Thursday

Ususally Thursday starts at 4:30 am with Rotary Breakfast. This week was Spring Break for the Rotary and I got to sleep in until 7:01 a.m. I packed my husband is usual lunch of fruit, plain Greek yogurt, more fruit, walnuts and dried fruit, and granola. This lunch he eats at short intervals all day and has lost 50 pounds in just over a year. He didn't lose just from the lunch, we made a total commitment to his health in January last year. We work out, and eat right. Breakfast today was a bowl of cereal (mostly unsweetened) a vitamin and health juice, coffee and our muffin. Those recipes will be found here on the next day I make them. Dinner last night: We had leftover round steak. I gave the bone to Manny, and cooked soup out of 6 cups water, 1/4 cup pearled barley, round steak cut to 1/2 in. dice, 1/2 sweet onion, 2 stalks of celery, about one cup leftover green beans, 1 medium carrot, sliced to 1/8 in, and about one cup of roasted red pepper soup added for color and flavor. I also put in some beef soup base (Tones, at Sams club). That simmered for a couple of hours, while we walked about two miles on the bike path and in the neighborhood. We paired the soup for dinner with a whole grain wrap sandwich filled with a shmear of roasted pine nut hummus, a slice of turkey sandwich meat, a piece of havarti cheese, tomato slices and baby field greens with cilantro and dill. It was yummy. Later on we each had a chocolate from the box of good chocolate. After this year of eating "clean" and more healthfully, we have discovered the joy of eating at home and are ever more wary of eating out. When you eat out, do you know what is in your food? Or, even more scary, where is the origin of that food? How do you really feel about food that may be caught, grown, or packaged in China or Vietnam? I know how I feel, and that is why I started yesterday getting dirt under my fingernails. I have been worm farming about a year now, and this is the first time I get to plant my seeds in a compost of worm castings, seed starter and coco fiber. I started to fill my starter pots yesterday, and put in my first seeds of this year. I also dug about 1/3 of my home garden and planted the radishes and beets in the garden. I was pleased to see that the oregano, cilantro, chives, and parsley have made it through the winter and are green out there already. I will probably go to my big garden this weekend and start turning over the dirt and cleaning out from last fall. It is still a couple of months until real planting starts there, and we have a wedding and reception to complete and compete with our time. Yesterday, I painted the basement bathroom. It is a lovely cream color, in a nice semi gloss. The color is Evermore Vernon, and I am pretty sure it is a $5 gallon of mismix that I got at the Home Depot. I saw some lovely paint at Lowes the other day for $5 and $2.50. It is so hard not to buy paint but I have already had enough for this year. We are freshening up the big family room in the basement and the bath down there, soon will paint the kitchen too. (The basement kitchen. ) Today is Friday, so it is a no meat day. I will have the yogurt/fruit combo for lunch, and peanut butter on crackers for a snack, as well as more fruit. Tonight I will make grilled fish with some nice grilled veggies and some brown rice. Tomorrow I am going to make another soup.