICAN), I have discovered I'm not hungry!  I get to the end of the day.  I am in range for calories,fat, protein, and carbs, and I'm satisfied.  In fact I have discovered I will get full faster and eat less anyway.  Notice my list of foods I eat.  I'm not "low fatting" this thing.  I keep my fats in range according to sparkpeople by making sure the high fat stuff is tempered with lean meats or fruits veggies. etc.  But when I eat something that is supposed to have fat in it, I eat the full fat version.  Just less of it and I count it!

Time to break with the powers that be and go by logic.  Tamp down those voices in  your head that say you can't, you're not strong enough,  Try the old fashioned portion control and calorie counting with real food and see how you feel.  If I'm wrong, I'm wrong.  To each his own.  But I bet I'm not wrong.

It's been a week.

And I don't mean the amount of time between posts.  I mean it has been a week.  Not a bad week, but busy.  This was actually a good week when it came to getting things done mainly because Rubic is out of class for a bit.  That will change come Monday so I tried to make the most of it.

In the garden I reclaimed two raised beds that had been taken over by the weeds.  With everything going on the summer as well as the increased amount of rain, the garden and our lawn kinda went nuts.  We managed last week to get the almost foot tall grass cut and I managed this week with Einsteins help, to keep it that way.  Once the raised beds were weed free, I dug in some chicken poo and covered them for the season.  Funny thing though.  While weeding I found,,you guessed it, a volunteer!  It is a squash of some sort.  I think it's yellow squash and as such can stay.  However it couldn't stay in its original spot, between the raised beds.  One, it's in a walk way, and two, I'm covering those beds up.  So I moved the little darling to one of the concrete raised beds which will be in use a while longer.  I covered it with a pot for a few days to let it get used to it's new home.  I'm happy to say it survived the transplant and seems quite happy among it's new friends.  We shall see what it is for sure after a bit.

Always on the look out for things I can do Instead of structured exercise, I moved both runs to some grass (the chickens were thrilled) and turned under the sand bed the larger (4x8) run sits on. In addition I cleaned out both coops.  Much easier to do when they are away and aren't constantly coming in the see what you're doing.  Once returned to their sand bed that evening, the chickens had to investigate.  They seemed pleased with the results.  Oh!  Before I forget!  The babies have all started laying!  I had figured on them laying around September so this was a pleasant surprise.  The eggs are small, especially from the Asian Black hens, but they will get bigger as time passes.  Very pleased.

So, totally off the subject, but kinda still on it I guess, I discovered something this week.  Buyer beware! I have been sewing like a mad woman to get items into my Etsy shop for the holiday shopping.  I ran out of Velcro for the baby doll diapers and my first thought was Amazon.  Uh...no.  Amazon is not cheaper!  Know your prices.  They wanted $8 and some change for the velcro I buy and Joann's had it for about $3.  That is a huge difference.  So yea, bough three at Joann's.  Then I ran out of white thread.  Who knew.  I looked online at several stores and ended up at Walmart to order the thread.  I needed dry milk anyway and thought I could come up with a $50 order to get the free shipping (free shipping...riiiight).  I filled my cart, got the free shipping, but then thought since I had to go by a Walmart anyway I would just pick up what I needed.  Funny thing happened at the Walmart.  The items I had in my cart, and could have had free site to store pick up (isn't that nice of them) for the price I paid online,WERE CHEAPER at the brick and mortar store.  Cheaper!  Not a little cheaper.  Dollars worth!  The dry milk, large 64 oz box, was 14.98 online and the exact same box was 12.98 in the store.  The thread that was on clearance online for $3.09 for 500 yds was $2.97 at the  actual store.  There were other items as well.  So you pay for the privilege of shopping online, and that "free shipping" not so free.  KNOW YOUR PRICES!

Aside from all that stuff, it has been a regular baking, gardening, cleaning, clothes hanging kind of week.  I did get to try my hand at baking a pizza on the grill.  Had to, the power went out just as I was putting them in the oven.  Baked two pizzas on my grill.  Took one of my iron skillets and turned it upside down on the grill rack then placed my pizza pan on top.  Then closed the lid to let it bake.  Success!  The pizzas were good.  I want to figure out how to do that over an open fire for camping.  List of things to do.

So there's my week in a nut shell.  How was yours!

