Smiles and Frowns and TIDNTKE

Where to begin today?  I’ll start with the TIDNTKE which translates to Things I Didn’t Need to Know Existed…

I don’t think I need to say anymore about that!!

My Saturday morning Weight Watchers weigh in brought a Big Smile!  I have been talking in recent weeks about being mindful of what I’m eating, not allowing myself to get caught up in the Holiday snacks offered almost Everywhere and doing what I know is right for me on the Program.  Again, amazingly it paid off and I lost 1 pound! 🙂  I couldn’t believe it! That puts me a pound and a quarter from my personal goal.  Let’s see if I can do it.

After our WW meeting, lovely Kristen had invited a few of us to her apartment for a Holiday Brunch.  With a group of mostly WW members getting together, Kristen was very helpful, making sure we all knew what the Points values were for what was offered.

So adorable and So Tasty!!

The assembled group…

Kristen, Ele, Me, Pat and Debbie.  Kristen’s Mom, Cheryl served as photographer for this shot.  We had a wonderful time chatting and eating and acting goofy.  Kristen was very nervous because it was her first brunch in her apartment.  She gets an A+ from all of us!

I mentioned that I had finally gotten our Christmas tree up and I was so excited.  I wasn’t sure which photo I liked better.  With flash…

Or without…

Sadly, it hardly matters now.  The lights on the tree seem to have died.  😦  Now granted, they are probably 20 years old and I’m not exaggerating that.  At first I thought there was a problem with the extension cord or the power strip I was using. But the light on the power strip comes on so it can only be the lights themselves.  There’s too much on the tree to take them off, but I guess next year, I need to get a new set of lights.  Of course, my plan is that next year at this time we will be in New Mexico and we’ll have room for a Big Tree.  This one will be serving as an accent tree somewhere in the house.  I think I know the perfect spot for it. 😉  At least I got photos before the lights went out!

Sunday should be a busy day.  I am feeling a little behind at the moment, but there have been years when I’ve been further behind with less time to go.  Funny…I think I said that last Christmas also!  I’m nothing if not consistent!

Happy Sunday!   I’m going to a Christmas cantata this morning!

