My World … and welcome to it!

I see I’ve been quite remiss in posting here. Not that anyone but me is reading my blog but what the hey. It gives me some place to vent if nothing else.

So I may or may not get back to the Ireland travelogue and thus, dear reader, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

No, today’s musings are about the hcg protocol from Dr. Simeon’s and how it’s been working.

FANTASTICALLY WELL. 3 1/2 weeks into the protocol I have shed 18.4 pounds! Almost unbelievable. I’m on a short, planned break for this weekend as we’re driving to Coeur d’Alene to attend a wedding. When we get back Joe is going to start the protocol so I’ll wait to return to the VLCD until Thursday which is when he’ll start.

I’m looking forward to the next 3 weeks and hope I can behave myself a little better than I’ve done in the last 10 days. Can’t believe I was still losing weight anyway. Not that I overindulged in anything just nibbled here and there on nuts and a bit of popcorn at the movies (like 12 kernels until yesterday’s 2nd viewing of Star Trek when I gobbled the last handful out of the bag. Bad Darleen!) But had I stayed on protocol I might have dropped 25 pounds. Who knows?

Well it doesn’t matter. I have plenty on hand to do at least 4 long rounds if necessary. Since I have 46 more pounds to get rid of I’m hoping it will only take this short one and a second long one to get the job done.

And on that note, for the wedding I actually bought a dress. A size 16, thank you very much which I haven’t been able to squeeze into for a couple of decades. OK it’s stretchy. So what. My size 16 jeans ALMOST fit so by the end of the second 3 weeks I’m sure they’re going to be baggy. I cannot wait.

edited On 4.4.09 to add: Since I wrote the little diatribe below I have done even more research. And by that I mean I finally got my hands on a copy of Dr. Simeons’ POUNDS & INCHES. First I BOUGHT it from Amazon then found a freebie on the ‘net. Damn. What I found is I was thoroughly off base on my assumptions. Yeah, I know never ASSUME anything because it makes an ass of u and me. Not only have I found out WHY this protocol works but I’ve found hundreds of people online who have done this and done it with great success. I’m putting the free version on my site and if you want to read it, just click here: Pounds & Inches Read the document and make up your own mind. I was wrong. As usual.

Here’s my original (wrongheaded) post:

One of our “nieces who are nurses” has been gently prodding me about some diet developed back in the 70’s by some idiot doctor. Basically you get small amounts of a pregnancy hormone and, get this, are limited to 500 calories a day with NO FAT allowed.

I have been trying to come up with some sort of justification for this idiocy but so far can’t think of a single reason why ANYone would do this to themselves.

Here’s my list.

1. If you only have 10 pounds to lose and can’t seem to get it to come off, maybe this would be a way to do it.

2. If you weigh over 100 pounds more than you should and are contemplating by-pass surgery, maybe this would be a healthier way to get some of the weight off.

Well, my “con” list for both of those would be … you don’t learn how to eat properly and will just gain it back and then you’re right back where you started.

Why does everything in our culture demand instant gratification? Why is a quick fix preferred over long standing adjustments and course corrections? I blame tv.

Back to the HCG diet. I finally remembered about 12-15 years ago one of the MD’s in our town was giving “injections” and women were losing weight like mad. I knew one of them who dropped about 20 pounds practically overnight. She had a high school reunion to attend. She looked great. And 6 months later was back to her old weight. Which she still weighs, btw. She didn’t learn anything about proper nutrition, eating healthy etc. But she looked good for 5 minutes.

Over on one of the low carb forums I found a 2 year old thread about this diet. The first page was FULL of the same arguments against it that I was thinking. then the naysayers left the HCG dieters to their own devices. Guess what. 2 years later they’re still trying to make it work.