Are you lookin for me?

Usually, I can tell when it's time to write another post.  Mainly this is because I notice my counts going up.  This show people checking in to see what's new.  So since I am assuming people are looking for this weeks post, here ya go.


Things are swinging along here on the homestead, despite the rain.  I am pretty proud of our homestead.  We have single-handedly ended the drought in north Georgia.  Once our dryer died and we began to rely on the clothes line pretty exclusively, we began to have rain every day.  So uh..You're Welcome.  Even so, I am still taking my time to find another dryer.  We should have sun today so out go the clothes.

Aside from influencing the weather, I have begun the baking of bread and granola again.  Cookies are coming soon.  I'm also sewing like crazy to get more outfits for my Etsy shop.  I've finished two and have many more to finish.  In fact this morning I sold out of my small size baby doll diapers.  I have more ready to go.  Well once I add the Velcro fasteners.

My main thing today is to begin putting the garden to bed.  I still have tomatoes and limas coming in and so that part will stay, but aside from one raised bed, the concrete beds are all I have in progress right now.  Little by little I'm diggin in chicken manure and  covering the unused portions with black plastic.  While I'm out and about I plan on letting the older ladies out to free range and begin work on putting wheels on the coops in order to move them from grassy spot to grassy spot.

I've been watching a lot of Joel Salatin videos.  He is the owner of Polyface farms, a sustainable farm in Virginia.  As a result of his influence, I am focusing on compost and moving my chickens as much as possible.  He knows not everyone can afford organic feed etc.  As a result his advice is to trust the grass.  He states the chlorophyll in the grass is like a de-toxifier.   So I will be focusing on getting them moved more often.  Hence wheeled coops.  One day I want to grow up to be a sustainable farmer.  Seriously.  With compost and chicken manure I look forward to never having to buy potting soil and/or fertilizer.  What a wonderful day that will be.  Each year I get a little closer.  Right now I have a fairly good sized (for us) hill of compost ready to go for next year and another started.  I am hopeful I will have enough for next year to compost my entire garden, about 20 x 80.

SO that's an update from the homestead.  How are things in your neck of the woods?

Frugal aaaaaand not so frugal things I've done this week

There comes a time in every frugal mavens life when money must be spent.  I hate it, but as long as it's worth it I can give it a go.  Such was the case this past week ( and in the next few days).

I have a refrigerator which, at only 2 years old, was pooling water under my vegetable bins (inside the fridge).  In addition my dryer would begin by drying normally, but after a few minutes start running loud.

To fix the fridge I had initially purchased a new gasket (cause according to the user manual this was the problem), but it didn't fix the problem.  It wasn't a total loss, because there was a good sized crack in the original gasket so it needed to be replaced anyway.

My dryer was beyond my skill to heal.

So, needing skills that far surpassed my own, I called a local appliance repair service.  I actually go to church with one of the employees so that's where I started.  A very nice man, the owner actually, came out to my house to take a look at both appliances.  My fridge problem was a blocked drain tube in the back.  He fixed it easy peasy and then showed me how to do it if I ever had to.  He said, though, that he has never had a repeat problem before.  The dryer.....well we will say it is beyond His skill to heal.  The motor is running hot.  As old as the dryer is and all the other things wrong with it, means it just isn't worth the money to fix it.  So I'm in the market for a new to me dryer.  Two things fortunate about this situation.  First, this nice man didn't charge anything for diagnosing the dryer.  Originally I was to have paid him $135 to see and repair both appliances.  Since the dryer couldn't be fixed, I paid only $85 for the repair of the fridge.  The second fortunate thing is my solar clothes dryer!

 This will enable me to continue drying my clothes while taking time to find the dryer that suits my needs.  I really am trying to get away from dryer use in the summer and use it only in the winter.  In winter I want it to heat my house up, in summer, not so much.  So I have time til winter comes in.

In addition to the appliances,  I have to get my eyes checked and hubby needs a new set of frames for his glasses.  Fortunately we have a health savings account which will cover these items.

On a not so frugal note, I'm currently having my wedding set repaired.  The diamond is missing from the engagement ring and all of the rings have to be sized down.  I was wearing my wedding set on my middle finger and not my ring finger.  Let's just say my hands are much smaller than they used to be.  The price to have this done was more than I figured, but Dh reassured me it was fine.  The set does appraise for far more than we are paying to repair it so that's nice.