Random Randomness

Rainy, cold, dreary days

Drain my brain

And leave my spirit empty.

~~~~~

Hmmm….I guess that’s vaguely poetic.  It started out as a sentence, then I thought it sounded a bit like a poem so I wrote it that way.  Hmm…Not quite a Haiku, one syllable short.   Well, Haiku do not have to be exactly 17 syllables.  I didn’t intend this to be a poetry lesson so let’s get back on track or should I say off track but on the off track that I intended… Help!

This entire week has truly been cold, rainy and dreary.  All I want to do is drink tea and read, which in itself isn’t a bad idea, but there are life things that have to continue, like posting here at BCDC.  That always helps to focus me which is why I try to do it in the morning…sort of set the tone for the day.  So On to the Randomness…

I mentioned a couple of things on Tuesday that I’d like to get back to. I finished the Lisa Scottoline book I was reading.

I’ve never read her before and wasn’t sure what to expect.  I enjoyed it!  There were a few of those improbable plot twists that seem to work their way into every mystery thriller type of book.  I did love the fact that it was set in Philadelphia and written by a Philadelphia area writer.  I love hearing about places I know.

I just started reading The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon.

This was one of my Goodwill finds for 49 cents and it was just sitting in my (very large) to read pile.  Then over the last few weeks, I’ve seen several book bloggers mention it as being really good, so now I’ve started it.  How can you Not love a book that starts with an introduction titled “The Cemetery of Forgotten Books.”  This was translated from Spanish and I was a little wary about that after my recent experience with a book translated from French.  But so far this has grabbed me.  I’ll keep you posted.

The second thing I want to mention is evil and nasty and wonderful and delicious all in one.

Innocent looking, isn’t it?  Don’t be fooled, it is evil in a jar.  The jar which I just opened Monday night is now a candidate for being used for Overnight oats in a Jar, but I don’t think it will make it to that.  I am trying to train my tongue to be long enough to fit in the jar and lick it out.  On top of that, I found out some scary news from my friend Kristen regarding the chunky style.  It thought chunky would mean chunks of peanuts.  Oh, No…it means tiny bits of cookies in it.  I am in love and in hate at the same time.  I know that I can not bring this into my house.  I think this is becoming vaguely compulsive.  I should just polish off the jar and never let it darken my door again.  It may have to go the Way of All Chips.  Why am I like this about certain foods?  Well, I guess I cross chips, peanut butter And Biscoff off of my list of things that can come into my house.  Painful, truly painful.

So that’s it for today.  I am the Human Randomizer signing off.  (Haven’t used That in a while!)

Happy Friday!  Please bring back the Sun!!!

 

May I Say, Happy May Day?

It’s so strange.  I feel like I’ve been on vacation, away from blogging for a month.  That’s crazy because as a result of participating in the Blogging A to Z Challenge, my fingers and my scanner and my Brain have been working like crazy every day to come up with something.  I’ve loved it, but I need to save all of this for my recap post on May 7.

It’s back to business as usual at Broken Cookies Don’t Count.  It feels a little weird and I’m not sure where to start or where to go.  But that’s never stopped me before.  I feel like I need to stretch, crack my knuckles (Ick!) and get down to business.

I’ll ease in.  I’m still having a hard time finding books that I enjoy.  After reading 25 books…boom, boom, boom…I’m having a hard time finding something I like.  I just stopped another book in the middle.  Not because it was awful, but because I just wasn’t enjoying it and didn’t care where the story went.  I am relating to the tee-shirt I’ve seen that says “Too Many Books, Too Little Time.”  And that’s just the ones piled in my bedroom!  But seriously.  I’ve decided I have too many books I want to read to stay with one if it doesn’t grab me and take me along in its world.

That being said, I’ve started a new book by an author I’ve never read before.

Lisa Scottoline is a local (Philadelphia) author and I’ve heard a lot of good things about her books.  I’m only a few pages in, but so far it’s exciting and I like that it talks about familiar places.  I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.

I finally have possession of a wonderful little treasure that my friend Gail got for me in Florida.

Welcome to the Family, Crock 1.5!!

Isn’t she adorable?!  One and a half quarts and it has temperature settings.  Crock-ette doesn’t have that.  This one even has a “warm” setting.  Even has a cool bungy cord type thing to hold it closed if you have to transport it.  She did an admirable job of cooking Ralph’s chicken breast for dinner last night.  No muss, No Fuss.  It’s just that much bigger than Crock-ette so I don’t have to drag out my bigger crock pot.  Four crock pots is the perfect size family! 😉