See, I am an anorexic. It took me years to admit that I have an eating disorder. When I was in my 20’s and early 30’s I stayed thin by … NOT EATING. Literally. Before my weight began to spiral up and out of control I lived on 750 calories a day. I got down to 135 pounds. I’m 5′9.5″ tall. Think Charlize Theron only not nearly as gorgeous. And a lot older. I was thinner than she is now (according to the latest beach bodies photoessay in the National Enquirer) and I had to STARVE myself to get that way. Or so I thought.

But several surgeries with all the attendant toxic drugs, bad eating habits, massive amounts of stress all conspired to throw my body completely out of whack. My liver stopped functioning as well as it was supposed to and the result was (many years later) a kilo’s worth of fibroid tumors in my uterus which resulted in a total hysterectomy AFTER I HAD GONE THROUGH MENOPAUSE. Now that’s ironic with a capital “I.”

It took the N.D. to show me that fixing my liver was the first step to fixing my weight problem. Rest for my exhausted adrenals is helping too.

But the thought, the very THOUGHT, of starving myself on 500 calories a day again? Dear god. That’s like offering an alcoholic just “one” drink a day to cure them of their alocholism.

See there’s a part of me that still wants to be scary skinny. I know it’s wrong. I know it’s insane. But that part is still there. Fortunately she doesn’t get to drive.

As to those poor, confused women who think that taking a pregnancy hormone and starving on 500 calories a day will make them thin, rich, and beautiful … realty’s a bitch. And she’s gonna kick you in the butt.

Boy howdy am I on a rant today. It all started last week when I got my third shipment of food from Jenny Direct.

Yeah, I went back on the diet. After gaining back almost 30 pounds in one year I decided that perhaps eating without a plan might not be the best idea. So after doing a liver cleanse supervised by the N.D. from Billings Naturopathic Clinic, I felt maybe I could tackle the JC diet again. And it’s going great! In 3 weeks I’ve lost a little more than 10 pounds. Yippee!!!

Then I looked at the invoice. Then I wrote my counselor.

It seems that Nestle Corp., in it’s “infinite” wisdom, decided to ditch the “Jenny Rewards” program which gave long term clients a 15% discount. That’s a lot of money. Well, no more. First month was $611. Second month was $577.

I am not made of money. I cannot justify spending THAT kind of money (which amounts to nearly $20 a DAY) on just entrees and a snack daily. You have to add in all the fresh fruit, veggies and dairy “extras.”

I thought about Nutrisystem which is HALF the cost of Jenny Craig and is delivered FREE by my local Schwan’s guy.

Then I thought, WTF am I thinking? So I dug out my old Zone diet books, dusted them off and am busy reacquainting myself with the 40-30-30 plan that keeps, among others, Jennifer Anniston so trim and slim.

I followed it once before and easily lost 2 pounds a week EVERY SINGLE WEEK I was doing it. Plus the added benefit was I WAS NEVER HUNGRY.

So why did I quit? Well, I didn’t, really. I just sorta slid away from it, kept the weight off for over a year then had a total hyst and oh hell, in 10 years added another 40 pounds.

Which brings me full circle to the liver cleanse. Hey. WHO KNEW?! It’s not as “out there” as it might sound. I’ll leave it to those who want the info to do a google search.

So, right now I’m doing one meal a day “on my own” and eating the packaged stuff for the other 2. That should stretch my food out for 5 weeks at which time we’re off the Ireland!!! When I get back I plan on doing another liver cleanse then will really get on the Zone plan.

the other tirade?

HEALTH INSURANCE

@*#()%_^($ thieves. OK. first off, while hubby worked for the railroad we had coverage first with Travelers, then they sold out to someone and evenually we wound up with United Health Care. You remember them? The outfit that saw fit to “reward” the freaking CEO with, what was it? SIX billion dollars?! Or it might have only been one billion. All I know is I saw red when I heard that and am still pissed. All those years of denying a huge chunk of a claim then only paying 80% of what was left. Motherfrakkers.

So hubby retires. All of a sudden I DON’T HAVE HEALTH INSURANCE. Oh shit. So I go to Blue Cross Blue Shield. and pay and pay and pay. $314.60 a month for the last year. with a $5,000 deductible. Mother frakkers. 3 visits to the ND which I pay for out of pocket. $300.