The frugal part of all of these unplanned expenses was that none of it was financed.  Everything came out of a fund in our savings account.  I would much rather pay ourselves back than pay someone else interest.

Other frugal things done this week, 

Cooking, milling, and cooking down tomatoes for sauce-  I'm then freezing the sauce for canning when cooler weather is here.

I'm back to making our bread and granola again and, as such, have re-opened the country store to make the bread, granola, and jams I sell.  I've sold some as well.  It's nice to be back into the swing of things.  I also sold a set of Baby doll diapers on Etsy.  Filling my Etsy store with more Doll items is high on my list of priorities since Christmas season is coming.  Doesn't feel like it with 90+ degree weather, but I know it's in  our future.

I'm beginning the process of recovering an over stuffed chair we have in our living room.  When done I'll post the before and after pics.  I was fortunate enough to get 8 yards of navy Blue upholstery fabric for about $8 at a thrift store.

So there you have it.  What frugal or not so frugal things have you done this week?

Sometimes you just have to have pancakes! A mini post

For the last week or so I have wanted pancakes.  Seriously, every time I go to fix a meal, whatever the meal I am thinking I really want pancakes. But then I would talk myself out of it and make my normal meal (which ever it was to be).  Finally, last night I took the plunge.  Monday is my normal weigh in anyway so I figured I could make up for any damage  I might do over the rest of the week.  Now pancakes, just like anything else I eat, can be figured into my normal calorie count for the day, But I wanted to not have to worry about that.  I WANTED PANCAKES!  Ironically, I only ate two so no harm no foul. Then, like a good little soldier, arose this morning and did my workout.

Now no one cares really weather I ate pancakes or not.  In the big scheme of things it really doesn't register on the radar.  However, I wanted to write this to let folks know that there is a time when you aren't going to want to eat just the everyday healthy stuff, or count calories, or workout for that matter.  You know what?  That is fine!  One day is not going to do that much damage, much less one meal.  If eating pancakes one night for dinner and not eating under my calories makes it where I lose .8 of a pound and not 1 lb, I can live with that.  It is the downward motion I care about.  As long as the direction is down I'm good regardless of how slow the progress.  Like I've said before, you have to be able to live your life, and God gave us taste buds for a reason.

Back in the saddle..er..a..or something

We have had a lot of rain in the last week.  Not complaining as we are technically in a moderate drought.  The drawback to the large amount of rain in a small time is tomatoes that have split.  Not just the cherry tomatoes, but the better boys or slicing tomatoes.  I've only had one Roma split.  In addition, the rain has made it urgent to cut the grass.  My sons did a good bit of it recently, and I told them what they didn't get done I would do (part of a workout ).  What I didn't realize is how fast this stuff would grow with the new rains.  Someone told the lawn to have at it I guess.  I ended up redoing part of the grass my sons cut.  Not because they didn't cut it the first time, but because it grew like crazy once watered.  Funny how that happens.  So while I'm cutting the grass, I notice weeds taking over my blueberry bushes. My ADD kicks in and I think " I should rescue them".  So I ended up weeding the blueberry beds.  Then I notice a lot of red on my tomato plants.  I got my picking basket and picked about 30-35 lbs of tomatoes.

 Time to make the sauce.  I will make the sauce now, but not can it until fall.  Canning heats up the kitchen to much.  So I will make the sauce and put it back in the freezer to await a canning later.  The pot on the stove and the messy looking crock pot are currently housing the sauce from previously picked and cooked tomatoes.  I'm amazed at the sheer number of tomatoes I have picked this season; both the ones we  and my neighbors have picked while I was gone.  Still I have this huge amount in one picking.  I still have others waiting.  I'll get to them later.

My house is still my focus right now.  Really my focus.  I just about have the closets cleaned out.  My bathroom is clean as is the master bedroom.  Everything else is still a work in progress, but I'll get there.  Since I have nothing else to do (right), I decided I really didn't like the shower door in my bathroom.  Plus it was leaking at the bottom.  On my yard sale list I had placed "shower curtain" and then found one in our latest and only (so far this summer) trip to the Ric Rac.  It is a lovely curtain in the same color as my bathroom with grommets instead of just holes.  I also found a set of decorative shower curtain hooks.  So armed with my new finds and a few things from Ace Hardware, I.....removed the shower door.  I did!  I removed the shower door including the old caulking and hung the new curtain.  I also hung a new shower head (ours was leaking too), and re-caulked the whole shibang.

