Think Warm Thoughts

So I imagine I'm not the only one feeling the cold right now. I mean, it was -4F when I pulled myself out of bed this morning, after being in the cold for a few hours yesterday trying to thaw frozen pipes. Brrrrrr.....

So rather than dwell on the chill, let's ponder some warmer thoughts.

Like meatloaf. Fresh from my oven.

I didn't do too bad, even though I didn't have any sausage to mix with my ground beef. There were some fried onions in the pantry, so after I put a small fresh onion in it, I also dumped some if the fried...and saved a few for on top. Extra sharp cheddar cheese sliced up and 'stuffed' in the middle, to compliment the cheddar cheese goldfish I crushed up and used since I didn't have saltines. A little barbecue sauce on top and into the oven.

And was it ever good! I may have rushed my first piece a little, since it didn't hold form until I got it on my plate...but mmmmmmmmmmmmm......it didn't matter.

Since I've been struggling with my blood sugar recently (someone keeps forgetting to take her medicine), I didn't make mashed potatoes to go along with it. Or stuffing. Mr. Janney liked his stuffing. I just mixed a couple cans of veggies together and called it good.

Time will tell the damage done from the barbecue sauce. I really shouldn't have anything like that, even ketchup with my fries will wreak havoc on my blood sugar. But I hope I spread it thin enough to dilute it enough.

I just noticed my feet at the bottom of the picture. I don't know why, but that strikes me as funny. I've been in and out of the house so often that I've been leaving my shoes on. Usually I just wear flip flops around the house and slip my big winter boots on to walk the silly doggy.

Okay, back to warm thoughts.

How about a trip down memory lane to one of my beach visits?

Why not?

I love the beach and the ocean. One of my lofty dreams in life is to someday live ocean side. Mr. Janney thinks it's  not a wise choice, because of hurricanes. But since it's just a dream, I can have whatever I want without consequence, right? Something was said one day up to his parents and as silly as I am, I said I was going to raise magical force fields around my beach dwelling and everything would be alright. It was very amusing.

Something about the ocean, and sitting on the beach - or even just looking out of the motel room such as the picture featured - is enough to erase my anxiety. Except for the beach trip that we had the car accident on, but even then - laying back on the beach and looking at the stars while the ocean waves crashed was still enough to unwind the events of the day. But that was a different beach trip. The one the picture comes from is the time Mr. Janney and I took a jaunt down to the southern part of North Carolina for a rust-free gas tank for our car. A brand new one from the dealership would have cost a smooth $900 and we spent about half that to run down for this one. I suppose I could have chosen the tank in the center of the state that was similar in price (but they didn't have pictures and it was still on the car) but I felt that if I was going south for a gas tank, I was going to do it near enough to sleep by the ocean.

Of course, not only do I keep trying to take pictures while riding in a moving vehicle, but I also keep trying to take pictures of the moon on my cellphone. (You'd think Apple and Samsung would do something about that.) But this picture I grabbed that night isn't too bad. The focus really isn't even the moon, but rather the moonlight on the water.

I'll wrap this up now. I don't know if I really feel any warmer, but I feel more optimistic than what I had. Although, that may be the meatloaf talking...

Have a good night/day, and where ever you are, stay safe and warm.

Sweet Delights

Since my surgery and being on medical leave, I've been feeling better and I've been picking up some old hobbies. Like reading. Like blogging. Like trying out different recipes I find online. I have even written a poem or two. I've started rereading my first novel...much to my dismay the number of typos I missed grieves me, along with a couple of continuity errors. Trying to get back into being the me that got lost in depression and exhaustion.

Every time Mr. Janney and I start going through things, trying to organize, we've never agreed on what to do with my cake decorating supplies. I have pans up to you know where! I've always argued that we should just get rid of them because I just don't see myself getting back into it. He was always like, 'you never know.' Well, he turned out to be right. Because the decorating bug hit me right around his birthday.

Years ago, our local Ames (a discount store that is no longer in business) offered Wilton cake decorating classes. Yours truly took all three courses. I made quite a few decorated cakes back then. I did one of my younger brother's graduation cake. I did two wedding cakes. A couple little ones for church functions.

