WIAW~Back to NJ Life

I’m back from Maine and finished talking about what I ate there.  Well, in truth there were so many good things that I still keep talking about them, just not here!  It is of course time for What I Ate Wednesday hostessed by the lovely Jenn at Peas & Crayons.  I’m actually wondering what’s up with her…there should be a baby on the way and I’m just wondering….

I’m forging ahead as though there will be a WIAW, because after all…there’s Always a WIAW!

I’m still a bit confused since coming home from Maine.  I have food photos but almost No clue what day they’re from so I’m just going to share.  I was attempting to get back on track with cooking and eating but of course, life gets in the way and that doesn’t always happen.

 

Nothing gets me back on track better than a salad in my Big Purple Bowl…this one with veggie burgers and balsamic vinegar.  Homemade iced tea on the side.

 

A trip to the diner?  That sounds like home.  My favorite choice there is an egg white omelette with spinach and mushroom with sliced tomatoes on the side.  This is the time of year to ask for the tomatoes.  So good!

 

Pinto beans in the crock pot…one of my faves!  So many things to do with them.

 

However they always seem to end up in a salad in the BPB!!  Happy me when I eat this!

 

A veggie burger at the diner with provolone cheese.  So good, since I hadn’t had one in a while.

 

A visit to the China House?  Ok, by me!  Veggie delite is Mine! A little Instagram on the side.

Yummy lunch at my sister Ele’s on Labor Day.  My salad plus her lentil rice salad.  Plus a dressing I hadn’t tried before…sun dried tomato.  So Good!

 

Couldn’t end the holiday or the summer without some ice cream.  This is my new favorite and it’s sad that I know the shop will be closing soon.  Several reasons to be sad but this is Pumpkin Ice Cream!!! This is So good.  This is the second time I’ve had it and I need to go again before they close…for one…last…cup…

So that’s What I Ate Wednesday for me this week.  This is truly a crazed week with getting ready for our trip (See Monday’s Week In Review) so I’d better get on to all those lists! Be sure to visit Peas & Crayons to see what all the other fun bloggers are serving up and leave some comments.

Happy What I Ate Wednesday!

End of the Season

I promised I was not going to allow myself to sound pitiful in reporting my experience with Weight Watchers and I’m not.  I’m not going to try to rationalize it either.

I gained 3 and 3/4 pounds.   Hrrumpf!  Ok, I consciously switched from light weight Capri pants to jeans.  I have to do it some time and Saturday was as good a day as any.  I knew that would show on the scale in some way (no loss, not as big a loss, small gain…) but Kids, these are not 3 3/4 pound jeans!! 

I know that I had used most of my weekly Points allowance already, but I was writing down everything and being Very aware of what I was eating.  I guess I have to leave it in the realm of  “I have NO idea what happened!!”  On to a better (although it’s going to be Crazy!) week.

After WW, I headed to Ele’s church to help with the rummage sale.  It was very slow unfortunately and with a crazy storm threatening (we had Mean skies!) we closed early.  Not before I acquired some real treasures.  I’ll do a photo shoot when I have a chance. I have no idea, however where I will store them!  I’ll figure that out at some point!

When we got back from the rummage sale, Ralph decided that we needed one more visit to Ice Cream kids…they’re closing for the season and we’re not happy.  (I can’t blame ICK for my gain, we did not go there during the week, in spite of the fact that Ralph kept nagging me to go!)

Ele eating her peanut butter cup.  I tasted it and did not need to know it was there.  I’ve never tried it…Yummy!

Happy Faces…mine was mint chocolate chip…an old favorite!

A Boy and his Banana Boat!!

Sad Faces because we won’t be coming here until next Spring.  If you haven’t tried it, you’ll have to wait until then, too.  We love it at Ice Cream Kids.  Store bought ice cream is just Not the same.  Maybe I’ll do better at Weight Watchers after it closes…Maybe not…I said I wasn’t going to blame anything or any one…  It happens!

Off to breakfast this morning with some of my favorite men!

Happy Sunday!!