 Daddy would have been proud.  We have since used the shower and all works as it should.


Later the next day.....
  It's about 7:30 in the morning.  It will be really hot today and so my plan is to go outside to finish the grass (with Einstein's help), pull up the now empty corn stalks, clean out the chicken coops, and put the resulting chicken manure directly on the garden where the corn used to be.  Once I have the manure dug in, I will cover that part of the garden in plastic, putting it to bed for the season.

Funny, the world didn't stop spinning when my dad passed.  I felt it really should have paused to honor him.  My part of the world did, but even my part of the world couldn't stay stopped for long.  I have a house to run, family to care for, and apparently a garden that is still demanding.  However, with every row hoed, chicken coop cleaned, home improvement accomplished; I think of my dad.  Would he be proud?  Would he smile?  I think he would because he always did.  So I take up the mantle of what he taught me.  I hope to continue the legacy and hopefully, one day, my children will do the same.

Of Endings and Beginnings

Ironically I had this post written out in my head one night as I lay in bed trying to sleep.  Now that I am wanting to put it down on paper so to speak I have lost it all, or at least much of it.

It still feels surreal to me, a world without my dad's presence in it.  More so for my mom I know.  I can come home to my husband and family; to a house where memories of my dad aren't in every corner.  My parents would have been married 58 years this September.  They have been together for 60.  My mother started dating my dad when she was 16 and never looked back.  The largest chunk of her life has been intertwined with his.  Her's is a tougher row to hoe.  That being said, she is the toughest woman I know.

I have to give praise where praise is due.  Through out this whole situation, God's hand was apparent.  There was not a time when we felt abandoned.  Prayers were answered many times prior to or as they were being spoken.  In addition, we could see the pieces put in place by him months and even years before to prepare us and walk us through everything.  My mom put it best when she said "it is as if God is saying ""this is going to happen, but I've got you"".  We had to chuckle when my mom told her pastor that she knew God would hold her up but she worried about her kids.  To which I replied that God may love her best, but he loved us too.  We all laughed.  Friends and neighbors came out of the wood work to help in any way they could from playing dulcimers for my dad's visitation and funeral, serving the dinner after the funeral, providing food for the dinner, and anything else we needed.

When my dad left this life to start another life anew, certain things ended for us here.  Not a permanent ending, maybe a better term would be "paused".  Some things are on hold for us here until the time comes that we see him again.  We will see him again.  No doubt.  While we wait our lives change some.  Routines are shaken up as accommodations are made.  But this is not just a post about endings. As a family we have many more memories to make in the future.  My sister, her kids, and myself have taken up Dulcimer playing again.  My husband has taken dulcimer playing up for the first time.  

I wondered if I should keep this blog going after he passed.  My dad was two of my twelve followers.  He really liked the blog I guess.  But now he isn't here to read about all my craziness.  I still believe he sees it now without my typing it.  I've had some people tell me I should keep it going.  So I will.  I put off the garden while I was away, but because of my Dh and my neighbor, it was kept picked and maintained.  Thanks to them.  I came home not really in a garden mood.  I'm still picking from it and will be processing stuff as well, but my focus has changed now to my house.  Getting it in order.  Don't know why that is except my mom has a fabulous house and mine pales in comparison.  I will have another garden next year.  We have already canned up the green beans,picked the blueberries and blackberries, and I got just enough peaches for 1 batch of peach butter.  The lima beans will be harvested when the plants die back in the fall.  I'm picking the tomatoes, cooking them and freezing them until the weather cools off and I can make sauce.  So the garden isn't a total loss, just not my focus right now.

Aside from losing my dad, I wouldn't change one thing.  I was there when he died as were my mom and my siblings.  He died peacefully at home, not in an emergency room surrounded by unfamiliar faces.  There were lots of "I love you's" passed from us to our dad, from Daddy to us, from Mama to Daddy, from Mama to us, and from sibling to sibling.  There were remembrances that helped heal both before he passed and after.  Hugs, hand holds, a touch.  We held each other up.  I wouldn't trade it for the world.