Thank god I’m relatively healthy.

then last month I got a letter. They are raising my premium to $370+ a month. WTF????? so I went to ehealth.com. Filled out the form. Saw Celtic insurance would only cost me $271. OOOOOkay! Applied, was accepted, got the visa hit for $295.58 for the first month’s premium. Coverage to start 3-15.09.

OK. I’m set.

Then Saturday’s mail shows up with a frakking bill for $361.25 for March. WTF!! OVER!!!

So I got to stew all weekend about this. Called, ready for bear. Got a very nice woman who politely agreed to cancel the policy and refund my money. Then called BCBS and was loaded for bear again. Again, a nice CS rep who let me rant about $250,000 parties for top salespeople and bonuses for the CEO.

god I hate apologizing after I’ve blown my top. Well, I didn’t really yell but I wasn’t very nice either. Had to laugh about being a cranky old lady.

So where the frak is the single payer health care? I keep hearing rumblings that Obama is backing away from it because the insurance companies (who along with banks, big oil, and big business in general OWN THE FUCKING GOVERNMENT) are not happy.

Yeah. Right. What about the CITIZENS?

It’s been one year since I quit the Jenny Craig program. I blamed the diet for my slowed metabolism, for being tired all the time and for not being able to lose weight any faster than about 1/4 pound a week.

Turns out there was something wrong with ME.

I mentioned a while back I was reading Suzanne Somer’s newest book, Breakthrough: Eight Steps to Wellness and I decided that perhaps a little hormone replacement therapy might be needed, I made an appointment with the ND in Billings. I had blood tests done, agreed to get a mammogram, and also sent my saliva in to have my adrenal function checked.

In the course of our phone discussions she also mentioned that another ND had told me I needed to do a liver detox and she concurred. I thought about it and finally decided what the hell. Also, we had discovered that I was, indeed, suffering from adrenal fatigue. I don’t know how severe THAT is but my levels look to me to be about flatlined.

Anyhoo. I did the 3 week detox, had a visit with the local acupuncturist (now that was weird in a good kind of way), am TRYING to get a minimum of 8 hours sleep a night and have started a very modest walking program. Oh and I’m also tryout out some detoxamin. The upshot is I’m feeling pretty good and decided I’m ready for another go ’round with Jenny.

Over the course of the last year, in spite of my “no sugar, no wheat, no white stuff, no HFCS (which means no commercially prepared “food”), no fruit I regained 30 pounds. What did I eat, you might be asking. Well, protein, veggies and fats.

I HATE that I regained the weight. The good doc says that by detoxing my liver I will now be able to lose excess weight and KEEP IT OFF so this is a test.

My plan is to do the diet for 90 days (with a short 9 day break for our trip to Ireland), then do another 3 week detox, followed by 3 weeks of “maintenance” and then another 90 days of the diet. My goal is to lose the 30 I regained and an additional 20. If it goes well I may revise that number to an additional 30. We’ll see.

So keep your fingers crossed.

Holy god. I just read through this document. I knew the rich were rich but this is just plain outrageous.

Kirstie Allie’s divorce and why celebrities are not JUST LIKE US.

Actually I found this because I saw Kirstie’s picture in the latest Enquirer. Seems she’s regained all of the weight she lost on Jenny Craig and then some. I also learned JC is owned by Nestle’s. What a great cash cow that company has and I am NOT talking about Kirstie.

See, they put you on a low calorie, low fat, low protein high carb diet and when you go off it and regain all the weight you go back on it to lose it again. And again. And again. Until your body expires from all the trauma.

I learned the hard way by being on the program for 17 months. Yes I lost almost 60 pounds. But now I know that 20%+ of that was muscle tissue. I’ll be writing about that more later on but just wanted to post this link tonight. I’m still reeling from the excesses Kirstie and Parker indulged in during their marriage. Judas h.