WIAW~Parties and Real Life

I’d like to say…Ok…it’s What I Ate Wednesday!  Whether it’s a full week or a slow week, filled with parties or just real life, Wednesday means one thing, the fantastic party hostessed by Jenn at Peas & Crayons!  After feasting your eyes here…hop over there to drool and leave a few comments.  It is the best fun.

Again, we’re supposed to be talking about sensible snacking.  I think I’m failing again although, I have been making overall good choices.  I think if I think too much about snacks, then I want them so here’s this week for me.

Favorite new snack…sunbutter on caramel corn rice cakes…Yum!  Filling, too.

My Sunday ice cream, much smaller this week for which I am proud of myself.  A small cup of coffee and butter almond…my two favorites!

This could be a lunch or snack…it was in that mid part of the day…pineapple Greek yogurt, Fiber One and a good book.  Great combo in my opinion!

It’s great when you make a Mega Salad for a party, then get to bring home the leftovers…

Add a Morningstar Farms tomato basil pizza burger to it and it couldn’t be better.  I now have bottled dressing to finish up before I start back to making my own again.  This is pretty good and only 1 gram of fat per serving.

The very last of the salad with sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and crock pot black-eyed peas added.

The Big Purple Bowl is getting a work out!  Shredded cheese added-Aldi has their 2% cheese available again, Hooray!  A combo mixture of light balsamic and lite catalina…Tangy and Tangy!

So that’s What I Ate Wednesday for this week.  Nothing really unique or out of the ordinary.  Still it feels like a pretty good week so far.  I’m still trying hard to stay on track for Weight Watchers.  I think after my good loss on Saturday, my momentum is up and running.  Too bad I’m not up and running!  😉

Be sure to head over to Peas & Crayons, look around, leave some comments, have some fun.  That’s what this is all about!!

Happy What I Ate Wednesday!! 🙂  🙂

 

Its Own Reward

I must say that I was thrilled with my success at Weight Watchers yesterday.  Down 3 pounds is nothing to sneeze at.  I’m under my WW goal and only 2 pounds from my personal goal, so I’m pretty happy.  I was able to get back to my goal last summer and I should be able to again. 

I’m pretty sure it’s the salads that are helping me so much.  I’ve known for years that I’m a volume eater and a big salad is a good choice and keeps me satisfied.  Since I’ve been adding so much celery (my new best friend!) to them, all of the required crunching helps me to eat more slowly which has always been an issue for me.

My friend Cathy at 1970KikiProject thinks that there might possibly be magic in my Big Purple Bowl.   My response was that since it came from the Church Rummage Sale, perhaps it was blessed!  No, that would be if it was a Catholic Church not a Methodist Church.   I don’t think the Methodists bless “things.”  I’ll have to check with sister, Ele about that! 😉

Regardless of the magical powers of the BPB, I’m proud of my accomplishment and I plan on another good week.  I ensured that by taking a trip to the produce market yesterday afternoon with Ele.  Note to Self:  Remember to NOT go to the produce market in the middle of Saturday afternoon.   I was overwhelmed by the cars and the people.  I probably would have gotten more fruit, but it seemed a little price-y.  It goes up and down, so a trip later in the week should help.

Ele and I made a side trip to Family Dollar on the way home.  I love this store.  You can buy so many things at really reasonable prices and I’m so excited that there are 2 of them in Silver City so when we move, we’ll still have this great resource.  Bought some new rubber gloves (where DID I put those??) and I treated myself to a little splurge.

Please don’t be frightened…Yes they are Purple leopard print comfy pants!!  I decided that they needed to be mine because most of the ones I have are flannel for winter and I only have one pair of light weight ones.  I like these so much, I might go back for another scary pair!  We’ll see… 😉

My real splurge for the day was ice cream.  I thought I deserved it.

The Cute Guy with me had a root beer float…I had butter almond topped with rum raisin.  Yum and Yum!!  That was my only treat, just veggie burgers for dinner afterwards and no treats after that. 

I’m feeling strong and under control.

It is such a beautiful day so far.  The breeze coming in the kitchen window smells like I’m at the shore.  I even made what our family refers to as “beach coffee.”