Now for something difficult to talk about.  It’s hard to talk about my obsessions. But I will anyway!  You’ve all heard me talk about giving up chips.  Next week it will be 14 months with No Chips.  So proud.  Hold your applause please.

I’ve recently decided I would try to stay away from peanut butter.  Why? Because there are too many nights when I find myself with a jar and a spoon and nothing good can come from that.  I don’t have the problem with sun flower butter or almond butter.  They don’t tempt me in the same way, probably because of the fact of having to mix in the oil.  Great on rice cakes or a sandwich thin, but not on a spoon.

Then I had to be introduced to this…

Biscoff Spread.  It’s been sitting in my cupboard for several months at least.  I found it at Walmart of all places and decided to pick up a jar.  I don’t know why but since it’s supposed to taste like cookies, I thought it would be like dough or something.  I made the fatal mistake of opening the jar last night.

IT IS INCREDIBLE!! The closest thing I can think of in flavor is a cinnamon Teddy Graham.  From the first taste I was hooked.  After tiny, Tiny spoon tip tastes, (still too many!) it finally made its way back into the cupboard.  I’m not sure what I’m going to do about it.  I had to touch it a few minutes ago to take its picture.  It knows where I am and it’s coming for me.  I think it’s actually lower in Weight Watchers points than peanut butter, but I can’t figure it out because I need a new battery for my WW calculator.  That’s something positive. (The lower points, not the dead battery.)  If I made a sandwich with it, I’d probably save points because I don’t think I would defile its flavor by adding jelly. This truly belongs in my file of Things I Didn’t Need to Know Existed (TIDNTKE)! But I’ll try to be strong.

So that’s it for today.  Happy May Day!  It’s very rainy so I don’t think I’ll be doing much dancing around the May Pole.  Not sure where I left my May Pole anyway!

Happy Tuesday!

They All Look Alike~WIAW!!

Well they don’t all look alike, but…close!

What doesn’t always look alike is What I Ate Wednesday.  What is that?  Well, it’s that wonderful party till you’re full party over at Peas & Crayons with the lovely Jenn wearing the hostess outfit!  Take a few minutes to visit and enjoy.  Most Wednesdays, I go back three or four times to catch up on all of the excitement.  Now play nice…don’t just sightsee over there…Be sure to leave some comments, because we all like to know when you’ve come to visit. So here we go…

Why do I say they all look alike?  Well, because sometimes it seems like they all look alike!  I eat a lot of nut butter things.  I put them on apples…I put them on rice cakes…they still look like nut butters.  I eat a lot of salads and I do my best to make them look different, I  put them in my wonderful Big Purple Bowl, I enumerate all of my ingredients but in the end…they pretty much all look alike!  But, hey…what the heck.  They taste good and that’s all that really matters!

This was a wonderful salad from over the weekend.  It had romaine, tomato, green bell pepper, homemade black beans and leftover stuffing!  I like to put a grain in and was about to cook up something, when I thought about it.  I had stuffing, it needed to be eaten or I would have to throw it out so…it went in the salad.  With balsamic vinaigrette…it was Wonderful!  I certainly have made the most of this stuffing!  That’s good because my sister, Ele tells me she still has some more! Yikes!

I love it when overnight oats in a jar are done the right way…in a nearly empty nut butter jar.  This was a brand from Aldi’s.  It was tasty peanut butter, but even better with some O’s added in!

Very yummy and always more filling with the nut butter.

Speaking of nut butters…this following item needs to be listed under TIDNTKE (Things I Didn’t Need To Know Existed)  Ralph kept seeing commercials for Nutella and asked if I ever tried it.  I hadn’t.  I decided I’d get him some to surprise him.  Turns out he didn’t wanted it, just asked about it. 😦

I decided to be thrifty and I bought the Shoprite brand.  I have to confess…the jar is two-thirds empty.

However…this is the first time I’ve eaten it on rice cakes or crackers or bread or anything that wasn’t a spoon.  In other words, I’m addicted to it!!  It is just delicious.  Now I don’t know if the real Nutella could be any better than the store brand.  If it is better please don’t tell me because I’m going to have to lock myself in a closet Right Now!!  It is very yummy!

I tried cooking up some quinoa on Monday, which I promptly burned because I didn’t add as much liquid as usual…Duh!!  Most of it was good to use.  I would have been really disappointed if it hadn’t been.  It had that nice woodsy taste!  😉

Again…romaine, tomato, green bell pepper, black beans, woodsy quinoa and shredded cheese.

Looks like a salad doesn’t it.  That’s because it Is a salad!  Can’t fool me!  Can’t fool You! 