I have to say sometimes I wonder what people are using for brains … sawdust, perhaps?

I should back up just a tad. Over on one of the forums I tend to frequent, someone posted about all the sensitive, sniveling fatties out there who are crying “foul” about Pixar’s latest, Wall*e, claiming they’ve been (boohoo) discriminated against. And some MORON posted back that

It is funny how different people see the same thing in different ways. What I saw was a movie that totally and utterly slapped liberalism down as a failure. The individual is no longer important and we all become the same.

Now wait just a galldarn minute. There was the GLOBAL CEO of the CORPORATE MONOLITH which destroyed the planet and surrounding space with their pseudo-Wallmart culture and he sure as HELL didn’t appear to be any kind of liberal from where I was sitting.

I mean SERIOUSLY … LIBERAL????? What was this guy smoking? Oh wait, I know. BUSHweed.

Honestly I loved WALL*e, I thought it was hilarious, tender, uplifting, and chock full of that Pixar goodness that makes me wanna hug my Mac.

Part of my new attitude stems from reading Paul Campos’s The Diet Myth which has truly altered my thinking regarding what’s fat, what’s “obese” and why the hell we even care.

First of all there is NO OBESITY EPIDEMIC. Obesity is NOT A DISEASE. You cannot “catch” it from your neighbors, your spouse, your children, your Aunt Betty … it is NOT A DISEASE. And if it ain’t a disease then there’s no freaking “epidemic.”

Secondly, the whole diet till you are a size zero (which to my mind says you no longer exist) is a product of JUNK SCIENCE. So-called scientists picking and choosing data to force an outcome they have already predetermined will help them (or their weight loss clinic/fat-loss-pill pushing pharmaceutical masters) get the results they want, which is THEIR hand in YOUR wallet.

Thirdly, BMI/weight-height tables are USELESS JUNK. They were developed by the insurance companies and have NO MEANING WHATSOEVER in regards to an individual’s health. THEY ARE MEANINGLESS.

And finally, it is far better for your health AND your longevity if you weigh a little more as an adult than you did as a pre-teen.

anyone here ever hear of Lillian Russell? The most popular and beautiful actress of the late 19th century who weighed 200 POUNDS.

My, how times have changed.

The adage holds true, the more you have the more people show up to strip you of it.

We got a tidy little bit back from the feds this year. I was holding out for a new LCD tv for bedroom so I’d have something decent to watch 9 months out of the year when Joe’s hogging the big tv in the living room watching football (don’t get me started).

Instead we got to give most of the refund to the vet.

First it was Sammy who, I discovered, had massive amounts of tartar buildup on his back teeth. Turns out THEY were ok but he had 3 “diseased” teeth that had to be pulled. Shiny white teeth? $370.

Then Allie McDog started vomiting. Then she quit eating. All in the course of 3 days. I hauled her butt off to the vet and first they scared me to death with the diagnosis (pancreatitis) then they gave me the bill. $900. Well, she’s still alive and appears to be recovering but I’m still reeling.

And they didn’t update her shots either.

Missy goes in next week for her checkup. She’s the oldest and apparently (keeping my fingers crossed) the healthiest.

So. No new tv.

As for me, I’m ready to do battle with my Doc who says that my thyroid is just fine. Well, um, doc, if that’s the case THEN WHY THE HELL IS THE T3 LEVEL LISTED IN THE ABNORMAL COLUMN of the report? Looks like they’re trying to tell you it’s TOO LOW!!@!!

He also keeps arguing with me that my basal temp of 95.7 is just fine. Um, doc. That’s THREE FREAKING DEGREES LOWER THAN NORMAL.

Judas h.

I’m gaining weight (again) have absolutely NO ENERGY … my sex drive is nonexistent (I know I know more info that you wanted or needed … I’m just SAYING …), my blood work shows I’m on the LOW SIDE OF “NORMAL” on all three thyroid tests … what the hell more do you need?