My favorite way to make coffee.  Just add cinnamon (your choice how much) to the coffee grounds, be sure to mix it in otherwise it forms a barrier and sometimes the water will over flow.  So good.  I got it just right today, too!

Happy Sunday!!

WIAW~Not A Single Day

I Love participating in What I Ate Wednesday! You know about that, right, the Fun Food Fest thunk up by the lovely Jenn over at Peas&Crayons. It’s the most fun you can have on your computer…no seriously…it’s more fun than THAT stuff! We all join in and when you finish here at BCDC, be sure to travel over to P & C to look around, get some ideas and comment!

So my title refers to the fact that the food I’ll be sharing doesn’t all come from one day.  Actually, I can’t in truth remember what days it comes fun.  Suffice it to say…it’s here for you to enjoy.  Here goes!

Not so attractive, but this was lunch at Taco Bell. Two soft tacos, fresco style with beans instead of meat.  Try to find a cheaper lunch!

I ate half of one rice cake before I remembered I’d bought a new peanut butter-it’s a Target brand and it’s natural.  Very tasty!

It wouldn’t be WIAW without an appearance of the Big Purple Bowl with your basic major salad!  I just love these.  It reminds me…must buy beans…must cook them in crock pot…make Fran happy!!

Saturday, after a bit of recovery from the Relay for Life, we headed to the spot sure to make Everyone happy…Dunkin’ Donuts for a veggie flatbread omelette and an iced coffee…it couldn’t get any better!

The crazy people you find at DD…Ralph, Mikey and Ele!

A Greek omelette (spinach, tomatoes, onions and Feta cheese!) with sliced tomatoes when we celebrated Ele’s birthday. Major Yum!

Ice cream for more birthday celebration.  Mine was key lime pie…Yum.  I know I used this photo before, but I think it’s just too cute!

Should have ended with the ice cream but…How about some Greek yogurt?  This is the brand I get from Aldi…peach…delicious and so much less expensive than the other stores.

That’s many meals from many different days. I haven’t been doing much cooking lately but I’ll be getting back to it.  I’m not telling you about the jar of Biscoff Crunchy that’s gotten the better of me.  I’ll tell you about that next week!!  😉 Don’t forget…visit Peas & Crayons and see what’s cooking over there!

Happy What I Ate Wednesday!

Sisters, Sisters…There Were Never Such Devoted…

That’s one of my all time Favorite songs from one of my all time favorite movies, White Christmas.  But to me, it’s all about my sister, Ele. Someone recently asked me how you say her name. I never thought about it, but that’s a valid question.  It’s pronounced like “Ellie” but Ele chose to spell it Ele…it’s her name she can spell it how she likes!

During the Blogging A to Z challenge, when I got to the Letter E, it was easy to decide what to talk about…Ele, of course!  Sunday was Ele’s birthday and in spite of how tired we were from the Relay for Life, we had to Celebrate!

Breakfast came first and while we waited, we had fun with little Michael and the mirror in the diner.

He’s too cute and I wouldn’t mind having more of him!

Michael and Uncle Ralph.

Sisters, Sisters…

Aunt Fran, Michael and Grummy!

After breakfast we headed home for a short break, but we knew what was in our future…

Ice Cream!

Ele splurged and got a banana boat…Well, it Was her birthday after all! 😉  Mikey got a big cone of mint chocolate chip!

Going with the green theme (and somewhat jealous of Mikey’s cone) I got the key lime pie ice cream…So Good!!

Ralph and the Birthday Girl!

Speaking of the Birthday Girl, Ralph couldn’t resist some art work.

That was this week’s creation, but we had given her cards last week for her birthday also.

With Mikey…

And we’re back to Sisters…Sisters…

I hate to break it to all of you…But I got the BEST SISTER IN THE WORLD, and don’t even try to argue the point.  It’s All True!  Happy Birthday, Ele!  Hope it was a good day!

Happy Monday!

I is for Ice Cream Kids

What’s the old saying I scream, you scream we all scream for the Letter “I”, isn’t that the old saying?  The Blogging A to Z Challenge is especially fun because, I’m going to talk about ice cream and one of my favorite places, Ice Cream Kids.