In life, I like things to be obvious.  I like people to be what they seem to be and I like my food to look like what it is.  I’m healthy and I’m happy and I enjoy the food I eat. So who cares if they all look alike.  I don’t think I do, I like things just the way they are.

So if you want to see some things that don’t look like this, be sure to hurry over to Peas & Crayons…you’ll see lots of pretty foods and hear interesting stories and ideas.  It’s some of the best food fun you can have and not have to worry about gaining any weight!  I’m on my way there now, myself!

Happy What I Ate Wednesday!!

Back On The Move

I feel like I’m going to be all over the place with this post, so try to stick with me.  Thursday was a day for a lot of errands.  Had to get a few things in order to fix a few things in order to finish a few things.  You know…that kind of day.  I tried to make the most of my time and tried to plan out my route to make it most efficient time wise and gas wise. 

One of the things that I needed was a new battery for my pedometer. Now that’s not a hard thing to get, but I always forget what number the size is when I’m near the CVS where I can get it but I remembered today. 

One pedometer back in working order, now if I would just walk somewhere to get some steps!  It’s been hard this week to get any exercise in.  I’m spending so much time working on my NaNoWriMo project that there is a great deal of sitting involved.  If I could only figure out how I could work on the laptop while on my stationary bike, I’d be thrilled! 😉

I mentioned the other day that I was on the search for a good protein powder.  I’m still accepting suggestions so if you’ve got ’em, I’ll take ’em!  While I was out, I thought I’d stop at the Vitamin Shoppe to see if they had some samples I could buy.  They didn’t have samples but the did have this.

A sampler of Spiru-Tein. Seven different flavors with a shake up container.  This is pretty good because it will give me the chance to sample flavors.  I’m not big on flavors for things like this other than vanilla, so this will be an adventure.  I’ll keep you posted on which flavors I like.  I also e-mailed several companies to see if I can get some samples so we’ll see how that goes.

While at CVS I found something that qualifies for Things I Didn’t Need To Know Existed…

Mint truffle Hershey Kisses.  I had a hard time catching my breath when I saw these.  You’ll all be proud of me that I walked out of the store with none of these in my bag.  I would like someone to buy a bag and give me One.  Just so I can try it…

Lunch was Q & E- quick and easy!

Cottage cheese and sweet relish in my pretty new bowl and my new little ceramic spoon.  This is one of my favorite lunches but I just forget about it.  Glad I got some cottage cheese when I went shopping earlier in the week and I have a new jar of relish waiting in the cupboard. 

Thursday morning I was telling you how foggy it was.  I want to share some photos I got of the fog and the trees…Don’t tell me you’re tired of these, I don’t want to hear it! 😉

It was so beautiful.  I wasn’t sure it would read in the photos but fortunately it did.  Hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

I want to be sure to wish all of our Veterans a Happy Veteran’s Day.  We are safe and secure because of what they have sacrificed for us.  They have given us Freedom and have kept us safe for so many years.  If you know a Veteran, thank him or her today.  They deserve it.  Happy Veteran’s Day, Ralph and thank you for all that you did.

Happy Veteran’s Day!  Happy Friday! 

1309/17,729

No Chips For You

Life is painful sometimes and filled with obstacles.  Sometimes we need to learn the lesson that things we want we just can’t have.  Sometimes we have to make the decision that even though we can have it, we shouldn’t.

That is my life with chips.  Any kind of chips…they are the bane of my existence.  I love them and I hate them all at the same time.

I remember talking about this with my Weight Watchers members in the days when I was still leading classes.  I remember telling them that if you’re having a problem with over eating a particular food, sometimes you just have to stop eating it for a while until you feel more in control. 

I had done that myself when I was losing my weight.  I learned that the “red light” foods as WW calls them would get me if I allowed them in the house.  I lived with my Mom while I was losing my weight and for a few years after.  I loved my Mom, but often wanted to strangle her because she always brought things in the house that I liked and had a hard time resisting. 

I would walk in the door and there on the kitchen counter would be the familiar pink and white box from Dunkin’ Donuts.  “Oh, your aunts brought them over,” she’d tell me.  Couldn’t convince her that I didn’t mind if she had them, I just would appreciate it if she’d keep them out of sight.  She was such a sweetheart.  We actually lost our weight together and I know that the fact that we had each other to rely on helped us both.