The cake I did for Mr. Janney's birthday was very plain. I didn't have quite enough confectionery sugar for the amount of cake I had. It was still tasty though. I am not going to share that picture here, but I will share a cake I made a while after we'd finished that one. I'm not sure how long after his cake was gone that I made it, but it's the result of watching Wilton YouTube videos. I was watching so many it was keeping me from going to sleep a few nights. "Oh, that is so cool...wait, what are they recommending next? Oh I have to watch that too!" I believe is how the internal dialogue went. I started watching them to remind myself of everything I've forgotten over the years and quickly led to new techniques...seen in the cake pictured. The scraper painting on the bottom border, and the hydrangea flower on top. Not bad for a first attempt.

I want to try sunflowers next. They looked super easy in the video I watched. I'm not sure when I'll try that. I have to start being more careful in my diet because my blood sugar started going up after Easter. I'm not sure why, because I didn't think I was eating that much different than usual, although I had started eating bread and other gluteny things again...it's so hard staying away from gluten. I don't know if I have an actual gluten sensitivity, but I do know that I hurt a lot less when I stay as gluten-free as possible. If I can ever afford the "artificial" powdered sugar I'll give that a try for home cakes. I don't know if I'll ever decorate for others, though I'd love too.

Cakes aren't the only things I've been baking. I've been making cookies and pies as well. I've started using artificial sweeteners for that too. The one chocolate chip cookie recipe I've been using a lot actually came off the back of the sweetener bag. Even Mr. Janney likes them. It doesn't take all of the sugars out of the recipe, but it does help reduce them.

The nutritionist I've been seeing wants me to consider going on the Keto diet, a low carb/ high-fat diet. I'm not sure I want to be that strict, but I'm willing to try to get as close as possible. I like having toast with my eggs, and it's hard to not have at least 2 slices (down from my usual 4). And potato salad! It's summertime and potato salad is my favorite summer salad. I tried swapping the potatoes out for cauliflower and it wasn't bad. Not the same, but not bad.

I know a lot of it is going to come down to portion control. And I've never been very good at that unless I actually measure stuff out and keep a journal of everything I eat. Which is annoying. Very annoying. Especially if I have a food freak out and eat everything I can get my hands on. I did get a little worried today after breakfast. It was very low carb...black coffee with sucralose, eggs and bacon on a cauliflower English muffin I had made myself. Just a few hours later, I was shaky in the legs. I knew it was probably a 'false low' but I took my blood sugar anyway to check and it was down to 82. Not too low, but considering my morning fasting number had been higher, and it was now lower after eating, I thought it best to eat something to give it a little boost. Of course, I now need to make more pretend English muffins, but I'll do that tomorrow.

In the meantime, I have to put laundry away and try to resist a second piece of strawberry rhubarb pie...

About That Pic

So, I'm trying to get back into blogging and I've begun posting the  "Wordless Wednesday" posts again. I thought I'd give you the story behind the picture. Lind of defeats the purpose of 'wordless' ...but I don't care! Imma gonna be a rebel!

 

Here it is again, so you don't have to go back and look.

 

It is, obviously, a pie. A cherry pie to be precise.

 

I think it was last weekend, I was making dinner when Mr. Janney comes out to rummage for snacks. He notices the cherry pie filling in the pantry and asks if we had all the making for a pie.

 

Welllllllll....the pie crust that I had into the fridge is really really old and needs to be thrown out. I told him I'd have to go out and buy new crust because I didn't want to bother with trying to experiment with gluten free crust recipes. Especially since I was having trouble with my gluten free  macaroni and cheese in the oven. He said it was no big deal, he'd just seen the pie filling and thought a pie sounded good.

 

Man, no pressure there! I hemmed and hawed about it for the rest of dinner preparations. Last weekend the depression was pretty rough. I didn't want to do anything. But, I like cooking for my husband. So after the mac and cheese was done and I'd eaten some, to took myself out to the nearby Tops and bought a pre-made pie crust. I may or may not have bought other things I shouldn't have that fall into the category of 'chocolate' and 'not good for me'.

 

So, goodies bought, I came home and put the pie together. I even put a romantic heart design in the top crust. Ironically, the picture I took to share with the Facebook cooking group I belong to, is the only time Mr. Janney saw the heart! I never had him look at it before I cut into it!

 

At any rate, he enjoyed the pie.

 

I hope you've enjoyed my silly little story. Until next time, goodbye.

Wordless Wednesday 2-7-2018