Anyway, I’m calling him again tomorrow and have already emailed the naturopath clinic in Billings. SOMEbody is going to listen to me.

In news on the homefront, we’ve taken the house off the market. Did I mention that the contractor was going to charge us $339,000!!!!!!!!!! for a modular home? No, it’s not a palace. 1800 sq feet with attached 2 car, oversized garage. Yup. $175,000 for the house itself. Then another $155,000 for the basement, which would have ONE bedroom and ONE bath finished off, the aforementioned garage and the driveway. fuck you.

So now I get to go to the county commissioners office and set the wheels in motion to peel off the front 2 acres of our 4.02 total acreage so we can sell THAT and we need to sell the lot in Osprey. I figure if we can do both we can not only retire the mortgage but pretty much pay for the improvements we’re planning on to finish up this place.

To wit. A new deck off the back, removal of the hot tub (which we never use anymore), installation of a sun room; remodel of the kitchen and the bath.

I’m trying to decide if we should move my studio out of the house because then we could utilitize THAT space for a separate tv room/exercise room.

Well, anyway, unless I get some THRYOID meds and get my energy back up NONE of that is likely to happen cause I’m too damned tired to even give a damn.

Holy moly. These things are absolutely scrumptious! OK OK I can hear you now, what the heck is an oopsie?

Well Cleochatra accidentally added too much cream cheese to Dr. Atkins Rev rolls recipe and oopsies were born. Since I never made the originals I have no comparisons to make but these guys are amazing! You’ll find the recipe and pics on her website so I’m not going to duplicate it here.

Still in a holding pattern with the scale. I’m trying to keep an eye on calories as well as carbs then someone on one of the forums said I needed WAY more protein than I’m getting. You may wonder why I’m bothering but honestly, if I’m not careful I won’t get enough to eat. Sounds crazy doesn’t it?

This morning I had 2 slices of bacon and 2 eggs fried up in the bacon grease. Well, fat satiates so I REALLY didn’t want to eat anymore and put the other 2 slices of bacon in the fridge. I’ll crumble them up on my dinner salad with last nights left over steak. ANYway. I was humming along just fine, decided the dog and I needed a walk so off we went. I almost didn’t make it home. My stomach was complaining and I thought geez am I getting sick?

So I wandered over to the recipe section of the forum and found the mock cheese danish. Whipped it up (and of course did it ALL wrong, but it was tasty anyway) and gobbled it down (it’s cream cheese, an egg, some vanilla, splenda and cocoa). My stomach made happy noises.

OH! I must be hungry. huh. OKEYDOKEY. I had some tuna salad left from the other day and thought I’d eat that. Then I noticed the oopsies cooling over on the counter and thought well, lets try one or two. So I made a sandwich with half the tuna salad (there really wasn’t much to begin with so it was like 1/4 cup) and OH MY STARS. I keep wanting to go have another one but that’s just cause they tasted so good so I’m refraining.

Hmmm. The headache I felt coming on is really making itself felt so I think I’ll go use the massager chair for a bit.

Maybe I’ll get some beads made TOMORROW.

Here I thought I was doing SO well with my low-carb eating. Yup, up another pound (down again today). One thing I discovered was I have to give up mushrooms. Well duh. I’m allergic to molds so why was I surprised that eating sauted mushrooms caused bloat and water retention?

ANYhoo. Was perusing the Atkins forum over on one of my favorite low carb forums when I ran across a reference to a new Gary Taubes article. Here’s a sample:

I avoided bread and pasta like the plague. Soon my friends avoided me like it, too
By Gary Taubes

Give up carbs and prepare to spend the rest of your life on the defensive.

This has been my experience, at least, particularly since researching and writing Good Calories, Bad Calories: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Diet, Weight Control, and Disease. For me, it all began in the summer of 1999, when I interviewed a professor at MIT who said he’d lost and kept off 40 pounds by eating a high-fat diet–the Atkins diet, as it’s commonly known. Since this professor seemed like a reasonably thoughtful guy, absent of any obvious self-destructive tendencies, I decided to try the same as an experiment.