Ice Cream Kids is a wonderful shop in our town of National Park.  The building used to be a service station many years ago.  The shop is owned by a great guy named Bill who I’ve known since kindergarten!  He has the nerve to not look much different from how he looked in high school.  Anyway, what’s really great is that he has two businesses in the building, Ice Cream Kids and a propane business.  His two businesses keep him working year round.

That’s the big logo inside the store.  Those of you who have read BCDC for awhile have seen that before. 😉  That’s actually Bill, the owner sitting there at the counter.

Ice Cream Kids is great because they have wonderful fresh ice cream and a great rotating variety of flavors.  I went in one time, they had butter pecan and I said to Bill, that I wished they had butter almond because that was my favorite.  Next time we stopped in…Butter Almond in the freezer case!  I was so excited.  Guess it helps to grow up with the owner! 😉

This is usually Ralph’s choice when we go…The Banana Boat.  Too much “stuff” for me.

I’m simpler with my choices.

This is a combo of coffee ice cream on top, butter almond on the bottom.  I think this is my favorite.

One of my other favorites is rum raisin.

 This is also delicious…

Do you think I enjoyed it?!  All Gone!!

One of the best things about Ice Cream Kids is the young people who Bill hires to work there.  They are all so nice.

This is Dominic with his great banana boat creation.  Each and every one of the “Ice Cream Kids” is pleasant and polite and they make it a pleasure to visit there.

In fact, there’s supposed to be an afternoon visit to Ice Cream Kids today.  I will be going but I will not be participating.  Too much Easter candy for me.  I’ve got to draw the line somewhere.  But trust me, if there’s a visit to Ice Cream Kids next weekend…I’ll be eating my share!

Happy Tuesday!  Go eat some Ice Cream…at Ice Cream Kids!!

 

Low Key Eleven

As I mentioned, Saturday Ralph and I were celebrating our 11th anniversary.  We decided that we’d pretty much celebrated it for all of September, so we had no big plans.

I started the day by facing the music at Weight Watchers.  I was expecting a gain and decided to really bite the bullet by switching to jeans for weigh in.  I have to do it sometime and figured that a day when I was expecting a gain anyway was a good time.  For my last weigh in, which had been September 3 (Yikes!) I had worn capri pants.

As expected, I gained but only 2 and three quarter pounds!  That included the jeans which probably added at least a pound!  I was very happy!  🙂  Now I’ve got to get myself back on track to get rid of that.  Today I’m working on a plan.  I’ll share it tomorrow.

After WW, I headed to the Rummage Sale at my sister Ele’s church.  I had missed the last one because we were away.  Funny thing was, when I got there, everyone was down because they had no customers up to that point.  Well, fortunately, things picked up from there.  We ended up with the best sale yet!  I was so excited!  The church needs the money and I’m happy I can help.  Of course, I helped by making some purchases  😉 which I will also share tomorrow.

Ele had decided she wanted to take Ralph and Me out for our anniversary.  Ralph decided he would love for us all to go out, he wasn’t going to let Ele pay for it.  We all agreed on Sakana Oriental, one of our favorites.

It turned into a late lunch/early dinner kind of thing but it was delicious as usual.  I started with the hot and sour soup which is vegetarian here and it was wonderful, except I was so hungry I forgot to take a photo!  😦

Ralph ordered appetizers…

Crab puffs for Ralph and Ele and Chinese pizza for all of us to share.

I LOVE Chinese pizza and the ginger sauce is so good. 

For my entrée, I got the tofu family style with brown rice.

There was actually more than this photo shows…I really was hungry and started eating before the photo.  I had to “fluff” it up for the photo.  😉  I have at times ordered the Chinese pizza with my entrée and asked for no rice.  It’s very good with the veggies and tofu over it.  Yum.

Since we were celebrating, we decided we needed dessert.

Ele and I had the ginger ice cream and Ralph had vanilla.  The ginger ice cream is just so delicious.  I sometimes consider going there just for ice cream.  Wonder what they’d say to me if I did? 