So the same is true with chips.  I’m fine if I don’t have them around the house.  Over the last several years I have really been struggling to keep myself at goal and remain Free at WW.  I’m proud to say I’m mostly under control now and not only am I at goal, I’m 4.5 pounds under goal!  I’ve been working hard and will continue to do it.

I decided that for Lent, I would bite the bullet (how many Points would that be??) and give up chips.  I announced it loudly and clearly to any and all of the people in my life who needed to know it.  I was proud of myself and as the days ticked off toward Easter Sunday, I felt strong and confident that I could accomplish that goal.

I’m proud to say that I did it! In the process, I started to see that my weight evened out and I was solidly below goal.  One of my issues was that I’d use that old WW unwritten rule that the day of your weigh-in is “free.”  Eat what you want…that’s where the chips would sneak in.  During Lent, no sneaking in of chips.  Since no sneaking in of chips, no trouble on the scale. 

So Bravely and perhaps Foolheartedly, I decided that if I could do it for Lent, I could do it for good. Am I a Fool to think I can do this??  Probably.  There are pitfalls.  Even though I’ve clearly stated to Ralph that I’m not eating chips, he keeps trying to buy them for me.  In fact as a welcome home treat after my trip to Florida, he bought me a big bag of Sun Chips which are probably my favorite.  I reminded him that I’m not eating chips.  He was sad-faced at that and said he’d hide them.  He doesn’t like Sun Chips so I couldn’t just suggest he eat them himself. 

He did hide them and I truly DIDN’T go looking for them.  I was looking for something else and found them.  I’ve known where they are for several weeks now but haven’t been tempted.  I thought I’d drag them out for a photo-op…

There they are.  The tricky thing is that their new compostable bags, although a great idea, are the noisiest things imaginable!  I needed to get them from their hiding place without Ralph knowing.  It wasn’t easy with the crackling ringing through the house! 

They’re back in their comfy home again, unscathed by the adventure.  I am also unscathed.  My main problem with Sun Chips is they keep bringing out all of these new flavors that sound amazing.  Just now, when I looked up their website to add the link, what do I find…Jalapeno Jack!!  Thanks a lot guys.  Guess I’ll have to add that to my list of Things I Didn’t Need To Know Existed.  😦  Sigh…

Happy Friday!! 🙂  (And by the way… it is 134 days since I’ve had chips…Not that I’m counting!!)

Rain, You’re a Pain!

Tuesday was rainy and dreary on and off, but I had errands, so I went into the deluge.

My first stop was the local Walmart, how exciting!

I go there mainly to get MorningStar Farms products.  They’re so much more reasonable here than at the other local grocery stores.  Their selection is usually better as well.  They were out of a lot of the varieties yesterday, but I was able to get a few. 

It probably sounds silly, but I like to go there because it reminds me of being in New Mexico.  Silver City has a Super Walmart and we’ve shopped there just about every time we’ve spent any time there.  While I’m walking around, I can pretend I’m there.  I know… silly but it makes me smile.

On the way to the check out, I saw a huge display of something I didn’t need to know existed…

Lemon TastyKake Krimpets!  For those of you not from the Philadelphia area, TastyKake is an old, old baking company and a true staple of this area.  Fortunately, they were just saved from closing by being purchased by another company which has stated they will keep the company in tact. 

Krimpets are usually sponge cake with butterscotch frosting or jelly filled with no frosting.   This time they have been filled with lemon…I didn’t need to know about these.  I’m trying so hard to be on track.  It’s painful to think about them.  I’ll do my best.  I blame Walmart! 😦

I’ve been saving a few of the things I got at the last rummage sale to share here.

The colors don’t show so well here but it’s pale green and light purple.  I think it’s a jam pot or it could be a sugar bowl.  Not sure what I’ll use it for but I couldn’t pass it up!

Something else I couldn’t pass up…

Yes, Kids, it really is a cabbage teapot!  I tried to pass it up, I truly did…it was impossible.  My excuse is that my kitchen in NM is green.  Do I need any other excuse?!? 😉  I don’t think so!

I also found a wonderful little treasure in one of the cabinets I was cleaning out over the weekend.

A wonderful little bowl with a beautiful Oriental design.  It must have been Gram’s and it just stayed in the cabinet.  It is so pretty.  It needs to stay with me.  I feel I’ve been very good about being unsentimental in going through what I need to get rid of.  Some things I just have to keep. 

So Wednesday, and it will probably be busy again.  We’ll see what comes of it.  Still pretty rainy out there, hopefully it won’t last all day.

Make the most of your day.  Happy Wednesday!