I gave up bread, potatoes, rice, pasta, cereals, pastries, sodas, and beer. Instead, I ate to my appetite’s content mostly high-fat, cholesterol-laden foods that are supposed to kill us (if not sooner, then certainly later)–bacon and sausages for breakfast and meat, fish, or fowl at every other meal. I ordered bacon cheeseburgers for lunch and ate them without the bun.

Click HERE to read the whole thing. It’s short, funny and sadly, directly to the point. If it disappears, just email me at beads @ darleenmb dot com (god I hate those spam robots) and I can send you a copy.

So. Back to my diet experiment. After much MUCH whining over on the Protein Power forums yesterday I came to the sad conclusion I needed to really DO the Atkins induction the way it’s written. So. No more cheese for a couple of weeks, no nuts etc. and watch my intake. Which is more to make sure I eat ENOUGH than to curb my intake.

STATS for Friday April 4th

Calories 1252
Fat 85.2g
Carbs 38g
Fiber 5.6g
ECC 32.4g
Protein 87g

So the carbs are WAY high because of all the cream I drank. Yeah DRANK. Won’t be doing that again anytime soon. It was yumilicious though. But I’m back to measuring it out with the tablespoon instead of the cup.

So today I’m striving for around 1500 calories that would be 20-30g of ECC (that’s the carb count minus the fiber if you don’t know), 80g of protein or more and the rest from fat. NOT as easy as it sounds. So far today I’m at 582 calories, 50.6g of fat, 9g of carb minus 8g fiber = 1g ECC and 22g protein. The carb count might be off by 2g because of the Splenda.

OK, enough obsessing about my diet.

Joe’s in Arizona playing with his buddies. He got a call a couple weeks ago from a lifelong friend and when he started whining because Larry was headed to AZ to go gold panning I said “why don’t you go too?” We were going to Colorado that weekend anyway, I figured he could just go with the guys and I’d come back in 2 weeks when the returned to Loveland and bring him home. I think he plain forgot he’s retired and can DO that sort of thing. So he’s off playing and I’m home counting fat grams. When I SHOULD be making beads.

See, BNSF bid us a fond adieu the end of last year on our health insurance. Of course nothing got said by hubby OR the railroad until mid-February. WTF DO YOU MEAN I NO LONGER HAVE COVERAGE?

Do you really want to hear this rant? Let me cut it short by saying that 30 years ago I had full coverage for $5 a MONTH. You read that right. five freaking bucks a month. I had to have my appendix out. Fully paid for. I had to have knee surgery. Fully paid for. Now I get to shell out $316 a month for a $5,000 deductible from blue cross blue shield. oh joy. Just so the CEO can have his platinumtitaniumgoldbonded fucking parachute and the investors can have their dividends.

Well, I say fuck them. Health care should NEVER HAVE BEEN DEREGULATED BY THE REAGAN “ADMINISTRATION.” That is exactly what is wrong with health care in this country. It got privatized. When in the hell are the politicians and citizens going to wake up to the truth that privatization means SOMEbody wants to make a profit and generally NOT a little one? We didn’t have HMO’s until deregulation allowed health care to become a for-profit scheme. It is my NOT unconsidered opinion that NO ONE should be allowed to profit from someone else’s misery. grrrrrrrrrr.

Oh my completely off track. Making beads. I haven’t for weeks now. but now I have major incentive. $316 a month incentive.

The new house. Not gonna happen. Get this. We are looking at a modular home. We have bought a nice lot with view (3 years ago). It’s a little less than a 1/4 of an acre. House is to be 1800 sq feet with a full basement and oversized 2 car garage. Nothing fancy. We paid about $38,000 for the lot (now said to be worth between $85-90,000). It’s paid for. Just doing the house and garage (not including the deck and landscaping?) is estimated at $330,000. FOR A FUCKING MODULAR. 3 years ago when we started down this road we were told $250,000 tops. Figure in 10% for overruns. Why the huge increase?