Now it’s Sunday and I’m up and moving more or less.  The cold we picked up on the way home seems to be going away.   I’m having coffee in one of my few treats to myself from the trip…

A wonderful new mug with a Zia on it!  The Zia is the state symbol of New Mexico.  Strangely, it’s not all that easy to find things with the Zia on it.  This looks black but is actually dark blue.  Makes me feel good to drink my coffee from it. 

So, off to face the day.  I have to get my plan together for getting back on track with my food.  A trip to the grocery store and the produce place are probably in order since there’s still basically nothing in the house except peanut butter and jelly and coffee!!  Here I go!

Happy Sunday!!

Weekend Meld

I knew I couldn’t keep myself away from the county library book sale.  I gave Ralph the option of going or not going.  I knew I’d have company because I Knew I could convince my lovely sister, Ele to go along.  Ralph said yes, we piled into the car, picked up Ele and we were off!!

It is always an overwhelming site to me.  So many books donated by so many people.  It’s usually a twice a year thing, July and October.  Sometimes they sneak one in in March too.  We Love when they do that! 😉  You can really feel the shared love of books when you’re here.

I Love this next photo of Ralph.  I didn’t intend for him to be in the picture, it just happened, but it’s so funny!

It’s almost as if he’s saying, “What?  I’m not doin’ anything…”  It’s so cute!  What you can’t see in this photo is the empty bag on his arm that eventually got SO full of books that I could barely lift it to move it in the car.  He must have gotten 15 or 20 books, I didn’t look in the bag.  It’s still sitting in the living room.  I have NO clue where in the house these books will eventually land.  **Sigh**

I was much more restrained.

Only bought 4.  I was all ready to dig into the Jennifer Weiner book when I realized it’s a book of short stories.  I’ve never been a big fan, so I guess I’ll save it for when I have nothing else to read.  The one titled “Women Who Love Books Too Much” is a sort of history of women writers.  The kind of thing you can read one entry at a time and get to know a little about them.  I’m looking forward to that one.

After the sale we traveled about a 3 blocks away to the Harrison House in Mullica Hill.  Wasn’t sure what I was interested in, then Ele found the Neptune Salad.  We couldn’t figure out why it was called that.  We decided it’s because you can add a crab cake to it if you like.  We both had it as is, romaine, tomatoes, carrots, hard-boiled eggs, green bell pepper, olives and feta cheese.

With balsamic vinaigarette…we cleaned our plates!

Sunday Morning Ralph and I decided on breakfast out because we’re about to celebrate an almost anniversary which I’ll talk about more later. We found ourselves at a very busy Gateway Diner.  I was a little more hungry so I decided on a broccoli omelette with sliced tomatoes.

Very tasty and filling.  I didn’t ask for cheese in the omelette but I had an idea.  I asked the waitress for the parmesan cheese for pasta.  Sprinkled some over the omelette and it had a nice cheesy flavor without all of the fat and Points I’d have to use.  Love it when I come up with something like that!

When we got home I settled in to a Law And Order: SVU marathon, but then Ralph said the magic words…”Let’s go to Ice Cream Kids!”

Our very favorite local ice cream spot.

My personal bowl of yumminess…Butter Almond topped with Chocolate Chip Mint.  So Good!! That’s my real treat for the week!  If I’m going to be “flexible” with my Points, I want to spend them on something worth it.  This…was worth it!

One last photo taken outside of the library.  Pretty flowers!!  Echinacea…I think.

Finished off the evening with the rest of the SVU marathon and finishing off “Unbearable Lightness.”   Interesting book.  I need to let in stew around in my brain for a bit, but then I’ll talk about it. 

Started A Visit From The Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan this morning.

Supposed to be good…winning the Pulitzer Prize and all.  We’ll see…I’ll keep you posted!

Today is the 20th anniversary of the day that Ralph and I decided that we “liked” each other.  It’s sounds goofy to say it that way and it’s such a long story, but we’re going to do something to celebrate today, not sure yet what it will be.  Wow…20 years…scary…

Happy Monday!!