Busy Monday, February 3

I am sorry folks I've been so scarce and my blog these days seems to be just catch ups and not helping anyone with anything. Things have been busy with lots of doctors appointments for everyone in the family but at least I can say none of them were for being ill. A lot of weird work stuff going on too heck even I've been slammed and will continue to be so for probably the rest of this year we've had some big projects hit (sometimes it doesn't pay to be the only Drafter in a chemical plant). 
Excuses aside though I tried to do a little updating this week to catch folks up for now.
Hope everyone has a wonderful day. 

Today's 'To-Do' List

• Groceries
• Help Katherine study for her state capitals and division test
• Keep Brie on task for her report due Friday (This one and the one above it may be harder than they sound I just had to go in there and threaten to take away electronic devices. Ah snow days.)
• Clean up around the house some.  

Menu

Can I just put down 'food' and call it good? I know I'm slacking here but ever since being put on this low carb diet while the rest of my family isn't so I have to watch my portions mainly but I also am trying to fix things that I can more easily do that with. You know I'd KILL for a fruit right about now but you wouldn't believe how many carbs are in those! So I'm playing it by ear for right now. 

• Sloppy Joes and Chips (I get pork rinds at least this time I will have something with a crunch)
• Spaghetti W/Meatballs (I need to decide if I'm going to eat zucchini instead of noodles again it cut down my carbs quite a bit but it tasted like I had pickles in my sauce)
• Hamburger Helper with Corn (I probably shouldn't have so much beef in my diet my LDL is off due to this low carb diet but part of me also wants to use food that is already in the house and I just haven't been replacing it)
• Chicken with rice and stir fry (this may end up being my cheat night I've kept under my carb goal for the last few weeks but we also have not had rice in a few weeks. Bread is ehh bad on carbs but not horrific, Potatoes the same thing a large baked potato is about 70 carbs, rice on the other hand OMG the carbs!) 
• Pizza (Amazingly I can get away with this just again moderation. I eat 2 slices instead of half of a pizza and then have some sugar-free jello)
• Breakfast for Dinner (we haven't done this one in a long time and I'm out of ideas. I can eat breakfast pretty well too eggs and the meat generally low to no carbs (depends on if meat is sugar cured) so it works out well for me)
• I'm thinking of a grocery store rotisserie chicken I was going to do that this past week but we didn't. Do that with some steamed cauliflower and some other side I'm not sure what yet.  

This Week's 'To-Do' List

• Make an appointment with the dietitian 
• Work
• Find time to dance around in a little circle singing, "Ice, Rain go away go some place fun like Georgia" which needs some work it doesn't go well with 'Rain, Rain Go Away'
• Friday pick up Katherine's friend - Probably go to the Y
• Saturday there is the Valentine's Day event at the Botanical Garden again

Last Week

Okay well remember the STEM club meeting I mentioned last month? Yeah I wrote it down for Thursday it was on Wednesday so we missed it. I kicked myself for several days after that. To try and make up for it a little bit since the STEM club had the police department come out with the bomb robot instead yesterday I took the kids to the Community College where the first area high school robotics competition was going on for who would go to state. The kids didn't seem very interested when we told them we were going Friday night and kind of dragged Saturday morning but once we got there they didn't want to leave! They really enjoyed watching and seeing ideas and where they would have changed the design on some peoples robots! 

Also over the weeks I was given several glass jar candles most of which the candle was burned down at least half way which is fine. I've been taking the old wax and cleaning it up and storing it and then cleaning up the glass containers though the problem with it is now I have a lot! of glass containers. 

The top two I did with glass paint the bottom one was my first attempt at using the sharpie technique on plain glass which normally the sharpie technique is meant for things like mugs because they have a coating. It still worked but there was a lot of fading especially for the color green. I prefer the paint method.
The top left picture I stuck another picture inside the glass and attempted to trace it out before painting. This was very hard due to the thickness of the glass and I ended up having to close one eye so my depth perception would stop messing with me.
The top right picture I did with stick on stencils and this is definitely the easiest way to do this but you have to be careful because intricate stencils like to come off funny. I think with anything with too many flexible parts I'm going to trace out and then paint over.

The other week a cereal box also became empty so I cut it down and tried using some contact paper I had left over. It did not like to stick to the waxy coating on the box very well so I ended up using duct tape too on the inside to hold down the tabs. I'm justing this to hold some of my cooking magazines. I hope to make some more when more boxes become available.

We started picking up Katherine's friend on Friday nights and taking her out to do activities with Katherine while Brielle and my husband are out playing Friday Night Magic. The girls have really enjoyed it.

3 weeks ago we went to the Y and hope to go there this week. The next weekend Katherine's friend came over and they played on the Wii. This last Friday my husband and Brielle stayed home so the kids didn't get together but they had a sleepover at Katherine's friends house and gave my husband and I a night to ourselves.

The other week the kids had 4-H project club where they worked on making infinity scarves. They got to use a serger which not even I have even done. The project wasn't completed though so I need to pull out my sewing machine at home and let the girls use it. It was their first time on a serger and it will be their first time using a sewing machine.

A lady on one of the sites I was on was giving away frozen blueberries they didn't have room for so I picked them up and made mini blueberry pies for Katherine and myself. They were very good and went very fast.

Since then though my doctor has put me on a low carb diet. It has been a very rough time and while I got my numbers all looking good it has spied my cholesterol something horrible because snacks have become things like meat and cheese and breakfast has become meat and eggs. It's kind of weird that a vegetable is now worse for me than sitting down with a block of cheese. I'm not suppose to have rice, potatoes or bread any more but I still am just I am making sure to measure everything and to eat in moderation because the idea of cooking a whole bunch of separate meals makes me crazy just thinking about it. 

This is egg beaters (so I can watch my cholesterol), ham, green pepper, swiss cheese and onion. It's a little over 4g of carbs per one. Thankfully I don't need to eat a lot in the mornings but they do taste yummy and even the girls really like them. 

While everyone else was watching the super bowl by the looks of it on my facebook feed instead Peter was out playing Magic the Gathering with a friend and 4" of snow fell but I still put the kids to bed at a decent time and plan to work on various homework (large projects, studying for tests, etc.) tomorrow.

I was bored and I had cardboard so I made 3 letters like this one for 'KAT' to hang in Katherine's room. Cardboard, poster paint, glitter and glossy mod podge. All things I had around the house already. Katherine is really into zebra stripes and I have created a 'prize box' full of zebra striped stuff for her to redecorate her room with. It will take her a little bit to earn it and she's still trying to convince me that we need to paint her walls in zebra stripes (as my husband put it, "Not happening.") and I thought this would be a neat addition from similar stuff I've seen on pinterest just instead of going out and buying letters I used cardboard because well the cardboard was free because I just bought a small shelf so I had it laying around.