GAS PRICES

didn’t anybody but me think that rising gas prices would jack up the price on EVERYTHING ELSE.

uhoh. I feel another rant coming on.

It is way past time for the Feds to PRIVATIZE THE OIL INDUSTRY. To REregulate utilities. This country will literally die so the oil barons can continue to enjoy record breaking profits. they don’t care. I say, take the oil industry AWAY from them, and in exchange we won’t jail the bastards AND we’ll let them keep their ill gotten gains. I think that’s more than generous. And while I’m on that subject.

We need to return NOW to locally produced everything. When I was a kid we had a municipally owned and run power plant. We had meat lockers and local farms producing local produce. NOW we have everything trucked in from Mexico. With gas prices climbing wtf are you going to do for food? It’s going to come down to either pay the mortgage and pay to gas up the vehicle so you can get to work and then freeze and starve or eat and live on the street.

I worry about this because we live in a very rural area of Wyoming 130 miles North, West, and South of any major populations. There is NOTHING between but open land and a few tiny clusters of settlements. We no longer have a local dairy. We no longer have a slaughter house. We no longer have meat lockers or locally produced eggs. No farms except back yard gardens. What the hell will we do when we cannot afford to have food trucked in? We will starve.

What will YOU do?

I have to say I feel fantastic on this WOE. I’m NOT hungry. WOW. that’s amazing. for the 15 months I was on the packaged foods I was HUNGRY. And it was getting worse toward the end.

I’m still bummed that the scale isn’t cooperating but OTOH given all the fat I’ve been eating, I’m not seeing a massive weight GAIN either.

Yesterday hit about 2000 calories and that is NOT easy let me tell you. Today I started with

2 eggs fried in a tsp or so of butter
a “muffin in a minute” (recipe follows)
butter on the muffin
a couple of spoonfuls of that “nasty” cream cheese/pnut butter concoction from Bawdy Wench
a sausage patty
cup of decaf with lots of heavy cream

Lunch was my own chicken salad:

what was left in the bag of diced chicken meat from Schwans (about a cup?+)
a diced hard boiled egg
TBS of minced red onion
2 TBS of minced celery with leaves
couple of spoonfuls of Hellman’s REAL mayo
a healthy squirt of dijon mustard
handful of chopped raw pecans

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm TASTY

and no I didn’t eat the whole thing! Gah. Too rich by far. I had, hmmm. Maybe there was more chicken in the bag. I had about a handful. I dunno. Less than half. The rest is in the fridge for Joe’s lunch when he gets back from the VA.

OK. Muffin in a minute:

1/4 cup flaxseed meal
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp of cinnamon
1 packet of Splenda®
1 tsp melted butter
1 egg

I melt the butter FIRST, add the dry stuff and stir really well. Add in the egg and stir some more. Nuke for about a minute. Depends on your nuker. Ours is old so I go 80 seconds and it’s still moist. You can do this is a coffee mug, I like to use my 2 cup Pyrex® measuring cup. These are also good toasted after it’s cooked. mmmm mmmm good. LOADS of fiber too.

Bawdy Wench’s nasty cream cheese pnut buter concoction:

1 brick of cream cheese
6 TBS sugar free pnut butter (organic is best)
6 TBS heavy cream
3 packets or to your taste Splenda®

Whip it all together with your mixer. One third is what BW ate for breakfast the other day. urk. Too much for me. So I keep it in the fridge, take it out when I want a snack and have a couple of spoonfuls. yummmmmmmeeeeeeee.

OK. We’re visiting the outlaws this weekend and the cats don’t know how to run the computer so no posts until after I get back on Monday.

And finally, I decided to try and play with the built in camera on my iMac. First I had to find the software to run it (Photo Booth, catchy, eh?) then figure out how to run it (push a button, duh) then process it.

Whaddaya think?